Allison Janney (The West Wing, and the Broadway revival of Six Degrees of Separation) is returning to Washington to lend her voice to support the 2018 Women’s Voices Theater Festival as Honorary Chair.
“I was humbled that the organizers of the inaugural Women’s Voices Theater Festival invited me to join the initial Honorary Committee and I’m happy to lend my support again. Theater nurtured my career—it’s where I came into my own as an actor, and of course, Washington is a very special place for me, because of my time on The West Wing,” said Janney. “I’m very glad to be a part of this project and proud to be helping the Festival advocate for women writing for the stage, new plays, and the sharing of diverse stories.”
Janney joins a region-wide celebration featuring full productions of new plays by women writers. The Festival returns to D.C. from January 15 – February 15, 2018, uniting 26 theaters across the region to present works by women playwrights and cast a light on the issue of gender parity in American theater.
The Women’s Voices Theater Festival is dedicated to highlighting the scope of plays being written by women and the range of professional theater being produced in the nation’s capital region. The Festival’s debut in 2015 featured world premiere plays by female playwrights on stages across Washington, D.C. and was heralded as a landmark in striving for gender parity in American theater. Led by seven of Washington’s largest theaters—Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Round House Theatre, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company—the Festival leverages collaboration among regional theater producers to create a platform for the nation’s most talented and innovative female and female-identifying playwrights and their newest plays.
Theaters producing work for the 2018 Festival include 4615 Theatre Company, Alliance for New Music-Theatre, Ally Theatre Company, Arena Stage, Baltimore Center Stage, Brave Spirits Theatre, Convergence Theatre, dog & pony dc, Folger Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Mosaic Theater Company, Nu Sass Productions, Olney Theatre Center, Pointless Theatre Co., Rainbow Theatre Project, Rapid Lemon Productions, Rep Stage, Round House Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Spooky Action Theater, Studio Theatre, Taffety Punk Theatre Company, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. The Festival is produced by Nan Barnett of Flanagan Theater Projects, with support from theatreWashington, led by President Amy Austin.
To learn more, visit WomensVoicesTheaterFestival.org.
