In Their Own Words

It was over two decades ago when I said that I felt I had gone from "emerging playwright" straight to "submerging playwright." I was being flip, but it seemed to strike a chord with many of my peers. I have been ambivalent about defining myself by my age and gender — after all, who wants to be "broken down by sex and gender," as the Backstage casting calls used to go? But ageism and sexism are at an undeniable intersectionality of bias, and when Jackie Reingold and Cheryl Davis began spearheading this campaign, they inspired me to be boldly older. I remember Irene Fornes telling her young students, when I was among them, that with age she had become so much less afraid; that it was such a relief to no longer be a young woman. I understood it only enough to know that it was a kernel to hold onto, to understand better later. And that "later" is now. The other great thing about getting older is that with each day, you have more memories. Our trunk of memories is overflowing, which is a pretty cool thing for a playwright. My mom started an ad agency when she was 40. Positioning is everything, she used to say. When asked her age in a male-dominated and youth-worshipping business, she placed herself in between two icons with the retort, "Younger than Marilyn Monroe and older than Elizabeth Taylor." Sandwiching myself in between heroes and muses, I can say, I'm younger than Paula Vogel and older than Sarah Ruhl; I got to meet Adrienne Kennedy and learn from Irene Fornes and Tina Howe; I got to share time on this planet with all of these great playwrights. I am here now, more grateful and more curious than ever.

I am an actor who started writing at 40. Since I don't know what it's like to be a young playwright, I cannot compare my experience. As a female playwright, I have faced challenges similar to those of everyday life, magnified umpteen times. Being a woman informs my work; there are truths I express that simply would not exist through any other lens. I am honored and excited to be a part of the 50 Over 50 list and cannot wait to read all of the plays!

To have a long and vibrant artistic life in America is to run an obstacle course with no finish line. Our fellow artists are never the hurdle, always the bridge. This is a list of women of immense creative stamina.

I'm grateful to be included on this list with so many wonderful writers. As we all know, being a female playwright over fifty means that when things go tits up, you're like, « Hey! My tits are up! »

Honor Roll!'s 50 over 50 list is a brilliant antidote to the customary 30 over 30 lists, and I'm deeply honored that Hotel Limbo is included. Fame and fortune are rarely available to playwrights. Gendered ageism adds to the challenge. It's hard to make a living. It's hard to find an audience. But there's a lot of brilliant work being created by older women. As older playwrights, our life experience gives us important things to share, and a list like this one is an all too rare opportunity to showcase and celebrate that lived experience. There's a degree of defiance to this list, of bringing attention to plays and playwrights that deserve more attention, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

Frankly—not to boast—I think the plays I've written in my 50s are by far my best. They feel wiser, sparer, more playful, and even more formally daring. It's nearly impossible to reach midlife without colliding with real drama—life's cornucopia of disasters: death, illness, reversals of fortune—and all that living tends to make for deeper, better writing. I know I'm not alone in feeling proud of my recent work, and I look forward to diving into this list and learning from the rigor, and accumulated wisdom of my peers.

Oddly enough, my work seems to be getting more serious consideration in this stage of my life than in earlier times. Not sure why. What I do know is that I've let go of any expectation of what this creative life "should" yield. Instead, I slow down, listen and sit with what holds meaning for me as both a woman and an artist. It's a kind of acceptance that comes with age and has deepened my curiosity about and commitment to my craft. I'm delighted to be included in the 50 over 50 list. My profound gratitude goes to Jackie, Cheryl and Honor Roll.

Every morning, I get up and deny reality. It's too stupid, too cruel, and too unimaginative. Every woman who puts a great idea to paper, no matter their age, belongs on a list. Why bother with the limits of expectations? At some point, you write because you have something you need to say.

I am so honored/excited/thrilled to be included on this list as a nonbinary/trans playwright who was born female and will remain female-presenting for various reasons forever. 50 Over 50 gives me the glimmer of hope that I will not continue to be ignored forever. A board member once brought in Man & Wife, and the artistic director said it couldn't possibly be funny written by a woman. I'm 60, and I've lived a lot of life in those years, and I pour my life into my work. The only way to move the culture forward is to promote and produce the work of people who don't get heard. Thanks to 50 Over 50, more women might get a chance to be heard. We're over half the population, and we're silenced. Look around, if women had a voice, we'd be living in a different world.

