Thursday, October 8, 2015

Act Like a Feminist Artist - coming to a town near you for Women's History Month!

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GUERRILLA GIRLS
ON TOUR!
ANNOUNCES OUR BRAND NEW
INTERACTIVE LECTURE TOUR


Act like a Feminist Artist 

what no one told you about 

starting a grassroots

Act Like a Feminist Artist – is budget friendly. Call or email now for more information about how to bring Act Like A Feminist Activist to your town.  aphra@guerrillagirlsontour.com




GUERRILLA GIRLS ON TOUR
LIMITED EDITION PORTFOLIO  NOW ON SALE:


GUERRILLA GIRLS ON TOUR!
Monkey Business: The First 10 years


Guerrilla Girls On Tour's Poster Workshop
 
 
Guerrilla Girls On Tour is an anonymous touring theatre company of 26 women trained in a variety of comedic theatre techniques who develop unique and outrageous activist plays, performance art and street theatre.  The troupe has presented over 200 performances and workshops around the world dramatizing issues such as women’s history, sex trafficking, hunger, body image and violence against women.  In order to throw focus on the issues we address each of us performs under the name of a dead woman artist. 

 
Members include:  Gracie Allen, Bea Arthur, Josephine Baker, Aphra Behn, Lili Boulanger, Fanny Brice, Coco Chanel, Julia Child, Alice Childress, Liz Claiborne, Cheryl Crawford, Maya Deren, Isadora Duncan, Edith Evans, Alexandra Exter, Hallie Flanagan, Emma Goldman, Lorraine Hansberry, Frances Harper, Edith Head, Audrey Hepburn, Laura Keene, Eva Le Gallienne, Carole Lombard, Lisa ‘Left Eye’ Lopes, Fanny Mendelssohn, Edna St Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, Edith Piaf, Anne Sexton, Sophie Treadwell, Lupe Velez, Azucena Villaflor and Anna May Wong.

CONNECT WITH GUERRILLA GIRLS ON TOUR:
 
"...an air of celebration and some potent satire!" - The London Times
 
"No one characterizes the humor and humanity of the women's movement better than Guerrilla Girls On Tour!" -- Gloria Steinem
 
Act Like
A Feminist Artist

 
Ever wonder what it’s like to be a feminist masked avenger? Aphra Behn is hitting the road this Spring with her interactive lecture, Act Like a Feminist Artist– what no one told you about starting a grassroots movement.  

Aphra Behn shares her experiences as a feminist activist and artist for almost 20 years as a member of Guerrilla Girls (1997-2001) and Guerrilla Girl On Tour! (2001 – present). Revealing the inside workings of the grassroots groups, she discusses the successes (protests; fax blitzes; speak-outs and street theatre); the struggles (hate mail; death threats; backlash) and the downright defeats (sabotage; infighting). Act Like a Feminist Artist 
is a 60 to 90 minute interactive talk, audience members will be challenged to rethink the concepts of what it means to be an “activist,” “artist,” and “feminist.” The talk is framed with readings from Aphra’s upcoming memoir, “UN/MASKED, My Secret Identity Revealed” (Skyhorse Publications, October 2016.) A lively Q and A follows every talk. 
(Dana Berger in "We Are Theatre" )
 
INSPIRE! EDUCATE! MOTIVATE!  
Guerrilla Girls On Tour! is thrilled to publish WE ARE THEATREan evening of kick ass plays that stand up for gender equality.

 
WE ARE THEATRE, was produced at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in 2012 and includes plays by Tiffany Antone, Aphra Behn, Brooke Berman, Lynne S. Brandon, Paula Cizmar, Sarah Duncan, Jyl Lynn Felman, Lauren Ferebee, Dominique Fishback, Mila Golubov, Elizabeth Hess, Yvette Heyliger, Velina Hasu Houston, Penny Jackson, Andrea Lepcio, Marianne McDonald, Irina Merkina, Honor Molloy, Brighde Mullins, Vince Peterson, Sophia Romma, Laura Shamas, Mary Steelsmith, Caridad Svich, Kathleen Warnock, Sheilah Rae, Theresa Rebeck, Thelma Virata de Castro, Shay Youngblood and
Guerrilla Girls On Tour!

