SUMMER 2012

Feminists Are Funny

at the 9th Women's

Playwrights International

 Conference in Stockholm

This summer we are proud to be touring to Sweden for
the first time - performing a special edition of
 Feminists Are Funny at the 9th Women's Playwrights
International Festival in Stockholm on August 18th. 
The National Theatre of Sweden - Riksteatern - is the 
host of the Conference and the theme this year is the
 democratic stage. Will we see you in Stockholm? 
It's a great opportunity to meet women in theatre, build
 networks and create genuine, lasting contacts between 
like-minded women playwrights from around the world. 
For more info visit the conference website:  
http://wpic.riksteatern.se/

SAVE THE DATE:

WE ARE THEATRE

SPEAK-OUT

Protest sexism in theatre September 24th at the

Cherry Lane Theatre in NYC 

What do Theresa Rebeck, Kate Bornstein, Shay Youngblood, Brighde Mullins, Caridad Svich, Andrea Lepcio, Honor Molloy, Kathleen Warnock, Laura Shamas, Penny Jackson, Paula Cizmar and Velina Hasu Houston have in common?  Their short plays are featured in WE ARE THEATRE  - a speak out about the lack of parity for women playwrights. Organized by Guerrilla Girls On Tour!, 50/50 in 2020 and the Women’s Initiative members of the Dramatists Guild, WE ARE THEATRE is an afternoon of monologues, skits, songs and scenes addressing sexism in theatre.  By raising our theatrical voices we will advocate on behalf of the millions of women theatre artists around the globe via and take steps towards a day when gender parity in the performing arts will be the status quo.

 

For updates re tickets for WE ARE THEATREfollow our facebook page  http://www.facebook.com/WeAreTheatre

NEBRASKA!

How much do I LOVE touring to RED STATES? Let me count the ways:

1) The people come out in droves…they drive from cities and towns hours and hours away because they support feminism and want to show that there are feminists everywhere – even in conservative red states.

2) You get to see landscapes (corn fields) and wildlife (horses) that you don’t see walking down 2^nd Avenue.

3) People talk A LOT during the Q and A’s after our performances

4) People talk A LOT during “Announcements from the Audience” and tell us about cool events like the WOMAN HOUSE project at UNL Lincoln.

5) Our student volunteer picks the name of a dead woman artist we’ve never heard of before i.e. Elmira “Buffalo Bone” Jackson. Check her out: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/A-Spectacular-Collection-of-Native-American-Quilts.html

6) The car rental place gives you a Lincoln Town Car because you are in Lincoln, NE.

Edith Evans and sculpture at Sheldon Museum of Art

Guerrilla Girls On Tour! made their very first visit to Nebraska today – Bea Arthur, Edith Evans and myself, Aphra Behn, were thrilled to fly to Omaha and drive to Lincoln in our Lincoln. What a tank!

We performed “Feminists Are Funny, the Corn Huskers edition” to a sold out audience at the Sheldon Museum of Art on the UNL campus. The UNL campus sits smack in the middle of Lincoln so the campus is fully integrated into the city. After a fantastic introduction by museum director Jorge Daniel Veneciano, we hit the stage and didn’t come up for air until the standing ovation. Yes, Corn Huskers rocked the house and were the most amazing audience we’ve had this season – thank you, thank you for being so vocal, so with it and so much a part of our show. We pride ourselves in the audience participation parts of “Feminists Are Funny” and you did not disappoint. We cannot wait to return.

Monkey Love,

Aphra Behn

March 12, 2012

Mansfield University, PA tour diary

March 5, 2012

Dear Diary,

Sheep and kittens and feminists, Oh my! It is so exciting to find all these things in Mansfield, Pennsylvania.

“Feminist are Funny: the Mansfield University Edition” was a hit and it was great to feel the audience become energized by funny feminists. In fact, the audience took over the show during our new song “Our Words” as they roared “lesbian”, “vagina”, and “feminist” with such enthusiasm that I bet it could be heard clear across campus. Way to reclaim some female words, Mansfield University!

