The Power to Ask workshop with Laschever opens Women in Theatre Career Labs

GAN-e-meed Theatre Project announces The Power to Ask, a workshop for female Theatre Artists, featuring prominent author Sara Laschever who co-wrote Ask For It! How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want. The Power to Ask opens The Career Labs, an essential new program developed to address the specific challenges of Women in Theatre through skills workshops, panelist discussions, and community building, hosted by the Boston Center for the Arts.

With the skill and power to negotiate comes career advancement, salary increases, artistic growth opportunities, and increased contributions by the friends, family members, and colleagues that surround women. According to Laschever, women are less likely than men to ask for what they want but offer unique strengths in this essential form of communication. This workshop will look at "best practice" negotiation principles within issues that impact women theatre artists and explore some of the causes of women's learned propensity to avoid negotiating. Informal networking begins at 6pm; attendees should bring business/show cards and a brown bag dinner. At 6:30pm, we will begin in earnest with an hour-long presentation by Laschever, who will then lead attendees through a workshop designed to immediately enhance their negotiation skills. Attendees will walk away with practiced techniques at their fingertips to continue their own development processes, and get out there and Ask for It!

For over a year women and their supporters have gathered monthly for informal networking, dialogue, and skill sharing at as the Networking Night for Women in Theatre. Conversation often focused on the real challenges women face as they move ahead with their careers and artistic aspirations. "The Networking Nights began not just as a chance for women to enhance their relationships, but as a way for GAN-e-meed to learn what women really need to accomplish their goals. Certain topics kept coming up, and negotiation is right up there on top!' says Jen Alison Lewis, Director of The Career Labs.

"As women, we face an apparently learned attribute: not asking for what we need, want, and deserve. During this planning process alone, I discovered how much the message in the book Ask for it! encouraged me" says Lewis. "I was inspired to go beyond my comfort zone in inviting Sara Laschever, a nationally-recognized author to lead the workshop, and then in asking The Boston Center for the Arts to host and support us, which they are generously doing. This is such a powerful message for us as women."

Based on needs expressed by women in the arts, GAN-e-meed is presenting three additional Career Labs in 2011. On April 4, a round-table discussion will address "The Boston Glass Proscenium." Our mid-summer workshop "Perfecting Your Pitch" comes July 11. The 2011 series concludes on September 12 with a round-table discussion on "Balancing Act: The Work/Life continuum for Artists." "The Career Labs," Lewis continues "challenge artists to have honest discussions and generate immediate and long-terms solutions, empowering a corps of female theatre artists who are ready to take their careers in their own hands."

"I am thrilled that GAN-e-meed is taking this step forward," adds SerahRose Roth, Producing Artistic Director. "We exist not just as a Production Company, but as an advocate for the women our mission serves. Offering this series of opportunities is an important aspect of this. Launching our series with such a prominent and talented author and speaker, Sara Laschever, is the cherry on top." The Boston Center for Arts has generously donated their space for The Career Labs.
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Prominent Staff for The Career Labs
Sara Laschever is an author, editor, and cultural critic who has written about women's life and career obstacles for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Harvard Business Review, The Village Voice, Vogue, Glamour, and many other prestigious publications. She is the co-author, with Linda Babcock, of Ask for It! How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want and Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation-and Positive Strategies for Change. Her books have won rave notices from The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Week, The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The International Herald Tribune, among others.

Jen Alison Lewis has worked with GAN-e-meed since its inception as Publicity Associate and Networking Night Coordinator, as well as producing BOOBfest and directing in the One Page Play Experiment. She is a theatre director; actor on stage, screen and mic; acting coach; administrator; Mom; and President of the Friend of the Medford Family Network. Her acting work can currently be seen in new play readings at Boston Playwrights and heard in countless online trainings. She holds a BFA from NYU and is a member of Actors' Equity Association, Screen Actors Guild, and StageSource.

SerahRose Roth is a Founding Board Member and the Producing Artistic Director of GAN-e-meed. She has developed and taught innovative programs for youths through adults at New Repertory Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Yellow Taxi Productions, Boston Children's Museum, and Chicago Children's Museum. SerahRose is a consultant for the inclusion of theatre education in the early childhood classroom and has a particular passion for working with teens and classical scripts. Directing credits include Silence and Lucy Dreaming (GAN-e-meed), Electra (Newton South High School), Inherit the Wind and A Midsummer Night's Dream (Littleton High School). Acting credits include the title role in Hamlet (GAN-e-meed), Ophelia in Hamlet (First Folio Shakespeare and The Theatre Co-Op), Liz Mordan in Our Country's Good (The Theatre Co-Op), Aerosmith in Frodo-A-Go-Go: The Rings Recycled (The Free Associates) and Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest (Penobscot Theatre). SerahRose holds a BA in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University and is currently a student at Boston University's Institute for Non-Profit Management and Leadership.

About Gan-E-Meed Theatre Project
GAN-e-meed Theatre Project advances the role of women in theatre. Their inaugural 2010 season "Gender In Leadership" launched in May with an acclaimed Hamlet, featuring an all-female cast and starring SerahRose Roth in the title role. It concluded December 18 with Silence by Moira Buffini which played at the Elizabeth Peabody House in Somerville and was hailed as "rich with imagination and talent" (EDGE Boston) and "an evening of gripping theater" (ArtsFuse.org.)
The One Page Play Experiment, on display on the walls of the theatre during Silence featured a staged reading of the 14 finalists and a performance by Guest Artist Whistler in the Dark. Based on audience votes, the five winners will be produced in full during GAN-e-meed's 2011 season.
GAN-e-meed's inaugural season also included collaborations with other arts organizations for shorter engagements. Lucy Dreaming by Stacey Lane and directed by SerahRose Roth, performed as part of FeverFest2010 produced by STAB (the Small Theatre Alliance of Boston). Ties That Bind: three short plays written, directed, and about women was presented by GAN-e-meed as part of Whistler in the Dark's Second Act Series at the Factory Theatre. Funds for Hamlet were partially raised by BOOBFest: Bringing On-Stage Opportunities to Babes, a wildly successful variety show celebration hosted by GAN-e-meed at Boston Playwrights' Theatre.
The 2011 season, "Generational Collision," will be announced in the coming months. GAN-e-meed Theatre Project is currently reviewing proposals by female directors, playwrights, actors, designers, and stage managers.

GAN-e-meed Theatre Project was founded in 2009 to advance the role of women in theatre. It promotes the study of and visibility of gender bias within the theatre community and with the goal to establishing gender equity in New England theatre. For additional information about Career Labs, the upcoming season, to join the mailing list, or to learn more about GAN-e-meed, visit www.ganemeed.org.

About the Boston Center for the Arts
The Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) is a not-for-profit performing and visual arts complex that supports working artists to create, perform and exhibit new works; builds new audiences; and connects art to community. The BCA serves arts audiences through exhibitions, live performances and community events, and supports artists through affordable studio, rehearsal and performance space on our historic South End site. The BCA's two-acre campus is home to hundreds of working artists, as well as several nonprofit arts and educational groups that provide a wide spectrum of services. To learn more, please visit www.bcaonline.org.

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