The Power of the Push!

PUSH/PUSHBACK, 9 steps to make a difference with activism and art (because the world’s gone bananas) made it’s last spring tour stop as the keynote speech at Wilkes University’s Women and Gender Studies Conference.

Faculty of Wilkes and Kings, PA 

Poster making workshop 

 But first, a classroom full of students and faculty assembled to try their hands at making protest posters during a 3 hour workshop.

You are always perfect - final poster 

Feminist Artists in Workshop 

The Wilkes workshop (which was comprised of feminists from both Wilkes and Kings College in Wilkes-Barre) was one of the most focused I led. Perhaps it is the times we live in, but all participants were eager to hunker down and collaborate on some kick ass posters and sticker campaigns. Their final presentations were inspiring!

A packed house was the perfect ending to the “Art of Activism 2018” spring section of the tour.  Old friends, Karen Anselm of Bloom u and Bob Tevis of NYC Saloon days stopped by. New friends’ smiling faces bloomed from the audience and kept my spirits high all throughout the talk. At the end I sold books to some seasoned and brand new fans. It is always an honor to meet the readers of the memoir that took 4 years to write. I do not regret unmasking for a New York minute.

With Karen Anslem and Bob Tevis 

PUSH/PUSHBACK, 9 steps to make a difference with activism and art (because the world’s gone bananas) now settles down for a summer simmer while I travel to the Marble House Project for a 3 week residency in June to turn the talk into a book.

Fall tour dates are filling up, however.  If you are interested in bringing PUSH/PUSHBACK to your town sign up for the Guerrilla Girls On Tour newsletter here or check out our latest emailblast.

See you in September!

Much love and gratitude,

Aphra Behn

Saint Patrick, pray for the activists.

March 14, 2016

SETON HALL UNIVERSITY

Dear Diary,

In 2004, Guerrilla Girls On Tour! appeared at John Carroll University - a private, coeducational, Jesuit Catholic university located in University Heights, Ohio. Weeks before our show the University received emails protesting our booking, namely because we were pro-choice co-sponsors of the March For Women’s Lives held in Washington, D.C. the same year. John Carroll’s PR department decided that in order to quell the protests they would issue a statement, explaining to concerned students and citizens that Guerrilla Girls On Tour! is “wholesome and fun, with a decidedly Christian message.”

Guerrilla Girls On Tour’s mission is to advocate for equality and justice, two basic principles of Christianity. Our message, however, is that reproductive rights are human rights.  Unlike the Roman Catholic Church we are pro-choice and support Planned Parenthood.

So, what’s a Guerrilla Girl On Tour! to do when booked, twelve years later, at another Catholic University (Seton Hall) and, four days before you are to appear, discover that the University has “lost” your paperwork and demands you sign a brand new contract with new stipulations which are impossible to follow? (They wanted, among other things, for us to provide our own insurance in the amount of three million dollars and to list Seton Hall as an additional insured).

Was the University playing politics? Did they wish to censor Aphra Behn’s scheduled talk at Seton Hall entitled, “Act Like A Feminist Activist?” Was someone afraid of the “F” word?

Statue on campus of Seton Hall University 

Guerrilla Girl On Tour!, Aphra Behn’s talk, is about her early work as a member of the Guerrilla Girls. In 1997 Aphra led the GG’s foray into  addressing gender parity in theatre. The contents of Aphra’s talk would be deemed by any layperson, priest or nun to be anything but controversial.

Universities are supposedly institutions of free speech. Censorship is in direct opposition to the search for knowledge. What was going on at Seton Hall?

After summarizing and submitting the content of Aphra’s talk to the Dean she was able to proceed with her talk as scheduled The students and faculty who attended were open to ideas. During the Q and A one student asked if Guerrilla Girls On Tour! believed in LGBTQ rights. Yes!  Absolutely, we do. Another asked about transgender rights. Yes! Yes, again. Transgender people are discriminated against in all aspects of their lives and deserve equality on a range of issues.

In the end the Seton Hall talk was an eye opener. The search for knowledge continues, even in places with policies that attempt to thwart free speech. Our experiences as activists and artists and feminists teaches us that we are enriched as human beings by sharing our ideas. We are reminded that there are women and men on the front line of the fight for equality, working for the free and open exchange of concepts, even within the sacred walls of colleges and universities where ideas are supposed to flourish.

Yes, Guerrilla Girls On Tour! certainly are fun; some of us are even wholesome. Our message remains: the end of sexism will mark a more peaceful, just and equal world.

Love,

The GGOT’s

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?

FANNY MENDELSSOHN TAKES ON THE COLLEGE OF STATEN ISLAND

10/21/14

Dear Diary, 

Why, hello!  Long time no see.  It was great fun to rise up out of the grave again after a little hiatus to visit The College of Staten Island with Azucena, Isadora, and Aphra on October 21^st. 

The day started early with the journey across land and see to that far and distant borough.  We kicked off our visit with a poster-making workshop.  The group, all students in an acting class, were very engaged and got fired up about a wide variety of issues to make posters about: the Ebola media craze, parking issues at their school, domestic violence, misconceptions of feminism, animal abuse, and more.  I think my favorite poster was one made about misrepresentations of feminism, and how gendered language – like, “you throw like a girl” or “man up!” - affects men AND women.

Azucena, Isadora, and me during the workshop

A group works on a poster about “sexy” Halloween costumes

After the workshop, we had lunch and explored the College of Staten Island campus a little.  Apparently, there is a law banning smoking anywhere on all CUNY campuses city-wide – and CSI will not have you forget it!  There were so many foreboding signs reminding us that smoking was illegal, we ended up throwing some jokes about it into our performance later that evening.  We also may have sneaked a photo or two of a student blatantly smoking a cigarette in front of one of those signs…but he’ll never know it was us!  Mwahaha…the benefits of anonymity.

After lunch, we rehearsed in the beautiful theater at CSI and met our student volunteer, Crystal, who would be making her performance debut (first EVER!) with GGOT.  I love working on “Silence is Violence” because in addition to interacting with the audience and dancing and singing like the feminist fools we are, we also get to play around with scenes and play characters in our segments depicting tactics for fighting date rape.  I think Azucena’s performance of a frat boy is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen – even Crystal had trouble keeping it together in rehearsal.

The performance was a hit.  We and the audience all had great energy, and they were with us every step of the way.  There was definitely a variety of opinions in the audience in response to our feminist spin - we could tell by their responses during the show as well as by their questions  afterwards – but it was all in good spirits and overall, they were engaged and responsive and that’s the best we could ask for as performers.  

After the show, one student even came up and interviewed us so she could include us in a project she’s doing for a class.  Cool!

Thanks College of Staten Island – it was a great day!

Lots o love,

Fanny Mendelssohn

Malala Yousafzai

In a speech at the UN on her 16th birthday, Malala Yousafzai, called on world leaders to provide “free, compulsory education” for every child.

MORE: http://guerrillagirlsontour.tumblr.com