Marina Pisklakova-Parker Russia
Against tremendous odds in 1993, Marina
Pisklakova-Parker founded the first hotline for victims of domestic violence,
which has since grown into Center ANNA, part of a coalition that has provided
crisis and counseling services for Russian women.
Marina's Organization (English) (Russian)
Paula Cizmar Playwright
Paula Cizmar's plays have been produced
off-Broadway, in London, and in regional theatres from Maine to
California--including Portland Stage, American Place Theatre,The Women's
Project (NY), San Diego Rep, the Jungle Theater, and Playwrights Arena. She has
been selected for the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and Sundance
Theatre Lab and is the recipient of numerous awards including a National
Endowment for the Arts playwriting grant and a residency at the Rockefeller
Foundation's study center in Bellagio, Italy. She has commissions from
Actors Theatre of Louisville (short plays), Cypress College (Venus in Orange,
written with Laura Shamas), and Salt Lake Acting Company (Nothing Sacred),
among others. Often taking on political and social issues, her many published
and produced plays include: Street Stories, The Death of a Miner, Candy &
Shelley Go to the Desert, Bone Dry, and Still Life with Parrot & Monkey (to
be published in the anthology Living and Writing on America's Left Coast by
Lady Murasaki Books late in 2009). Also a screenwriter, Paula was a staff
writer for two seasons on the PBS series American Family. She teaches
playwriting at the University of Southern California.
Playwright's Web Site
Mu Sochua Cambodia
Mu Sochua is the former Minister of
Women's Affairs in Cambodia (one of only two women in the cabinet), she was
co-nominated in 2005 for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex
trafficking of women in Cambodia and neighboring Thailand. MP Mu Sochua, after
door-to-door visits to 482 villages, won a seat in Parliament in July, 2008.
Catherine Filloux Playwright
Catherine Filloux is an award-winning
playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for the
past twenty years. Her plays have been produced in New York and around the
world. Ms. Filloux is the author of two music theater pieces, Where Elephants Weep produced in Phnom
Penh, and The Floating Box produced
in New York. Her plays are published by Playscripts Inc., and her anthology Silence of God and Other Plays is
published by Seagull Books, London Limited. She has received awards from the
O'Neill, Kennedy Center, Omni Center for Peace and New Dramatists.
Playwright's
Web Site
Annabella De Leon Guatemala
Annabella raised herself and her family
out poverty by getting an education. She has been a congresswoman since 1995
has received death threats because of her fight against corruption and for the
rights of the poor, particularly women and indigenous peoples.
Gail Kriegel Playwright
Gail Kriegel: Artist-in-Residence at
the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 2005-6. She is presently developing her
musical, SWEETIE, and a children's operetta, RAINBOW JUNCTION. Gail has been
widely produced. Her film FRAGMENTS won top awards at five film festivals. For
her prize-winning play ON THE HOME FRONT she received a Rockefeller Foundation
Fellowship, One World Arts Grant, NYFA grant, the Ruby Lloyd Apsey Award and
was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. Gail was Visiting Artist at
The American Academy in Rome, 2005. A member of the BMI Musical Theater Workshop,
her work has been published by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann Press and is
included in the Archives at Lincoln Center.
Playwright's Web
Site
Inez McCormack Northern
Ireland
Inez McCormack is an activist for
women's and human rights, labor, and social justice and a former President of
the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Ms. McCormack played a critical role in the
1998 Good Friday Peace Accords and continues to advocate for equal rights and
fair labor practices for women and minorities. She now chairs a program, the
Participation and Practice of Rights Project, that helps the disadvantaged
access resources and services in Ireland, both North and South. Ms. McCormack
currently serves as chair of the Participation and the Practice of Rights
Project (PPR) and in 2008 received the prestigious Irish Tatler Woman of the
Year Award.
