criticalrant.com Alexandra Bonifield

ON THE EVE: Maryam Baig, Brian Witcowicz

Why feminist? We women make up over half of the US populace and purchase more tickets to theatre yearly than men, even with our 77 cents to any man’s dollar earned salaries. Feminism is the radical notion that women are people. Some amazing, creative people, who happen to be women, enlivened regional theatre here in 2012. I celebrate them for their skills, talents and determination as artists. May female excellence, employment and parity in the theatre flourish.

So…why not?

Women in Charge:

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power.  You just take it.  Roseanne Barr

Visionary directors!

• Cheryl Denson (Oklahoma!, A Most Happy Fella and 1776 at Lyric Stage,): the woman channels the musical theatre genre with sheer mastery, makes it all seem fresh, natural, a pure delight to experience.
• 

  THE ELEGANT GHOST

  Danielle Georgiou: The Danielle Georgiou Dance Group (DGDG) opened Teatro Dallas’ Days of the Dead performance in November with “The Elegant Ghost”, a modern dance macabre for three dancers (Sarah Dye, Gabriel King, Nanci Mendoza). Out of this world, it blended movement, ethereal imagery and emotion with uncanny symmetry.

A Binder Full of Actors:

I feel there is something unexplored about woman that only a woman can explore.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Fearless veracity. Vulnerability. Craftsmanship. Charisma. Oceanic depth.

O’KEEFFE! Carolyn Wickwire

• Carolyn Wickwire: Superior Donuts & O’Keeffe! (latter directed by Ouida White) (Theatre Three, and touring)
• Nancy Sherrard: August: Osage County (WaterTower Theatre); Beauty Queen of Leenane (Kitchen Dog Theatre)
• Lulu Ward: Boeing Boeing! (WaterTower Theatre, directed by Robin Armstrong); Counting the Ways (Festival of Independent Theatres, WingSpan Theatre, directed by Susan Sargeant)
• Amber Nicole Guest: A Most Happy Fella (Lyric Stage)
• Marisa Diatolevi: Still Consummate (PRIDE Fest: Uptown Players)
• Barrett Nash: My Name Is Rachel Corrie (Festival of Independent Theatres: Rite of Passage Theatre)
• Marti Etheridge: Coyote (Nouveau 47); The Better Doctor (Upstart Productions)
• Maryam Baig: On The Eve (Nouveau 47 and Home by Hovercraft)
• Denise Lee: Avenue Q (Theatre Three); “THE LEGENDS CONTINUE: Women Who Have Made Their Mark On American Music”, A Cabaret (Sammons Center for the Arts)
  

  A MOST HAPPY FELLA: Amber Nicole Guest, Catherine Carpenter Cox

The Play’s the Thing:

I ask no favors for my sex…. All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks. Sarah Moore Grimké

• The True History of the Tragic Life and Triumphant Death of Julia Pastrana, The Ugliest Woman in the World (Amphibian Stage Productions)
• My Name is Rachel Corrie (Rite of Passage Theatre at FIT 2012)
• On The Eve (Nouveau 47 & Home by Hovercraft)
  

  ON THE EVE: Tara Magill, Greg Lush, Martha Harms

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is:  I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.  Rebecca West, “Mr. Chesterton in Hysterics: A Study in Prejudice,” The Clarion, 14 Nov 1913, reprinted in The Young Rebecca, 1982

I’ll post my Best of 2012 in N. Texas theatre before January 1, 2013, which will include both sexes, duh….