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Carolyn Gage, to quote from her personal website, "is a lesbian-feminist playwright, performer, director, and activist. The author of four books on lesbian theatre and forty-seven plays, musicals, and one-woman shows, she specializes in non-traditional roles for women, especially those reclaiming famous lesbians
whose stories have been distorted or erased from history."
Plays by Carolyn Gage include The Second Coming of Joan of Arc, a one-woman show in which Joan of Arc speaks to contemporary audiences, Lizzie Borden and Lesbian Theatre: Axes to Grind, a presentation on the history of lesbian theatre, Ugly Ducklings, about blossoming lesbian love and homophobia at a girls' summer camp, The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women, an audience participation courtroom drama presenting the trial of five women who betrayed the Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanov of Russia, and Thanatron, a dysfunctional family comedy.
The Amazon All-Stars is a musical, the first lesbian full book musical published by a mainstream publisher. Other plays include Harriet Tubman Visits a Therapist; Cookin' with Typhoid Mary; and The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman.
In addition to her plays, Ms. Gage has written pieces for the Dramatists Guild Quarterly, The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, Trivia, Sinister Wisdom, Lesbian Ethics,
The Lesbian Review of Books, The Michigan Quarterly Review and off our backs. She is also a contributing editor for On The Issues, the national feminist quarterly. Books by Carolyn Gage include Take Stage! How to Direct and Produce a Lesbian Play, a manual on lesbian theatre production, Scenes and Monologues for Lesbian Actors, the first collection of its kind ever published, and Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy, a book of meditations for feminist activists.
Carolyn Gage is also a teacher, offering actor workshops on non-traditional roles for women. From 1998 to 1999 she was a Guest Lecturer at Bates College. Currently she serves as artistic director of Cauldron & Labrys, an all-women theatre in Portland, Maine.
Selected Works
Plays
The Amazon All-stars (Musical)
Amy Lowell: in Her Own Words (One-woman show)
The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women (Full-length play)
Artemisia and Hildegarde (One-act play)
Babe (Musical)
Battered on Broadway (One-act play)
Bite My Thumb (One-act play)
The Boundary Trial of John Proctor (One-act play)
Calamity Jane Sends a Message to Her Daughter (One-act play)
Coming About (Full-length play)
Cookin' with Typhoid Mary (One-act play)
Deviant Women (Two-woman show consisting of two monologues and a one-act play, Calamity Jane Sends a Message to her Daughter; Cookin' with Typhoid Mary, and Artemisia and Hildegarde)
The Drum Lesson (One-act play)
Entr'acte (One-act play)
Esther and Vashti (Full-length play)
The Evil That Men Do: the Story of Thalidomide (One-act play)
Extravagant Love: the Life of Violette LeDuc (One-woman show)
The Goddess Tour (Full-length play)
Harriet Tubman Visits a Therapist (One-act play)
Heterosexuals Anonymous (One-act play)
Jane Addams and the Devil Baby (One-act play)
A Labor Play (One-act play)
The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman (One-woman show)
Leading Ladies (Musical)
The Little Prince (Musical, based on the St.-Exupery novel)
Louisa May Incest (One-act play)
Mason-dixon (One-act play)
The Obligatory Scene (One-act play)
The Parmachene Belle (One-act play)
Patricide (One-act play)
The P.E. Teacher (One-act play)
The Pele Chant (One-act play)
The Poorly-Written Play Festival (One-act play)
Radicals (One-act play)
The Rules of the Playground (One-act play)
Sappho in Love (Full-length play)
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc (One-woman show)
The Spindle (Full-length play)
Stigmata (Full-length play)
Thanatron (Full-length play)
Ugly Ducklings (Full-length play)
Women on the Land (Musical)
Books and Essays
The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Other Plays
Monologues and Scenes for Lesbian Actors
Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy
Take Stage! How to Direct and Produce a Lesbian Play
Under 30: Plays for a New Generation (contributor, Harriet Tubman Visits a Therapist)
"So You Know a Dyke with CFS ..."
Awards
National Finalist, Lambda Literary Award in Drama, for The Second Coming of Joan of Arc and Other Plays
National Finalist, Lambda Literary Award in Drama, for The Amazon All-Stars
Guest performer of The Second Coming of Joan of Arc at the World Summit on Economic Sustainability in Johannesburg
Guest performer of The Second Coming of Joan of Arc on the roster of the national speakers' bureau Speak Out!
Nominee, American Theatre Critics Association's annual ATCA/Steinberg New Play Award, for Ugly Ducklings
National Finalist, Association for Theatre in Higher Education Jane Chambers Award, for The Anastasia Trials in the Court of Women
National winner, Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival, for Harriet Tubman Visits a Therapist
Play Thanatron named among "Best Productions of 2003" by the Portland Phoenix in Portland, Maine
Finalist,Maine Playwrights Award, for Parmachene Belle, 2003
National winner,$3000 Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Grant for best play
about a lesbian historical figure, for The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman
Acquisition of personal papers for University of Oregon Special Collections Archive
Oregon Playwrights Award from the Oregon Institute of Literary Arts
Walden Writer's Fellowship from Lewis and Clark College
Institute of Literary Arts Writer's Grant
Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant
National Winner, Nancy Dean Distinguished Playwriting Award
Eleanor Humes Haney Fund Grant
New York Open Meadows Foundation Grant
Janine C. Rae Cultural Award for the Advancement of Women's Culture, 2002
(This article uses material from Carolyn Gage's personal website with the permission of Ms. Carolyn Gage, for which much thanks and gratitude is given.)
External links:
Official Website
Profile at Women's Arts.Org
So You Know a Dyke with CFS...
Entry added 30 December, 2004. All text is available for use under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (see Copyrights for details).
