Kyle Mills / Post Independent
Last year, VOICES board member Kristin Carlson came to Renee Prince, VOICES executive/artistic director, with a copy of a Dramatists Guild study.
According to Prince, the study said only 22 percent of American theater produced in the last three years had been written by female playwrights.
Carlson, a writer and teaching artist from Old Snowmass, said she was shocked when she read that number.
“Twenty percent is too few, especially when women buy over 60 percent of the tickets,” Carlson added.
“I was spurred by a feeling of inequality and how varied those numbers were. It made us think, what would happen if we put a whole bunch of women together?”
To address the lack of parity, Prince brought the idea of an all-female theater piece to Barbara Reese, founder of VOICES.
“I founded VOICES in the first place because I didn’t have a voice and never had one,” Reese said. “So I know how important that is, to be able to say something that is very important to you.”
Fast forward to earlier this year, together they assembled a diverse and powerful cast of actors, writers, dancers, directors and producers.
“Renee was talking about doing a women’s project, and I said ‘yes,’” veteran theater performer Trary Maddalone LaMee of Glenwood Springs said.
“I jumped onboard immediately.”
The team, made up Trary Maddalone LaMee, Julie Pickrell, Iliana Rentería Bernal, Alya Howe, Cassidy Willey, Gabriela Alvarez Espinoza, Barbara Reese, Kristin Carlson, Renee Prince, Suzie Brady and Shelby Lathrop, first came together in April to begin work on the new Women’s Voices Project.
Tasked with collaborating together to create an original theater piece showcasing female theater-makers, contributors were challenged to bring their visions and voices to the stage as authors, directors and ensemble members, with each woman creating a 10- to 15-minute segment of the show.
“None of us realized our ideas would take so much work. This was a crash course in theater advisement, which Renee does with the high school students,” Kristin Carlson said. “We figured adults could do it, but it’s hard.”
The diverse cast and crew includes veterans and a few rookies to the stage.
“We are going to have poetry, story telling, dance — and it’s been a really empowering, creative process for all of us,” first-time performer Bernal said.
A resident of New Castle, Bernal said Prince has been so supportive.
“All of us came up with our own ideas, complete freedom, creating whatever we want to create,” Bernal said.
For Reese, this is her first time on stage.
“I’m leaning heavily on everyone; it’s exhilarating,” Reese said.
“The whole production crew is amazing. I’m learning so much, and you don’t realize the depth of what goes into it,” she said.
Carbondale resident Howe, a dance and performance artist, has performed in the valley for several years, but never in a project of this magnitude. She said it’s been like heaven working with this group of women.
“Absolutely inspiring … for me it has been collaborative on so many different levels and in a way that it being a totally female-voiced program,” Howe added.
“The connections and layers have been deeply moving and inspiring. The support has been uncanny for exploring our voices, and really bringing it forth,” she said. “And, yet, there is such a wide perspective of female voices here.”
The cast will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Thunder River Theatre in Carbondale for a three-show run.
“The experience has been incredible, to be working with a group of amazing goddesses. It’s so inspiring, and I feel so grateful for the experience of having a safe space to create,” said Willey, also from Carbondale. “I’m really excited about what we have to share with people this weekend.”
For more information, contact Prince, executive director of VOICES, at renee@amplifyingvoices.org. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased online at http://www.amplifyingvoices.org or at the door.
