The Comparables: Women in the Workplace.

When reading the plays for this year’s Bay Area Playwrights Festival, The Comparables by Laura Schellhardt resonated with me the most. As a feminist and a student of Sexuality and Gender Studies, this play brought up issues that I find important and are still relevant in our post-feminist world. But feminism is an ugly word today; synonymous with man haters or overactive activists. To me, feminism has always meant equality among the sexes and that is how I will be discussing it. While many women are climbing slowly up the business food chain, their male associates still far out number them. The most obvious example is the United States Senate where women make up only 19% of our country’s lawmakers. Women in some circumstances are still paid less than men with the same skill sets in the same line of work. Laura Schellhardt, the playwright, also commented on the few female playwrights being showcased in American theatre today. What this play displays is not how women are being held back by the oppressive patriarchy, but how women are held back by other women which I think is a new perspective to an old problem.

The Comparables focuses on three women who compete for power in their business of high-end real estate and offers three different views of how feminism and women function in the workplace. Bette, the oldest, is a self-made women in a man’s world. She has had to adapt to survive and as a result her behavior is almost masculine and competitive. Her second in command, Monica, has learned to rely on Bette and displays feminine characteristics. She relates mostly with women and uses emotion and compassion to make connections with others. Iris, on the other hand, enjoys the company of men. She uses her sexuality to her advantage to get ahead and strives for equality with (but not power over) her male cohorts. This pits different ideals of feminism against each other with laughs and the suspense of who will make it out on top. Should women be re-negotiating business on their own terms or sticking with how patriarchy has done it for the last millennium?  The Comparables plays with this question in tantalizing ways that will leave you craving to discuss.

Schellhardt has said her inspiration for The Comparables stems from a conversation about the wage gap and what women specifically are doing to hinder the advancement of gender equality. Tennessee congresswoman Marsha Blackburn stated in early June of this year that women do not want equal pay laws saying that “I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be given a job because I was a female, I wanted it because I was the most well-qualified person for the job.” While I think most women can agree that they want to be hired because they are the best person for the job, women are earning about 20% less than their male counterparts. If women are hired because they’re the best for the job, why should they not be paid as much as a male in the same position? Women also use slut shaming as a way to control and put down other women. This technique is used in The Comparables as the characters vie for power over each other. Slut shaming is linked to sexual morality but also does not typically deal with actual sexual behavior. Instead it focuses on those with high status policing those with lower status. By calling someone a slut, one person is saying, “I would never do that,” in an attempt to raise their own moral status and lower the other’s.

Saying this play is feminist poses a problem. As I have said, feminism is an ugly word. This is not a play that will shove a message down your throats, but make you think about how we negotiate equality and femininity. I think this play can and should be enjoyed by all audiences, not just a feminist audience. The audience will enjoy all three characters’ witty banter but find a connection with at least one of the women. They are all sympathetic characters that the audience can relate to in some way. This play brings to light how far we’ve come since the first wave of feminism in the early 20^th century and how much further we still have yet to go. I am honored to be the Production Assistant for this show. Please come out to the staged readings July 21^st at 12pm and July 27^th at 8pm. This is an event not to miss. Following the 8pm showing there will be a cocktail party where I would love to discuss your thoughts on the play.

Please visit…

https://thinksexpositive.wordpress.com/ 

…for more blogs on sexuality and gender through a biological, sociological, psychological, and cultural lens.

Meet the Newbies: PF Intern Spotlight

It’s been almost a year since the 35^th Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and the new play mavericks at the Playwrights Foundation are hard at work making sure this year’s is just as good. The plays have been picked, creative teams assigned, actors are being cast, and the playwrights are anticipating some fun and focused times in the SF Bay Area to dig into their fab new scripts – some will hear drafts for the very first time, others are prepping plays for upcoming productions, and still others are upending their plays to see what will happen. With the influx of 80 plus artists to PF this summer, the staff needs just a little help in order to get such a big deal festival off the ground. And that’s where the indefatigable, uber smart interns come in – and this year there are seven! Let’s give them some time in the spotlight, shall we?

Sowmya Ashokkumar: Sowmya has kindly taken some time off from earning a degree in English at UC Berkeley in order to come help us make this year’s BAPF happen. She is a lover of the theater, and an aspiring writer herself. She’s gotten her hands dirty in UCB’s Model United Nations, so she’s proven she can think quickly and get a job done under pressure. With her assistance, BAPF will be a piece of cake.

