By Roger Martin

The cast of Shiloh Rules: Front Row: Marjorie O'Neill-Butler, Lela Elam, Sally Bondi; Back Row: Pamela Ascroft, Kathy Ryan-Fores, Jaime Libbert

Right up front, my wife is a member of the board of The Women's Theatre Project.

“I've got a great idea”, she said late last week.  “Why don't you write a story about our theatre company?”

“Yeah, okay, I suppose.”

“You aren't interested?  It's a great group.”

“It's just a bunch of women.  Who cares?”

“I do, Buster.  Write.”

“Oh God.” (Lengthy pause) “Okay.” (Big sigh).

So, I phoned here and e-mailed there and found that a lot of people in South Florida really do care about The Women's Theatre Project.  Especially their audiences.

The Women’s Theatre Project (TWTP) is the only professional theatre company in the country, get this, in all of the U.S.A., consistently producing theatrical works that are written and performed exclusively by women.  That means no men, ever.  I'm feeling a little left out here, standing with my nose pressed against the window of the candy store.

TWTP hit the boards in 2001, a period in which just 16 percent of the plays being produced in the States were written by women.  Only 17 percent of those plays had female directors. 

According to the New York State Council on the Arts, in 1999, only 8 percent of plays and 1 percent of musicals on Broadway were written by women.

TWTP President Meredith Lasher told me that the company's productions are compelling because their choices break with stereotypical portrayals of women seen in the media, on television and in the movies.  And indeed, having seen most of their shows, I can vouch for that.

“The theatre professionals involved in our productions span generations, since they range in age from teenagers to age 80, and reflect the broad scope of races and cultures present throughout South Florida,” Lasher says. “We have established a history of  ‘non-traditional casting’, ensuring that audiences can identify with the women they see on stage represented as women in their own lives. Since our inception, we have brought eight playwrights to the community to conduct insightful talkbacks with audiences following performances and provide one-on-one experiences with actors and other theatre professionals in South Florida.”

“It's a very professional experience, working for TWTP,” says Equity actress Linda Bernhard.   “We're not just a bunch of women sitting around goofing off.  We're there to work, and work we do.  What we're striving for is to show the truth about women, how women really are.  But we do have fun.  We work as a team and that's really enjoyable.”

African-American actress Lela Elam, also Equity and a cast member in the next show Shiloh Rules, which opens May 3, says, “Shiloh Rules is the fourth play that I have been cast in with TWTP and this is the first time I am playing a role written for a black woman. I haven't just been stereotyped into black parts with TWTP.  This has opened up more opportunities for me. It shows me I don't have to play just one type of role. Other than at school, TWTP was the first theatre where I appeared onstage with white people. Until I worked with TWTP, no one but the M Ensemble Company (South Florida's oldest professional black theatre) would hire me.”

“What I personally find most impressive about TWTP is their mission to give voice to new female playwrights and how they explore subject matters that are not often heard,” says Equity actress Annemaria Rajala.  “The last production that I was privileged to work on with TWTP was Tongue of a Bird,  where I played a search and rescue pilot.  A beautiful, poetic play about a kidnapped child, repressed memories, schizophrenia, and mother-daughter relationships---really not your typical selection in theatres today. The point is not to drive feminist or lesbian issues, although sometimes the plays might have lesbian characters or talk about some feminist issues.  Nor is it to exclude men - men are more than welcome to come and see the work that is presented by women, about women for everyone.”

Genie Croft, artistic director of The Women’s Theatre Project; Kelly Gloe, the stage manager of TWTP’s Sister Cities; and actress Kim Ehly, who appeared in Sister Cities

Genie Croft, artistic director of TWTP, says the company was a totally different concept when it was started by playwright Sonia Gomez-Paratcha, an Argentine playwright who had moved to Fort Lauderdale by way of San Francisco to be near her daughter.  (Gomez-Paratcha is also the mother-in-law of Led Zeppelin guitar legend Jimmy Page.)  While in Argentina and San Francisco, she’d had some of her plays produced, both in English and Spanish.  Once in Fort Lauderdale, she wanted to test the theatrical waters.

“She called it Women in Theatre in Broward and she had placed an ad in the paper looking for actresses to do her plays,” Croft says.  “That company no longer exits, and their goals were very different from those of what was to become TWTP.  Sonia asked me if I was interested in joining a group of theatre artists she was starting. I agreed to come to a meeting and discovered that what she really wanted from me was to become a ‘show doctor’ to her script and its upcoming reading with actresses she already had cast.” 