Isadora Duncan, backstage at Mansfield, U!

After the show it was great to talk to some of the women of Mansfield who fight for equality on campus and beyond. From the female editors of the newspaper to people who work with HAVEN and REACT helping to end violence against women we were glad to hear that fighting sexism is taking many different forms in Mansfield. Thanks, gals, for taking some of our posters with you!

And now for the Isadorable part of the visit...

View from our rooms at the Arvgarden B and B

It was a joy to stay at the Arvgarden where we meet a barn full of sheep and cats. These sheep had spunk and will need it, for they will be giving birth to baby lambs in the weeks ahead (raised for their wool).

Isadora Duncan and Bea Arthur with lambs

It was also great to talk with innkeepers Hilma and Keith about spinning yarn, weaving, and the local history of northern Pennsylvania. We even got to hear about Hilma’s great great grandmother who kept a detailed diary of her life, family, and farming. She reminded me of the importance of keeping a diary like this one for GGOT.

Peace Out,

Isadora Duncan

Dear Diary,

You think Guerrillas are crazy? Try a night in the Pennsylvania countryside with a flock of sheep and some feminists from Mansfield University...Those sheep will run you ragged!

We had quite an adventurous time over in Mansfield, PA with the enthusiastic crowd that assembled for “Feminists Are Funny”. After traveling over hill and dale and even enlisting a Sherpa guide at one point (a long story...) we reached the beautiful Tioga county, where Mansfield University is smack dab in the middle, with a campus carved out of a mountainside. As we ascended campus to the theater building, I was reminded of visiting the island of Delos in Greece and ascending high above the ruins of the ancient town to the temple of the highest honor: the theater! This was a good sign for Mansfield, I thought. It was a good omen and we enjoyed a great audience with enthusiastic feminists, many of whom happened to be young men, who laughed AND asked questions. Thanks to our brothers in solidarity! My only disappointment in our Mansfield University show was the apparent lack of women-supportive activities on campus, especially in March of all times, when it's supposed to be Women's History Month. I was relieved somewhat at the end of show to hear about women's centers in the area and a plea from a lone female on the boxing club for other women to join. How bad-ass is that? She should have a bunch of women join up now. Maybe they can box in Guerrilla Girls on Tour! masks like the wrestlers in Mexico!

xx- Bea Arthur

Aphra's Rollins College Diary Part I

The past week we have been in residence at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida as part of their fabulous Winter Park Institute which brings together “leading scholars and artists not simply to give a lecture or performance, but to engage and share time and ideas with our students…” http://www.rollins.edu/wpi/

Gloria Steinem asks the Veteran Feminists of America in the audience to stand up and take a bow!

During the week we led workshops in combining activism and art and ended it all with a performance of “Feminists Are Funny” in Tiedtke Hall on October 29th. All of our activities coincide with the celebration of the 45^th anniversary of the modern feminist movement and there are many important feminists here including Gloria Steinem, NOW President Terry O’Neill, Eleanor Pam and congresswoman Patricia Schroeder.

It was wonderful to feel like you were in the thick of feminism, going from feminist workshop to feminist group dinners to speeches, panels and informal chats. There are old and young feminists here, new and seasoned feminists; angry and happy feminists all sharing, questioning and hugging each other.

Poster Workshop

Some of my memories of the week include a young theatre student asking us: “You are an activist theatre company? Isn’t that, like, old?”

Poster workshop themes

During the panel discussion we found that some professors do not want to identify as feminists. That some students fit into clear gender stereotypes while most do not. That the mandatory freshman orientation play that trains students on how to address date rape and sexual violence on campus was not booked this year. That the hot line number for anyone who has been sexually assaulted on campus is incorrect on the flyers. That those flyers can’t be put up because there are no flyers allowed on campus. That a film crew wanted to shoot here but said it didn’t look like a college campus because there were no flyers anywhere. That some students put up flyers anyway. That some feminists are comfortable jumping down anyone’s throat who attempts to disempower them. That this readiness to stand up for the feminist cause is a good thing but can also be a bad thing because it can keep us from engaging in productive dialogue. That this lack of dialogue makes feminism feel stagnant. That wearing our gorilla masks around Halloween makes people think we are just adult trick or treaters. More about our performance of “Feminists Are Funny” in part 2.

