WASHINGTON, D.C: The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, in partnership with the National New Play Network (NNPN) and the New Play Exchange (NPX), has announced the creation of International Women’s Voices Day. It will be on Jan. 21, 2018, which marks the one-year anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March. As part of that day, the organizations encourage theatres around the world to host free readings of unproduced plays by women.
The event will be held in conjunction with the Women’s Voices Theater Festival (Jan. 15-Feb. 15, 2018), where theatres around Washington, D.C. will produce new plays by women.
“NNPN is thrilled to partner with the Women’s Voice Theater Festival to create this worldwide celebration of new works by women,” said Nan Barnett, the executive director of NNPN, in a statement. “And now, with NPX, any theatre, anywhere, can find an unproduced play by a woman writer that’s perfect for their programming and mission and share it with their audiences.”
Theatres interested in hosting a free play reading for International Women’s Voices Day should email iwvd@womensvoicesdc.com for more information. Those wishing to look for a play can use NPX®, which contains more than 15,000 new plays and musicals from artists in 45 countries, including information on more than 6,000 full length, unproduced plays by women, more than 2,500 of which are available for immediate download. Free one-year subscriptions to the first 100 theatres requesting access to NPX before November 15, 2017. All companies after the first 100 will receive access to the database at a discounted rate of $20.
Female playwrights who are interested in creating a profile on NPX so that their work can be discovered on the database can do so at a discounted rate of $7 before Nov. 15, 2017. Writers should also email iwvd@womensvociesdc.com for a discount code.
The Women’s Voices Theater Festival was held for the first time in the fall of 2015 and is the largest theatre festival in the country for women. In 2018, 25 area theatres will produce full productions of new plays by women. Participating companies are 4615 Theatre Company, Alliance for New Music-Theatre, Ally Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Brave Spirits Theatre, Convergence Theatre, dog & pony dc, Folger Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company, Nu Sass Productions, Olney Theatre Center, Pointless Theatre Co., Rainbow Theatre Project, Rapid Lemon Productions, Rep Stage, Round House Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Spooky Action Theater, Studio Theatre, Taffety Punk Theatre Company, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company will all have their plays featured.