Through that meeting, Croft met many other women working in theatre, including Lasher.  She agreed to direct a staged reading of Gomez-Paratcha’s play and held open auditions. A single ad seeking actresses of all ages, types and ethnic backgrounds was placed mid-week in the newspaper.

The cast of Sister Cities, the most recent Women’s Theatre Project production: Beth McIntosh, Melanie Leiber, Elise Girardin and Kim Ehly

“Not only did a remarkable number of South Florida's many fine Equity and non-Equity actresses show up, but women drove in from Tampa and Orlando as well,” recalls Croft. “Seventy three-women tried to audition that night.   I was staggered by the obvious hunger, passion, and need to create an artistic theatrical vision for so many female artists.”

Merry Jo Pitasi, an actress who was the first president of TWTP, and attended that first meeting, concurs.

“We had one burning belief – that women’s stories needed to be told because men certainly weren’t going to tell them for us,” says Pitasi.

After that, several women banded together with the vision of presenting new voices and of breaking through the stereotypes of the normal roles that were typically available to actresses.  The Women's Theatre Project was born, and embarked on a reading series during the summer of 2001, using various monologues and scenes instead of full-length scripts. Croft created titles such as Over The Hill, My A** ; Blood, Guts and PMS; All About Me;  She's Got A Great Personality, But...   Women and men made up the audience, and at each performance women approached Croft about they could become part of something so unique.  Croft says it was an eye opening experience to hear so many stories from female artists about the lack of material that really reflected the diversity of women.

“It was apparent there was a definite need for new expression and expansion, and thought provoking work that would show women as more than mothers, grandmothers, hookers and appendages of male characters,” says Croft.                                                     

Annemaria Rajala, who played a search and rescue pilot in the Women’s Theatre Project’s production of Tongue of the Bird last fall

The women behind TWTP realized that they could go beyond staged readings and morph into a full theatrical producing company.  In 2004, they debuted their first full-length theatrical production, The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women by Carolyn Gage. The play received critical acclaim and TWTP sponsored a special appearance by the playwright for the world premiere.  The company also presented the southeastern premiere of Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler through a community partnership developed with Miami-Dade College . An internationally known activist and author of The Vagina Monologues, Ensler spoke to a standing-room-only audience at an event coordinated and sponsored by The Women’s Theatre Project at Miami-Dade College.  In 2005, they produced a revival of Necessary Targets, and the southeastern premieres of Hold Please by Annie Weisman and If We Are Women by Joanna McClelland Glass. The 2006 season brought the premieres of Bold Girls by Rona Munro,  6 Women Playwrights Turning 60,   Dancing the God by Patricia Montley,  Memory House by Kathleen Tolan,  Tongue of A Bird by Ellen McLaughlin, and  Sister Cities by Colette Freedman.    

“Finally, a group that valued women’s voices,” says Pitasi.  “Not too much of that happening in this town.  And we got audiences.  And they were loyal.  They loved what we were doing.  And not just women.  Men too.”

Next up for The Women's Theatre Project is the southeastern premiere of Shiloh Rules by Doris Baizley. This comedy features Elam, O’Neill-Butler, Sally Bondi, Kathy Ryan-Fores, Jaime Libbert and Pamela Ascroft and is directed by Croft. The show, the 11th premiere for the company, finds six women engaged in a reenactment of a bloody Civil War battle. As they compete for the prize of best female re-enactor, the women dredge up century-old hatred, with a modern red state verses blue state twist. Thrown into the mix of these women acting out Northerners battling Southerners, is a peddler, selling phony reenactment memorabilia struggling with neutrality amid the petty, humorous regional disagreements. The women are reigned in by an African-American park ranger the Union tries to recruit to their side.

Although TWTP is made up entirely of women, Croft says that one of their biggest supporters has been producer Jay Harris. 

“He has given us some very sound advice, some financial support and has always said,  ‘Listen kids, you really carved out a niche for yourselves, keep to it’,” says Croft.

I asked Equity actress and TWTP board member Marj O'Neill-Butler how the male side of theatre looked on their efforts.

Sally Bondi (left) and Jaime Libbert in rehearsal for Shiloh Rules

“Sadly, men are often heard to disparage the idea of women only theatre; I have never heard a woman complain about all male shows,” says O’Neill-Butler. “Last year a play of mine, which had a cast of five women, was read at GableStage.  A well-known actor said, ‘It's such a chick story.’  I have seen several plays this season with all male casts. Not once did I think, ‘That’s such a macho story’.  Attitudes need to change. Some of my best experiences have been in plays with all women. Women are generous, giving, fun and funny to work with in rehearsal and on stage.  Although I am not a feminist, I am in favor of promoting work by women with women, which is why I work with TWTP.”