As women writers get older, writing vigor carries on, but confronts ageist notions that older women have little to say or should say nothing at all. That calls for resilient commitment to one's art and craft, a steadfastness that is fortified by organizations such as Honor Roll and its advocacy, such as the 50 Over 50 list. The fire to write does not go out at age 39.

Every day we're sent a message that our "expiration date" is written on our face, our body, or in our creative expression. But I treasure the time I've had to live, to love, to be joyous, to fight for things that matter to me. And my voice has never felt more true to itself, nor my stories more rich and compelling to me. My wish is for those who would dismiss me based solely on the number of years I've spent on the planet to have the privilege of living fully enough to one day see the folly of their actions. Grateful to be seen by the women of Honor Roll and the theatres that nominated us to be included on this list. Grateful for my full and complex life in the theatre so far, and for all that's yet to be written.

Honor Roll shows the way forward for artists in tough times. Self-initiated and collaborative, I love it because it embodies feminism, specifically collective action working toward empowerment for all. Of course we want our work to be seen, engaged with and compensated. But Honor Roll thrives because it isn't purely careerist. The range and strength of the work being created is amazing. We're taking big gambles and connecting dots in ways that are only possible because of our experience. I'm grateful to even be a small part.

A noted female-focused theater company is producing five plays or readings this year and mentoring six emerging playwrights through its residency program. Every one of those writers is under forty. Where are the rest of us? Honor Roll! turns the spotlight on the untold stories of unheard women continually relegated to the sidelines — artists whose perspectives and lived experience deepen and complicate our understanding of the human condition. We are the theatre world's vast, untapped resource.

I've been married to the theater longer than to any husband. Starting as an actor in the 70s, becoming an actor/teacher in the 90s, and in 2016, evolving to an actor/teacher/playwright, I've told stories as my life's work. My speaking voice has grown as I have grown, now deeper, with more range, and with a hell of a lot of practice in speaking up; and my voice on the page, as a 50+ playwright, absorbing the urgency through the years of all the women I know: that our stories are told, and that we have witnesses. We are a resource, after all. We are canaries in coal mines. We are siren calls. We are grown and still growing. We are here.

To be a woman playwright over fifty is the same as being a woman over fifty: you are essentially "invisible." This is not necessarily a bad thing; there's a lot of freedom in it. Combined with a little bit of wit, wisdom and experience accumulated over the years leads to a writer with a sense of her own voice and craft, writing her best plays. Thanks to Honor Roll for "seeing" women writers over fifty and creating a sense of solidarity and hopefully opportunities for our best work.

I emerged as a playwright in 1979 in a jazz loft on 7th Street and Avenue A called University of the Streets. Our lights were made of coffee cans. Doing lesbian theater meant being pushed to the side streets of the East Village, as there was nothing produced on Broadway or Off Broadway or produced by anyone but us on our waitress tips that had lesbian protagonists. Today, literally 47 years later, mainstream theaters are still doing all-male seasons and there is no play in the American canon with adult lesbian protagonists. And yet I persevere, because I believe in the quality, heart, and innovation of my work, and now I have a context: Honor Roll. Women who emerged into all-male, all-white seasons, never got development or the opportunities that came with it, but still know that we have a rightful place in our national culture. Fight on, Honor Roll!

I care less about what other people think. I care more about what I think.

At this age, for me, being a playwright means leaning more so into the joy and the necessity of the art form rather than the outcome. I love being part of this list because it highlights how many of us continue to have important things to say about the world through theatre and that there is no expiration date on our voices.

Sometimes, it feels like dismissal. Mostly, it feels like inadvertent erasure. Forgetting to put my name on the poster, on the marquee, in the program, on the award. Once an award check celebrating women was given to me in the ladies bathroom and not in public which would have been so very nice...but the check cleared, so that was nice. Erasure? Dismissal? Is that an age thing? A woman thing? A POC thing? I don't know, but it's disappointing the progenitor of the world has to beg to be acknowledged. This list is everything. I'm still writing. I still have something to say. My cockeyed view of the world is still pioneering and purring. Yo, I'm not retired. And I'm still waving my arms, though not as wildly as before. And even though my theatrical voice is wicked loud on paper, this list helps amplify; this list lifts me up so my face can be seen. This list is everything! Yayyyy and thank you HONOR ROLL.