Dear Members,
As we prepare for the holiday season, we want to wish you the happiest of holidays on behalf of the Board. We look forward to seeing you at our annual holiday festivities at the Players Club on December 11th where we will honor Martha Swope, Gigi Bolt, and our very own Debra Ann Byrd; sing along with Nancy Ford at the keyboard; hold a silent auction for tickets to London; mix and mingle. Be sure to call the hotline (212-501-6667) if you plan to attend.
We are pleased to include you among our membership and trust the League can provide new contacts with women in the industry to support you in your endeavors. You should have received your new membership directory to utilize as a resource for contacts. Just reading the bios alone should make you marvel at the level of professionalism among us.
As promised, our website—www.theatrewomen.org will be launched as of January 1st. This should further enhance your familiarity with our mission and our many activities. Our busy lives leave us little time to realize the exciting work being created by our members. Just glancing at this month’s FLASH gives you a glimpse of the myriad of activities, and we urge you to support our member’s work. For example, Julia Miles, founder of the Women’s Project and of our organization has a production coming up in January. Member Julie Crosby is currently managing director and has offered a special price for League members and an outing is being planned in January. Emily Mann has a new play premiering in the spring. Those of you who attended the playwrights’ panel will recall her telling of the struggles of Elizabeth Packard, who in 1861 was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum, which is the story told based on historical events. The League will be organizing a trip to the McCarter Theatre in May or June for this production. You will be sent further details about both events.
As we move into the new year, we will be completing our fifth season of television tapings of WOMEN IN THEATRE on Channel 75 on CUNY-TV to be aired in 2007. Thus far we have taped Natasha Katz (lighting designer); Anne Cattaneo (drama-turg); Blanka Zizka (artistic director of the Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia); Carole Rothman (artistic director of Second Stage); Jo Bonney (director); Nancy Ford and Gretchen Cryer (composer and lyricist); La Chanze (actress); Cynthia Nixon (actress); Daphne Rubin Vega (actress); with more to follow. All of this would not be possible without funding from the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Lucille Lortel Foundation, and the Edith Meiser Foundation. In addition, many of you have made contributions to the League which help us in our efforts to give greater visibility to the work of women in theatre. It is much appreciated. We value your participa-tion and remind you to check on your membership status—paid up member-ships are what drives the organization and its many programs.
Mark your calendars now for the Leadership Luncheon on February 22nd, honoring the theatre community’s greatest advocate, Alliance for Resident Theatre’s (ART/NY) Executive Director, Virginia Louloudes.
Hope to see you soon!!
Joan and Harriet, Co-Presidents

Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford will perform selected songs from the musicals they have written over the years from their first New York show in 1967 to the present in the cabaret at 59E59 Sunday, December 10th at 7:30 pm and Tuesdays, December 12th and 19th at 8:30 pm. Tickets are $25.00. They may be purchased through Ticket Central by phone (212-279-4200) or on line at TicketCentral.com. There is also a one-drink minimum.

PS Classics, the label dedicated to the heritage of Broadway and American popular song, has joined forces with prolific cabaret producer Jamie deRoy on a new CD celebrating songwriters from the worlds of Broadway, pop, country and cabaret. But this new album has a twist: the songwriters are also the performers. Entitled If I Sing, after the Maltby/Shire song from Closer Than Ever, the album features 16 songwriters taking on their own material, some of it familiar, some totally unknown, in new performances and new arrangements. The theatre composers are some of Broadway’s finest, including Stephen Schwartz, Maury Yeston, Richard Maltby and David Shire, Robert Lopez and Jeff Marz, Andrew Lippa, Lucy Simon, and Gretchen Cryer and Nancy Ford, while the pop songwriters include Julie Gold and Larry Gatlin. The album is in the stores and on the web at psclassics.com. Jamie is also producing a Holiday Show on Wednesday, December 6th at 8 pm at the Metropolitan Room, 34 West 22nd Street. Reservations at 212-206-0440.

Cherry Lane Theatre’s annual Mentor Project Announcement Night will be on Monday, December 4th at 7 pm. Each finalist and mentor will read selections from their play. These include: The Secret Agenda of Trees by Colin McKenna; Lynn Nottage, Mentor; Topsy Turvy Mouse by Peter Gil-Sheridan; Michael Weller, Mentor; and 100 Saints You Should Know by Kate Fodor; Jules Feiffer, Mentor. Admission is free. Reservations at 212-989-2020, ext. 21 or slawrence@cherrylanetheatre.org.

