New Works Festival Celebrates 5 Years

The 5th Annual New Works Festival Presented By 3GirlsTheatre Company Opens Today

by Heather Cassell

How would the story have been different if William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlow were women? Would their plays have made it to the stage? Would the world celebrate their works with reiterations of new interpretations of performances? Or would they have been forgotten with time, like Aphra Behn, before Virginia Woolf and feminist scholars resurrected her memory and plays?

Women playwrights and theater companies continue to struggle to find a stage of their own – in today’s American theater and independently – with only 12 – 18% of new plays written by women being produced annually by the American mainstream theater, AJ Baker, who is producing artistic director at 3Girls Theatre Company’s New Works Festival, points out.

“Every year the festival has gotten more exciting,” says AJ, noting that the festival has become really popular. “When you get to five years it’s a thing, as David Letterman would say.”

Some of the women playwrights expressed their gratitude and excitement about 3Girls Theatre’s New Works Festival’s five year anniversary.

“I think that it’s amazing that the festival has lasted for five years. It’s really a tribute to the women who put this together and are sustaining it,” says author, activist, and playwright Jewelle Gomez, 67, who is participating for the first time this year. “I’m really happy about it and as I said there are very few places for women or lesbian writers to showcase their work. That they’ve been able to last this long it’s pretty amazing.”

“Especially in this day and age of upcoming theater companies,” she says. “It is very hard to establish a company and keep it going for any amount of time, let alone five years, and to have it be a company focused on women … well … that is a great accomplishment indeed.” Debi Durst, 63, who is emceeing the “Women are the Body Politic!” night.

This mostly all women theater company, uniquely designed by and for women playwrights, is emerging as a premier place for women to show their works and for audiences to enjoy them.

It is also celebrating its fifth annual week-long New Works Festival (August 22 – 28) that shows off the best of the best of 3Girls Theatre Company’s women playwrights’ original works. Works that focus on important issues of our time which become the specific theme the playwrights write about. The playwrights develop and produce the plays throughout the year and present them at the festival along with its annual curated art exhibit, playwrights meet and greet, talk-back panel and artists reception.

This year is truly the year of the woman Hillary Rodham Clinton being the first-ever woman nominated as a presidential candidate by a major party for the United States making it a historic and pivotal election year. So, it’s only suitable that this year’s New Works Festival’s theme is “Women and the Body Politic in 2016.”

Exploring these “women’s issues” is more important than ever. Clinton isn’t shying away from what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has called “playing the women’s card,” referring to issues traditionally labeled by men as “women’s issues,” such as: family leave, equal pay, and health care. Clinton immediately jumped on his attack following the National Democratic Convention telling audiences if that’s the card, “Deal me in!”

Women’s rights have been under attack nearly as much as the late 1980s and early 1990s. Plays exploring so-called “women’s issues” calls attention to the “need for women who break rules and defy the norm,” according to the 3Girls Theatre’s July 27 news release, are needed more than ever.

“The theme this year, ‘Women and the Body Politic,’ obviously we are looking at … our first woman President candidate and the whole question of, ‘How do we get women’s voices heard not just on the theatrical stage, but the political stage?’ asks AJ, a woman in her late 50s she is also one of the original co-founders and resident playwright at 3Girls Theatre Company. “It’s such an exciting time to be thinking about these issues.”

Jewelle, who is one of the curators of the LezWrites! evening, adds.

“I think that theater is one of the best creators of community that we have,” says Jewelle. “There is nothing like theater to get people to see each other eye to eye and connect and I think that this company is doing that in a wonderful way.”

This year’s plays feature the Salon Series Finalists “Country Matters” by Lee Brady and  “Slice” by Robin Bradford along with all-new editions of Repro Rights (in collaboration with Repro Rights Theater), LezWrites! and GirlWrights  readings “Women are the Body Politic!,” “ReproRights! Women and the Body Politic,” the “Best of LezWrites! 2016,” and “GirlWrights Performance Day!” at the Thick House (1695 18th Street, 415-746-9238, thickhouse.org).

AJ anticipates upward of 750 theatergoers will attend the festival throughout the week. Last year, festival organizers had to turn some people away due to overflow. She anticipates that the same will happen this year as the festival continues to grow, she says. The theatre that doesn’t have a permanent home and operates with less than $200,000 a year has taken off, says AJ, whose latest play, “Entanglement,” will premier at the festival before its big opening in November.

The theatre is supported with five resident playwrights: AJ, Lee, Margery Kreitman, Robin, and Suze along with six staff, and 34 people who help put to the festival and the year-round productions together.

