Arizona Theatre Matters, under the co-artistic direction of Pamela Sterling and Jeanmarie (Simpson) Bishop, seeks woman actors over 40 for the We Ain’t Done Yet Festival, November 9th2019.
8 actors are needed for an ensemble performance of A Single Woman (we’re considering changing the title for this ensemble version), an award-winning play about first US Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973). The production is directed by Pamela Sterling.
The first table read will occur on a Saturday in February or March, availability depending. The reading and rehearsals will take place in Tempe at a blackbox/performance space at ASU. The festival will happen at the Phoenix Center for the Arts, 1202 North 3rd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85004.
WHY are we casting with an assemblage of women actors over the age of 40 dozens of characters of all genders, ages and ethnicities?
Resistance.
We are 80 percent of the artists in the theatre, and we are 20 percent of the actors cast. We will make our own work – as we always have – and we will do it together. The We Ain’t Done Yet Festival is an opportunity for us to gather, to work together, to engage each other’s creativity on and off the stage in panels, discussions and with meals together in an all-day experience that we hope will be the beginning of a collaborative movement that reaches into the far-flung future.
Published by Jeanmarie Simpson
Jeanmarie Simpson has been a working theatre artist since 1972 and has directed dozens of plays and musicals. She wrote and performed hundreds of times (including Off-Broadway) A Single Woman about Jeannette Rankin, the first US Congresswoman. She performed the piece at CalArts as Surdna Distinguished Guest Artist in 2005 and starred in the film version with Judd Nelson, the voices of Martin Sheen and Patricia Arquette, and Joni Mitchell's music. After winning the Sacramento News and Review's Best Theatrical Surprise award, A Single Woman toured 53 countries on five continents. Tony Award winner Zakes Mokae directed her as Elsa in his 2003 staging of The Road to Mecca, and in 2007, Leonard Nimoy directed her in the US premiere of Vern Thiessen's solo-tour-de force, Shakespeare's Will. She again toured the world with Coming In Hot, playing 19 military women. From 2011-19, she toured globally with her original solo performance HERETIC - the Mary Dyer story. In 2021, her play Pineapple and Other Options played in a Longbeach new works festival and was staged and filmed in Phoenix, and her play The Jewish Question won Honorable Mention by the New York-based Jewish Plays Project. In 2022, she won a Living History Foundation grant for Bambino Mio - Bright Little Flame about Maria Montessori. She is recipient of six Sierra Arts Foundation and twelve Nevada Arts Council grants to artists and a National Endowment for the Arts Theatre grant. Founding Artistic Director of Universal Access Productions/Arizona Theatre Matters, based in Arizona, Nevada, and on the company's YouTube channel, she served on the panel for the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts Theatre Grants for Arts Projects. Jeanmarie is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographer's Society, the Dramatists Guild of America, and is retired from Actors Equity Association and Screen Actors Guild/AFTRA
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