Williams College Diary #2

March 1, 2012

Williams College

Dearest,

It's nice to ride up the Taconic Parkway to Williamstown, MA with a good cup of coffee in your hands, looking over the snow-covered landscape while The Monkeys play on the radio. Davy Jones has just passed away. He kissed Marcia Brady. I think 'Daydream Believer' was my favorite Monkey's song.

Something to always remember when you are on a road trip - Dunkin Donuts has really good coffee. I like my first cup of coffee for the day with half and half and two sugars regardless of the size of the coffee. At the road stop I pay and leave without my coffee. The woman working behind the register yells over "You want your coffee?" I do. I do want my coffee.

I haven't spent much time in the Berkshires. It is beautiful. The horses are shaggy and are all wearing blankets. I find that endearing. The barns that are falling down even though they are loaded with brand new equipment confuse me. We pass many of them. I suppose it is too expensive to fix a barn. We pass the Country Store in Chatham, NY, which brings back childhood memories for Aphra. Ask her about them – her email is on our web site.

Now to the point of this entry: The Williams College show. The mainstage at the ’62 Center is beautiful. It’s the largest stage we've performed on this year. It’s the theatre that the Williamstown Theatre Festival (WTF) uses. Not all colleges and universities have actual theaters like this. The dressing room and green room are huge. Everyone we meet and work with is amazing. We will be the only play written by a woman to perform on this stage this season. And there you have it.

Women playwrights do not get produced. I'm impressed with the number of female playwrights who produce their own work because they will die if their story doesn't get told. This means renting a theater, paying the actors/directors, advertising, etc. Which in other jobs would be just like:

- If a female playwright were a surgeon to be 'produced' she would have to rent an operating room and pay someone to operate on.

or even worse:

- If a female playwright were a surgeon who couldn't 'produce' herself, she would work all day at her 'I'm an administrator in a hospital job and play 'Operation' all evening.

and the final straw:

- If a female playwright were a surgeon who could not produce herself or bear to be in a hospital because it wasn't what she was trained for, she would have to buy a menagerie of Barbie’s and Kens from Wall Mart (super center), come home every night from 'some' job, remove Barbie's appendix, fix Ken's hernia, eat a pint of ice cream and go to bed.

Ta,

Edith Evans