New Perspectives Theatre Company And The School for Drama At the New School Presents The Works of Teresa Deevy

On Her Shoulders is pleased to present staged readings of three plays by Irish dramatist Teresa Deevy, directed by Kristin Heckler on Tuesday, November 20, 2018. Doors open at 6:45pm for a 7:00pm start with The Play in Context by Melody Brooks, who situates the scripts in their historical time and place, followed by the readings and a post-performance Q&A with refreshments. Admission is by Donation ($10 suggested). The performance is at The New School: Starr Foundation Hall, University Center, 63 Fifth Avenue, Room UL102. R.S.V.P. to OnHerShouldersReservations@gmail.com.

Teresa Deevy (1876-1960): Once regarded as the playwright who would succeed Sean O'Casey as the next shining light of The Abbey Theatre, Deevy emerged with gusto in the early 1930s, but just over a decade later had fallen into obscurity. In 1913, while attending university (she was one of the first female students to enter University College Dublin to study for a BA), Deevy contracted Ménière's disease and lost her hearing. She spent the next five years in London learning to lip read, and attended the theatre regularly as part of the training. She saw the works of Ibsen, Chekhov and Shaw. She also wrote early plays there under the pseudonym DV Goode. Ironically it was through this most visual, aural and physically sensual medium of the arts that she became attuned to the intricacies of language and dialogue - and in particular to a sensitivity to the power of silence, which would become a hallmark of her playwriting. Deevy made her debut at the Abbey in 1930 with her successful play The Reapers. This was followed quickly by a one-act comedy, A Disciple, in 1931, and her first major play, Temporal Powers, which won the Abbey's new play competition in 1932. A powerful one-act, The King of Spain's Daughter, followed in 1935. The following year she produced the play for which she is best known today, Katie Roche, and not long after came a sprawling historical play, The Wild Goose. A place in the Abbey repertoire seemed certain when Katie Roche toured the US in 1938, along with plays by Synge and O'Casey.

Deevy's plays focus on young women who challenge their social environment and demand autonomy and self-gratification. The main thrust of her work was to critique the institution of marriage as a limiting construct, and her plays present women who are stifled by patriarchy and who are not afraid to say so. All of this was in sharp contrast to the official view of the role of women in the 1937 Constitution, and to Ernest Blythe's (the new Abbey Director) definition of what a national drama should be -which was to serve the conservative Catholic Church and State ethos. From 1939 onwards, apart from one play performed on the experimental stage (Light Falling), Deevy was effectively finished with The Abbey Theatre and she turned to writing for radio-a remarkable transition, given that the first radio broadcast in Ireland took place more than a decade after Deevy had lost her hearing. And yet, in this medium that she could never experience directly, she excelled, both writing specifically for the airwaves and adapting her stage plays. Against the odds she continued to write throughout the 1940s and 1950s, constantly seeking expression for the vivid life of her imagination up until her death in 1963.

KRISTIN HECKLER (Director) is an NYC based director and producer. In addition to freelance work, Kristin runs her company, Recognize Theatre, which is dedicated to writing and producing plays analyzing gender and sexuality. Favorite projects include Exposed (Off-Off Broadway), Or (New School Master's Thesis), Paraphilia: Everyone Has A Sexual Disorder (FringeNYC/Recognize), How I Learned to Drive (Recognize Theatre), and Stop Kiss (Philadelphia Fringe Festival). Her directing roots stem from Montgomery Theater in Souderton, PA where she assistant directed pieces such as Becky Shaw. Kristin Heckler grew up in Sellersville, PA and graduated from Duke University with BA's in Women's Studies and Spanish. She graduated from the New School for Drama in 2016 with an MFA in Theatre Directing. She lives in New York with her wife, Ash.

Melody Brooks (Dramaturg) is an award-winning producer/director, founder and Artistic Director of NPTC. Brooks leads NPTC's Women's Work Project, which develops short and full-length plays by 12-16 members per year, and produces ON HER SHOULDERS, serving as a regular Director/Dramaturg for the program. She has developed and directed numerous award-winning and acclaimed original and classic plays for NPTC and other companie. Brooks was recently honored as a Trailblazing Woman of Theatre for Artistry & Vision by RhythmColor Associates. She received the "Spirit of Hope Award" in 2015 from Speranza Theatre Company for her support of women theatre artists for more than 25 years, and was named a "Person of the Year" by NYTheatre.com as a co-founder of 50/50 in 2020: Parity for Women Theatre Artists. She is on the Board of Directors of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and was Co-chair of the triennial LPTW Gilder/Coigney International Theatre Award in 2014 and 2017.

ON HER SHOULDERS was founded in 2013 to present rehearsed, staged readings of plays by women from across the spectrum of time, with contemporary dramaturgs contextualizing them for modern audiences. The program was incorporated into New Perspectives' Women's Work Project in 2014 and continues to strive to make it impossible for producers and theatre companies to deny or ignore the 1,000-year history and value of women's contribution to the theatrical canon. To date the program has presented 41 plays by 33 writers from the years 1668 to 1970. OHS is produced by Melissa Attebery and Melody Brooks. Kristin Heckler is Associate Producer.

NEW PERSPECTIVES THEATRE COMPANY (NPTC) is an award-winning, multi-racial company performing for the last 27 years in Midtown Manhattan, communities throughout NYC, and as of 2015, internationally. The Company's mission is to develop and produce new plays and playwrights, especially women and people of color; to present classic plays in a style that addresses contemporary issues; and to extend the benefits of theatre to young people and communities in need. Our aim is not to exclude, but to cast a wider net. www.nptnyc.org

THE SCHOOL OF DRAMA at the NEW SCHOOL: The creative home for the future of performing arts. Agile. Engaged. Innovative. Multi-disciplinary. The New School for Drama is home to a dynamic group of young directors, writers, actors, creative technologists, and award-winning faculty. With a core belief in rigorous creativity and collaborative learning, our programs embrace civic awareness across performance disciplines to create work imbued with professionalism, imagination and social context. For more information, please visit www.newschool.edu/drama

The Play in Context, the dramaturgical and scholarly presentation component to the program, is sponsored in part by the League of Professional Theatre Women, a non-profit organization promoting visibility and increasing opportunities for women in theatre since 1982. www.theatrewomen.org