Hillary Bray: Hillary is interested in starting her own non-profit theater company, so she’s come to the Playwright’s Foundation in search of guidance. She’s also been performing since she was five years old, so she’ll surely be providing some guidance of her own. She’s a senior at San Francisco State University, and she’s dividing her time between studies and volunteer work, so  we’re really lucky that she has time to help us with BAPF 2013.

Michaela Byrne: Michaela has given

herself, mind and body, to the theater. 

She’s been directing, acting, and working backstage for years, on everything from Shakespeare to brand new, never-before-seen plays, so she fits right in at PF. Besides all this, she’s working toward a BFA in Theater Directing at the University of Michigan. The Playwright’s Foundation is lucky to have her.

Caitlin Cox: Caitlin comes to us having just graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA in Dramaturgy. For the layperson, that means that she’s really good at figuring out all the deep, dark, hidden parts of a play, as well as its historical and social context, and presenting it all clearly for an audience. She’s gotten her foot in the door working as dramaturg on musicals HAIR and Spring Awakening, and we are grateful that she’s chosen to spend her first summer out of college helping us!

Shenel Ekici: Shenel has, in her own words, grown up in the theater. She loves musicals and has indulged this love with roles in no fewer than eleven plays. She also hopes to bring her interest in literature to bear with her love for theater and drama. Shenel’s vast knowledge of the workings of theater and communication will be hugely beneficial to the team, and certainly to the plays themselves.

David Oehler: David joins the PF team during his last summer before earning an English degree at Lewis & Clark College. He’s always enjoyed story-telling, and discovered a deep love for theater in college. David has acted in and directed a few small productions at school, and he brings a strong background in writing and communication to the team. We’re grateful he can take some time off from goofing around to help out.

Nicho Yeung: Nicho has made quite the sacrifice in order to come lend her assistance to BAPF. She’s left her native Hong Kong and come to the strange and wonderful world of San Francisco for the summer, just for us. In addition to working with a variety of organizations in the past, and even serving as captain of a basketball team, Nicho is studying film at Hong Kong Baptist University. We’re really excited to see how her distinct skill and knowledge set will benefit the festival!


And there you have it. The PF 2013 Summer interns.
Thanks for reading, and keep checking back! We've got plenty of interesting stuff to read in the works and headed to this very page.

TICKETS ARE NOW ON SALE FOR BAY AREA PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL! RIGHT HERE!

Setting the Stage for the Playwrights Festival

We are two weeks away and counting down to the arrival of our playwrights. They are preparing for 3 weeks of work with the 36^thAnnual Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and things are cooking in the offices as we get ready for them.

Most people will never know about all the hard and yet joyous work that goes into setting the scene for the festival, but let's take a look behind the veil here. Right now, we’re…

• Signing the leases on the playwrights’ gorgeous Victorian flat in the sunny Mission district of beautiful San Francisco...

• Finalizing details for their retreat at the Black Mountain Retreat Center in relaxing Cazadero, CA...

• Setting rehearsal schedules for all the plays at Thick House Theater and other local spaces...
  
  
  
  
  
•  Gathering nationally known artists, including:
  
  Richard Montoya (of Culture Clash) and Founding Artistic Director of Sojourn Theatre in Portland, Michael Rohd to fill our panels and lead other special events...

Richard Montoya

Michael Rohd

•  And FINALLY, mailing postcards and otherwise getting out the word as we prepare for ticket sales beginning . Go here to purchase!

Next week we reveal the faces of the office, and get an insider look into the lives and ambitions of Playwrights Foundations powerhouses, so keep checking back! 

Welcome to Bay Area Playwrights Festival 2013!

We’re at it again - It’s Bay Area Playwrights Festival season!  While our playwrights are finalizing rehearsal drafts, we’re madly gathering their artistic teams – over 75 creative theater peops—who will descend upon Playwrights Foundation in July to delve into six extraordinary theatrical journeys – fine tune, upend and excavate in a process that is deep, collaborative and rich. And we invite you to experience it all at The Thick House.

The Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival always features plays by astoundingly talented emerging voices alongside treasured veteran virtuosos. This (our 36^th) year, the writing ranges from the grittily real to the matter-of-factly surreal, from lyric tragedy to ballsy satire. Playwrights are Laura Schellhardt, Prince Gomolvilas, Jiehae Park, Erin Bregman, Kimber Lee, and Joan Holden.

All six of their stories investigate, in some way or other, the meaning of Community, Family and Memory, where echoes from the past drive, inhibit and otherwise indelibly mark the present. These exquisitely wrought, highly theatrical pieces feature ghosts, both literal and figurative; protests that change lives and protests that take lives; note cards full of memories, and one “100% genuine, bona-fide heart’s desire-level wish.” Oh, and there’s plenty of humor. It is our hope that each writer gets to learn more about their plays in a process that pushes each artist from great to exceptional. Hearing the work can be an imaginative and magical experience for the audience.

