Trifles


Susan Glaspell - 1916
    Her short story, "A Jury of Her Peers", was adapted from the play a year after its debut. It was first performed by the Provincetown Players at the Wharf Theatre in Provincetown, Massachusetts on August 8, 1916. In the original play, Glaspell played the role of one of the characters, Mrs. Hale. It is frequently anthologized in American literature textbooks. The play begins as the county attorney, the sherrif, Mr. Hale, Mrs. Peters, and Mrs. Hale enter the Wright's empty farm house. On prompting from the county attorney, Mr. Hale recounts his visit to the house the previous day, when he found Mrs. Wright behaving strangely and found her husband upstairs with a rope around his neck, dead. Mr. Hale notes that, when he questioned her, Mrs. Wright claimed that she was fast asleep when someone strangled her husband.Often hailed as one of the quintessential feminist plays, 'Trifles' earned Glaspell a Pulitzer Prize and renewed literary recognition.

Theology of The Womb


Christy Angelle Bauman - 2019
    Yet I am a woman, and there are parts of my body; such as my breasts, my vagina, and my womb that are telling a story about God that I have never learned or understood. This is an exploration of the significance of a womb that must shed and bleed before it can create. How will we engage our body which cyclically bleeds most of our life and can build and birth a human soul? How will we honor the living womb, that lives and sometimes dies within us?This is a book about the theology found in the cycle of the womb, which births both life and death. Every day each one of us is invited to create, and every day we make a decision knowing that from our creation can come death or life. Women's voices have been silenced for a long time as society and the church has quieted their bodies. Will we courageously choose to listen to the sound of your voice, the song of your womb, and speak for the world to hear?

A Greater Tomorrow


Julie Rowe - 2014
    Then her health took a turn for the worse. While in a weakened state, her spirit left her body and entered the Spirit World. An ancestor named John greeted her and showed her many wonderful places there. He also allowed her to read from the Book of Life, which showed her a panorama of the earth's past, present, and future. Julie saw the lives of many historical figures, such as Adam and Eve, Enoch, Noah, and Moses. She witnessed the Savior's mortal life, including his crucifixion and resurrection. She also saw the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ through the prophet Joseph Smith, and the key events that have led to the Church's growth. Then Julie was shown upcoming world events that will be both tragic and glorious. She saw earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, plagues, and wars, but she also witnessed how the Lord is watching over His people and is preparing places of refuge to protect them from the coming calamities. Julie was filled with joy as she saw the Saints establish the New Jerusalem and other Cities of Light in preparation for the Savior's Second Coming. Prior to her return, she was told that at a future time she would be expected to tell others about her experience. That time has come. As your read Julie's experience, your life will be changed as you feel the Lord's love and concern for each of us.

The Man Born to Be King: A Play-Cycle on the Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ


Dorothy L. Sayers - 1943
    "Her Jesus can bring tears to your eyes. You will be deeply moved--a powerful experience".--Sheldon Vanauken, A Severe Mercy.

A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit


Sarah Sentilles - 2008
    Sarah Sentilles enters the lives of female ministers—women of various ages and races, in a range of churches—to paint the first real portrait of what it’s like to serve as a woman of faith today.Sometimes triumphant, sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful, their stories take us from their calls to the pulpit through their ordinations and service in congregations. These women show us how the church can be more welcoming to the women who are its lifeblood. And in their inspiring determination to perform the ministry to which they are called, no matter what the obstacles, we might well see the future of the church itself.

The Revolutionists


NOT A BOOK
    Playwright Olympe De Gouge, assassin Charlotte Corday, and former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, loose their heads, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in revolutionary Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, feminism and terrorism, art and how we actually go about changing the world. It a true story. Or total fiction. Or a play about a play. Or a raucous resurrection that ends in a song and a scaffold.

Lysistrata


Aristophanes
    Led by the title character, the women of the warring city-states of Greece agree to withhold sexual favours with their husbands until they agree to cease fighting. The war of the sexes that ensues makes Lysistrata a bawdy comedy without peer in the history of theatre.

The Half-Life of Marie Curie


Lauren Gunderson - 2019
    At the time, Curie was in the throes of a scandal in France over her affair with Paul Langevin, which threatened to overshadow the accomplishment of her second Nobel Prize.Performed by Kate Mulgrew and Francesca Faridany, this play by Lauren Gunderson is an ode to two remarkable women who, despite tremendous personal and professional obstacles, continued to devote their lives to scientific innovation and social change.Playwright Lauren Gunderson was awarded a commission through the Audible Emerging Playwrights Fund, an initiative dedicated to developing innovative original plays driven by language and voice. As an Audible commissioned playwright, she received funding and creative support to develop The Half-Life of Marie Curie.Directed by Gaye Taylor UpchurchSound design by Darron L West

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future (Updated With a New Epilogue)


Riane Eisler - 1987
    The Chalice and the Blade tells a new story of our cultural origins. It shows that warfare and the war of the sexes are neither divinely nor biologically ordained. It provides verification that a better future is possible—and is in fact firmly rooted in the haunting dramas of what happened in our past.

