Product Description

An anthology of nine short plays by one of the most prolific and controversial feminist playwrights in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2106098 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

From the Author

My modus operandi is to tell a story wherein the character's irresistible impulsion, usually toward some form of freedom, is checked by a seemingly immoveable force of society. If the characters have enough integrity and the situation enough authenticity, I find myself, at least for a while, wrestling with angels or demons. And then there is a break-through, a shift into another paradigm, where radical possibility abounds. This is why I write.

From the Back Cover

"The culture of women we have never had is invented in Carolyn Gage's brilliant and beautiful plays."

-- Andrea Dworkin

"The work of an experienced and esteemed playwright like Carolyn Gage is the air that modern theatre needs."

-- Jewelle Gomez

About the Author

Carolyn Gage is a lesbian feminist playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of four books on lesbian theatre and fifty-five plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians whose stories have been distorted or erased from history.

Gage tours internationally in her one-woman play, The Second Coming of Joan of Arc, a play which was named national finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in drama, and which has been featured on National Public Radio. A Brazilian production of the play achieved first-class production in 2001-2, and it was the top-selling show in both Rio and in Sao Paolo.

In 2004, her play Ugly Ducklings was nominated by the American Theatre Critics Association for the prestigious ATCA/ Steinberg New Play Award, an award with given annually for the best new play produced outside New York. It won a 2004 Lesbian Theatre Award from Curve Magazine, and a $150,000 documentary on the play premiered in 2005 at the Frameline International Film Festival in San Francisco. In 2004, The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women was named national finalist for the Jane Chambers Award given by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Receiving top reviews in Miami and in Washington, DC, it was the subject of a feature article in The Washington Post. Her one act, Harriet Tubman Visits a Therapist, was presented at Actors Theatre of Louisville in the Juneteenth Festival of African American plays. It was a national winner of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, and is included in Random House's anthology Under 30: Plays for a New Generation.

Gage's musical, The Amazon All Stars is the first lesbian full book musical ever published by a mainstream play publisher. Published by Applause Books, it is the title work of an anthology of lesbian plays that was a national finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Her manual on lesbian theatre production, Take Stage! How to Direct and Produce a Lesbian Play was published by Scarecrow Press. Gage has also written Monologues and Scenes for Lesbian Actors, the first collection of its kind in the world. The University of Oregon has acquired her personal papers for their Special Collections Archive.

Gage's work has been endorsed by Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Phyllis Chesler, Victoria A. Brownworth, Diana E.H. Russell, and John Stoltenberg. Gage was named contributing editor to the national feminist quarterly On The Issues. Gage has also been published in the Dramatists Guild Quarterly, Trivia, Sinister Wisdom, Lesbian Ethics, The Lesbian Review of Books, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Lambda Book Report, and off our backs. Gage has written the first meditation book for feminist activists, Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy.

Gage was a Guest Lecturer at Bates College in 1998-99. She has won the Oregon Playwrights Award from the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts. She has also been awarded grants from the Maine Arts Commission, the Maine Women Writers' Collection at the University of New England, the Walden Writer's Fellowship from Lewis and Clark College, the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts Writer's Grant, and the Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant. In 2002, she received the Janine C. Rae Cultural Award for the Advancement of Women's Culture from the National Women's Music Festival. Former recipients include Audre Lorde, June Jordan, Margarethe Cammermeyer, Nikki Giovanni, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. In 2005, she won the national Lynda Hart Memorial Grant from the Astraea Foundation.

Most recently, Gage's tours have included the University of Colorado in Boulder, the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Maine at Orono, Gettysburg College, the University of Connecticut at both Stamford and Storrs, the University of Oregon at Eugene, the University of New England, SUNY Geneseo, Hollins University, Bates College, Washington College, Kalamazoo College, the University of Virginia, the National Women's Music Festival, the National Women's Studies Association Conference, the University of Nebraska, Kansas State University, Chatham College in Pittsburgh, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, the United Kingdom Women's Studies Conference in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Women's Week at Provincetown, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and the Dublin International Gay Theatre Festival.

One of the most prolific femimist playwrights in the world, Carolyn Gage is a dynamic speaker and a powerful role model.