Read an excerpt: http://guerrillagirlsontour.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/WE-ARE-THEATRE-EXCERPT.pdf
 


(Drae Campbell in "We Are Theatre" 

 
In 2001 Guerrilla Girls split into three new and independent groups – Guerrilla Girls On Tour, Guerrilla Girls BroadBand and Guerrilla Girls, Inc,.
 
Guerrilla Girls On Tour is a touring theatre company founded by three former members of Guerrilla Girls.  We are a separate organization from Guerrilla Girls, Inc. and our focus is to develop new and original plays, performances and workshops that dramatize women’s history and advocate on behalf of women and artists of color in the performing arts.
 

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Reporting from the Front: WPIC Cape Town, South Africa—Part 3

In this special three-part series, Aphra Behn from Guerilla Girls On Tour reports on the recent Women Playwrights International Conference (WPIC) in Cape Town, South Africa. 

To read the report click below:

http://howlround.com/reporting-from-the-front-the-tenth-women-playwrights-international-conference-in-cape-town-south-1

Delegate Nehprii Amenii (USA). Photo by Nehprii Amenii.

Monday, June 15, 2015

THE HERSTORIC 2015 TONY AWARDS

Occupy Broadway




I loved the metaphor Lisa Kron used in her Tony acceptance speech for best book of a musical. She said that the house we all occupy has many rooms but that we seem to just stay in the living room.  Cheerfully egging us on she declared, “Wouldn’t it be great if after this season we didn’t just all go back into the living room?”  

Guerrilla Girls On Tour used to use similar imagery whenever someone asked us why we were demanding more plays by women be produced.  We would smile and throw our hands on our gorilla-masked faces and exclaim, “You can eat strawberry ice cream all your life but we are here to tell you that there are many other interesting flavors available!”

Along with so many other theatre artists and fans I am thrilled at Kron’s win as well as Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron’s Tony for best score, making them the first all female musical writing team to win. But waking up the morning after the awards I had to drag myself out of bed because I know what is coming and it exhausts me.

I fear that instead of a steady increase of women writers on Broadway, everything will go back to the same-old, same-old next season.  And by same-old I mean that women and people of color will be tokenized – there will be one of us working at any one time so that when Broadway is accused of being sexist and racist they can point to that one woman or artist of color in any category to “prove” that women and artists of color are indeed thriving on Broadway.

This year it was reported that Broadway would see an “explosion” of women with shows by three female composers, five female lyricists, two female bookwriters, four women directors and two female playwrights. Yet, for the 2015 Tony Awards, women were shut out of nominations for direction of a musical, choreography, costume design of a play and orchestrations. Only three acting nominees were non-white and those comprised the total number of people of color nominated in any category.  Yes, you read that correctly, there were only three people of color nominated across all Tony categories including the special Tony awards.

Guerrilla Girls On Tour launched several sticker campaigns at the turn of the century aimed at theatres that did not produce any plays by women.  We would head into the bathrooms during intermission and place these stickers in the toilet stalls.



After stickering these theatres for few months they would announce that their next seasons would include one play by a woman at which we would rejoice (and take full credit for the change). But we noticed a pattern.  After producing a season that included women these theatres would go back to seasons of plays by white men, pointing to their previous season as proof of their dedication to diversity.  In fact, there are many theatres in New York and across the US that still do not include one single play by a woman or writer of color in their entire mainstage seasons. (The Roundabout is one with a consistent track record for seasons by all white male playwrights.)

