For Immediate Release
Contact: Jen Lewis, Publicity Associate
March 17, 2011 617.863.0664
jen@GANemeed.org
Prominent and emerging artists highlight panel for Boston’s Glass Proscenium, part of
Women in Theatre Career Labs
(BOSTON) - GAN-e-meed Theatre Project is excited to announce the participants in the panel discussing Boston’s Glass Proscenium at its upcoming Career Lab on April 4. The panel discussion, followed by breakout sessions, will examine and seek improvements to the state of women’s employment in Boston theatre.
GAN-e-meed Theatre Project is proud to welcome eight women to lead our discussion on the state of women’s employment in the theatre industry. Established and up-and-coming leaders of the Boston theatre community, including Kate Warner (Artistic Director, New Repertory Theatre) and Karen MacDonald (Founding Company Member, American Repertory Theatre), will share their experiences as professionals in Boston and beyond, including both their experiences of gender bias and effective ways they have seen the issue handled. A question and answer session will lead to audience-suggested topics for breakout sessions, each of which will be lead by a panelist.
“So often, especially for freelancers in this business, it’s hard to feel that you have any impact on the status quo, and there’s a feeling of powerlessness” says Jen Lewis, director of the Career Labs series and moderator for this panel. Boston’s Glass Proscenium is a chance to get the theatre community together to explore the status quo and goals for the future and work together to make positive changes. “This panel addresses the entire purpose for which GAN-e-meed was founded.”
In order to include as much of the Boston theatre community as possible, GAN-e-meed has invited women from all parts of the theatre world. Directors, designers, actors, technicians, and academics will all have a say in the discussion. This variety of artists will help to express the many distinct, but related, challenges that women face and overcome in all aspects of theatre. In addition, the inclusion of women at varied stages in their careers allows for the broadest possible perspective. Some panelists are mid-career artists, while others are well established in both the local and national arenas. The panel includes representatives from small theatres and mid-size to large, freelancers and staff members, lifetime Bostonians and nationally-experienced professionals.
Lewis emphasizes the focus on positive change with which she crafted the workshop. She also makes a point to invite men to the conference as well, saying that the “glass proscenium“ is not only a women’s issue, and that both genders will be part of the process of creating a truly gender-equitable theatre world. Lewis states that “The whole spectrum community is invited to work together to build the world we want to live in.”
Boston’s Glass Proscenium is the second of four Career Labs. This series of workshops and discussions is based upon practical concerns expressed by women in the Boston arts community. The Labs continue on July 11th with “Perfecting Your Pitch,” and on September 12th with “Balancing Act: The Work/Life Continuum for Artists.”
Boston’s Glass Proscenium: Panelists
Janie E. Howland has been a Scenic Designer in the Boston area for 18 years. Recent designs include: My Name is Asher Lev & Nicholas Nickleby (Lyric Stage), Tonya & Nancy (Oberon), Hysteria (Nora Theatre), Boston Marriage (New Rep), A Year With Frog and Toad (Boston Children’s Theatre). Founding member of CYCO SCENIC; MFA from Brandeis University; 2009, 2006 and 1997 winner of the Elliot Norton Award; 2007 & 2006 winner of the IRNE award; lecturer at Wellesley College; USA local 829.
Angie Jepson is an actress, fight choreographer, and teacher in the Boston area. She is currently performing inReasons to be Pretty with SpeakEasy Stage, where she previously appeared in The Little Dog Laughed and The Vibrator Play. Other local credits include An Ideal Husband (Gloucester Stage Company); Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Publick Theatre); Taming of the Shrew (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company); Howard Zinn's Daughter of Venus (Suffolk University and Boston Playwrights' Theatre); and other roles with the Lyric Stage Company, New Rep, and Stoneham Theatre. She is a graduate of the MFA Acting program at Brandeis University.
A. Nora Long is producing associate at the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, and an artistic director of New Exhibition Room, a local fringe company. She is a founding member of the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston and teaches college and adult education classes in theatre. She has worked with several theatre companies in Boston as a writer, director, dramaturg and translator. She received her MFA in Dramaturgy from the American Repertory Theatre/ Moscow Art Theatre School Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard University and her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in theatre and Italian.
