Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective
The Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective was a group of professional women playwrights in New York active from 1971 to 1975. They wrote and produced feminist plays and were one of the first feminist theatre groups in the United States to do so. The members' individual works had been produced at the Public Theater, La Mama, Joe Chaikin’s Open Theater, Caffe Cino, Circle Repertory Company, Mark Taper Forum, Lincoln Center, and New York Theater Ensemble. History The playwrights' group was one of the first feminist theatre groups in the country. Original members included Helen Duberstein, Helene Dworzan, Patricia Horan, Gwen Gunn, Christina Maile, Sally Ordway, Dolores Deane Walker, and Susan Yankowitz. Megan Terry and Dacia Maraini were among the guest playwrights. Their Advisory Board included Gloria Steinem, Muriel Rukeyser, Eleanor Perry, Florynce Kennedy, along with Margaret Croyden, Alice Denham, Elizabeth Fisher, Ellen Frankfort, Carol Greitzer, Tania, Alix Kates Shulman, and Anita Steckel. Feminist issues The plays of the Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective featured such women's issues as religious patriarchy, work-place discrimination, dominance/submission relationships, historical figures, masquerade, and sexual harassment. Subsequent to their first production, RAPE-IN, the plays transcended the limiting context of agit-prop theatre by discarding the revenge themes current in much feminist writing at the time, and instead strove to accurately reflect the complexity of women’s lives and celebrate their accomplishments. The company was especially noteworthy for writing about women's issues with lacerating humor in often absurdist situations. Christopher Olsen in his book, Off Off Broadway 1968 -1970 The Second Wave (2011), noted the playwrights’ abilities to balance a serious social message about the marginalization of women with a sense of humor and a commitment to good writing. Linda Killian, in analyzing the group’s first production, RAPE-IN, wrote that they “used humor, anger, and horror, sometimes in combination, sometimes alone. Kevin Sanders, in his 1973 WABC Eyewitness News review of WICKED WOMEN stated: “Their two earlier highly successful shows, RAPE-IN and UP!–AN UPPITY REVUE! were sharp, perceptive and fiercely satirical representations of a contemporary feminist viewpoint – a tradition maintained in this new show [Wicked Women]." Gloria Rojas of WNEW-TV Midday Live, New York agreed: “Wicked Women is outrageous, funny and, to me, a little shocking.” The group’s productions were widely and positively reviewed, and, with its theatrical emphasis, it became one of the first feminist theater groups reviewed in the New York Times on an ongoing basis. Howard Thompson in his NY Times review called the Collective's productions, "witty and original.". Mel Gussow said that the Collective's productions work both as "a course in consciousness raising and a call to arms." Debbie Wasserman in her Show Business review of The Wicked Women Revue noted, “It is certainly a pleasure to see a crusading group which doesn’t use its crusade as an excuse for bad theatre, but rather uses good theatre to assist its crusade.” Job opportunities Because it was specifically a women's playwrights’ and producing group, the Collective hired professional actors, and group members did not perform. While the