La Femme Theatre Productions to Expand WOMEN IN AGENCY FESTIVAL With Workshops

Following the inaugural Women in Agency Festival in 2025, La Femme Theatre Productions will deepen its investment in emerging artists with development programs of two works introduced at last year's festival. Taking place November 8–21, 2026, at CAM Studios, the workshops advance the company's commitment to giving promising playwrights and directors the resources, mentorship, and creative space to develop their work.

The first week, November 8–12, will focus on Abigail Duclos's VENGEANCE, directed by Britt Berke (La Femme's 2025 Woman on the Verge). The second week, November 16–21, will develop Tess Inderbitzin's DEJÀ DEJÀ VU, directed by Mikayla Gold Benson (La Femme's inaugural 2026 Austin Pendleton Directing Fellow). Each week will conclude with an invitation-only presentation.

La Femme launched the Women in Agency Festival in 2025 with Equity 29-hour readings of five works by female playwrights. By bringing two of those plays into more sustained development, the company is expanding the festival's role as a pathway from an initial reading to deeper artistic exploration.

“Last year's Women in Agency Festival introduced us to artists whose imagination, authorship, and fearlessness demanded our continued attention,” said Jean Lichty, Executive Director of La Femme Theatre Productions. “With these workshops, we can give Abigail, Tess, Britt, and Mikayla the time and support to ask new questions, take creative risks, and discover what comes next for these plays. That is the heart of the WIAF: meeting emerging artists' ambition with meaningful opportunity and investing in the voices that will shape theatre's future.”

VENGEANCE by Abigail Duclos; directed by Britt Berke (November 8–12) 

Following a random, unprovoked assault on the streets of New York City, a group of women gather together to learn self-defense. The class, led by a spellbinding and seductive visionary, asks, "What's the worst thing somebody's ever done to you? What's the worst thing you've ever done to somebody else?" VENGEANCE is a psycho-comedy about the seductive power of revenge. 

DEJÀ DEJÀ VU by Tess Inderbitzin; directed by Mikayla Gold Benson (November  16–21)  

5 nights. 7 people. Mid-20s. You're gay, in the city, and loneliness threatens to consume you whole. Working is hard, growing is hard, and the constellation of your social life is made up of stars 10,000,000 light-years away from each other. But if you squint from a distance, you can just make out a familiar shape...DEJÀ DEJÀ VU is a one-act that ponders the solitude and uncertainty of adulthood. With no clear path forward, how do we create our own future lest we be sucked into the abyss of mundanity?

Named in honor of longtime La Femme board member Austin Pendleton, the Austin Pendleton Directing Fellowship recognizes his extraordinary contributions to American theatre as an actor, director, and mentor. Inaugural fellow Mikayla Gold Benson received Barnard College's 2025 Dasha Amsterdam Epstein Directing Award and brings a commitment to collaborative, deeply attentive storytelling.