International Women Playwrights

In 1988, for the first time in history, women dramatists gathered from around the world to discuss their profession, their craft as playwrights, their situation as women in theater and in the larger society, their insights into past and current social and political realities, and their dreams and visions for the future. Women from very different cultural backgrounds shared their experiences and their viewpoints_some of them in sharp contradiction to each other, others startlingly similar. Many were leading playwrights in their own countries. Some were among the first women to write for their nations' theaters. The assembled dramatists included theatrical pioneers and innovators, heads of theater companies, directors, actors, scholars, teachers, social workers, and social activists. They came from Nigeria, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Argentina, Greece, Israel, Russia, England, and Canada, as well as the United States. As U.S. playwright Megan Terry observed, 'It's as if the oceans receded enough to show the new continent of women: Atlantis is alive and here today.' This volume provides a record of that conference, edited to bring out the highlights of discussions on a range of topics including censorship and self-censorship, race and class, changing family roles, eroticism and sexuality, uses of myth and legend, developing and directing plays by women, and the form and structures of their plays. With index, bibliographies of playwrights, and appendix.

Anna Kay France ( Ph.D., Yale University) is associate professor of English and theatre at SUNY, Buffalo, where she is working on developing interrelated programs in acting and playwrighting. An actress and director as well as literary scholar, France currently serves as international secretary for the International Center for Women Playwrights in Buffalo. Her book, Boris Pasternak's Translations of Shakespeare, was published in 1978 (University of California Press). P.J. Corso (M.P.A, San Francisco State University) is a playwright, freelance writer, and college lecturer. Her plays include House of Cards, and Leftovers, both co-written with Michael Winks. She and Winks co-founded Dramatic Communications Consultants, to create social theater with community groups. She is Editor of Women's Feature Service in New York. Her articles have been published in national and regional publications. She has lectured at Hunter College of the CUNY and the New School for Social Research.