A Strategic Call for All-Female Production Spaces

Main Article Content

Abstract

Those who have the courage to question theatre’s imposed borders will shape the future of performance. Still, how can one break theatrical borders when they are not in the room determining the play’s parameters? In 2015 Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori won a Tony award for Fun Home; bringing lesbian theatre to the commercial masses. Although such an accomplishment enhances the role of women in musical theatre, the fact that Fun Home was the first all-female writing team publicly praised and decorated by theatre critics illuminates the larger need for all-female writing/production teams and spaces for creating new works.

When developing new plays, it is imperative that we look beyond onstage gender representation and focus our eye on the representation of gender in the production/writing teams. Only through forming all-female development teams can we create performance spaces that empower an inclusive intersectionality of all identifications of women and promote creative performances that are for, by and about women. Much to my creative dismay, all-female spaces are not easy to procure or cultivate.

This paper examines the Mickee Faust Queer as Faust’s 2016 staged reading of Shero: Femme Fatale, an original lesbian super-shero comedy that investigates the feminist struggle through the eyes of Shero/Heart, male Detective by day and female avenger by night. This case study calls for new strategies in new spaces. It advocates for the benefits of an all-female performance space while still acknowledging the obstacles and concerns presented that unveil themselves when trying to create such an environment.

Article Details

Section
Articles