Sheherezade 13 writeup in April 10th issue of SF Weekly!

Lily Jeniak interviewed Sheherezade 13 Executive Director Laylah Muran, as well as playwrights Jennifer Lynne Roberts and Patricia Milton, for an intriguing article in the April 10th edition of SF Weekly.  Titled, "Gener Roles, Local Theatre Confronts the Lack of Women Behind the Scenes", Ms. Jeniak discusses the predominant female presence in this year's Sheherezade and past productions.  

Here's an excerpt:

Sheherezade 13, a coproduction by Wily West Productions and Playwrights' Center of San Francisco, didn't start as a women-centered event. It was born 13 years ago as a staged reading of many short plays to celebrate two departing PCSF board members. Now, it's an annual showcase of fully produced 10-minute plays by PCSF members — coincidentally, mostly female members.

Even before Laylah Muran de Assereto joined the showcase as executive producer and director five years ago, the event already had women in most of the leadership positions.

Muran says she doesn't think it was a "conscious decision" by her predecessors. But now that it's been this way for so long, it's something she says she'd lobby for in the future.

In her first year, she says, "I turned to my colleagues who happened to be women and said, 'Here's an opportunity we don't get a lot.' The next year, it turned out again that I had women directors."  Since then, "I haven't gone, 'Here's a policy I'm making,'" she says. "But I'm proud that it happened that way."

... For Sheherezade 13, the fact that its playwrights are almost all female (seven out of nine this year) is just as accidental as its all-female leadership; the group uses blind selection. "The selection committee doesn't know who playwrights are until they've been chosen," says Muran. "Women just floated to the top." Switching over to blind selection, she says, can be "a big educational wakeup" because "you educate yourself to your own biases."

To read the rest of the SF Weekly article, click here

Not-so-secret additional tidbit: Wily West Productions' Sheherezade 12 last year at StageWerx, featured 7 female playwrights (out of 8) and the 2 female directors--Kat Kneisel and Ann Thomas--both returned to co-direct this year's Sheherezade 13!

Sheherezade 13

Nine short plays by PCSF member playwrights

The Exit Theatre Main Stage

156 Eddy Street, San Francisco

April 12 through April 27th 2013

Thurs, Fri, Sat 

8pm

Tickets $25 at the door, $20 in advance (online)

Buy Tickets NOW