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Book DescriptionIn this collection of 25 interviews, theater critic Alexis Greene talks with women who write plays for the American stage. She explores topics such as cultural background, playwriting style, the challenges of sustaining a career, and the relationship between life and art. These in-depth conversations provide unique insights into the work, thought processes, and personalities of an extraordinary group of writers. About the AuthorAlexis Greene is chief drama critic for In Theater magazine. Prior to that she was theater critic for Theater on Ms. Taymor's book, Pride Rock: The Lion King on Broadway (Hyperion). Ms. Greene is co-founder of the national service organization Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) and has taught theater at Hunter College, Vassar College, and New York University. She holds a Ph.D. in Theatre Criticism from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.Week magazine. Recently she collaborated with Julie Taymor.
Women playwrights speak about their art and the theatre in this collection of interviews about a key decade of British drama. Twenty leading contemporary dramatists discuss their work from the perspective of being both writers and women. Each talks about the state of the theatre now, the craft of playwrighting, and the pressures of working within a male dominated environment. The book also features Sarah Kane's very last public interview. 'What I think is so exciting about the response to a number of the plays written by women in the last ten years is that they are popular with audiences - because they've got this quality, this energy and this culture that hasn't been seen much on stage before: a humour, sexiness and wit that's been missing' - Charlotte Keatley
This book presents an analysis of the many plays written by women in the American theatre in the first half of the century. Such playwrights as Rachel Crothers, Zona Gale, Susan Glaspell, Edna Ferber, and Lillian Hellman were popular and successful contributors to the stage. Many of their plays won such awards as the Pulitzer Prize, the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Tony Awards. The plays are discussed in terms of their popular and critical value and placed within the historical and social background of the period. In this time of intense change for women in American society, the plays reflect the new demands for freedom, careers, the right to vote, equality with men, and the right to intellectual development. Shafer calls attention to many fine plays which deserve production today.
Women playwrights speak about their art and the theatre in this collection of interviews about a key decade of British drama. Twenty leading contemporary dramatists discuss their work from the perspective of being both writers and women. Each talks about the state of the theatre now, the craft of playwrighting, and the pressures of working within a male dominated environment. The book also features Sarah Kane's very last public interview. 'What I think is so exciting about the response to a number of the plays written by women in the last ten years is that they are popular with audiences - because they've got this quality, this energy and this culture that hasn't been seen much on stage before: a humour, sexiness and wit that's been missing' - Charlotte Keatley
Women's playwriting burgeoned in the United States and the United Kingdom as part of the feminist movement of the 1970s. Ever since, playwriting women have been embracing new subjects, experimenting with form, and devising new ways of looking at the world. To honor their achievements and inspire future endeavors, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize was established in memory of an American actor, journalist, and feminist who died of breast cancer. In the nearly three decades of the award's existence, more than three hundred English-speaking women playwrights have been finalists for the Blackburn Prize in recognition of their work, including such prominent writers as Marsha Norman, Cheryl L. West, Wendy Wasserstein, Caryl Churchill, Paula Vogel, and Suzan-Lori Parks. This volume offers a comprehensive overview of women's playwriting, as well as a celebration of the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. It combines critical essays, playwrights' memoirs, and conversations and interviews with playwrights to explore how women's playwriting evolved in relation to the women's movement and how it continues to map new territory and find fresh modes of expression. The majority of contributors to this volume—playwrights, arts journalists, and theater critics—have had some connection to the Blackburn Prize, either as award recipients, play readers, or judges. The memoirs, conversations, and interviews come from some of the finest women playwrights of the last three decades. These dramatists offer fascinating insight into the playwriting art, theatrical careers, and women's goals in writing for the theater.
In this collection of interviews, 30 women discuss some of the important issues in theater today: the position of women in the theater, gender bias in reviewing, censorship and self-censorship, racism, and women writing about domestic violence, birth and other taboo subjects. They also deal with the idea of a female aesthetic, the sources of women dramatists' imagery and language, their place as women playwrights in the tradition of women's writing. These playwrights reflect a complex, resonant impulse to illuminate the varied spectrum of female experience, and also cherish daring, innovative, challenging political plays that represent a successful rebellion against their own censorial impulses. The interviewees cover a wide spectrum of American, British, and international playwrights, including Marsha Norman and Beth Henley, Emily Mann, Caryl Churchill, Ntozake Shange, and China's woman dramatist Madame Bai Fengxi. ISBN 0-688-04405-0: $25.00.
"A play in poetry about the lives of five women who don't know one another, nor speak to each other. Rather they're telling their life stories to the audience. Each is facing some crisis in life. Erin speaks bitterly of suicide. Kate, near the end of a life in which she always overcame circumstances, is fearful of death. All the voices speak in counterpoint to one another, leaving an unspoken dialogue as they echo one another. The play moves in counterpoint and resonance until the women speak in chorus their voices exchanging scenes from a common history. Then each sees where her life has moved her. In the end these women's voices are no longer isolated, nor are their lives separate. Voices opened to great audience acclaim in New York City." --Descripción del editor.
This study explores the process of mythmaking in plays written by women. By writing the lives of female writers and rewriting the literary characters, which have been created by male writers, women playwrights assume the role of a mythmaker. This study evaluates the constantly developing process of womenOCOs mythmaking/mythbreaking in Liz LochheadOCOs Blood and Ice, Rose Leiman GoldembergOCOs Letters Home, Bilgesu ErenusOCO Halide, Timberlake WertenbakerOCOs The Love of the Nightingale, Bryony LaveryOCOs Ophelia, and Zeynep AvciOCOs Gilgamesh."
Provides a comprehensive international guide to over 400 women playwrights and their work, from the 10th to the 21st centuries. There are biographical details for each writer, an outline of their major work, lists of plays, publication details and an extensive bibliography.
Based at Shepherd University, in West Virginia, the Contemporary American Theater Festival is nationally and internationally recognized as a home for playwrights and the development and production of new plays. The Festival makes it a priority to celebrate and produce playwrights with strong, distinct voices, with a core value to tell diverse stories. This anthology of work provides plays that speak to one of the most compelling virtues of artists everywhere – freedom of speech. A necessary volume of women playwrights' work, ranging from a two-time Obie Award-winning author to emerging writers just beginning their careers, it represents a group of women who vary in age, race and sexual orientation and offers an invitation to artistic leaders, scholars and students to embrace gritty, thought-provoking new dramatic work. Edited by The Festival's Producing Directors Peggy McKowen and Ed Herendeen, this anthology features an introduction by Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynn Nottage. Each of the five powerful plays is followed by an informative and discursive playwright interview conducted by Sharon J. Anderson that contextualizes and develops the works within the wider context of the annual festival. The plays include: Gidion's Knot by Johnna Adams The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess Memoirs of a Forgotten Man by D.W Gregory Dead and Breathing by Chisa Hutchinson 20th Century Blues by Susan Miller