Iowa Diary #2

Yo diary!

Our journey to Iowa began with two warm tropical plane trips and a short drive to our hotel. What else was there to do but go to Aphra Behn’s favorite store, Wal Mart?

We went for a wonderful dinner in Downtown Cedar Falls called Bourbon Street, and although they didn’t have bananas, they did have some lovely New Orleans food, including Pickle Chips, which were a delight.

The day of the show, we returned to Wal Mart for a lovely photo shoot, where we danced around the aisles looking for as much interesting food as possible. Aphra also got several bras on sal for our opening "sunrise" bit in "Feminists Are Funny". Mine is a left over Valentines Day bra and the women in the check out line in front of us exclaimed "Oh, that's too pretty to hide!" Guess what? I'm not planning on hiding it!

Before we knew it it was time to go to the University of Northern Iowa. It was a fantastic theatre, and to my pleasure and surprise the tech went extremely well. Our student volunteer, Jessica, was very excited and she did a great job at the rehearsals.

Suddenly it was showtime and our audience was hot! We could feel the enthusiasm bursting onstage. My favorite ad libs were when Aphra described pulling the topics out of the hat as “Avant Garde” and when I had the audience all applaud for “yay, discrimination!”

The commedia skit was hilarious, as our super enthusiastic student volunteer almost stole the show. She made Edith Evans drop her cigar twice during the skit, which I thought was a slapstick routine but turned out to just be an accident. Talk about upstaging. Who knew we would have met our improvizational match in Jessica!

The Q&A was thoughtful, poignant and hilarious. Almost everyone in the packed house stayed which made it comfy and cozy.

Edith, Aphra and I headed back to our hotel exhausted but not too tired to have a cast party in Aphra's room complete with Wal Mart wine and snacks courtesy of Gloria our grad student cohort. Until we meet again Iowa...I will dream of you.

Monkey love,

Audrey Hepburn

March 29, 2011

Iowa Diary #1

Dearest book,

I’m going to give you our tour of Iowa in FOOD, since that seems to be part of the focus of our latest version of “Feminists Are Funny”. We arrived in Waterloo, Iowa on Monday March 28^th where the snow lay in huge, dirty piles all along the road to Cedar Falls. Since Subway has overtaken McDonalds as the largest restaurant chain in the US, Subway is our new favorite lunch spot and Cedar Falls did not disappoint with 3 of them! Our first day here we didn’t really have much to do so we decided to check out Wal Mart – especially since the Supreme Court was hearing arguments the very next day in the class action suit brought by women against Wal Mart for discrimination. There is no Wal Mart in New York City – we’ve kept them out so here we go, a little exploration of just how much can we buy in Wal Mart for how cheap.

Audrey and Edith don shopping sacks and away we go down the gia-normous aisles.

First of all, it appears that everything is a dollar! That’s right, those prices are truly slashed and everything is a great value!

You don’t have to buy your vodka and cranberry in separate boxes, they come together.

Found a huge sack of honey buzzers, whatever those are.

Whipped cream for all those pies we throw in our new food show.

Laundry detergent that will last a few years.

OK, enough with the Wal Mart.

We’re hungry. Off to downtown where we had a swell meal at Bourbon Street – another chain, though not as well known – with yummy New Orleans inspired entrees and fried pickles to start. Never had em, now I crave em everywhere I go.

Tuesday, March 29^th is show time day. We check into the University of Northern Iowa where Gloria, our grad student assistant brings us peanut butter cookies with M and M’s! Awesome. The tech crew is one of the best we’ve ever had and we have plenty of time to spare to dip into our back stage snacks.