Shirley Lauro’s latest play, All Through the Night, is a 2006 Joseph Jefferson Award nominee for “Best New Play of the Year” in Chicago where it received rave reviews, and then played in San Francisco. The play will be presented here in two consecutive evenings of theatre. Will Pomerantz will direct Ensemble Studio Theater’s Project 35; 549 W. 52nd Street, December 10 at 3 pm; admission $10 contribution, and at The Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street, December 11, 7 pm., complimentary admission, RSVP to 212-253-9983.

Women at the Barricades: Playwright’s Political Visions, the panel discussion sponsored by The League in October in association with Marymount Manhattan College, will be published in January by The Dramatists Guild’s magazine, The Dramatist. The article has been edited by League members, Alexis Greene, moderator, and Shirley Lauro, panel participant.

The following ticket offer comes from The Women’s Project, Producing Director, Julie Crosby. Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen by Kathryn Walat, directed by Loretta Greco. The World Premiere is January 12 – February 11. When uber-popular Vickie Martin joins the all-male math team, chaos theory becomes the rule at Longwood High School. Can this goddess of Pi possibly make the mathletes victorious? Totally. Just $30 for League members! For your specially-priced tickets, click BroadwayOffers.com, or call 212-947-8844 and mention code VM4LPTW. Valid for all performances except January 21. The League is also organizing a theatre party for the show—date will be announced soon.

AMAS Musical Theatre, Donna Trinkoff, Producing Artistic Director, cordially invites you to a Staged Reading of Wanda’s World, book by Eric H. Weinberger, music and lyrics by Beth Falcone, directed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett. The reading will be Wednesday, December 13 at 6 pm and Thursday, December 14 at 1 and 5 pm at Ripley Greer Studios, 520 Eighth Avenue. Please rsvp to Amas at 212-563-2565 or amasevents@aol.com.

On December 4th at 6:30 pm Caridad Svich will hold a public conversation with scholar Marvin Carlson on “Languages at Play in The Theatre”at the Segal Center at CUNY, which will feature excerpts directed by Daniel Banks from her play The Tropic of X. On December 11th at 7 pm there will be simultaneous readings of her music-theatre adaptation of Garcia Lorca’s Yerma with music by Elizabeh Swados, directed by Kay Matschullat at CSC in New York City, and her commissioned adaptation/translation of Spanish Golden Age comedy A Little Betrayal Among Friends directed by Jean Randich at Airmid Theatre at the Babylon Public Library in Babylon, NY.

Lee Hunkins writes that her second career, modeling, has finally paid off. She is in a Merck Pharmaceutical ad in the November 6th issue of Time Magazine and the November issue of Reader’s Digest, and will also, she believes, be in the December issues of Newsweek, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Day, and Prevention. She also recently became a member of New York Women in Film and Television.

Paige Price was recently elected First Vice President of Actor’s Equity Association. She has served on Equity Council as a Principal Eastern Councillor since 2001 and as Vice-Chair of the Eastern Regional Board from 2005-2006.

THE PRESIDENT’S CORNER

Our trip to London afforded the opportunity for League members to get to know each other better through our mutuality and love of theatre and to spend a few hours with our London counterparts, learning about their creative educational initiatives. We visited the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) one morning, followed by a lively panel discussion later that day at the Society of London Theatres where Rosemary Squire, the first woman president of SOLT hosted our group and the London theatre women. The panel was organized by Susan Whiddington of the Mousetrap Foundation and our London affiliate member, Jackie Elliman, and we were introduced to exciting work being done in professional training, the training of young marginalized students, and their work in prisons and with refugees. Look for Lenore DeKoven’s article about these programs in the next Roundup. Our thanks go to our hard-working Travel Committee: Lauren Scott, Dorothy Olim, and Mary Miko, who shepherded us through the mazes of travel with nary a complaint.

For those of you who are looking, our new website is ready for viewing. We hope you find it useful and that you will visit us often at www.theatrewomen.org to stay conversant with our programs and activities. You will be sent a password in a separate mailing, once we get the bios launched, which requires special access. The password will be provided for your use as long as you are a paid-up member. Therefore, the password will be changed periodically.

The future looks very bright for the League with the exciting exhibition: 100 Years of Women in Design: Costume, Lighting and Set Design, in association with the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. This groundbreaking event is being curated by our treasured Board member and celebrated costume designer, Carrie Robbins. Not too early to mark your calendars for November 19th. The exhibition will run through May 3rd, 2008 in the Library’s Oenslager Galleries.

Our February events are fast approaching, so be sure you note the Gypsy Robe event at the Library in honor of Black History Month which the League is happy to co-sponsor with Actors’ Equity on February 12th. Our Leadership Luncheon with Virginia Louloudes is at Sardi’s on February 22nd, so make reservations now if you wish to attend these events and extend invitations to friends and colleagues you would like to introduce to the League.

Cordially, Joan and Harriet