Contemporary Women Playwrights

Contemporary Women Playwrights
Author: Penny Farfan
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2014-01-23
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1137270802

Breaking new ground in this century, this wide-ranging collection of essays is the first of its kind to address the work of contemporary international women playwrights. The book considers the work of established playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Marie Clements, Lara Foot-Newton, Maria Irene Fornes, Sarah Kane, Lisa Kron, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Djanet Sears, Caridad Svich, and Judith Thompson, but it also foregrounds important plays by many emerging writers. Divided into three sections-Histories, Conflicts, and Genres-the book explores such topics as the feminist history play, solo performance, transcultural dramaturgies, the identity play, the gendered terrain of war, and eco-drama, and encompasses work from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Oceania, South Africa, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. With contributions from leading international scholars and an introductory overview of the concerns and challenges facing women playwrights in this new century, Contemporary Women Playwrights explores the diversity and power of women's playwriting since 1990, highlighting key voices and examining crucial critical and theoretical developments within the field.

Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights

Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights
Author: Kathleen Betsko
Publisher: Beech Tree Paperback Book
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1987
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

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.

The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights

The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights
Author: Elaine Aston
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2000-05-25
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1139825720

This Companion, first published in 2000, addresses the work of women playwrights in Britain throughout the twentieth century. The chapters explore the historical and theatrical contexts in which women have written for the theatre and examine the work of individual playwrights. A chronological section on playwriting from the 1920s to the 1970s is followed by chapters which raise issues of nationality and identity. Later sections question accepted notions of the canon and include chapters on non-mainstream writing, including black and lesbian performance. Each section is introduced by the editors, who provide a narrative overview of a century of women's drama and a thorough chronology of playwriting, set in political context. The collection includes essays on the individual writers Caryl Churchill, Sarah Daniels, Pam Gems and Timberlake Wertenbaker as well as extensive documentation of contemporary playwriting in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, including figures such as Liz Lochhead and Anne Devlin.

Four Caribbean Women Playwrights

Four Caribbean Women Playwrights
Author: Vanessa Lee
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2021-10-18
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 303083364X

Four Caribbean Women Playwrights aims to expand Caribbean and postcolonial studies beyond fiction and poetry by bringing to the fore innovative women playwrights from the French Caribbean: Ina Césaire, Maryse Condé, Gerty Dambury, Suzanne Dracius. Focussing on the significance of these women writers to the French and French Caribbean cultural scenes, the author illustrates how their work participates in global trends within postcolonial theatre. The playwrights discussed here all address socio-political issues, gender stereotypes, and the traumatic slave and colonial pasts of the Caribbean people. Investigating a range of plays from the 1980s to the early 2010s, including some works that have not yet featured in academic studies of Caribbean theatre, and applying theories of postcolonial theatre and local Caribbean theatre criticism, Four Caribbean Women Playwrights should appeal to scholars and students in the Humanities, and to all those interested in the postcolonial, the Caribbean, and contemporary theatre.

Disparate Voices of Indian Women Playwrights

Disparate Voices of Indian Women Playwrights
Author: Shirley Huston-Findley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2019-11-13
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1793612307

Creating a Profession: Disparate Voices of Indian Women Playwrights is a collection of plays demonstrating a broad variety of contemporary perspectives as told through the eyes of the women who created them. The anthology is enhanced by significant interviews between each writer and the editor and an introduction filled with information about the profession of playwriting throughout India. Details include the challenges of multiple languages throughout the country, the lack of funding and rehearsal spaces, the role of censorship, the need for specific training, and the influence of gender upon these writer’s ability to find what one woman called “brain space” given the continuation of traditional gender expectations.

The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights

The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights
Author: Brenda Murphy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1999-06-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780521576802

This volume addresses the work of women playwrights throughout the history of the American theatre, from the early pioneers to contemporary feminists. Each chapter introduces the reader to the work of one or more playwrights and to a way of thinking about plays. Together they cover significant writers such as Rachel Crothers, Susan Glaspell, Lillian Hellman, Sophie Treadwell, Lorraine Hansberry, Alice Childress, Megan Terry, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Wendy Wasserstein, Marsha Norman, Beth Henley and Maria Irene Fornes. Playwrights are discussed in the context of topics such as early comedy and melodrama, feminism and realism, the Harlem Renaissance, the feminist resurgence of the 1970s and feminist dramatic theory. A detailed chronology and illustrations enhance the volume, which also includes bibliographical essays on recent criticism and on African-American women playwrights before 1930.

Irish Women Dramatists

Irish Women Dramatists
Author: Eileen Kearney
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2014-11-12
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0815652925

Irish women dramatists have long faced an uphill challenge in getting the recognition and audience of their male counterparts. There are more female playwrights now than ever before, but they are often ignored by mainstream theatres. Kearney and Headrick strive to shift the spotlight with Irish Women Dramatists. The plays collected in this volume represent a cross-section of the excellent dramatic output of Irish women writing in the twentieth century. In addition to the scripts and biographical introductions, the anthology includes a detailed, critical, annotated essay addressing the development of the Irish theatre throughout this time period, and the place women have artistically carved out for themselves in a traditionally male-dominated theatre industry and dramatic canon. One of the few collections of plays by Irish women, this volume contextualizes the political and sociological climate in which these playwrights developed. As theatre practitioners—actors and directors—as well as scholars, Kearney and Headrick have devoted years of research to discovering and rediscovering the contributions these women have made—and continue to make—in the Irish and world theatre scenes.

Contemporary Plays by African Women

Contemporary Plays by African Women
Author: Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2019-01-24
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1350034533

This volume uniquely draws together seven contemporary plays by a selection of the finest African women writers and practitioners from across the continent, offering a rich and diverse portrait of identity, politics, culture, gender issues and society in contemporary Africa. Niqabi Ninja by Sara Shaarawi (Egypt) is set in Cairo during the chaotic time of the Egyptian uprising. Not That Woman by Tosin Jobi-Tume (Nigeria) addresses issues of violence against women in Nigeria and its attendant conspiracy of silence. The play advocates zero-tolerance for violence against women and urges women to bury shame and speak out rather than suffer in silence. I Want To Fly by Thembelihle Moyo (Zimbabwe) tells the story of an African girl who wants to be a pilot. It looks at how patriarchal society shapes the thinking of men regarding lobola (bride price), how women endure abusive men and the role society at large plays in these issues. Silent Voices by Adong Judith (Uganda) is a one-act play based on interviews with people involved in the LRA and the effects of the civil war in Uganda. It critiques this, and by implication, other truth commissions. Unsettled by JC Niala (Kenya) deals with gender violence, land issues and relations of both black and white Kenyans living in, and returning to, the country. Mbuzeni by Koleka Putuma (South Africa) is a story of four female orphans, aged eight to twelve, their sisterhood and their fixation with death and burials. It explores the unseen force that governs and dictates the laws that the villagers live by. Bonganyi by Sophia Kwachuh Mempuh (Cameroon) depicts the effects of colonialism as told through the story of a slave girl: a singer and dancer, who wants to win a competition to free her family. Each play also includes a biography of the playwright, the writer's own artistic statement, a production history of the play and a critical contextualisation of the theatrical landscape from which each woman is writing.

Rage And Reason

Rage And Reason
Author: Heidi Stephenson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2014-05-29
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1408178036

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