Inez's Organization
Carol K. Mack Playwright
Carol K. Mack's plays have been
produced off-Broadway and in regional theatres across the U.S.. Without A Trace had its European
premiere at the Tron, Glasgow, 2002 and toured Scotland. Her new play, The Visitor, received a grant from the
Foundation for Jewish Culture. Premieres include: The Accident, American Repertory Theatre; In Her Sight and After,
Actors Theatre of Louisville; Territorial
Rites, The Women's Project. Awards include Stanley Drama Award, Julie
Harris/Beverly Hills Theatre Guild Award and a Rockefeller Foundation
Fellowship. Her plays have been selected for four editions of The Best American
Short Plays, Applause Books. Her book, A
Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels & Other Subversive Spirits,
was published by Profile Books, London, 2008.
Playwright's Web
Site
Farida Azizi Afghanistan
Farida Azizi became an activist
fighting the marginalization of women under Taliban rule in her native country.
Because of threats on her life, she has gained asylum and now lives in the
United States with her two children and works on women's rights and
peace-building in Afghanistan.
Ruth Margraff Playwright
RUTH MARGRAFF's new play Harlequin, commissioned by a
Playwrights' Center McKnight award, was just read at Victory Gardens (Chicago)
and the New Group (NYC). Her martial arts opera Dragon vs. Eagle marks her 6th collaboration with composer Fred Ho
for the Apollo and Brooklyn Academy of Music commissioned by her 4th
Rockefeller award. She has toured all over the world with her Cafe Antarsia Ensemble to festivals and
venues throughout the UK, Canada, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Hungary, Czech Rep.,
Greece, Turkey, Slovenia, Croatia, Egypt (this summer)...signed to Innova Records. Ruth was delegated to
represent the U.S. State Department on a Peaceworks
Cultural envoy to Calcutta, India
and received a Fulbright new opera award to Greece. She is an alumnae of New
Dramatists, an active member of LPTW and Theater Without Borders/Brandeis
Coexistence International, Associate Professor of playwriting at the Art
Institute of Chicago, and represented by Susan Schulman.
Playwright's Web
Site
Hafsat Abiola Nigeria
Hafsat Abiola, Nigeria, an advocate for
human rights and democracy following the murder of her activist parents,
founded the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy, which provides skills-training
and leadership opportunities for young women across Nigeria. She now helps
build bridges between African and Chinese women, as China increases its
engagement in the African continent.
Anna Deavere Smith Playwright
Anna Deavere Smith is an actor,
teacher, playwright and creator of unique one woman plays based on interviews,
Anna Deavere Smith has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for TWILIGHT:
LOS ANGELES, and a MacArthur Fellowship. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her
play: FIRES IN THE MIRROR, Ms. Smith is founder and director of the Institute
on the Arts and Civic Dialogue at New York University. As an actress she has
appeared in many films and on the television series WEST WING. Her new book,
LETTERS TO A YOUNG ARTIST, has recently been published by Anchor Books.
Playwright's
Web Site
Mukhtar Mai Pakistan
Mukhtar Mai was gang raped by four men
and forced to walk home almost naked in retribution for an alleged honor
crime. Ms. Mai and her harrowing story grabbed headlines across the world.
Instead of taking the traditional women's route of committing suicide, she
brought her rapists to justice, built schools to improve the condition of
women, and became an advocate for education in her country.
Susan Yankowitz Playwright
Susan Yankowitz is a playwright,
novelist and librettist. Her best-known plays include PHAEDRA IN DELIRIUM,
TERMINAL, 1969 TERMINAL 1996, (collaborations with Joseph Chaikin's Open
Theatre), A KNIFE IN THE HEART, and NIGHT SKY, which has been performed
throughout the U.S. and in translations world-wide. In music-theatre, she is
bookwriter/lyricist for TRUE ROMANCES with Elmer Bernstein, SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT
with Taj Mahal and CHERI with Michael Dellaira. She is a 2006 resident artist
at HERE with her mixed-media play, THE LUDICROUS TRIAL OF MR. P. Her work has
been honored by the NEA, Guggenheim, Rockefeller and NYFA foundations, among
others.
Playwright's Web
Site
