On September 25, New Perspectives Theatre Company (NPTC) held Shouting From the Rooftops!, a forum and panel on Supporting Women and Women’s Voices in Theatre at the McGinn Cazale Theatre.
Dramaturge Maxine Kern opened the program with a brief history of women playwrights and how many female voices have been erased from the theatrical canon. Women have since made great strides, but even today, she said, only 20 percent of the plays being produced are written by women. “People don’t give away power or even share it,” said Kern. “We have to take it.”
Dr. Harriet Fraad then spoke on the current economic landscape and how things have changed since the women’s movement. Today, 77 percent of women work outside the home, but the country still lacks the infrastructure (paid maternal/paternal leave, paid family care leave, childcare, etc.) to support women in the workforce.
Following a brief Q&A, Melody Brooks, the founder and artistic director of NPTC, spoke about the company’s Women’s Work Project Lab, which offers a supportive environment to emerging and mid-career women playwrights and guidance in the development of new works.
Kern moderated the panel discussion, which included playwrights Andrea Lepcio, Melissa Maxwell, Michele Miller and Cynthia Robinson, all members of the Women’s Work Lab. Each of the women described her unique journey to becoming a playwright and the challenges and self-doubts that had to be overcome.
Cynthia Robinson said that when she was younger, she was told at a job interview that she was not a good writer. She became an educator and didn’t write again until she had her first child. Then, her husband gave her a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way and “a light bulb went off.”
“I always knew that this is what I wanted to do. I needed playwriting to feed me,” she said.
Robinson went on to talk about balancing her career as an educator and her career as a playwright. She said she didn’t want to live a life of regret, and she needed to be a role model for her two daughters. She said she wanted to show them how “to keep a piece for themselves ... keep a place in their lives for their passions.”
Melissa Maxwell also spoke about the need to “feed” her creativity. She said an actress friend once called complaining that work was slow and asked Maxwell how she always managed to be working.
“I never notice the phone is not ringing. I’m too busy creating my own projects ... You have to empower yourself,” said Maxwell.
The playwrights also discussed how they came to the lab and the value of being in a women-only group.
Michele A. Miller, who is a mother and archaeologist as well as a writer, said she found many co-ed writing groups to be “more competitive and less nurturing.”
Andrea Lepico also valued the support from the women’s lab. She said she had written something she felt was “strange and very personal” but the other members’ interest and faith in the play gave her the courage to show her work.
Dr. Fraad said that women need to stop trying to be like men and instead emphasize the uniqueness of being female.
“Old paradigms don’t work. We need a new way of seeing things,” she said.
The evening ended with a staged reading of Andrea Lepcio’s Tunnel Vision, with actors Sofia Jean Gomez and Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, directed by Melissa Maxwell.
