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by M.J. Moneymaker,  Board Member of The Bechdel Group

The Bechdel Group hosts a bi-annual event that challenges writers to write a ten minute play that passes The Bechdel Test  in 24 hours. The writers select choose a cast from actor headshots and then they are off to write.

I've had the opportunity to participate in two of the challenges. As a writer, it's helped me discover ... I can write comedy. I don't think I'd have had the guts to test out my humor without such an inclusive and safe environment like the workshop space that The Bechdel Group has created. This is one of the reasons I suggested turning the plays into podcasts. I think it's clear, on hearing, the fun writers and actors have had creating something almost improvisational.

The following podcast is from our February 2017 24 Hour Writing Challenge. For this event, we challenged our writers to write a play inspired by "love" - but not by romantic love. Some of the plays used the word in dialogue, some as a theme, some merely as inspiration.

We recorded several of the plays after the event and gave the writers an opportunity to do any editing if they wanted. Then we recorded - no rehearsal. Some were done in one take - that's how stellar our actors are. So without further ado, The Bechdel Group presents...

A Quick Skit About Quitting - by Tommy Grimly
​
Credits
Writer
Tommy Grimly

Actors
Amanda - Pam Karp
Mitch – Anthony Scavone
Kat – Laura Winters

Music
Mosquitoes by Zapac (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0) license. dig.ccmixter.org/files/Zapac/30469 Ft: Mind Map That! (mindmapthat)

Sounding mixing and editing
MJ Moneymaker (tried... I'm still learning)

Help us keep our work going! Just $10 makes an enormous impact on our work. Click here to donate to the Write For Women Campaign.

Meet Scott Austin!
Scott  teaches and directs theater at a high school in Brooklyn. He performs improv comedy at the Magnet Theater and writes plays to stay involved in theater as a practitioner. He has also created ethnodrama pieces for Ping Chong + Co. and Rarely Done Productions. He studied Education, theater and English at Syracuse University and NYU Steinhardt School. 

Your work passes the Bechdel test (or we wouldn’t be having this interview), but is meeting the criteria of the test something you set out to do when you write? If not, how has seeing your work, as now identified through this lens, changed or informed your writing? 
I’ve been teaching high school for 13 years and am always looking for interesting material for my students. For three of those years I was at a small all-girls public school where Drama was a mandatory class. I was constantly looking for scripts where the women were allowed to play vulnerable, dynamic characters. When I couldn’t find them, I started to write some. The Bechdel Group has allowed me to find other writers who are concerned with how women appear on stage and screen, particularly Ramon Esquivel. Esquivel’s play The Shahrazad Society has been a wonderful addition to my curriculum. [A note from Gina: we were honored to workshop The Shahrazad Society in our first reading series, back in 2014.]
 
The Bechdel test is, by its existence, a kind of political rubric – and now identified in film and theatre theory. Are there any other politics or rubrics that influence your work? Is it important to you to identify as a feminist writer?
 Until recently, I was a less traditional playwright, concentrating on devising. My methodologies were based on the works of Moises S. Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project as well as Ping Chong’s Undesirable Elements series, which puts marginalized communities in the spotlight. So, most of the plays I have “written” have been interview theater, which is inherently political. I have directed and devised pieces on sexuality, education, and immigration. I think it’s a theater practitioner's role to entertain, but also to be part of a socio-political discussion, so it would be strange to think of my work as not feminist or apolitical.
 
How important is getting feedback for your writing process and what do you hope to get from feedback at a reading?
 Getting feedback is tough, but necessary to make sure my work is landing the way I want it to with audiences. As a white man, I think it s particularly good for me to hear if the female roles I am creating feel realistic to the actresses they are meant for, particularly for women of color. Getting feedback helps me make sure my characters are humans, not archetypes.
 
How is the feedback you get from a live audience reading different from other types of feedback you seek?
 Getting feedback from a live audience is less cerebral than getting it from someone who has read the play. I find the experience of hearing what gets laughs, what’s too wordy, seeing where audiences start to lose focus is a lot more valuable than asking someone for written notes.
 
