Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective
The Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective was a group of professional women playwrights in New York active from 1971 to 1975. They wrote and produced feminist plays and were one of the first feminist theatre groups in the United States to do so. The members' individual works had been produced at the Public Theater, La Mama, Joe Chaikin’s Open Theater, Caffe Cino, Circle Repertory Company, Mark Taper Forum, Lincoln Center, and New York Theater Ensemble. History The playwrights' group was one of the first feminist theatre groups in the country. Original members included Helen Duberstein, Helene Dworzan, Patricia Horan, Gwen Gunn, Christina Maile, Sally Ordway, Dolores Deane Walker, and Susan Yankowitz. Megan Terry and Dacia Maraini were among the guest playwrights. Their Advisory Board included Gloria Steinem, Muriel Rukeyser, Eleanor Perry, Florynce Kennedy, along with Margaret Croyden, Alice Denham, Elizabeth Fisher, Ellen Frankfort, Carol Greitzer, Tania, Alix Kates Shulman, and Anita Steckel. Feminist issues The plays of the Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective featured such women's issues as religious patriarchy, work-place discrimination, dominance/submission relationships, historical figures, masquerade, and sexual harassment. Subsequent to their first production, RAPE-IN, the plays transcended the limiting context of agit-prop theatre by discarding the revenge themes current in