The Women’s Theatre Festival’s Summer Festival will take place July 12th to 14th, 2019, in a variety of venues around downtown Raleigh.
Follow the above link for the whole schedule and to purchase tickets, which start as low as $5 for individual performances.
Venues include:
- Burning Coal Theatre
- HQ Raleigh
- Marbles Kids Museum
- Ruby Deluxe
The festival includes WTF (panels and workshops), WTFringe (stripped down productions with an emphasis on original and experimental performances), and Occupy the Stage (24 hours of programming, featuring staged readings of works by women.)
These are just a few of the events in each category:
WTF Con
- Why are Theatre Critics so Critical?- Hosted by Roy Dicks
- So U Wanna Make Ur Theater Inclusive? Things to check before you wreck- Hosted by Tori Grace Nichols and Jacqueline Lawton
- I can’t, I have kids! How to make art while parenting- Featuring panelists Naima Yetunda Ince, Susannah Hough, Candace Hescock, and Tamara Kissane-
- Disability Theory in the Theater: Practicing Accessibility and Universal Design- Hosted by Sonya Freeman Loftis
- Enlighten Me: Intro to Lighting Design, hosted by Erin Bell
WTFringe
- She Made Space by Meredith Dayna Levy, directed by Lauren Brooke Ellis- A 20-something intellectual American lesbian tourist arrives in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, tracing the steps she has taken to get there in an honest and touching consideration of the occupation of space – both inside, and outside, of herself. Runtime: 55 minutes
- Oh Righteous God And Sinful Me by Linsey Watkins, featuring Emeline Phinney- A dark comedy by playwright Linsey Watkins that normalizes female sexuality, Oh Righteous God And Sinful Me is a coming-of-age play set in an all-girls Catholic boarding school. When new student Evie arrives mid-year, she finds that her classmates are completely ignorant about their own bodies. Evie becomes the girls’ sex ed teacher and tasks herself with helping them find the key to a self-induced orgasm. What follows are the fun, genuine, quirky, and necessary results of sexual discovery. Runtime: 80 minutes
- Beyond the Guarded Gate, featuring Monica Szabo-Nyeste as mezzosoprano and Eva Mengelkoch on piano- Pulitzer Prize winning poet and novelist Margaret Widdemer’s early feminist poems dealing with sexual abuse, war, and human rights are still compellingly relevant today. Composer Juliana Hall was commissioned to set the poems to music by the Seattle Art Song Society; they premiered in March 2019 on a program celebrating womxn’s voices. “When commissioning Hall, SASS wasn’t content to just have the premiere in Seattle…in this time of #MeToo and women’s rights being front and center in culture, Hall’s song cycle–with its powerful settings of American poet Margaret Widdemer’s social justice texts–had the possibility to bring an important message to people beyond Seattle. His idea developed into a ‘women’s march’ across the country…a project to have Hall’s new songs performed in all 50 states after the premiere, bringing Hall’s settings and Widdemer’s poems to all of the US! To that end, Armbrust has enlisted more than 170 mezzo-sopranos from all 50 states (and many foreign countries as well), each of whom will get an early look at the score with the option to participate in the project. Singers will participate in Beyond the Guarded Gate, by agreeing to perform the song cycle on a recital between March 2019 and December 2019 following the official SASS world premiere. E. C. Schirmer is providing each singer and pianist taking part in Beyond the Guarded Gate with a complimentary digital copy of the work for use in the performance.”
- Banana Split Lady by Adrienne Pender- A woman calls upon her mother and sister to address her mental illness
- Being B.A.D., written and performed by Brittney S. Harris- Being B.A.D. is a solo performance piece about personal acceptance and redemption from the cycle of abuse. This show explores the lengths in which one decides to take that power back after years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her family and romantic partner. Runtime: 20 minutes
Occupy The Stage
- High School Coven by Kaela Mei-Shing Garvin- TBH high school is v v v hard, especially if you’re a witch! Liana, Naomi, Rachel, and Trina form a coven to cope with the pressures of being a teenage girl, like finding the perfect homecoming dress, locating a suitable familiar, and something more sinister — reporting sexual assault within the education system.
- A Mother’s Heart by Victoria Evans Erville- Two mother’s searching for hope, find comfort in a hospital nursery where neither belong
- Caught By the Witch by Fiona Maria Almodovar- A short play depicting a fairy tale kingdom. King Kindness is out walking at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Meet a Witch and three interesting creatures and find out who will come to the King’s rescue…
- Imogen says Nothing by Aditi Brennan Kapil- A feminist hijacking of Shakespeare that investigates the voices that have been absented from our canon, and the consequences of cutting them.
- thing with feathers by Sam Collier- Ruby, Jade, and Cove fall in and out of love with each other as their world crumbles. Plus Ruby and Cove can turn into birds. Plus there’s a midnight conversation with an owl. Part myth, part apocalyptic fairy tale, part love story, this is a play about survival, transformation, and hope.
