The Brooklyn Academy of Music relaunched Lorraine Hansberry’s The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. Hansberry is best known for A Raisin in the Sun (1957), the first production written by a Black woman staged on Broadway, which won her a New York Drama Circle Critics Award in 1959.
Tag: Theatre and Performance Art
A Feminist in Frills: Why Sexism Is a Problem In Opera
As a chorus member in my last opera production, I watched our stage director (a man) lean toward the lead soprano (a woman) and say, “If you put some dark makeup between your breasts, it will make them show up more.”
Sexism in opera extends far beyond small-town productions like mine: There are 3.5 times more jobs for men than women in mainstage opera. A 29 percent pay gap exists between women classical performers and their men counterparts. Women opera singers also hold more debt and receive fewer scholarships. For opera to be an industry where women are respected, its leaders need to adopt more progressive practices that make women feel safe and comfortable.
Billboards Nationwide Urge Americans to ‘Vote for Abortion Rights’
The Vote for Abortion Rights billboard exhibition features 10 artists and 18 billboards, located in 12 states and 14 cities. Most of the billboards are located where abortion is now illegal or heavily restricted, including Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky.
Black Women Lead: From the Stage to the Streets
Our focus is on building the leadership capacity and political power of Black people and women. But we are struck by the complementary activism taking place in the arts to underscore this moment in history and to inspire progress.
Broadway’s Tony-nominated POTUS, Natalie Moore’s The Billboard and Molly Smith’s upcoming Arena Stage production, My Body No Choice, remind us to trust women as we collectively work to get our republic back on track.
Ms. Global: Scotland Eliminates Period Product Fees; Poland’s Pride March; Nonbinary Joan of Arc Debuts at Globe Theatre
Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms.. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.
This week: Scotland paves way for period poverty movement; volunteers provide menstrual products in Pakistan, amid floods; Pride marches in Poland; Spain passes “yes means yes” consent law; and more.
Camille Brown on Movement, Power and Creative Identity: ‘Creating Safe Spaces to Share Our Stories’
Camille Brown, director and choreographer of the powerful new Broadway revival of “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf,” is the first Black woman to direct and choreograph a play on Broadway in more than 60 years. Drawing inspiration from her own lived experience as a Black woman, Brown uses movement and dance to tell unique stories of humanity and sisterhood. In this interview, she shares lessons she’s learned in her career.
Hip Hop’s ‘Hidden Figures’: The Feminist Herstory and Future of Hip Hop
Black women have historically played a crucial role in the origins of hip hop, but are often unacknowledged. Learning the rich herstory of hip hop feminism shows what an important role women have played in the past and the future of the genre.
With a Powerhouse All-Women Cast, ‘Suffs’ Explores Activists Who Made Women’s Voting Rights Happen
Unlike the limited lessons of women’s suffrage many learn—Seneca Falls and Susan B. Anthony—Suffs digs deep into the gamesmanship wielded by the movement’s early 20th century leaders. Suffs opens April 6 at the venerable Public Theater in New York City. Lin-Manuel Miranda himself tweeted this week that >Suffs is “gobsmackingly incredible” and its writer and star, Shaina Taub as Alice Paul, is “the FUTURE.” I couldn’t agree more.
A Conversation with Music Composer Nkeiru Okoye of ‘Harriet Tubman’ Opera Fame
Dr. Nkeiru Okoye, whose first name means “the future is great,” has already dazzled the world as an internationally recognized music composer of opera, symphonic, choral, chamber, solo piano and vocal works. A 2021 Guggenheim fellow, Okoye is best known for her opera Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed that Line to Freedom, which premiered with The American Opera Project in 2014.
“We’re Reclaiming Valentine’s Day!”: The Global Movement Rising for the Bodies of All Women, Girls and the Earth
One Billion Rising, a mass action to end violence against women, launched on Valentine’s Day 2012. It’s based on the staggering statistic that one in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime.
Every Valentine’s Day is a reminder of how much more is needed to free women to fulfill their potential and live without fear of violence. I’m writing a valentine to V, to the V-Day team and the One Billion Rising global coordinators, who are committed to creating a new kind of consciousness—one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.