So, I’m a pretty active person, playwright, and dreamer… I like to keep busy and I like to feel productive.  I think it’s one of the reasons I was SO excited about the LAFPI starting up… I mean, a group of kick-ass playwrights all working towards gender parity in theater?  AND we get to have fun mixers and support each other and address important issues in theater?

Count me IN!

And over the past year (+) I’ve been super happy to see all the strides we’ve made – the very important LAFPI study helmed by the amazing Miss Ella Martin, the Women on the Fringe work that honored theatres who produce female playwrights, and the all encouraging and inspiring support that this site has offered for countless other female playwrights who want to get involved and join the revolution.

It’s been amazing.

But I’ve been watching a lot of it from AZ – where I’m now stationed – and I’ve been ants-in-my-pants-to-the-extreme for more ground-work than I can actually do from afar…

Until I realized that my new stomping grounds include an amazing community theatre and quite a few talented and accomplished female playwrights of its own…

And then I realized that I could support female playwrights by actually producing them.

So I started up Little Black Dress INK (www.LittleBlackDressINK.org), sent out invitations to some awesomely talented women, had a thrilling meeting with the head of the theatre here who said “YES!” to my crazy scheme, and got the ball rolling…

Now, a few months later, I find myself in the home stretch of a most passionate project:  Dirty Laundry, a ten minute play fest benefitting the Prescott Area Women’s Shelter and including plays from 9 awesome female playwrights!  There are also 7 female directors helming each of the plays, and a WAY talented team of actors bringing these plays to life.

So that ants in the pants feeling I was complaining about?  It’s settled down a little bit, appeased that I’m making something happen instead of waiting for it to come to me…

And isn’t that what the LAFPI is all about?

Becoming an “Instigator” is a call to arms!  All it takes is some daring, some passion, some wild-eyed-scheming, and a shared vision.

I might be one tired puppy at the end of this week, but I will be sleeping happy 🙂

~Tiffany