A Stage of One's Own Theatre Company
ShaSha was the founder and artistic director of A Stage of One's Own, an outgrowth of WITS: Women in Theatre - Shecago, one of the first women's theatres in Chicago. It had a permanent space in the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood, where for seven years it offered innovative, socially essential, free theatre largely supported by donations from actual patrons - based on the honor system that those who could afford to pay more would donate on behalf of those who couldn't afford to pay at all. The audience consisted of wealthy individuals, genuinely interested in supporting new works, to homeless individuals, genuinely interested in the catharsis that truly good theatre can supply.
Many
new playwrights, directors, actors, technicians, and artists of varied
and marvelous talents used the space to workshop new projects and
experiment with new ideas. A Stage of One's Own held weekly staged and
unstaged readings of plays-in-progress, originated the first annual
Women Directors Festival, produced a Saturday afternoon Feminist Fairy
Tales series written by aspiring playwrights of both genders, hosted
the annual Around-the-Coyote arts festival, and produced critically
acclaimed new works, ShaSha's own plays among them.
