Thy Name is Woman: Feminist New Works Festival

Date and Time

• Fri, Mar 13, 2026 - Sat, Mar 14, 2026  8pm - 10pm

Location

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Details

Two nights of new works, featuring Shakespeare’s women or replicating his themes through female voices, written and performed by primarily women, non-binary, and trans artists. This feminist pop-up performance includes multiple short staged readings plus a fully produced one-act (Friday), and a full-length staged reading (Saturday). Both evenings will include talkbacks with the playwrights themselves.

Schedule of Plays:

Friday March 13

First Act: Staged Reading Shorts

L.E.A.R. by Claire F. Martin
Once upon a time in NYC, 17-year-old heiress Cordelia Albion had a secret (and illegal) affair with 23-year-old law student Edmund Gloucester, the youngest son of her father's company lawyer. Now, four years later, Cordelia is a graduate of la Sorbonne in Paris and Edmund is a corporate "fixer" for her eldest sister Goneril, the C.O.O. of Albion Corp.
When Cordelia learns that Goneril's fiancé, James Albany, is cheating on her with Edmund's older brother Edgar, she tries to prevent the marriage for her sister's sake. But instead, Goneril pays Edmund to trick James into going through with the wedding, leaving both him and Edgar heartbroken. Suspecting Edmund's involvement, Cordelia confronts him on the rooftop of the Albion skyscraper during Goneril and James's rehearsal dinner.

A Woman’s Battle Sean Adams delivers A Woman’s Battle about the legendary Trojan women, all waiting for their men to return from an ill-fated clash with Achilles and the Greek army. Cassandra is tortured by her visions of the future and Andromache, Helen and Hecuba fight their own battles—for love, respect, family and survival—behind the walls of Troy.

Another Conversation The last thing Gertrude remembers is drinking a toast to Hamlet. Playwright Marjorie Bicknell’s Gertrude finds herself in a mysterious place when Ophelia shows up to set the record straight.

Haircuts: In Haircuts, by Barbara Trainin Blank, Anne Boleyn from Henry VIII and Isabella from Measure for Measure meet in a barber shop. The condemned queen and the devout novice discover what they have in common as they discuss the choices they have made, the men in their lives, and how a haircut may help them take control of the rest of their lives.

Friday Full Production Feature (Act 2)

Dead Girls No Mothers by Tommy Sullivan-Lovett: Four of Shakespeare’s heroines - Cordelia, Desdemona, Lavinia, and Ophelia - speak from beyond death to reclaim the voices they were denied in life. Confronting the violence, silencing, and objectification imposed on them by patriarchal systems, they expose how their suffering was used to serve men’s stories rather than their own. Through their reflections, the play challenges the idea of Shakespeare’s women as passive victims and insists on their agency, anger, and humanity beyond the roles that destroyed them.

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Saturday Feature (Act 1 & 2) Staged Reading

Heartbeat Ophelia:
by D.L. Siegel

In Heartbeat Ophelia, our expectations of the Hamlet narrative are flipped entirely. The story centers Ophelia - who exists in a liminal space suspended between Shakespeare’s Denmark and post–heartbeat law Texas. Caught between centuries of male control and contemporary legislation that governs her body, she navigates fear, desire, shame, and defiance while others attempt to dictate her fate. The play reframes Ophelia not as a doomed ingénue, but as a young woman confronting the historical and ongoing policing of reproductive autonomy—and struggling to claim agency in a world that would rather decide for her.