Philly Women's Theatre Festival sets out to challenge what you think

Ask Polly Edelstein, artistic director of the Philadelphia Women's Theatre Festival, why female voices are important in the performing arts, and you'll get a sigh. "Oh, gosh, how long do you have?"

Edelstein's festival was "born over drinks" in 2014, when she and friend Christine Petrini brainstormed about how best to help Philadelphia's talented female directors and playwrights.

They lamented the gross disproportion of male to female leaders in theater, and they decided that, instead of opening their own company, they would throw a yearly event that highlighted women in the community. The festival is in its second year, and it runs Wednesday through Sunday at the Caplan Studio Theater at the University of the Arts. All the pieces were submitted by local women and range in genre from cabaret to one-acts to stand-up.

Edelstein realized as an undergrad at Stephens College, a school for women in Columbia, Mo., how underrepresented women were in the liberal arts. "If you look at the canon, the scales are bent heavily toward men," she says. "And so much of theater today is still from the canon. So women are still behind the eight ball with that, and that was eye-opening."

One woman who somehow infiltrated the canon was Simone de Beauvoir, author of what is now considered the textbook on the origins of European feminism, The Second Sex.

"She popped up many times on a syllabus, as she usually does in theory classes, or just in any type of reading that you do on the basis of feminism," says Amanda Coffin. "And there's just something about her that stuck."

Coffin formed a collective of six women who together have been writing a play, Simone, that pays homage to de Beauvoir. They will perform half an hour of what they've devised so far, with one actor portraying de Beauvoir while others represent the figures who influenced her. All characters are played by women. Coffin says this gender-bending exercise felt especially apt given its subject, who refused to subscribe to the heteronormative notion of sex.

Taking a look at de Beauvoir's younger years, the ensemble uses her first two autobiographies, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter and The Prime of Life, as source material, as well as The Second Sex and letters she wrote to her longtime mate, Jean-Paul Sartre. Coffin says that the memoirs provided facts about the writer's history and that the letters gave insight into her personality.

"In her memoirs, she's definitely performing, or putting on this idea of what she wants the world to see in her," Coffin says. "But in her letters, she's just writing to Sartre, this person she has so much love for."

Part of what makes de Beauvoir's life such a fascinating topic is her revolutionary attitude, her lack of respect for the rules. "She definitely was outside of the bounds of what society expected of her because she slept with her students," Coffin says. "She had relationships with men and women, sometimes at the same time. And that's something that, even today, society kind of frowns upon."

Like de Beauvoir, young local playwright Haygen Brice Walker isn't always reverent, but his controversy has purpose.

"He writes with abandon," says Elaina Di Monaco, his collaborator and director. "He's really bold, and he always has something to say. And he says it in a really direct, interesting, millennial way."

Walker's BuzzFeed, Donald Trump, and Dead Black Kids is about two best friends - one black, one white - who bond over their mutual hatred for things and people around them. As they work on a group project together, they start talking about their distaste for cafeteria food, their classmate's shirt, and homework. The conversation escalates quickly when they land on politics, at first agreeing until racial issues come into the mix.

Di Monaco says the play is about "how hate can bring people together until it tears them apart." When she first read it, it made her stomach hurt. "Some of it's really funny. And then all of a sudden, the funny moments go too far, and you're laughing at something horrible," she says. "I think some people may really hate this."

Dancing on the cusp of disaster seems to be a unifying thread for the festival this year. "There's a recurring theme of taking a risk, or doing something risky," Edelstein says. The plays and playwrights "got us thinking about how theater in general is a risky business."

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@allyevillarreal

Philadelphia Women's Theatre Festival

Wednesday through Sunday, Caplan Studio Theater, University of the Arts, 211 S. Broad St. Tickets: $15. Information: phillywomenstheatrefest.org. EndText