The Women in Theater Festival, presented by Project Y Theatre, seeks to broaden the opportunities for women in the entertainment industry by producing new work by women with at least 50% female representation of all artists involved. The festival is a model of going beyond parity, commissioning and producing new works by women+ writers, devisers and creators, developing an audience interested in feminist theatre and fostering opportunities that center interdisciplinary practices and experimentation.
Highlights include:
Dorothy's Dictionary
Written by E.M. Lewis
Co-Directed by Andrew W. Smith & Michole Biancosino
Sparks fly when Zan, an angry high school student, is forced to work off his community service assignment reading to Dorothy, an ailing librarian. But each of them might just have what the other lacks... if they can only find the words. Book by book, they begin to form an unexpected friendship… just when they need it most.
David and Katie Get Re-Married
Written by David Carl & Katie Hartman
Directed by Michole Biancosino
Music direction by Jody Shelton
You are cordially invited to the second wedding of David and Katie. This confidently codependent couple will teach you how to love correctly through original music, exotic rituals and a unity volcano. This time it'll stick! For realz tho! David and Katie Get Re-Married pairs David Carl (Gary Busey's One-Man Hamlet, Trump Lear, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Katie Hartman (Netflix’s The Week Of, The Other Two, Younger) in a slapdash wedding betwixt a star-crossed couple who has broken up and reunited more frequently than Spiderman has been rebooted. This dark comedy with original music features the worst couple in the world on the second happiest day of their lives after the first happiest day of their lives didn't work out.
The Adventures of Pussy Jones
Written and directed by Gab Cody
The Adventures of Pussy Jones is a “DaDa cabaret” and Artificial Intelligence* hallucination that utilizes ensemble-based physical theater practices in service of a comedy centered around the theme: “The Politics of Femininity.” When a theatre-creating A.I. is tasked with exploring this theme, it runs amok, resurrecting some of the 20th century’s greatest literary figures (James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Harper Lee) who in turn resurrect famed novelist Edith Wharton (whose childhood nickname was Pussy Jones) to unravel and catechize The Politics of Femininity for the benefit of their 21st-century audience.
*no AI was used to create this piece
Powersuits
Created and performed by Lida Winfield and Michole Biancosino
Two women enter the space looking powerful. Don't worry. They're here to take care of you. This wild duet critiques normative gender roles and performances with exaggerated costumes, movements and gestures, depicting stereotypes of authority and beauty as absurd. In tandem, the piece calls out the alienation that comes from capitalist grind culture.
