When you seek plays to program, scripts to buy, curriculum to teach, I want you to remember. Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project is a portrait and sound installation which seeks to bring visibility to playwrights who identify as female. Through portraits and sound excerpts we bring awareness to what remains to be widely seen and heard. Photography and concept by Jody Christopherson.
Sound plays recorded and designed by Natalie Johnsonius Neubert
Artist Statement: History, culture, change is made by those who control what is written about it and what access the public has to that information. Theater is an opportunity for many perspectives to connect directly with audiences to create change. Yet only 1/5 of the plays produced in America are written by female playwrights. At Arena Stage's first theater Summit in 2015, an answer to why these numbers are so low was posed- "because there’s not enough in the pipeline right now." "Commissioning {new work} is critical". But how do we get more voices into a pipeline? How do we find new artists to commission? Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project is a series of installations displaying portraits of contemporary playwrights who identify as female and further tells the story of the volume and diversity of voices we should be seeing on stage. As a theater maker/visual artist I seek to engage an audience through many mediums, leaving new clues in each vehicle to reveal a larger expression of a human being. An image can be powerful on it's own, yet I am acutely aware of the ways that women are objectified in print media. And we need to reach beyond that kind of limitation. In these installations the image is only one component of the portrait. Sound plays in the form of Podcasts and printed text complete each portrait. Podcasts remain on Itunes and Soundcloud after each installation closes so that they may be listened to anywhere in the world. Gallery openings include large scale sound immersions of each portrait/playwright's text. These immersions happen in near darkness and employ a homogenous sight deprivation to emphasize the sound of voices and the absence of plays that are not being seen. LISTEN TO THE PODCASTS
On iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/necessary-exposure-female/id1014603301?mt=2
On Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-341986013
"Extending the Frame for Female Playwrights" Howlround, October 15, 2015
http://howlround.com/extending-the-frame-for-women-playwrights
Necessary Exposure Playwright Micheline Auger wins NYIT Award, wears Necessary Exposure T-Shirt, Sep 28th, 2015
"Walking away with outstanding full-length script was Donkey Punch, who’s author, Micheline Auger sported one of the Necessary Exposure: The Female Playwright Project shirts stating “this is what a playwright looks like” in hopes of promoting more productions by female writers in the theatre." http://nytheatreguide.com/2015/09/theatre-news-new-york-innovative-theatre-award-winners-2015/
Broadway World, Sept 1st 2015
http://www.broadwayworld.com/off-broadway/article/NECESSARY-EXPOSURE-THE-FEMALE-PLAYWRIGHT-PROJECT-Opens-at-Dixon-Place-20150901
Female Playwrights to Take the Spotlight, Broadway World, August 29th 2015
http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Female-Playwrights-to-Take-Spotlight-in-Fall-2015-Exhibition-at-Dixon-Place-Gallery-20150828
Works by Women, Feminist Theater News, August 2015
https://worksbywomensf.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/feminist-theater-news-95-911/
NYTheater Now Interview, Dec 17, 2014
http://nytheaternow.com/Content/Article/2014-12-17-penny-jackson-interviews-jody-christopherson
