Sherborn's Kelly DuMar leads annual festival for women playwrights
Posted Sep 15, 2016 at 12:01 AM
This year's evening performances include work by Boston area writers Andrea Fleck Clardy, Deniz Khateri, Hortense Gerardo, Griffen Hoyle, Ann Marie Shea, Phyllis Rittner, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Kelly DuMar, Johanna Skouras and Lida McGirr.
The 10th annual Our Voices Festival, supporting new plays by Boston area women playwrights, will present an evening of staged readings, free and to the public, on Saturday, Sept. 17, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre, Alumnae Hall, Wellesley College.
A reception to meet the playwrights begins at 6:30 p.m. with refreshments. The show begins at 7 p.m., and seats are first come, first served.
This presentation of new plays by local women playwrights features the talents of some of Boston’s best actors and directors. This year, in honor of the 10th anniversary, the evening’s theme is theater as social change. There will be a special post-plays performance with Arlington-based True Story Theater, who will perform audience responses to the plays using Playback Theatre.
This year’s evening performances include work by Boston area writers Andrea Fleck Clardy, Deniz Khateri, Hortense Gerardo, Griffen Hoyle, Ann Marie Shea, Phyllis Rittner, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Kelly DuMar, Johanna Skouras and Lida McGirr.
The festival founder and producer, Kelly DuMar of Sherborn, said it has been fully established by recent research that women face more barriers than men in the world of theater. “According to a 2015 study, ‘The Count,’ featured recently in The New York Times, women’s plays in the U.S. are produced about one-fifth as often as those of men. This historic pattern of — consciously or unconsciously — over-investing in stories by male writers needs to change.”
“The point of the festival is to give women playwrights a nourishing, no-cost day of incubation.” DuMar said. “Many of the short plays and monologues first presented at Our Voices go on to have full productions in Boston theaters and beyond.
Throughout the day, prior to the staged readings, 13 additional Boston area women writers will present workshop style readings of new work with the help of volunteer actors and directors. Participating playwrights, and one poet, include Cassie M. Seinuk, Debbie Wiess, Mickey Coburn, Fabiola Decius, Vannessa Greenleaf, Lynda Vernalia, Wokie Kajota, Sue Huggans, M. Lynda Robinson, Linda Hanley Finnigan, Carole Frohlic, Mara Elissa Palma and Anne Marilyn Lucas.
The festival will be held in the Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre, through the generosity of Wellesley College, which is located in Alumnae Hall, Wellesley College, 106 Central St., Wellesley. There is free parking and the theater is wheelchair accessible.
For more information, contact Kelly DuMar at 508-647-0596 or e-mail kellydumar@gmail.com.