Creative Team Statements
"A showcase of women’s monologues is a regular feature of the Women’s Theatre Society, and the beauty of these pieces always amazes me. I’m grateful to be part of the creative team for this project.
I was originally the director of the theatre performance, and cancelling it was quite disheartening. This was by no means the greatest tragedy to come out of the COVID-19 outbreak, but I felt like our efforts had been for nothing. Together with the creative team, I had organised the logistics, led workshops to devise the show, worked with the performers on their monologues. Our showcase was beautiful, touching and brave, but nobody would ever see it. Now, these wonderful pieces are available for everyone to enjoy.
In the transition from theatre to zine, I became the project coordinator. I split the creatives into smaller teams, supervised their work and led meetings to make sure that it all fit together. The zine is now finished, complete with a beautiful Instagram account, and I’m so excited to see it all take shape."
"I became part of the Women’s Theatre Society by joining its committee as a treasurer, last year in 2019. My reason for joining was my love for the theatre, which ranges from Shakepearean plays to the variety of showcases performed by this society, such as Uncovered. This was one of my favourite performances last year: it was about Muslim women speaking about the range of experiences they had faced in our modern day society. Seeing this play and the Vagina Monologues, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to leave a mark alongside my creative team’s vision, by encompassing all of the performers’ monologues into one beautiful and cohesive play. Unfortunately we had to cancel our performance due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and although we were saddened to do this we feel it was important to keep our performers safe. As a team we didn’t want everyone’s hard work to go to waste, so we decided to get creative in our quarantine time and decided to turn this project into a zine. By having this platform, we want everyone who comes to our site to be able to enjoy reading these monologues over and over again."
"The Women's Theatre Society means a lot to me because of the supportive group of friends I have found in it and because of its relaxed, welcoming and understanding nature that allows a diverse group of women to speak their truths and be listened to.
In the original project I was the producer, this meant that a lot of my workload was specific to the performance itself. While I’m sad that work went to waste, I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to take on a new role for the zine so that the beautiful art we had created didn’t have to go to waste. For the zine I was on the promotion team, which meant that I co-managed the Instagram account. Alongside this role, I was also the content editor.
As well as this, I created my own monologue. Margherita and the rest of the creative team were amazing at facilitating a safe space for the production of these monologues, and I’m so proud of everyone who contributed to the zine in their various ways!"
"Last year, I took part in the showcase of monologues with the Women's Theatre Society as a performer. This year, I was excited to tell a more personal story about my own experience, as well as playing a part behind the scenes. Before the outbreak of COVID-19, I was the designer for the project. When we had to cancel the live performance, I was determined that all the hard work we had done still be displayed. For this zine, I created the graphics and the pages which the monologues appeared on. I also contributed a monologue and some art to the zine."
"When I became an assistant director for ‘Anatomy of a Flower’, I was very much a Women’s Theatre Society ‘virgin’. Attending the rehearsals and seeing the talent, versatility and downright courage of our female actor-writers was inspiring to say the least. I felt so welcomed into the process, and it was wonderful to see how the rehearsals worked as more of a collaboration than the more traditional actor-director relationships I was expecting.
The unexpected circumstances a global pandemic brought upon us and the other arts societies at UoM were certainly difficult. I found working from home much less rewarding than interacting with the cast and creative team at first. However, as the project transformed from show to zine, I transformed from AD to working on promotion and some designing aspects. Working on the video trailer and Instagram posts really gave me another point of view, with the added bonus of more experience! Not only did I gain knowledge in assistant directing, but I also somehow became a social media ambassador...and I’ve loved every minute.
I view this whole experience as a huge learning curb; the versatility and adaptive powers of all the writers, actors and creatives involved in this project just affirm the bright future Women’s Theatre Society has ahead of it."
Art by Catharine Wippell