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 has been recently commissioned by the Rockefeller, Fulbright & McKnight Foundations, and is collaborating with PAJ/TCG, Romanian Cultural Institute, Brandeis' Coexistence International, Hourglass, BAM/Apollo/Big Red Media (NYC); Overtone Industries and Theater of Note (Los Angeles), etc. Her other work has been presented nationwide and in Serbia, Croatia, Russia, Czech Rep., Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Greece, Turkey, India, Great Britain and Canada. Ruth is Associate Professor at School of the Art Institute in Chicago.

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, Passage Theatre (NJ), Playwrights Arena, Jungle Theater (Minneapolis), and (short plays) at Actors Theatre of Louisville. She has attended the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and Sundance Theatre Lab. Among her many plays are: Street Stories, Candy & Shelley Go to the Desert, Still Life with Parrot & Monkey, The Death of a Miner, Venus in Orange (written with Laura Shamas), and Bone Dry. Also a screenwriter, Paula was a staff writer for two seasons on the PBS series “American Family.”

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.

Carol Mack  Playwright

Carol Mack's plays have been produced Off-Broadway, in Scotland and at many regional theaters across the U.S.A. A recipient in 2005 of a grant from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, she has just completed THE VISITOR. Premieres include: THE ACCIDENT, American Repertory Theatre; IN HER SIGHT and AFTER, Actors Theatre of Louisville. Awards include the Stanley Drama Award, Julie Harris/Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Award, Playwright Forum Award and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship. Her plays have been selected for three editions of Best Short American Plays.

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.

Catherine Filloux  Playwright

Catherine Filloux's recent plays include: Lemkin’s House (McGinn-Cazale Theatre, 78th Street Theatre Lab, NYC & Kamerni Theatre, Sarajevo); The Beauty Inside (New Georges/InterAct); Eyes of the Heart (NAATCO); Silence of God (Contemporary American Theater Festival); Mary and Myra (CATF & Todd Mountain); Photographs From S-21 (shown around the world). Filloux has received awards from the O’Neill, Kennedy Center, Omni Center for Peace and New Dramatists. Her libretti include: The Floating Box (Composer Jason Kao Hwang), New World Records and Where Elephants Weep (Composer Him Sophy), Cambodian Living Arts. Plays published by Playscripts, Inc. and others.