Women Take The Stage

The plays, “Country Matters” and “Slice,” explore a wife- and house-swap from a women’s perspective and cutting from a Tenderloin teenage girl’s perspective, respectively.

“Country Matters” opens the festival tonight, Monday, August 22 at 7:30 p.m.

“Slice,” explores a Tenderloin teenage girl’s issues with cutting herself to try to erase the problems caused by her mother’s addiction, takes the stage August 23 at 7:30 p.m.

“I am excited about it,” says Robin, whose other play, “Low Hanging Fruit,” about women veterans being the fastest group of homeless which was also produced by 3Girls Theatre, closed July 31. “I like to write about issues that often get swept under the carpet and this is certainly one of them.”

The “Women are the Body Politic!” is an evening of comedy, interview, performance and music hosted by special guests comedian Debi, executive director of Emerge CA Kimberly Ellis, improv artist Kimberly Maclean, and others August 24 at 7:30 p.m.

“It’s an honor to be included in a great evening focused on women and their contributions to life and theater!” says Debi, 63, who points out that the theatre celebrating five years is a “momentous occasion.”

The “ReproRights! Women and the Body Politic” is an evening of short play readings, monologues, and performance pieces center on women’s reproductive rights and bodily autonomy and raising awareness of the work being done by NARAL Pro-Choice America. The works will be presented by ReproRights! Theater along with special guest Amy Everitt, executive director of California National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League Pro-Choice America, better known as CA NARAL, August 25 at 7:30 p.m.

“We have an original song written and sung by a fourteen year old young woman, we have poems, skits, monologues, and plays. There are thirteen short works in the festival this year, two directors, and sixteen actors,” says Jennifer Roberts, 48, co-founder and producer of ReproRights! Theater.

This is the second time ReproRights Theater is participating in the festival.

“The plays look at women and contraception, abortion, sex, the right to choose, women’s agency in controlling their bodies and their lives, pregnancy tests, and in vitro fertilization,” says Jennifer, about the subject of the performance pieces that range from two- to 10 minutes and will be livestreamed on Howlround TV 2. “It’s surprising how much power can be packed into a (for example) five-minute play or two-minute poem.”

Jennifer hopes that the audience will be “moved by the stories” and “inspired to take action,” she says, and that the playwrights will be encouraged to “keep writing their stories, unabashedly, and unapologetically.”

The third annual “Best of LezWrites! 2016” the evening co-curated by 3Girls Theatre resident playwright, Margery Kreitman and Jewelle explore 13 short, humorous pieces on the body politic from the lesbian, bisexual and transgender women’s perspective August 26 at 7:30 p.m.

“It’s really crucial for there to be a venue for lesbians to hear their work out loud,” says Jewelle, pointing out that it was only in the 1920s that lesbian-themed plays were banned from Broadway.

“We are still recovering from that and the feeling ‘What is a lesbian play?’ and ‘Whose going to care about it if they are not a lesbian?’” she continues. “So, I think that it’s very important.”

“The fact that the writers get to hear the work out loud with actors is an amazing experience for any writer. You get to see the work that you’ve accomplished, but it also helps you to see where you need to go,” adds Jewelle, who will see the reading of her play “Characters” for the first time at LezWrites! “That’s a big thing.”

Audiences will be able to catch a double header of “Slice” (1 p.m.) and “Country Matters” (3 p.m.) 1:00 – 4:30 p.m. The performances will be followed by a Talk-Back with a panel of the theatre’s resident playwrights and audience members discussing issues of bringing women’s politics to the stage (4:30 – 5:15 p.m.) and a Festival Artists Reception honoring the women artists exhibiting in the lobby art show (5:15 p.m.) August 27).

GirlWrights Performance Day! will present original monologues written by the teenage participants, a collaboration with the Hunters Point-Bayview Foundation Youth Services Project, in the 2016 GirlWrights Dramatic Writing Workshop. Teen actors will perform works by the theatre’s teen girls and directed by the theatre’s resident playwright Suze Allen will be presented during an afternoon performance followed by refreshments and a conversation with the writers, actors, and audience members August 28 @ 3 p.m.

The New Works Festival is August 22 – 28 at the Thick House, 1695 18th Street in San Francisco. Open free to the public. Seats go fast, reserve your seat today. For more information, call 415-746-9238 or visit, 3girlstheatre.org or thickhouse.org.

Book your next trip to Miami with Girls That Roam Travel. Contact Heather Cassell at Girls That Roam Travel in association with Travel Advisors of Los Gatos at 415-517-7239 or at .

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