SEVEN Women / SEVEN Playwrights
Hafsat Abiola Nigeria
Hafsat Abiola, Nigeria, an advocate for human rights and democracy following the murder of her activist parents, founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, which provides skills-training and leadership opportunities for young women across Nigeria. She now helps build bridges between African and Chinese women, as China increases its engagement in the African continent.
Anna Deavere Smith Playwright
Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, teacher, playwright and creator of unique one woman plays based on interviews, Anna Deavere Smith has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, and a MacArthur Fellowship. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play: FIRES IN THE MIRROR, Ms. Smith is founder and director of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University. As an actress she has appeared in many films and on the television series WEST WING. Her new book, LETTERS TO A YOUNG ARTIST, has recently been published by Anchor Books.
Farida Azizi Afghanistan
Farida Azizi became an activist fighting the marginalization of women under Taliban rule in her native country. Because of threats on her life, she has gained asylum and now lives in the United States with her two children and works on women's rights and peace-building in Afghanistan.
Ruth Margraff Playwright
RUTH MARGRAFF's new play Harlequin, commissioned by a Playwrights' Center McKnight award, was just read at Victory Gardens (Chicago) and the New Group (NYC). Her martial arts opera Dragon vs. Eagle marks her 6th collaboration with composer Fred Ho for the Apollo and Brooklyn Academy of Music commissioned by her 4th Rockefeller award. She has toured all over the world with her Cafe Antarsia Ensemble to festivals and venues throughout the UK, Canada, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Czech Rep., Greece, Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Egypt (this summer)...signed to Innova Records. Ruth was delegated to represent the U.S. State Department on a Peaceworks Cultural envoy to Calcutta, India and received a Fulbright new opera award to Greece. She is an alumnae of New Dramatists, an active member of LPTW and Theater Without Borders/Brandeis Coexistence International, Associate Professor of playwriting at the Art Institute of Chicago, and represented by Susan Schulman.
Annabella De Leon Guatemala
Annabella raised herself and her family out poverty by getting an education. She has been a congresswoman since 1995 has received death threats because of her fight against corruption and for the rights of the poor, particularly women and indigenous peoples.
Gail Kriegel Playwright
Gail Kriegel: Artist-in-Residence at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 2005-6. She is presently developing her musical, SWEETIE, and a children’s operetta, RAINBOW JUNCTION. Gail has been widely produced. Her film FRAGMENTS won top awards at five film festivals. For her prize-winning play ON THE HOME FRONT she received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, One World Arts Grant, NYFA grant, the Ruby Lloyd Apsey Award and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Gail was Visiting Artist at The American Academy in Rome, 2005. A member of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop, her work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann Press and is included in the Archives at Lincoln Center.
Marina Pisklakova-Parker Russia
Against tremendous odds in 1993, Marina Pisklakova-Parker founded the first hotline for victims of domestic violence, which has since grown into Center ANNA, part of a coalition that has provided crisis and counseling services for 100,000 Russian women.
Paula Cizmar Playwright
Paula Cizmar's plays have been produced off-Broadway, in London, and in regional theatres from Maine to California--including Portland Stage, American Place Theatre, The Women's Project (NY), San Diego Rep, the Jungle Theater, and Playwrights Arena. She has been selected for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and Sundance Theatre Lab and is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts playwriting grant and a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation’s study center in Bellagio, Italy. She has received commissions from Actors Theatre of Louisville (short plays), Cypress College (Venus in Orange, written with Laura Shamas), and Salt Lake Acting Company (Nothing Sacred), among others. Often taking on political and social issues, her many published and produced plays include: Street Stories, The Death of a Miner, Candy & Shelley Go to the Desert, Bone Dry, and Still Life with Parrot & Monkey (to be published in the anthology Living and Writing on America’s Left Coast by Lady Murasaki Books late in 2009). Also a screenwriter, Paula was a staff writer for two seasons on the PBS series “American Family.” She teaches playwriting at the University of Southern California.
Mukhtar Mai Pakistan
Mukhtar Mai was gang raped by four men and forced to walk home almost naked in retribution for an alleged “honor crime,” Ms. Mai and her harrowing story grabbed headlines across the world. Instead of taking the traditional “women’s” route of committing suicide, she brought her rapists to justice, built schools to improve the condition of women, and became an advocate for education in her country.
Susan Yankowitz Playwright
Susan Yankowitz is a playwright, novelist and librettist. Her best-known plays include PHAEDRA IN DELIRIUM, TERMINAL, 1969 TERMINAL 1996, (collaborations with Joseph Chaikin’s Open Theatre), A KNIFE IN THE HEART, and NIGHT SKY, which has been performed throughout the U.S. and in translations world-wide. In music-theatre, she is bookwriter/lyricist for TRUE ROMANCES with Elmer Bernstein, SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT with Taj Mahal and CHÉRI with Michael Dellaira. She is a 2006 resident artist at HERE with her mixed-media play, THE LUDICROUS TRIAL OF MR. P. Her work has been honored by the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller and NYFA foundations, among others.
Inez McCormack Northern Ireland
Inez McCormack is an activist for women’s and human rights, labor, and social justice and a former President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Ms. McCormack played a critical role in the 1998 Good Friday Peace Accords and continues to advocate for equal rights and fair labor practices for women and minorities. She now chairs a program, the Participation and Practice of Rights Project, that helps the disadvantaged access resources and services in Ireland, both North and South. Ms. McCormack currently serves as chair of the Participation and the Practice of Rights Project (PPR) and in 2008 received the prestigious Irish Tatler Woman of the Year Award.
Carol K. Mack Playwright
Carol K. Mack’s plays have been produced off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the U.S.. Without A Trace had its European premiere at the Tron, Glasgow, 2002 and toured Scotland. Her new play, The Visitor, received a grant from the Foundation for Jewish Culture. Premieres include: The Accident, American Repertory Theatre; In Her Sight and After, Actors Theatre of Louisville; Territorial Rites, The Women’s Project. Awards include Stanley Drama Award, Julie Harris/Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Award and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. Her plays have been selected for four editions of The Best American Short Plays, Applause Books. Her book, A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels & Other Subversive Spirits, was published by Profile Books, London, 2008.
Mu Sochua Cambodia
Mu Sochua is the former Minister of Women's Affairs in Cambodia (one of only two women in the cabinet), she was co-nominated in 2005 for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women in Cambodia and neighboring Thailand. MP Mu Sochua, after door-to-door visits to 482 villages, won a seat in Parliament in July, 2008.
Catherine Filloux Playwright
Catherine Filloux is an award-winning playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for the past twenty years. Her plays have been produced in New York and around the world. Ms. Filloux is the author of two music theater pieces, Where Elephants Weep produced in Phnom Penh, and The Floating Box produced in New York. Her plays are published by Playscripts Inc., and her anthology Silence of God and Other Plays is published by Seagull Books, London Limited. She has received awards from the O’Neill, Kennedy Center, Omni Center for Peace and New Dramatists.