Karen MacDonald is an actress and director who has performed locally, nationally, and internationally, including local stages such as Arts Emerson, Merrimack Repertory Theatre, New Rep, Huntington Theatre Co, Portland Stage Co., Berkshire Theatre Festival, and Commonwealth Shakespeare Company. She was a Founding Company Member at the American Repertory Theatre, where she performed in 70 productions. In 2010 she was awarded both the Eliot Norton Prize for Sustained Excellence and the Robert Brustein Award for Sustained Achievement in the Theatre. She is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Fine Arts.
Courtney O’Connor is a free-lance director in the Boston area whose productions include: Nicholas Nickleby(Associate Director), Red Herring, The Miracle Worker (Lyric Stage Company); Much Ado About Nothing, Two Gentlemen of Verona (Commonwealth Shakespeare Intern Company); My Heart and My Flesh, The House of Yes, Sin, This is Our Youth (Coyote Theatre); Blue Window (Brandeis University); Six Characters in Search of an Author, The Long Christmas Dinner and The Pullman Car Hiawatha, Picnic, The Women, Holiday (Emerson Stage.) In addition to being an adjunct faculty member at Emerson College, Courtney is a project manager with Abella Publishing Services.
M. Bevin O’Gara is currently the Associate Producer at the Huntington Theatre Company, where she previously held the positions of Artistic Associate, Assistant to the Artistic Director and Faye Stone Literary Intern. From 2006 to 2008 she worked as the Artistic Associate at the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown, MA. Directing credits include: 2.5 Minute Ride (Downstage @ New Rep) IRNE Award nomination for Best Solo Performance, The Pain And The Itch (Company One) IRNE Award nomination for Best Director and Best Ensemble, Two Wives In India, Gary (Boston Playwrights Theatre) Elliot Norton nomination for Best Production, Upcoming Bat Boy with Metro Stage Company
Dawn Simmons is a director and writer living in MA. She serves as an Artistic Director for New Exhibition Room, is the Director of Programs for StageSource and a founding member of The Small Theatre Alliance of Boston. In New York State, she spent 3 years with Irish Classical Theatre Company as their Resident Assistant Director. Ms. Simmons studied playwriting at Boston University and earned a BA in English Literature from The University at Buffalo.
Kate Warner is in her second year as Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre. Previously she was Artistic Director of Dad's Garage Theatre and Managing Director/Artistic Associate with Theatrical Outfit, both in Atlanta, Georgia. Kate serves as a board member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for non-profit theatres and will co-chair the 2011 National Conference in Los Angeles. She is also a member of the Lincoln Center Theatre Directors' Lab in New York, the Directors Lab West in Los Angeles, and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. In summer 2004, Kate completed the Executive Program for Non-Profit Leaders in the Arts at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the New Artistic Leadership Institute with TCG/Dance USA at the McCarter Theatre.
About Gan-E-Meed Theatre Project
GAN-e-meed Theatre Project advances the role of women in theatre. Their inaugural 2010 season “Gender In Leadership” launched in May with an acclaimed Hamlet, featuring an all-female cast and starring SerahRose Roth in the title role. It concluded December 18 with Silence by Moira Buffini which played at the Elizabeth Peabody House in Somerville and was hailed as “rich with imagination and talent” (EDGE Boston) and “an evening of gripping theater” (ArtsFuse.org.)
The One Page Play Experiment, on display on the walls of the theatre during Silence featured a staged reading of the 14 finalists and a performance by Guest Artist Whistler in the Dark. Based on audience votes, the five winners will be produced in full during GAN-e-meed’s 2011 season.
GAN-e-meed’s inaugural season also included collaborations with other arts organizations for shorter engagements. Lucy Dreamingby Stacey Lane and directed by SerahRose Roth, performed as part of FeverFest2010 produced by STAB (the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston). Ties That Bind: three short plays written, directed, and about women was presented by GAN-e-meed as part of Whistler in the Dark's Second Act Series at the Factory Theatre. Funds for Hamlet were partially raised by BOOBFest: Bringing On-Stage Opportunities to Babes, a wildly successful variety show celebration hosted by GAN-e-meed at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.
The 2011 season, “Generational Collision,” will be announced in the coming months. GAN-e-meed Theatre Project is currently reviewing proposals by female directors, playwrights, actors, designers, and stage managers.
GAN-e-meed Theatre Project was founded in 2009 to advance the role of women in theatre. It promotes the study of and visibility of gender bias within the theatre community and with the goal to establishing gender equity in New England theatre. For additional information about Career Labs, the upcoming season, to join the mailing list, or to learn more about GAN-e-meed, visitwww.ganemeed.org.
