D.C. Theaters to Go Global for Gender Parity with International Women's Voices Day

The Women's Voices Theater Festival, in partnership with National New Play Network (NNPN) and New Play Exchange (NPX), invites theaters around the world to join them in advocating for gender parity by presenting un-produced works by women playwrights on International Women's Voices Day.

The event will take place Sunday, January 21, 2018, coinciding with the anniversary of the revolutionary 2016 Women's Marches. Using the robust and searchable NPX database, theaters will find a previously un-produced play by a woman and, with the writer's permission, host a reading of the work for International Women's Voices Day, on or about January 21.

To encourage participation, NNPN will offer free one-year subscriptions to the first 100 theaters requesting access to NPX for International Women's Voices Day before November 15, 2017, and a discounted rate ($5 off the normal $25) to all companies beyond the first 100.

Women playwrights who subscribe to NPX before November 15, 2017 can request a discounted profile ($3 off the normal $10 fee) in order to make their works available to be discovered by theaters around the world. Female writers with profiles already on NPX should make sure their unproduced works are tagged as such and available for download in order to have them considered for a reading.

For registration and a free or discounted NPX writer or organizational profile, email a request to IWVD@womensvoicesdc.com. For more information about the Women's Voices Theater Festival and International Women's Voices Day, visit WomensVoicesTheaterFestival.org.

Theaters and writers working together for International Women's Voices Day are encouraged to share photos and stories about their readings via the Festival's social media platforms as proof of participation.

The Women's Voices Theater Festival is @WomensVoicesDC (Twitter and Instagram) and @WomensVoicesTheaterFestival (Facebook). The official Festival hashtag is #WomensVoicesDC.

The Women's Voices Theater Festival is a citywide collaboration and was, in its original iteration in the fall of 2015, described as the largest festival in the country dedicated to women in theater. The Festival returns to Washington, D.C. January 15-February 15, 2018 and includes full productions of new plays by women writers at 4615 Theatre Company, Alliance for New Music-Theatre, Ally Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Brave Spirits Theatre, Convergence Theatre, dog & pony dc, Folger Theatre, Ford's Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company, Nu Sass Productions, Olney Theatre Center, Pointless Theatre Co., Rainbow Theatre Project, Rapid Lemon Productions, Rep Stage, Round House Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Spooky Action Theater, Studio Theatre, Taffety Punk Theatre Company, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

National New Play Network, America's alliance of nonprofit professional theaters dedicated to new works, launched New Play Exchange, the world's largest and smartest database of theater works by living writers, in 2015. NPX currently contains more than 15,000 new plays and musicals and profiles of theater-makers from 45 countries, including more than 2,500 full length, un-produced plays by women. Organizations and individuals can filter searches using 13 categories, such as genre, play length, cast size, playwright location, and more. Writers tag their plays with keywords to indicate subject matter and topicality, allowing theaters to narrow results to those scripts that meet their specific requirements or themes. For more information, visit nnpn.org and newplayexchange.org.

The Women's Voices Theater Festival is dedicated to highlighting the scope of plays being written by women and the range of professional theater being produced in the nation's capital region. The Festival's debut in 2015 featured world premiere plays by female playwrights on stages across Washington, D.C. and was heralded as a landmark in striving for gender parity in American theater. Led by seven of Washington's largest theaters-Arena Stage, Ford's Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Round House Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company-the Festival leverages collaboration among regional theater producers to create a platform for the nation's most talented and innovative female and female-identifying playwrights and their newest plays. To learn more, visit WomensVoicesTheaterFestival.org.

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