Tamara Tunie, Blair Brown, Laura San Giacomo, Emily Mann and More Join OVER AND ABOVE: WOMEN OVER 55 SPEAK

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, Brooklyn's Brave New World Rep will present Over and Above: Women Over 55 Speak, August 26th, 7pm on Zoom. The one hour program will showcase 17 original short monologues penned by a diverse group of women writers over 55, and one male contemporary - and performed and directed by women of the same age.

OVER AND ABOVE addresses the invisibility felt by women over the age of 55, says BNW producing artistic director/co-curator Claire Beckman. "During weekly Zoom cocktails with four college friends from Carnegie-Mellon University's Department of Drama, circa 1984, we found ourselves asking why we, as a society, put brilliant women out to pasture when they hit the sell-by-date of 55? We decided to put out a call to older women writers. The responses were overwhelming and humbling. We realized we had opened a treasure chest. The submitted monologues were extraordinary, and why wouldn't they be? These women have lived. It was challenging to keep our presentation to under an hour."

Beckman invited the four friends and theater professionals - Sandra Bargman, Teri Brown, Leslie Ellis and Laura Patinkin - to partner with her as co-curators and directors. The group also made the decision to amend the whites-only legacy of the 19th amendment to ensure women of color are amply represented. And while they wanted to give the floor to women, they also decided to hear one man's perspective on older women.

Participation from notable writers, actors, and directors was enlisted, including:

Emily Mann - Award-winning director/playwright/screenwriter, artistic director of McCarter Theatre Center; plays include "Having Our Say" and "Gloria: A Life"

Blair Brown - Film/Theater/TV ("Days and Nights of Molly Dodd")

Laura San Giacomo - Film/TV (Sex, Lies and Videotape, Pretty Woman, Just Shoot Me, Saving Grace)

Tamara Tunie - Film/Theater/TV best known for roles as Jessica Griffin on As the World Turns, and as medical examiner Melinda Warner in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit

Says Emily Mann who wrote and directed a monologue read by Blair Brown, "I am honored to be a part of OVER AND ABOVE. First, because women over 55 need to be heard from; we rarely are. Second, I would do anything Claire Beckman asked me to do. I believe in her theater, and I believe in her. Giving voice to older women at this moment in time brings hard earned wisdom into the national discourse."

Adds Laura Patinkin (co-curator/actor in one monologue/director of four), that although the project began as old friends discussing the lack of material for women of a certain age, "it ended up not being about what is lacking, but rather the abundance of what we have when we women gather creatively, intellectually, spiritually and emotionally."

Summing it up, writer Germaine Shames who contributed two monologues says, "What no one wants to acknowledge, but what every woman over the age of 55 experiences, is creeping invisibility. Unseen, undesired and undervalued, mature women offer their wholeness and lucidity to a blindered society that relegates them to the margins. Events like Brave New World Rep's OVER AND ABOVE allow mature writers to throw off imposed stereotypes and declare, We're still here, as witty, wise, fierce, fearless, sexy and badass as ever."

Brave New World Rep Presents

OVER AND ABOVE: Women Over 55 Speak

August 26th at 7pm

A Benefit to Support the artists of BNW in the time of COVID

Suggested Donation $15

Ticket Information HERE

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