In 1978, Julia Miles founded the Women's Project & Productions and became its Artistic Director. Since then, her off-Broadway theatre has become the nation's preeminent venue for putting women playwrights center stage. As playwright and Women's Project board member Wendy Wasserstein attests: "Julia Miles has created a home for American women playwrights for 25 years. She has provided us with what has always been excruciatingly necessary in the American theatre landscape, a permanent presence for women playwrights. Julia has changed the face of American theatre." To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Women's Project, this collection presents six of the Project's most outstanding productions: A...My Name is Alice (Joan Micklin Silver and Julianne Boyd) Abingdon Square (Maria Irene Fornes) Little Victories (Lavonne Mueller) Etta Jenks (Marlane Meyer) The Exact Center of the Universe (Joan Vail Thorne) St. Lucy's Eyes (Bridgette Wimberly). Also included in the volume is a short history of the WPP by Alexis Greene and an appendix of its production history. Step into the world of entertaining and provocative stories written by women. Read the results of one woman's efforts to provide women theatre artists with a voice-and a room-of their own.

"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.

Women are at the center of American theatre and have the potential to shape the cultural imagination of theatre-goers as a complex new era unfolds. Sarah Ruhl, one of the twenty-first century's most honored playwrights, is read in concert with her contemporaries whose writing also wrestles with the vexing issues facing Americans in the new century.

Clean Break is a British theatre company set up in 1979 by two women in prison. It exists to tell the stories of women with experience of the criminal justice system and to transform women's lives through theatre. Over 40 years, Clean Break has commissioned some of the most progressive and brilliant women writers to write ground-breaking plays, alongside developing the writing skills of the women they work with in its London studios and in prisons. This is a collection of monologues from this canon. Rebel Voices: Monologues for Women by Women celebrates the opportunities inherent when women represent themselves. Offering female performers a diverse set of monologues reflecting a range of characters in age, ethnicity and lived experience, the material is drawn from a mix of published and unpublished works. This book is for any performer who does not see themselves represented in mainstream plays, for lovers of radical women's theatre and for rebels everywhere who believe that the act of speaking and being heard can create change.

Contributed articles.

(Vocal Collection). This expansive series takes an in-depth look into contemporary theatre repertoire for singers, spanning the 1980s, '90s and into the 21st century. Approximately 35-40 songs per volume represent the most interesting choices for singers from a wide variety of Broadway, Off-Broadway and London shows. Every auditioning singer will find plenty of intriguing possibilities! This third edition includes songs from The Color Purple , Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens , Hamilton , If/Then , The Light in the Piazza , Rocky the Musical , Spring Awakening , Wicked, and more!

Why are women still often not properly listened to? Why are they sometimes perceived to be less interesting than they are? Why do women tend to rush when they speak? Why do many women feel the pressure to sound like girls when they speak? From one of the world's leading experts on voice work comes this book, which is a call to arms for women to reclaim their voices. Arguing that power and voices are directly linked to breath, Rodenburg makes the case that Western society's oppression of women has diminished their natural ability to breathe. She examines all of these questions, and many more, to decipher what lies at the heart of female empowerment when it comes to the voice. Combining elements of experience and practice from her prolific career, Rodenburg interrogates Shakespeare's texts and presentation of female characters; develops the notion of rhetoric in relation to the female voice; and applies concepts explored in her previous books, such as the three circles of presence. Exploring the female voice through practical exercises and stories from the front line, as well as profoundly personal and formative experiences from her own life, Rodenburg defines the art of accessing the voice within and reclaiming the woman's right to speak

Extends the feminist analysis of representation to the realm of performance

Audiences for musical theater are predominantly women, yet shows are frequently created and produced by men. Onstage, female characters are depicted as victims or sex objects and lack the complexity of their male counterparts. Offstage, women are under-represented among writers, directors, composers and choreographers. While other areas of the arts rally behind gender equality, musical theater demonstrates a disregard for women and an authentic female voice. If musical theater reflects prevailing societal attitudes, what does the modern musical tell us about the place of women in contemporary America, the UK and Australia? Are women deliberately kept out of musical theater by men jealously guarding their territory or is the absence of women a result of the modernization of the genre? Based on interviews with successful female performers, writers, directors, choreographers and executives, this book offers a unique female viewpoint on musical theater today.