Carolyn Gage – författare

A play with intense audience participation! Engrossing controversial courtroom drama where the audience must serve as judge and jury deciding motions and verdict in a case against the five women who betrayed the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov the last surviving daughter of the Tsar of Russia. Complex ethical questions on a set of folding chairs.The Anastasia Trials is a farcical but profoundly engaging excursion into the hidden world of ethics for women who are both survivors and perpetrators of abuse toward women. The format is a play-within-a-play where a radical feminist theatre company comes together in order to perform a courtroom drama. The play is shaped by the audience decisions to overrule or sustain the attorneys' motions and every night's audience sees a different play.In presenting the play the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade has instituted a new system to insure equal opportunity for the actors: a lottery. As the women assemble to draw their roles from the hat for the evening's performance sisterhood is put to the test. The performance itself is a conspiracy trial against five women accused of denying a woman her identity. The plaintiff is none other than Anastasia Romanov sole survivor of the massacre of the Russian imperial family in 1918."Elegantly conceived...A feminist Noises Off." - Washington City Press"Powerful." -San Diego Lesbian Press"Farce social history debate play agitprop audience participation melodrama satire [that] makes the head reel!" -San Diego Union Tribune"Wild... It's lively and moves quickly... Very funny yet poignant." -Washington Blade"Carolyn Gage's raucous multilayered script explores issues of empathy loyalty and betrayal among women..." --The Washington Post."Verdict: An unexpected delight... " --Miami Herald FL."... farcical humor imaginative plot twists and just pure theatrical fun..." --South Florida Sun-Sentinel Ft. Lauderdale."... fascinating and complex play..."--Fresno Beehive.com"I am constantly amazed at Carolyn's ability to make complex social issues not only accessible but also irresistibly fascinating... the play... [The Anastasia Trials ] touched us made us laugh and gripped us in a white-knuckle intensity usually found only in Hitchcock films." --R.J. McComish Literary Manager of the Portland Stage Company Portland Maine."... fabulously interesting brilliantly thought-provoking and exquisitely funny... masterpiece of feminist theater..." --off our backs Washington DC."Each performance could potentially have a different result and many students saw every performance just so they could see how the show ended."--At Oldfields Glencoe MD.

Five members of a play selection committee have gathered in the green room to choose the plays for their Festival of Poorly-Written Plays. The artistic director begins with a review of the more common criteria for a bad play: blatant exposition and contrived names for the characters. He then suggests that they all go around the table and introduce themselves and say a little something about themselves - blatant exposition if ever there was. As he calls on Hedda the literary manager and Mrs.

Joan of Arc led an army to victory at seventeen. At eighteen she engineered the coronation of a king. At nineteen she went up against the Catholic church...and lost. Her trial lasted five months and the testimony by witnesses was carefully transcribed by notaries. Twenty years after her death a new trial was authorized and again detailed records were kept. There was testimony by her childhood playmates by her parents by the women who slept with her by the soldiers who s

Take Stage! is the first comprehensive "how-to" book for lesbians wanting to produce or direct lesbian theatre. Controversial and anecdotal, Take Stage! is written for the lesbian with no previous experience with theatre or lesbian organization. In addition to chapters on auditioning, rehearsals, selecting the script, booking space, and assembling a staff, the book includes chapters on issues of special interest to lesbians.Take Stage! includes information on how to challenge the "isms"—lookism, racism, classism, ageism, and other prejudices with which lesbian culture is currently engaged. It also looks at problems of accountability in non-hierarchal structures, boundary-setting among all-volunteer staffs, sabotage via hidden agendas or disassociative behaviors, horizontal hostility, and internalized homophobia. The appendix contains sample contracts, audition forms, light plots, budgets, and schedules.From the decision to produce the play to opening night and touring, Take Stage! covers all the bases and provides a healthy dose of moral support.