When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over


Addie Zierman - 2013
    She also led two Bible studies and listened exclusively to Christian music. She was on fire for God and unaware that the flame was dwindling—until it burned out. Addie chronicles her journey through church culture and first love, and her entrance—unprepared and angry—into marriage. When she drops out of church and very nearly her marriage as well, it is on a sea of tequila and depression. She isn’t sure if she’ll ever go back. When We Were on Fire is a funny, heartbreaking story of untangling oneself from what is expected to arrive at faith that is not bound by tradition or current church fashion. Addie looks for what lasts when nothing else seems worth keeping. It’s a story for doubters, cynics, and anyone who has felt alone in church.

Mary, Called Magdalene


Margaret George - 2002
    In a vivid re-creation of Mary Magdalene's life story, Margaret George convincingly captures this renowned woman's voice as she moves from girlhood to womanhood, becomes part of the circle of disciples, and comes to grips with the divine.While grounded in biblical scholarship and secular research, Mary, Called Magdalene ultimately transcends both history and fiction to become a "diary of a soul."

Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice


Willie Parker - 2017
    Willie Parker grew up in the Deep South, lived in a Christian household, and converted to an even more fundamentalist form of Christianity as a young man. But upon reading an interpretation of the Good Samaritan in a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he realized that in order to be a true Christian, he must show compassion for all women regardless of their needs. In 2009, he stopped practicing obstetrics to focus entirely on providing safe abortions for the women who need help the most—often women in poverty and women of color—and in the hot bed of the pro-choice debate: the South. He soon thereafter traded in his private practice and his penthouse apartment in Hawaii for the life of an itinerant abortion provider, focusing most recently on women in the Deep South. In Life’s Work, Dr. Willie Parker tells a deeply personal and thought-provoking narrative that illuminates the complex societal, political, religious, and personal realities of abortion in the United States from the unique perspective of someone who performs them and defends the right to do so every day. He also looks at how a new wave of anti-abortion activism, aimed at making incremental changes in laws and regulations state by state, are slowly chipping away at the rights of women to control their own lives. In revealing his daily battle against mandatory waiting periods and bogus rules governing the width of hallways, Dr. Parker uncovers the growing number of strings attached to the right to choose and makes a powerful Christian case for championing reproductive rights.

Cries of the Spirit: More Than 300 Poems in Celebration of Women's Spirituality


Marilyn Sewell - 1991
    Here women's voices fill the age-old silence about matters central to their experience-from menstruation, sexual intimacy, and childbirth to caretaking, household rituals, and death. These writings represent a healing vision of the sacred that emerges from the particular consciousness of women-a vision that partakes of the world of earth and flesh. With contributions by Maya Angelou, Julia Alvarez, Margaret Atwood, Hildegard of Bingen, Lucille Clifton, Annie Dillard, Joy Harjo, Erica Jong, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Kathleen Norris, Marge Piercy, Starhawk, Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, and others.

Shameless: A Sexual Reformation


Nadia Bolz-Weber - 2019
    And that's why in Shameless, Pastor Nadia sets out to reclaim the conversation for a new generation. In the spirit of Martin Luther, Bolz-Weber calls for a reformation of the way believers understand and express their sexuality. To make her case, Bolz-Weber draws on experiences from her own life as well as her parishoners', then puts them side by side with biblical narrative and theology to explore what the church has taught and about sex, and the harm that has often come as a result. Along the way, Bolz-Weber reexamines patriarchy, gender, and sexual orientation with candor but also with hope--because, as she writes, "I believe that the Gospel can heal the pain that even the church has caused."

Girls Like That


Evan Placey - 2013
    But while rumors run wild and everyone forms an opinion, Scarlett just stays silent.With roles for up to twenty-four young female actors (though it can also be performed by a smaller cast), the play is perfect for any schools, youth theatres or drama groups looking to tackle a contemporary subject in a theatrically exciting way.Specially commissioned by Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and West Yorkshire Playhouse, Girls Like That was developed through work with young people from the three theatres and first performed by their youth theatre companies in 2013."[Tackles] strong, relevant issues... a well-written, immaculately crafted and brave piece of energetic theatre." - A Younger Theatre"An urgent, powerful and haunting examination... I can see this play becoming a very popular resource for 16+ groups and that will be no bad thing." National Drama MagazineEvan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright. His other work includes Mother of Him, Holloway Jones, which won the Brian Way Award for Best Play for Young People, and Pronoun, commissioned as part of the 2014 National Theatre Connections Festival.