(Re)staging Women's Narratives

As feminists, scholars, and theater artists, we six come together to discuss the challenges facing women theater artists and identify some key issues of the field surrounding equity, practice, and women in theater. We stage our feminist future here. Performing a feminist future often takes the form of a dystopia. Yet there is also hope for something else to be performed into existence. In Composing Ourselves, cultural historian Dorothy Chansky asserts that theater is not simply a legacy that has been passed down generationally but also a product of effort sustained in the face of social, political, and artistic crisis. The term staging prompts us to grapple with the issue of contradictions with representation. It presents to audiences an alternative viewpoint of complex specificities and their surrounding politics. In particular, this roundtable presents viewpoints on motherhood, sexual assault victims, underrepresentation, and feminist resistance.