7 Theater Companies Partner For The 4th Annual EXPAND THE CANON List Of Classic Plays By Women

With now as many plays as Shakespeare (36 total!), Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre is thrilled to announce the 9 plays on this year's EXPAND THE CANON list. These historic plays by women - ranging from 1664 to 1979, from 7 countries across 3 continents - have been long overdue for recognition. Hedgepig is delighted that this call to action, to embrace these works by women as classics, is being answered by 7 partner companies: The Acting Company, American Shakespeare Center, Classic Stage Company, Fiasco Theater, INTAR Theatre, Irish Repertory Theatre, and Island Shakespeare Festival.

This 4th Expand the Canon list brings Hedgepig's total number of celebrated works to 36. On the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's First Folio, which contains his 36 plays, Hedgepig has a full folio-worth of classic plays by women.

The nine plays selected for 2023 are as follows:

• The Favorite Minister by Marie-Catherine Desjardins (Madame de Villedieu) 1664, French
  Verse play about the transactional nature of relationships, which was the first play by a woman performed for King Louis XIV

• Adelinda by Hannah Brand 1796, English
  Irreverent class comedy with a gritty female lead

• A New System of Freedom by Charlotte von Stein 1798, German
  Madcap Comedy of Errors with chaotic Gen-Z wit

• The Sons of Erin by Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu 1812, Irish
  Plot-twist-filled farce with bold schemes to fight prejudice

• The Verge by Susan Glaspell 1921, American
  The lyric insight of Virginia Woolf meets the electric cruelty of Hedda Gabler

• Heaven Challenges by Li Man-kuei 1943, Chinese
  Dramedy about reframing your life and learning to fall in love (with yourself) again

• Day of the Swallows by Estela Portillo-Trambley 1971, Chicana
  Lush, poetic drama with a powerhouse queer heroine and an intersectional view of indigeneity

• Mother of 1084 by Mahasweta Devi 1973, Indian
  Whirling political drama centering a mother's feminist awakening

• Spell #7 by Ntozake Shange 1979, American
  Ensemble-lead choreopoem that explores the Black experience in the entertainment industry

"I'm always shocked by how little the greater theatre community knows about women and non-binary playwrights. Expand the Canon is changing that, and it's super exciting to see 9 more plays get the attention they deserve." -Triza Cox, Director of Outreach and Engagement for Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre.

"We have landed some incredible partners for this year's list - which makes a huge difference," says Artistic Director Emily Lyon. "We want to reach every audience and community with these titles. Everyone deserves to have a fuller awareness of our history, and it takes bold artistic and educational leadership to program deserving yet undersung voices."

Expand the Canon is a celebration of and a call to action to embrace excellent plays by a diverse set of historic women in the classics. Akin to The Kilroy's List, this project engages professionals to review and select a more diverse range of classic plays. These carefully curated titles are timely, relevant, and producible. The list includes producing information, to make it easy for classical and regional companies to undertake these plays and give women the legacies they deserve.

This project demands gender equity in theater, ensuring that what's held up as "classics" includes a diverse set of women and non-binary voices from history. Many of the plays each year are by Global Majority writers. As theaters across the country and the world have stood in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, and other vital movements, this is a moment of opportunity to audit whose work we uplift and celebrate. For classical theaters, this could be especially daunting since the traditional canon taught in schools is predominantly male and white. This project explodes that notion. Expand the Canon provides a crucial resource to help theaters and educators meet their goals of inclusion.

"I'm proud that we're able to bring attention to 36 classics in 4 years - 400 years after the world recognized the Bard's 36 classics," says Corri Oster, Managing Director of Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre.

The Expand the Canon curators for 2023 are as follows:

Shannon Corenthin, Actor/Producer (2020-2023)

Gagarin, Actor/Ensemble Member of Hedgepig (2023)

Kalina Ko, Literary Assistant of Roundabout Theatre Company (2023)

Emily Lyon, Director/Dramaturg/Artistic Director of Hedgepig (2020-2023)

Skye Pagon, Actor/Director/Producer/Ensemble Member of Hedgepig (2020-2023)

Founded in 2012, Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre's mission is to reimagine the classics, creating a legacy of storytelling with gender equity at its core. To make that mission even more profound and impactful, Hedgepig created Expand the Canon (www.expandthecanon.com) in 2020 as a call to action for theatres to embrace and produce plays by women and non-binary writers as classics. Plays on the Expand the Canon lists have since been seen at major companies like Roundabout Theatre, Repertorio Español, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, Island Shakespeare Festival, The Stratford Festival, and Theatre for a New Audience. The lists have helped shape curricula of universities across the country. Additionally, Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre has grown their research database to 6,000+ historic plays by women and non-binary writers. Subscriptions to access these classic plays and more information about Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre and Expand the Canon can be found at hedegpigensemble.org.