Will be part of First Draft series at Chicago Dramatists at 7 pm CST.
This comedy/drama is about two generations of feminist writers with very bad taste in men, and how that threatens their friendship and their career ambitions. Will feature audience feedback.
For Zoom link, email me at paulakamen@gmail.com
Theater professor Annika Speer of UC-Riverside, has studied the play’s use as an activist tool across generations for more than a decade. And most recently for a postmillenial production at Middlebury College in 2020, just before the pandemic. She writes:
Although the Sisyphean fight for reproductive rights can feel futile or stagnant, one reason I have spent so much time with Jane is because I have seen the epistemological and activist potential the script offers for students’ learning. …(It) can contribute to students’ feminist studies learning and deepen their understanding of reproductive justice.
An essay of mine will be included in So Much More Than a Headache: Understanding Migraine Through Literature, edited by the very dedicated Kathleen J. O’Shea, and published by Kent State University Press. Stay tuned here for virtual promo events coming soon:
This stellar international anthology, the first to feature literature about abortion, by editor Annie Fitch is getting great reviews, such as this one in the LA Times. It features a scene from my play Jane.
Award-winning play featuring themes of grappling with loss — and regret — during an epidemic or other tragedy, including those made by humans. Contemplates the incalculable loss when artists and inventors die before their time.
Interview by Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader theater editor, about demystifying abortion on stage. Also about concurrent Chicago production of Roe by Lisa Loomer at the Goodman Theater.
Conversation with Reader theater editor Kerry Reid, a preview to Connective Theatre readings of Jane and Goodman production of “Roe.”
This is second episode of ground-breaking podcast about last type of pain to come out of the closet, not the result of a wandering uterus. By the really smart Noa Fleishacker and Hannah Barg.
Readings will be
For Connective Theatre Company in Chicago: January 30-February 1
For Middlebury College in Vermont: January 30
Pics from the September 24 benefit reading for A is For, featuring many other talented Broadway and television actors, including Jenn Lyon, Monique Coleman, Ana Gasteyer and Kathy Najimy.
See it here. In article about theater artists raising awareness of reproductive justice and fighting stigma.
The play will have its NYC premiere Sept 24 at 7 PM at Rattlestick Theater, benefiting A is For, which battles abortion stigma, founded by Kellie Overbey and Martha Plimpton. A new press release is coming out shortly with updated cast, but for now see this Broadway World link.
Jane is one of nine plays listed by playwright Rachael Carnes on the New Play Exchange, of plays we all wish were not so timely. Jane recalls the brutal history of the bad old days, but also gives inspiration from these activist heroes.
September 18, 2019, by Kathy Rasmussen Women's Theatre (KRASS), in Madison, Wisconsin. In cooperation with Planned Parenthood.
Details to come about reading by Lipstick feminist student theater company at Northwestern.
More info to come re Sept 24 reading in NYC.
By Creative Action Unlimited in East Greenbush. Facebook page here
Choice Words, edited by Annie Finch, due out with Haymarket Press in 2020