The show is awesome…! Edith Evans, Audrey Hepburn and I rocked the rockin’ packed house of on your feet feminists! OK, so I was wearing my brand new yellow shoes and I did fall off the stage. But hey, anything for a good laugh and my follow up was funny. We head back to our favorite Quality Suites hotel and share a bottle of wine (that we got for cheap at, you guessed it, Wal Mart). Edith, Audrey and I have good laughs over some of the ad-libs we did during the show. The next day is a travel day – flying to Duluth and the driving to Canada – to Lakehead University at Thunder Bay! To be continued….

From a Baboon Boy

Dear Guerrilla Girls On Tour,
When I was a Sophomore in college I had the honor of seeing your performance of "Feminists of Funny". From that point on my life was changed, so much so in fact that I added a gender/women's studies major to my degree. I recently came across a situation that required all my Guerrilla Girl power! I was commissioned to write a one act-for an evening of plays all based on the same original story. Well, I come to find out that ALL the playwrights are WHITE MEN (myself being the only gay one), and NO women were involved at all. As soon as I found out I called the producer and told him I couldn't be a part of the project unless I was able to write from a female characters point of view, as well as have a full cast of Latina women, and to top it all off, my piece would have to be directed by a female. The amazing thing is, the producers totally understood, and were even supportive of my choices once they saw their mistake. This has shown me a few things, 1) Sometimes people need to be made aware of their sexism if they ever want to change it, 2) white, gay, "males", can be feminist super-heroes sometimes, and finally 3) The Guerrilla Girls On Tour change lives wherever they go!!

Your Baboon Boy,

Jean Genet

Eastern Michigan University - Guerrilla Girls On Tour

The dozen students who participated in our street theatre workshop were all energized by the end of the day and created engaging 3 minute musicals about sexual assault, transgender issues and the destruction of art. There was a lovely reception at the art gallery on campus after (currently full of women artists in a show called “Women’s Work”).

Julia Child and I tweaked the new version of “Feminists Are Funny” the next morning and we were both pleasantly surprised when we stepped onto the Sponberg Theatre stage. It’s an intimate house with about 250 seats and a savvy tech crew of students…thanks to Josh and Lorenzo for a great tech. And to Michelle Hartung – pictured at right – who spent a year organizing our tour.

We played to a SRO house and the audience was rockin’ as Julia and I went through the issues – feminism, rape, Obama, “Saturday Night Fever” (you had to be there to get this).
Engaging questions from the audience post show. We both felt very satisfied and welcomed for our Midwest tour and leave with warm memories of the funny feminists in Ohio and Michigan that we will carry in our hearts as we head east.

See us in “Feminists Are Funny” at Bridgewater State College and Penn State next. It’s not a performance, it’s a party!

Aphra Behn
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Guerrilla-Girls-On-Tour/49259246907http://www.twitter.com/GuerrillaGirlsOT© 2008

My Fellow Feminists

Going to Pittsburgh, I felt the pressure of the election; being that it is so close to the voting date. Obama's and McCain's supporters are everywhere, everywhere, everywhere! You can tell the Pittsburgh/Washington community is torn between the two political parties. I saw the McCain and Obama campaign signs all over Washington Jefferson College campus and surrounding areas. However, our message to vote was only heard by a moderate-sized audience when we performed "Feminists are Funny". I hope our message was clear and that they will vote... for Obama. ; )
I really want Obama to win. I just can't deal with another Republican President; someone who doesn't care about poor and middle class issues, health insurance coverage, affordable education, and unemployment. Everyday I read in the news that people are losing their jobs and homes. It's enough to make me lose my mind. That's why if Obama doesn't win, I vow I am moving to Toronto sometime next year. Sorry people, but that's what I have to do, since citizens of this country are not listening to the truth of the matter; and the truth of the matter is McCain can afford to lose one of his seven houses, whereas I just need a place to sleep! I'll be moving to a country where I can get free education, free health coverage, and more job opportunities. I can honestly say I have tried to be a force for change; from protesting against the war in Iraq, to writing our Senators and congressmen and women about issues of concern to me. I feel sad as I write this, because I don't know what is going to happen come Nov 4th. All I know is, it's time for change!!!!

Frances Harper
www.ggontour.com