September Spotlight:  Naijeria Toweett

Naijeria Toweett is passionate about equality and empowerment especially among minority and vulnerable populations.

She is a drama graduate from Newcastle College, UK. She has worked in the arts having held the position of an administrative assistant to Dance City, Newcastle. On returning to her native Kenya in 1997, she together with other young female artists formed Women in Participatory Educational Theatre (WEPET), Kenya’s first all women theatre company. She has held various positions in several dance and theatre organizations in Kenya among them, Institute of Performing Arts (IPAL), The Theatre Company (TTC) and Dance Into Space (DIS) where she now sits on the board.

 Naijeria has also worked as a program officer for Most At Risk Populations in Liverpool VCT Care and Treatment and the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya – GALCK.

Naijeria loves digital media and for the past three years she has been the social media manager of Love Matters Africa, a project that targets young people with sexual reproductive health information. The Love Matters Facebook page is ranked in the top 25 among the most engaging Kenyan-based pages.  

Naijeria has recently scripted and directed a web soap series on Love Sex and Relationships for a Love Matters mobile platform.

 She has been an ICWP member since 2009.

Welcome New Members

Marjorie Conn, USA
Actor and Producer
3 plays are published in Lost Lesbian Lives

Joyce Fontana, USA
jfontana@frontier.net
Nurse Practitioner
Specialty Geriatrics, Palliative Care

THEATER/INTERESTS: Theater has been a life-long interest, from enjoying community to Broadway performances, nurturing and supporting an actor son, providing financial support to local art centers, being a crowd-funder to fledgling producers, and writing one act and full length scripts, drama and comedy.  Lives, plays, works and writes in beautiful Southwest Colorado where she resides with her husband and three dogs.

PRODUCTIONS, READINGS:
23 Skidoo. Performed at the Durango Arts Center 10 Minute Play Contest, Durango CO, September, 2013

Trail Meetups, Performed at the Manhattan Short Play Lab, New York City, October, 2014

Satellite Buddha. Performed at the Secret Theater One-Act Play Contest. Queens, New York City, September 2015

Exhibitions at a Picture, Finalist, reading at Festival 56 New Works Play Writing Competition, Princeton IL July 2016

 

Jane Prendergast, USA
Jane has had many productions of short plays, such as "NOLA Goodbye", "The Diers" "May 10" and "After the Fire" and readings by NYU's hotINK festival, Genesius Guild and other organizations of full-length plays including "Memories are Made of This", "Act of Peace" and "Echoes: 1938"

Most of my work is connected with human rights issues such as abuses perpetrated by peacekeeping forces, prosecutorial misconduct and the convictions of the innocent.

 

Now Playing

Christine Emmert's play, SAY NO MORE, a re-thinking of Strindberg's THE STRONGER, will be part of the Philadelphia Fringe 2016, presented on September 15,16,17 at 7:30 in Jed Williams Gallery, 315 Bainbridge Street, Philadelphia. Tickets are $10. Call 610-917-1336 for information.

The Athena Cats present the World Premiere of Blueprint for Paradise, by Laurel Weztork.  Set in Los Angeles just before the US declares war on Japan in 1941. The play explores wealth, racial tensions, Nazis, the Mothers of America, and other pre-war political groups. 

PLAYING AT: Hudson Theatre Mainstage, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038
July 30 – September 4:  Fridays and Saturdays @ 8:00 pm, Sundays @ 3:00 pm
Tickets: https://www.plays411.net/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=4458
Check Goldstar for last-minute and discounts.

Coming Soon

MODEL BEHAVIOR, a ten-minute play by Amy Drake, will be performed in the Little Black Dress INK's Women Playwrights ONSTAGE theater festival, Oct 6-8, 2016, at the Prescott Center for the Arts, Prescott, AZ. More information may be obtain on the website: http://www.littleblackdressink.org/ and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/LittleBlackDressINK

 Articles of Interest

Project Ariadne is planning a pan-African festival of women’s theatre in Rwanda. The company was founded to tell the stories of women in conflict zones around the world whose work is changing the society they live in. 

African women are making history in 2016! Read about some extraordinary women artists and their groundbreaking projects at okayafrica.

South Africa’s Olive Tree Theatre will be hosting it’s 5th The Women's Theatre Festival from 21- 30 October 2016. The festival gives women directors a platform to showcase their work.

Parity Productions is a new theatre company dedicated to equality for women and transgender theatre artists. Besides producing and promoting new work, they host a database of women and transgender writers, directors, and designers, and also commission two new plays a year.

Will writers ever be replaced by artificial intelligence? Take a look at this short film written by an AI, and judge for yourself!