Each year we gather our artists and create community, family and memories for ourselves over three short weeks, and we fill in our spare days and hours with all manner of special events catering to all kinds, from the brainiac to the food-lover, so you can immerse yourself in theater, ideas and networking for 10 days straight. So don’t stop at the plays—come to everything and become part of the Playwrights Foundation family, creating significant memories alongside us!

SAVE THE DATE: Tickets go on sale July 1^st (and as usual we have lots of great packages and deals of offer). Stay tuned, and check out the festival lineup here.

FESTIVAL BLOG: We will be updating the blog every week, so come back and meet everyone!

Chinaka Hodge: The Brick House

When Playwright's Foundation asked me to teach a ten week course my heart jumped behind my uvula. Ten weeks? Was I legit nutso? I'm just a burgeoning, emerging, wet behind the ears so-and-so, or at least I am in my own imagination. Also, I'm a full time writer, a recent alum of an MFA program at a private institution and an aspiring breakfast eater, thus turning down any sort of paid work isn't really in my vocabulary, literary or otherwise.

So, we promoted the class, and with some effort, enrollment rose to capacity. I had first day jitters as, much to my surprise, a room full of writers -- entirely women -- arrived at PF's Potrero Hill offices. I didn't know the class would be all female; it just worked out that way. The group of folks who came, faithfully, to the studio for our Tuesday night sessions spanned a range of ages, races, experience level and writerly impulses. Each came prepared to work, though, and as the ladies settled, our classroom became scarcely discernable from a genius bar -- half eaten apples glowing on the reverse of our computer screens as our first scenes were shared. 

Over ten weeks, the students were supremely courageous in their efforts to understand and wield form, to workshop their honest (at times painful) stories with the others in class. They were hugely benevolent as I tried my sea legs at teaching long form to adults (the core of my work prior being facilitating poetry workshops for the 19 and under). The students also wrote some damned (can I say damned on this radio?), damned good stuff.

The ten weeks drew us nearer to each other as writers, and to the craft of well constructed scenes and story arcs -- demonstrated by the 3 scene excerpts of forthcoming work they'll be reading in a few hours.

You see, tonight is our last class and the last 3 months have brought plenty transition. We've grown more comfortable with pedagogy and proscenium. We've pushed ourselves to write more, better, deeper than ever before. And even the sun, itself, changed for our theatrical delight. I remember that we started at dusk, that first night. Since, DST arrived and ushered our twilight (no Bella) meeting time to a happy hour of sorts -- before the sun sets properly, we're already imbibing on each other's scripts, discussing character motivation, conflict, tension, rising and falling action.

I named this course "Experimental Urban Playwriting" or something like that, something far headier and obtuse than what it actually was.  Our course was sexy -- a festival of good ideas from sturdy women -- a real good time, in this rare San Francisco room, where the walls hold together by mortar. Had I been smart, had I known, I woulda titled this course "The Brick House: Playwriting for Dime Pieces,"  since these 7 women are easily the best constructed things in SF's Design District.

Can you tell I'm already nostalgic? Can you see I'm sad that in 30 -- no, gasp, ahh, in 29 minutes we'll gather for our last class? Some of The Bay Area's most gifted actors are donating their time to read excerpts from the forthcoming theater pieces. It's going to be a stellar final session. And as I sit here, waiting on everyone to arrive, I feel this strange sensation, like a heart slipping down, past the dangly thing at the back of a throat, and into one's stomach. I'm sad; we're leaving each other.

On the bright side -- there's some amazing theater projects in the works. Can't wait to see what comes of each new piece. And just as I was regretting only that we'd only decided to run 10 weeks -- why not 15? -- I log onto the PF site to pen this blog and realize -- there's so much more to come. There's a bevy of courses upcoming and sad as I am that this one is ending, I'll gladly clear space for the next group of geniuses planning on taking classes in this here studio. Shoot, I might be one. I'm seriously considering signing up for one of the Master Classes. Maybe you want to, too?

Unfortunately for us and everyone involved with the "The Brick House," Chinaka's last class was on Tuesday, April 16th. To keep up with Chinaka and her great work, check out her official website.

Next up at the Institute: Writing for TV with "Mad Men" Writer Jason Grote, starting May 10th; and Exploring the Dark Side with USC Writing Professor Prince Gomolvilas, starting May 18th.

To view other New Play Institute offerings, check out our classes page to stay up-to-date.