Tell us about a woman character you’ve written who surprised you, or took a turn you didn’t expect.
 The first play I wrote for Bechdel’s 24-Hour playwriting challenge was meant to be a comedy and I realized that the character of Meg was a lot angrier than I thought she was going to be. She ultimately had the most interesting conflict, and some if it was in her head.  The play is about a group of women who are on a bowling team to escape their lives. Meg feels offended that one of the other women on the team doesn’t give her a “plus one” to her wedding, which Meg takes to be a slight because Meg is a lesbian. Writing the piece brought up a lot of my own issues toward the convention of marriage. As a gay man, I am always happy for friends when they get married, but there is apparently a part of me that resents the heternormativity of the ceremony. What was meant to be sit-com level humor in Meg came out as a lot heavier.
 
What comes easily, and what challenges you in your writing?
 I like banter. I think I write banter well. I can sit down and write a page that flows easily. The challenge is in turning the banter into a piece with a focus and direction. I often have a hard time finding a protagonist when I start writing. I’ve done a lot of improv, so I am trained to think that all characters matter equally, but to make a streamlined story, it’s often necessary to pick a character to follow. I’m not Annie Baker or Sarah DeLappe, but I think they both do a great job of writing plays that make you feel for the entire ensemble, and hope to combine my love of group dynamics and group banter with the ability to make a point or show some truth.
 
What are you working on now, or what can we look forward to hearing about next from you?
I am working on two pieces. One is storytelling and personal, so it probably will not pass the Bechdel test…sorry. The other piece I want to keep developing is the play I started for the most recent Bechdel 24-hour challenge. It’s about a Blockbuster Video in its last days. The employees are struggling with what to do as they lose their jobs. As Amazon.com, Netflix, and online retail grow, what does that mean for the suburban life? As a country, we are starting to look at factory town and how that is changing. We will always be able to see a play about New York City, but there’s a lot in between. I want to keep exploring that.

Help us keep our work going! Just $10 makes an enormous impact on our work. Click here to donate to the Write For Women Campaign.

Meet Selma Thompson!
Selma Thompson is the author of A Modest Proposal  (Samuel French). Her award-winning work has appeared on CBS and USA Network, and she's written for Universal, Fox, and others. Education: Honors English, Princeton; M.F.A. Dramatic Writing, N.Y.U.; foreign study, drama, University of London. Thompson teaches dramatic writing at N.Y.U.  

Your work passes the Bechdel test; (or we wouldn’t be having this interview) but is meeting the criteria of the test something you set out to do when you write? If not, how has seeing your work, as now identified through this lens changed or informed your writing?
Writing work in which women are central has always seemed natural. I started writing plays out of frustration with the roles available to me as an actress. My years writing movies-of-the-week for CBS were spent in a matriarchy I never stopped appreciating: female executives and, often, producers, creating female-driven roles for largely female network stars, often based on the lives of real women. At the time, working in a female-driven television genre had less prestige than the male-centric feature film industry, yet I'll always be grateful for the chance to reach a global audience while dramatizing challenges in women's lives, often addressing sexism and racism in the process. Marlo Thomas made one of my first television movies. Geena Davis optioned a screenplay of mine, wanting to star in it, but we couldn't get it set up at any film studio. I feel grateful to have worked with both of those feminist trailblazers, but the different outcomes, I believe, speak to glass ceilings that only now are slowly being shattered.. 

The Bechdel test is, by its existence, a kind of political rubric – and now identified in film and theatre theory. Are there any other politics or rubrics that influence your work? Is it important to you to identify as a feminist writer?
Feminist cartoonist and playwright, Lynda Barry's beautiful book What It Is is full of insights, writing prompts and inspiration. The DuVernay Test concisely addresses standards for racial inclusiveness in drama, and I take inspiration from it; one of the projects of which I'm most proud is USA Network's Perfect Crime which was set against a backdrop of racism and sexism in the military. On a purely aesthetic level, Jose Rivera's, "36 Assumptions About Playwriting" and David Mamet's "Three Magic Questions of Drama" are essential--even if men came up with them. Oh, and...am I a feminist writer? Hell, yes!

How important is getting feedback for your writing process and what do you hope to get from feedback at a reading?
Drama is a conversation among collaborators and audience, so, of course, the writer must discover how the work is being experienced. Once she knows that, she can fine-tune what is on the page. And the magic happens when feedback reveals possibilities to be found in the writer's story which she may not have fully, consciously realized at that point in her process. 

