2009 ASTR Conference

Jenny Spencer, University of Massachusetts in Amherst

Title Stoning Mary by Debbie Tucker Green

Publication Information London: Nick Hern Books, 2005.

Abstract

Among many well-produced plays by women at the Edinburgh Fringe festival last summer, only Debbie Tucker Green’s Stoning Mary, despite its amateur production, left me hungering for more. Green has an extraordinary ear for patterned, colloquial speech [...]

Susan Russell
Penn State University, State College

Title 9 Parts of Desire by Heather Raffo

Publication Information Dramatist Play Service, 2006

Abstract

As artists in the theatre, we live in the hopes that a play can make a lasting and global impact. As scholars in the theatre, we seek evidence of such impact in order to secure cultural value for [...]

Chris Olsen, The University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
A. Title
Telling Tales, by Migdalia Cruz
B. Publication Information
In Telling Tales, ed. Eric Lane, New York: Penguin, 1993.
C. Abstract
Territories of Violence in Telling Tales by Migdalia Cruz—
One of the premises of this workshop is that there existed a kind of golden age of feminist writing during [...]

Juliana Omoifo Okoh, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Title: Closed Doors by Julie Okoh

Publication Information: Pearl Publishers, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, 2007

Email: monukpon2000_at_yahoo.com

Abstract:
Set against contemporary Nigerian society where sexual harassment, rape, baby racketing, ritual killing of female teenagers et cetera are on the increase, the play Closed Doors depicts the rejection and trauma suffered by [...]

Karen O’Brien
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Email: obrien@unc.edu
Title
Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr
Publication Information
London: Faber and Faber, 2006.
Abstract
Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow is a poetic, end-focused drama that examines a woman’s impending death to explore the gravity of her life. Literary allusions to fairy tales and paintings heighten eschatological thinking to a nightmarish, Gothic [...]

Melissa Lee, The Ohio State University
A. Title
Playhouse Creatures by April De Angelis.
B. Publication Information
New York: Samuel French, 1994.
C. Abstract
In Playhouse Creatures, De Angelis conjures the theatre stages of Restoration England when women were, for the first time in English history, “given leave” to represent female characters in performed drama. De Angelis’s fictional account, inspired [...]

Kate Kelly, Texas A&M University
A. Title
Her Naked Skin by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.

Publication Information

London: Faber and Faber Limited, 2008.
C. Abstract
I’d like to consider Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Her Naked Skin as a history play.  Like most history plays from Shakespeare onwards, this one distances a contemporary issue–recent western feminism’s loss of memory and vitality–by setting it in a [...]

Anne García-Romero, University of California, Santa Barbara

Title

Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue by Quiara Alegría Hudes

Publication Information

Dramatists Play Service, 2007.

Abstract

Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue by Quiara Alegría Hudes explores the life of a young Puerto Rican soldier from Philadelphia confronting a second tour of duty in Iraq. A 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist, this play provides a compelling and [...]

Sharon Friedman, New York University:  Gallatin School

Title

Palace of the End by Judith Thompson

Publication Information

Toronto, Playwrights Canada Press, 2007.

Abstract

Palace of the End received the 2008 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for distinguished plays by women in the English-speaking theatre.
Aesthetic considerations in feminist theater have always intersected with political concerns. In her 1996 volume, Feminist Theatre and Theory, [...]

Jill Dolan
Princeton University:  New Jersey
jsdolan@Princeton.edu

Title

An American Daughter by Wendy Wasserstein

Publication Information

Harcourt Brace and Co., New York, 1998. Also available as an acting edition from Dramatists Play Service, 1999.

Abstract

An American Daughter might be Wendy Wasserstein’s most overtly political play. Produced on Broadway in 1997, it recalled Hillary Clinton’s “cookie-gate” gaffe during her husband’s 1992 campaign, [...]

Mary K. DeShazer
Wake Forest University:  North Carolina
deshazer@wfu.edu

Title

Sistahs by Maxine Bailey and Sharon M. Lewis

Publication Information

Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1994. (US publication 1999 by Theatre Communication Group.)

Abstract

Sistahs deserves feminist critical analysis for its powerful representation of familial relationships among Canadian/Caribbean women, the history of slavery and colonialism, and women’s lived experience of gynecological cancers. Set primarily [...]

J.K. Curry
Wake Forest University:  North California
curryjk@wfu.edu

Title

Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage

Publication Information

Dramatists Play Service, New York, 2005. Also available in Intimate Apparel/Fabulation (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 2006)

Abstract

Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage clearly fits into the category of work that gets produced. Following the commissioning and first production by South Coast Repertory (Costa [...]

Eileen Curley
Marist College:  Poughkeepsie, New York
Eileen.curley@marist.edu
eileencurley@gmail.com

Title

After Mrs. Rochester by Polly Teale

Publication Information

London: Nick Hern Books, 2003. (Available in the US through TCG.)

Abstract

The Madwomen We Inherit—
Polly Teale’s After Mrs. Rochester traces the life of Jean Rhys (née Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams) and her writing process for her novel, The Wide Sargasso Sea; both texts intertwine [...]

Ryan Claycomb
West Virginia University:  Morgantown, WV
Ryan.Claycomb@mail.wvu.edu

Title

4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane

Publication Information

London, Methuen, 2000; A&C Black, 2001; in Kane’s Complete Plays, Methuen, 2001.

Abstract

Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis and the Crisis of Autobiographical Criticism—
It is no wonder, given the timing of the play’s introduction to the world, that much of the critical response to Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis [...]

Claudia Barnett
Middle Tennessee University:  Murfreesboro, TN
cbarnett@mtsu.edu
A. Title
Frozen by Byrony Lavery.
B. Publication Information
New York: Faber & Faber, 2002; Dramatists Play Service, 2004.
C. Abstract
Frozen is a remarkably original play. It’s also plagiarized. How can it be both?
Beautiful and brutal, Frozen hauntingly conveys the devastating loss of self, the insatiable thirst of science, and the mad illogic [...]

James Al-Shamma
Belmont University: Nashville, Tennessee
james.alshamma@belmont.edu

Title

In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl

Publication Information

Ruhl and her agent have granted permission to distribute the unpublished manuscript to session participants.

Abstract

Sarah Ruhl will make her Broadway premiere with In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play) this fall. In this play set during the [...]