Those Women Productions
  • About Us
  • Our Productions
  • Open Positions
  • Support Us

SF Chronicle lists “Witch Hunt” among 2019’s defining moments in Bay Area theater

Posted on December 15, 2019
by Audrey Ronningen
No Comments

Lily Janiak cites Witch Hunt as a production that changed Bay Area theatre in 2019, listed alongside shows from companies including Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, and San Francisco Playhouse.

The article describes Witch Hunt as part of a conscious shift in Bay Area productions’ approach to historical narratives. Numerous companies, including Those Women Productions reckoned with history’s tendency to be dictated solely by those in power, instead focusing on the historical perspectives that have, as a result, been erased.

“The way we perceive ourselves and others in the world comes in large part from the histories we’ve absorbed, but history’s victors have traditionally shaped those stories to justify their positions. Local theater this year has worked to right that imbalance, mapping the obscure and putting the marginalized at the center of historical narratives.”

Renee Rogoff as Tituba, in Witch Hunt

“In Those Women Productions’ “Witch Hunt,” the white girls and women of the Salem witch trials took a backseat to Tituba, the Native American woman who was the first accused of witchcraft. A mother to a hero became the protagonist in “Mother of the Maid,” at Marin Theatre Company, and Asian and Asian American stories got told from within in Magic Theatre’s “The Chinese Lady,” and the Marsh’s “The Box Without a Bottom,” instead of from a white gaze, with its tendency to whitewash or exoticize.”

Read the complete story: Moments that defined Bay Area theater in 2019

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
  • More
  • Print
  • Pinterest
  • Tumblr
  • WhatsApp
  • Reddit
News
← Newer Post
Older Post →

In The Press

  • ESCAPE VELOCITY is recommended by Lily Janiak at SFGate to all those who want to “rocket away from sexism.”
  • “Shakespeare would have been proud to see his work take on new life in MARGARET OF ANJOU,” says The Daily Californian.
  • Lily Janiak of the San Francisco Chronicle profiles Artistic Director Libby Vega: ““There can be a tendency to say, ‘If their stories were interesting, we would know them already.’” But, Vega continues, “just because the story’s not being told doesn’t mean the story’s not there.'”
  • About MARGARET OF ANJOU, Sam Hurwitt of The Mercury News writes: “the experiment of creating the illusion of a Shakespeare play all about Margaret is a success.”
  • Berkeleyside features Those Women Productions: “Carol Lashof and Libby Vega aren’t ashamed to reveal their infatuations with the “dead white guys” who populate the Western Canon.”
  • BEST OF THE EAST BAY: On the occasion of our first birthday in 2015, The East Bay Express named us “Best Year-Old Theater Company.”
  • Theater critic Sam Hurwitt described our production of IN PLAIN SIGHT as “a provocative mix of voices and perspectives on these classic tales that may inspire the viewer to look back at the originals with new eyes.”
  • The Dramatist Magazine lauds Those Women for joining the fight for gender parity, “turn[ing] patriarchy on its ear.”
  • Our production of DISCLOSURE was highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle’s feature on the “hot SF scene” at PianoFight.
  • About our inaugural production in 2014, the Daily Californian wrote: “JUST DESERTS is offering something surprisingly new, and drawing a new audience. It is absolutely worth seeing, with or without a grasp of Greek mythology. This play works on multiple levels, and satisfies as diverse an audience as it attracts.”
  • JUST DESERTS was also an Editor’s Pick of Theatre Bay Area Magazine, where critic Lily Janiak wrote, “Lashof ingeniously channels both what many treasure about Greek mythology–its pitting of evenly matched foes in debates that dig deeper and deeper as combatants seem to be going in circles–while also skewering its misogyny.”

Those Women Productions
A Berkeley-based Theater Company
PO Box 11393 | Piedmont, CA 94611

Our Blog | Contact Us | Admin Login

Those Women Productions © 2021
loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.