How is the feedback you get from a live audience reading different from other types of feedback you seek?
Drama is meant to be performed. Hearing a piece read aloud is what takes the work to the next level. What is the rhythm of the piece? Is the pacing appropriate to the story? If a reader stumbles trying to speak the dialogue--the dialogue needs polishing. If listeners start coughing or fidgeting or slipping out to make a call or find a restroom, the playwright now knows the exact spot that needs work. A talk-back afterwards may offer a zillion contradictory suggestions, which the writer may or may not find helpful...but if several people have opinions about the same spot in the text, that means the playwright needs to ask herself what more she has to do with that beat. At a certain point, much later in the process, the writer may consider how best to present the work on the page--ways to keep the text moving, to format, to hone descriptions so that they engage, etc--the better. to seduce an important reader who needs to say yes to the project. The creative process, though, is most helped by a good table read or workshop presentation..
 
Tell us about a woman character you’ve written who surprised you, or took a turn you didn’t expect.
CBS hired me to write a movie based on a true story about a woman who became a Grandparents' Rights advocate after her daughter gave her Downs Syndrome baby up for adoption rather than let the grandparents raise him. When I interviewed the real people, I was unnerved to discover that the "good" and "bad" characters in the story were flipped. The crusading grandmother was ill-equipped to raise a special needs child and tone-deaf to her daughter's pain. The baby's mother had bravely faced the hardest choice of her life, and out of love, found a group home for Down Syndrome kids run by a couple who'd dedicated their lives to understanding the needs of these children and had a vision of how to raise them to be happy adults. I dreaded telling this to the network, who had bought the project as a starring role for Patty Duke as the crusading grandmother; but as I took the conference call, my eyes fell on Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie on my bookshelf. That helped me spin a pitch about a sympathetic character who loved her daughter so fiercely that she couldn't see her daughter had grown and needed to make her own difficult choices in the world. The network would never have bought that story, but having already invested significant money in purchasing rights, they gave me a shot at creating a protagonist who must eventually learn she is not the hero of her own story, and that her good intentions have a dark side. Patty Duke brought so much to her role in No Child of Mine. And the real woman who has created a family by adopting some dozen Down Syndrome children calls me up every few years to say hello and thank me for getting it right, a humbling reminder of our duty as writers, as feminists, to face the truth as we find it.  

What are you working on now, or what can we look forward to hearing about next from you?
 The Bechdel Group's 24 hour challenges have inspired me to start thinking about an evening's collection of short plays that offer a mosaic of female experiences of aging. Meanwhile, I am working to finish my first novel--an art school satire. I also write film reviews.

Help us keep our work going! Just $10 makes an enormous impact on our work. Click here to donate to the Write For Women Campaign.

Meet Barbara Matovu! Barbara holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama and Minor in Spanish from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Although moving to New York to be an actress, as a theater artist, Barbara has worked as an actress, assistant director, and teaching artist.

Tell us about your experience(s) reading for the Bechdel Group.
 I come to the Bechdel Group readings as an actor intrigued by new work. I’ve been a part of the monthly reading, 24-Hour Writer’s Challenge, and this month/August, I’m excited to be a part of the full-length staged reading of Hey Sexy: An Environmental Parable by Natalie Sack. I love how Bechdel Group gets everyone involved. At each reading, the talkbacks are more than a Q&A, they are conversations among a community.

When in your acting career/work did you become aware of the Bechdel test and how has it changed or informed your work?
I had never heard of the Bechdel test until I was invited to read for the Bechdel Group for the first time about three years ago. Since then, I think I read (and listen, when it comes to attending readings) scripts differently. I pay more attention the female characters, how they are written and how they fit into the larger picture.

As you know, the Bechdel Group’s monthly readings are not rehearsed. What do you like about this kind of format and what do you, as an actor, get from it?
I like that it keeps me on my toes. There’s no opportunity to get too comfortable, so it forces you to stay in the moment. And, like an audition where they hand you sides before you go in, you have little time to make strong choices. The actors are there to serve the playwright. The more reading can look like final table read, the clearer the playwright can be clear on what is working and what isn’t.

Have you ever been cast outside of what you consider to be your marketable “type” at a Bechdel reading? How was that for you?
 Yes, I think it’s happened two or three times. Each time, I got halfway through the script, when I went back to email wondering if I read it wrong, “Wait, which part did they want me to read?” The first time, I felt a little awkward, like when you interlace your fingers the with your less dominate thumb on top. It feels funny but it’s obviously not impossible.