Presenting one play by a woman or a person of color in a 5 or 6 play season is not enough. One or two Tony’s to women composers, playwrights, directors, bookwriters is not enough.  Without the vision of women and artists of color, the theatre is like a musical without a second act.  The solution to the static face of theatre and the slow pace of change on Broadway could be very simple.

So yes, Lisa Kron, you are absolutely right and I thank you for mentioning the many rooms in the mansion known as Broadway where creativity lives. Let us all now rise from our comfy sofas, love seats and easy chairs and explore the mansion, shall we?



Saturday, April 11, 2015

Hello followers of guerrillagirlsontour blog!  


We know we have not been very consistent with posting on our blog. 

That is about to change!


We realize there is a void of feminist voices
a need for feminist posts
and we want to know what you'd like to hear about. 

We have a few ideas of what our next few months of blogging should focus on:


1) We Are Theatre - how do female playwrights fit into the patriarchal theatre world? 


2) Woman is President, If Woman Want it.  Grab your raincoats - as soon as Hillary announces her campaign the mudslinging and backlash will begin.



3) If Margaret Sanger were alive today - The current state of the uterus report.



4) All of the above.

Please weigh in with your preferences in the comments section!

Thank you.

Kisses,
Guerrilla Girls On Tour

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Guide to the latest additions to the sexual misconduct and harassment code for the theatre (abridged)

In light of the recent offstage violent actions between a past Tony Award nominee and fellow theater star who were dating each other and performing as the title lovers in a Shakespearean tragedy, the sexual misconduct and harassment code of the theatre has added the following clarifications.  (Keep in mind that we are in the business of make believe and there may be special circumstances by which sexual misconduct and harassment are tolerated so that the intent of the playwright and the vision of the director remains intact.) These additional, unenforceable codes apply to all members of the professional theatre community as of today. 

CASTING:
If you are asked to take off your clothes at an audition you must be given a reason i.e. the production is a bare bones version of the play; the producer is considering doing the play in repertory with “Oh, Calcutta”; the director wants to see you naked.

REHEARSALS:
Make out scene rehearsals shall follow these guidelines:
(1) There shall be a five-minute break after 55 minutes of making out or a 10-minute break at the conclusion of 80 minutes of a make out rehearsal.
(2) Actors shall not rehearse making out more than five consecutive hours without a meal break of at least one hour.  
(3) There shall be a 12-hour recovery period between the end of a make out rehearsal on one day and the beginning of a make out rehearsal on the next day.

PERFORMANCES:
The following acts must be performed a maximum of 8 times a week if written into the script:
flirting
kissing
arguing
fighting
groping
stripping
having sex*
*may be simulated

NOTE: Highly sexualized musicals such as “Cabaret” may also include the following:
ass slapping
nipple tweaking
after hours dating

If weaponry is used in any of the above a qualified fight captain must be present. A qualified fight captain is any person trained in weaponry, experienced in weaponry, knows what the word weaponry means, or is a former boyfriend of the stage manager.

PROTOCOLS FOR REGISTERING GRIEVANCES

If you think you have experienced sexual misconduct and/or harassment (please refer to the guidelines entitled “Complete Guide to the sexual misconduct and harassment code for the theatre (abridged)” you may report infringements as follows:

If you are an actor notify the stage manager.
If you are the stage manager notify the producer
If you are the producer notify the dialect coach
If you are the dialect coach notify the orchestrator
If you are the orchestrator notify the dance captain
If you are the dance captain notify the director
If you are the director assemble the cast together and discuss the claims of the person who has filed the grievance. Moderate a 45 minute session focusing on what should be done. Listen to everyone’s ideas and thank them all for sharing.  Then, inform whoever it is who complained (if you don’t remember it is usually the person with the black eye) that they are free to leave the production asap.
Take everyone out for drinks.**

** This is the only circumstance under which it is permissible for actors to perform drunk.

For more information see: "Sex and Violence, Beyond the Script
http://nyti.ms/18NyLkg