WOMEN'S WORK 2015: Marilyn Anselmi's MAMA'S GIRLS

Two of Nashville's best-known young actors, Lucy Turner and Paige Glasser, lead the cast of Mama's Girls - an original play by Marilyn Barner Anselmi, directed by Vickie Bailey - which is slated for a staged reading as part of Tennessee Women's Theater Project's Women's Work Festival this Friday night, May 22.

Mama's Girls is the fourth script by Anselmi to be staged at Women's Work, as well as the fourth work by the playwright to be directed by Bailey. Mama's Girls, which also features Deanna Glasser and Phil Brady, is "an exploration of transgender issues in childhood." Curtain is at 7:30 pm. at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre on Rosa Parks Boulevard in north Nashville.

Tickets are available online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1564597 - $10 for individual performances. This year 60% of ticket revenue will go right back to the presenting women artists. "Come and support these talented women as they share their talents with us - show them some love," implores Maryanna Clarke, artistic director of TWTP and the founder of Women'sWork.

Tennessee Women's Theater Project concludes its ninth year of the Women's Work Festival on this weekend, spanning multiple styles and genres to offer a completely different program at every performance: poetry and essays; one-woman shows; plays and readings; dance, music, film and a display of visual art works in the theater.

Middle Tennessee's first and only annual showcase for the creative efforts of women came about when Clarke, the company's founder and artistic director, was sidelined with a back injury in early 2007: "After weeks with my pain meds and my walker, I had to concede I would not be able to direct the play we had booked for May that year," says Clarke. "I sent emails to every woman artist I knew, offering our stage for their plays, poems, films - all varieties of performing arts."