Playwrights always appreciate the feedback they get from the actors at our readings. What would the perfect collaboration on a play’s development look like from your perspective as an actor?
 One in which the playwright is always open to questions, even if they don’t have all the answers.

Help us keep our work going! Just $10 makes an enormous impact on our work. Click here to donate to the Write For Women Campaign.

Meet Shellen Lubin!
Shellen was most recently seen as Luanne in the web series High Falls, as The Flood in The Vagina Monologues at Here Arts Center, and performing her poetry in the last Made in the Berkshires Festival. As a singer/songwriter, she was featured in Milos Forman’s Taking Off, in numerous cabaret acts and one-woman shows over the years, and on WBAI-FM. Shellen also works professionally as a Director, Playwright, and Vocal/Acting Coach.  Her reflections on life as an artist--and living with artistry--have been featured in five philosophical cover pieces for Back Stage Publications and are read weekly in her Monday Morning Quotes (www.mondaymorningquotes.com). You can find Shellen on Twitter at @SHLubin and online at www.shellenlubin.com

Tell us about your experience(s) reading for the Bechdel Group.
​I have read for the Bechdel Group twice, and both were fabulous experiences. The first play I read, Denial is Not a River in Egypt by Deborah Magid, is such a great two-woman character study, we're trying to figure out how to make a production happen as we speak.​ The second time was a wild ride--playing two small roles in Brenda Foley's play (whose lovely writing I have directed in the past), and then, last minute, being thrown into a very uncharacteristic role for me in Marcus Scott's beautifully challenging work with a group of actors who really took it to the max, and we all transported together to another place. I love how unfettered and chance-taking all the actors are. (Although sometimes I wish we could read a little bit more of the plays!)
 
When in your acting career/work did you become aware of the Bechdel test and how has it changed or informed your work?

​I became aware of the test probably in the early 2000s. In some ways, it has always been what my work has been about (which is one of the reasons I write and direct more and act less--I'm more in a position to challenge precepts and effect change). At the same time, a number of my plays
and plays I've directed are about deconstructing ​romantic love and/or about exposing flaws in accepted/white/male stories and perspectives, and so a number of them do NOT pass the Bechdel Test! So it has certainly made me more aware of that as well.​
 
As you know, the Bechdel Group’s monthly readings are not rehearsed – and while they are put together for playwrights to hear their work in development – what do you like about this kind of format and what do you, as an actor, get from it?
 I love actors throwing themselves into a character, into the text, and flying by the seat of their pants.​ For those who are open to that, it's a beautiful experience to both share and watch. And it definitely can reveal aspects and layers of the play that might not be revealed in more studied rehearsal. Always an adventure.

Have you ever been cast outside of what you consider to be your marketable “type” at a Bechdel reading? How was that for you?
 That night of the Marcus Scott play, I played an aging Barbie doll type--not my usual bent at all. Had a great time playing her, and was definitely affected deeply as her (and as myself feeling her limitations) by the family arguments I witnessed​ as well as the ones I was a part of.

Playwrights always appreciate the feedback they get from the actors at our readings. What would the perfect collaboration on a play’s development look like from your perspective as an actor?
 It's tricky for a playwright to hear too much feedback in the moment--I like how specific the questions are that Bechdel asks, to try and keep the conversation guided and offering perspectives instead of telling the playwright what to do. I think the most positive feedback an actor can offer a playwright is how it felt to be in that character--how moments and objectives evolved or didn't--what questions and contradictions presented themselves, and which ones you were looking for later scenes to complete (or at least reflect), and which felt unresolvable or unattainable.​

Please join us for our Third Annual Staged Reading!

The Bechdel Group presents Natalie Sacks'
HEY SEXY: An Environmental Parable
Directed by Aliza Shane

Monday, August 28th
7:00 p.m.

Seating Limited: RSVP to [email protected]

Featuring:
Brannon Boswell
Brigid Donovan
Chelsea Fryer
Barbara Matovu
Robert Maisonett
Patti Veconi

The Alchemical Studios, 3rd Floor
104 West 14th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

Write For Women: It's the Write Thing
Dreamed of a producer credit? Thinking a fabulous holiday gift for a friend might be a star turn in a 24 Hour Reading? These are some of the fabulous benefits from donating to our Write For Women Fundraiser! We're not officially starting until September, but you can get a sneak-peek (or make an early donation) here!