What is it about Jane Austen?

Is it the setting, England during the Regency, where a prince instead of a king ruled and empire waist dresses were introduced by another “Emma”? Is it the language, where women speak up and men listen? Where irony and social commentary meld effortlessly together? Is it characters like Elizabeth Bennet, Elinor Dashwood, Emma Woodhouse, and so many more women with a purpose and a determination to live their lives as they choose? Continue Reading …

About the Play: Women in Jeopardy!

Crime and punishment. Law and order. Wine and cheese. One of these is not like the others, except in Wendy MacLeod’s Women in Jeopardy!, a perfectly structured mash-up of a police procedural and Real Housewives, but with a bit more heart. MacLeod, noted playwright, essayist, and professor at Kenyon College in Ohio, gives us three women – best friends – at a moment in their lives that may seem familiar to some audience members. Continue Reading …

Who was Nina Simone?

Christina Ham’s Nina Simone: Four Women gives us a glimpse into the artistry and activism of one of the most powerful voices in American song history, Nina Simone. By looking at her life’s work through the lens of three other women – a housekeeper, an activist, and a prostitute on the day of the Birmingham church bombing on September 15, 1963 – we see how the Nina Simone we now know came to be. Continue Reading …

Q&A with Scenic Designer Arnel Sancianco

Recently, Associate Artistic Director Chanel Bragg interviewed Arnel Sancianco, the talented scenic designer for Nina Simone: Four Women.

Arnel is a professor at Arizona State University and identifies as a first-generation Asian scenic designer of Filipino descent who is now a proud Arizona transplant! Click here to read what he shared.