Artemisia Theatre is thrilled to bring back its fall playwright festival, now titled the WeWomen Play Festival, featuring six Chicagoland based feminist playwrights , and to be directed by fellow feminist directors.The festival will feature one play a night for two weeks, running November 4th - 16th, 2024 at the Little Studio in the Fine Arts Building at 410 S Michigan Ave.
This year’s announced playwrights are Kimberly Dixon Mays with The Gizzard of Brownsville, Anna Schutz with Prodigy: A Modern Family Portrait, Lani Montreal with Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother, Melanie Coffey with Deserted, Leah Barsanti with Succulents: The Art of Adulting or..."Reasons I Am A Terrible Roommate, and Adelina Marinello with Good Girls.
(l - r) Anna Schutz, Melanie Coffey, Kimberly Dixon-Mays, Leah Roth Barsanti, Adelina Marinello, and Lani Montreal make up the six selected feminist playwrights for this year’s WeWomen Festival. Poster Design by Morgan Manasa
The 2024 festival will have various directors including: Erin Shea Brady directing Prodigy: A Modern Family Portrait, Daisy Castro directing Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother, Erin Sheets directing Deserted, Lynsy Folckomer directing Succulents: The Art of Adulting or..."Reasons I Am A Terrible Roommate and Daira Rodriguez directing Good Girls.
The WeWomen Play Festival production team includes Willow James (Producer), Shariba Rivers (Executive Producer), Ema Kester (Stage Manager) and Julie Jachym (Production Manager).
Each night of the week will hold a different play reading with the schedule as follows:
Mondays (11/4 & 11/11): Prodigy: A Modern Family Portrait, Tuesdays (11/5 & 11/12): Succulents: The Art of Adulting or..."Reasons I Am A Terrible Roommate, Wednesdays (11/6 & 11/13): The Gizzard of Brownsville, Thursdays (11/7 & 11/14): The Good Girls, Fridays (11/8 & 11/15): Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother, and Saturdays (11/9 & 11/16): Deserted.
Artemisia is a resident company at the historic Fine Arts Building at 410 S Michigan Ave, Chicago IL, in downtown Chicago. All tickets to performances are Pay-What-You-Can and begin at 7:30 pm. Purchase tickets online at artemisiatheatre.org
Access: All spaces within the Little Studio are accessible by wheelchair, with the exception of the restroom, which requires one step up to access. The nearest accessible restroom is on the sixth floor, which can be reached by elevator.
Visit artemisiatheatre.org for more information, including content warnings, and news of special events. Find and follow the company on social media @artemisiatheatre on Facebook and Instagram
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS
Anna Schutz (she/her) - holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has worked in Chicago as a performer, playwright, and producer for over a decade. She co-founded the storefront theatre Brown Paper Box Co. and served as Managing Director during its 11 year operation. Anna completed her Master of Nonprofit Management at DePaul University where her research was on Representation in Nonprofit Performing Arts Leadership. She has since founded and serves as Executive Director of Chicago Artist Guide, NFP (www.chicagoartistguide.org) whose mission is to diversify theatre. More info at www.annaschutz.com.
Adelina Marinello (Good Girls, she/her) is a New York-born, South Florida-raised, and Chicago-based performer/playwright/teaching artist. She just graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied Theatre, with concentrations in Musical Theatre and Playwriting, as well as a minor in Environmental Policy & Culture. Marinello is currently under commission for the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; she and composer/lyricist Matthew Millin are co-writing a TYA Musical for BCPA’s 2024-25 Season. Recent projects include MATERNAL (Vertigo Productions’ 2024 10-Minute Play Festival); HAPPY HOUR (staged reading with Malarkey Comedy at iO Theatre); Abiitan (staged reading with PlayGround-Chicago); SPILL YOUR GUTS! (Nothing Without a Company’s 2023 24-hour Play Festival); My Body Has a Mind of Its Own (Fletcher URG Prize 2023 Semi Finalist); and Pixie Pussy (staged reading at Williamstown Theatre Festival).
Leah Roth Barsanti (Succulents: The Art of Adulting or..."Reasons I Am A Terrible Roommate, she/her) is a Chicago and San Francisco-based writer for the screen, stage, and radio waves who likes to write about strong girls and women trying to make space for themselves in a world that doesn’t make that easy. Specifically, she is interested in topics including mental health, sports, the natural world, forgotten moments from our collective past, and anything Halloween-adjacent (ghosts, zombies, etc.). Over the years, she has had the chance to work with some incredible theatres both nationally and internationally, including Cat’s Cradle (Chicago), Bramble Theatre (Chicago), The Plagiarists (Chicago), Broken Nose Theatre (Chicago), The Void Theatre (Charleston), Thinking Cap Theatre (Ft. Lauderdale), Kervigo Theatre (New York), and The House of International Theatre (Denmark). She is thrilled to be adding Artemisia to that list!
Lani T. Montreal (she/her) writes to create her home in the diaspora. She is a queer feminist Filipina educator, writer, performer, and community activist based in Chicago, whose works have been published/produced in North America, Asia, and in cyberspace. Lani has worked as a playwright and resident artist with CIRCA-Pintig, Chicago Danztheatre, and Free Street Theatre. Her play Panther in the Sky, which premiered May 2024 at Chicago Danztheatre, was described by critic Wesley David as “a testament to the power of empathy, compassion, and solidarity in the face of unspeakable tragedy. It is a play that challenges us to confront the harsh realities of gun violence while inspiring us to act and make a difference in the world.” Montreal is a 2-time 3Arts Residency Awardee (2009 and 2016), 2017 alumna of the VONA Writers of Color Workshop, and 2024 Links Hall Co-MISSION Artist Fellow, where she developed her solo show Anak ni Tapia: Leaving Mother.
Melanie Coffey (she/her) is a Chicago-based playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker from Connecticut. She earned her MFA from Northwestern University’s Writing for the Screen + Stage program in 2020 and her work has been performed, read, and/or screened in cities across the country, the UK and Canada. In Chicago she has recently worked with Theatre L’Acadie, Avalanche Theater and Pocket Theatre VR. Her play, Deserted will be a part of Redtwist Theater’s Twisted Play Fest as well as her play Time is a Color and the Color is Blue will have its world premiere production in May 2025 with Avalanche Theatre.
Kimberly Dixon-Mays (The Gizzard of Brownsville, she/her) Recognitions include: Congo Square Theatre Company’s 2019 August Wilson New Play Initiative; semi-finalist for the 2019 Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference and 2020 National Black Theatre I Am Soul Playwright Residency; nominated for a 2021 3Arts Award; selected for Goodman Theatre's 2022 Future Lab series and a 2023 Illinois Arts Council fellowship; finalist for American Blues Theater’s 2023 Blue Ink Award and Definition Theatre’s Amplify Series in 2024. Play development has included Rivendell, Shattered Globe, Stage Left, and Lifeline. Kimberly has earned degrees from Yale, UCLA and Northwestern, and completed a 2018-20 Russ Tutterow Fellowship with Chicago Dramatists.
ABOUT ARTEMISIA
The theatre is named after Artemisia Gentileschi, who was a great feminist painter, largely forgotten by history until recently. Now, she’s considered the greatest female artist prior to the modern period. That’s why women’s stories are important. They change our perspective, on the past, the present and the future. That’s why Artemisia Theatre was founded, to share women’s untold stories.
Artemisia produces plays that empower women, creating career-altering opportunities for female identifying theatre artists of all racial and ethnic backgrounds; sexual orientations and identities; economic status; ages and disabilities. We make women heroes of their own lives by sharing their stories and amplifying their voices. We invite anyone and everyone who wants to empower women to join us as artists and audience.
Artemisia aims to be at the forefront of the fight for women and female-identifying people through outstanding performances that push the envelope. From world premieres to the virtual stage, our mission is and will always be to better our world for women and female-identifying people.
We strive to be a social justice theatre, committing to anti-sexist and anti-racist practices in our work. We are grateful for the anti-racist training received from ArtEquity funded by the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation and EnrichChicago funded by The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation. Our work to dismantle racist and sexist practices in theatre is ongoing as we continue to use our collective talents and voices to promote hope, healing and empowerment.
Artemisia is led by a volunteer coalition of Chicago-based artists and administrators who are fully committed to the theatre’s mission and its core values of empowerment, diversity and inclusion. The coalition creates a safe space for ALL Chicago artists while practicing pay equity; amplifying the voices of BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists and engaging the community in plays driven by the idea that her story empowers us all. If you are interested in joining the coalition, email artemisia.org for more info.
Visit www.artemisiatheatre.org to learn more.