It's amazing all the things that come with age. As I have entered my 50s, I have stopped trying to turn back the hands of time & embraced this stage as being grateful for all the life experience that has led me to where I am today.

When Award winning Playwright, Pamela Weiler Grayson told about the 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 list, I knew this was a discussion I wanted to help shine a spotlight on.

I was delighted when Pamela also suggested I speak with 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 co-founder Cheryl L. Davis, whom I recently came to know because she is a writer on one of my new favorite TV shows, the groundbreaking CBS Daytime Drama Beyond The Gates, which is the first NEW soap opera in over 25 years featuring a primarily all black cast.

Thankfully, the Dupree's & the Hamilton's gave Cheryl a break in the action to respond to my questions 😂

In this interview, Cheryl answered my call to share: 

• How she found her way into playwriting
• The quiet damage of gendered ageism in theater
• What the 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 list makes visible
• Why age pride matters in creative careers
• How recognition can shift a playwright’s next chapter
• What everyday theatergoers can do to support the mission
• So much more

Connect with Cheryl: Website, Instagram

Connect with 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50: Website, Instagram

The 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 list shines a much-needed spotlight on the work of women+ playwrights over 50, featuring unproduced full-length plays recommended by theatre artists from across the country.

Conceived by Honor Roll! Executive Committee members and playwrights Jacquelyn Reingold and Cheryl L. Davis, the list grew out of three years of conversations with nonprofit theatres in New York City and a clear finding: women+ playwrights over fifty remain significantly underrepresented on New York stages.

A second list is planned for early 2027. If you are, or know, an Artistic Director, Producer, or Theatremaker ready to help bring these plays to life, visit 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 to view the list.

Cheryl L. Davis
Photo Courtesy of 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 website

1. Since this our first interview together, who or what inspired you to become a playwright? When my elementary school class was assigned to write “I will not talk in class” (or the like) 100 times, since I usually wasn't the one who had misbehaved, the teacher would allow me to write something else instead — so I did!

I started writing poetry, or short stories, since I was an avid reader. But whenever I wrote stories, I realized that I was just rushing through the narrative bits to get to the parts where people spoke. After I became fascinated with theater as an aspiring actress, but wasn’t getting cast in college productions, I decided to return to writing and write a play for myself.

I soon realized that I preferred writing for more and different characters than ones I could actually play, and my playwriting journey took off from there.

2. In 2018, you were part of a group of women+ playwrights over 40 who wanted to make a change in the theatrical landscape to get more plays by older women+ playwrights produced. What was it about your creative paths that made you want to work together to create what ultimately became Honor Roll!? Brooke Berman's post really crystallized the issue for a bunch of us, who realized 'It's not just me." I suppose Honor Roll! came from the sense of connection with other women who were going through the same experience, and the collective desire not just to talk about it, but to take action.

In Honor Roll! we collectively look for ways to amplify opportunities for our sister women playwrights, and the grassroots nature of our group not only allows, but encourages them to take their own actions.

If someone thought a webinar was a good idea, they could curate it. If they thought a collection of short plays or monologues would help, they worked on that. If a letter was needed protesting a season lacking any plays by women or more specifically women over 40, any person could draft it.

And together, we've helped draw attention to this issue.

3. How do you feel Honor Roll! has helped women+ playwrights? I believe women+ playwrights over 50 are finally starting to be seen as a group with talent and worthy of notice.

The initial reaction used to be “well if I haven’t heard of X by now, they can’t be any good” — but now, more people seem to be willing to at least open the door a little wider to consider this group of artists.

The attention Honor Roll! itself has received has helped cast a light on them as well. 

4. After spending five years on the Honor Roll! Executive Committee challenging gendered ageism, you & Jacquelyn Reingold decided to meet with every theater in New York to advocate for women+ playwrights over 50 years old. With so many uphill battles & resistance, what made you both keep going to fight for this equality? Because the work needs to be done. Jacquelyn & I hope that our continued meetings and drawing attention to this issue will continue to encourage others to open their eyes and open the doors to see these women+ playwrights and their works that are so worthy of notice.

These meetings with artistic directors have also encouraged us to reach out and speak to others — and to come up with the 50 Plays list.

5. One result from these meetings was that you just released a list of women+ playwrights over 50, called 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50, to help make it easier for these theaters to choose plays by older women+ playwrights. How did you decide who would be part of the selection committee to make this list? We reached out to theater professionals we knew (some only peripherally or by reputation) whose opinions we trusted, and who we thought were likely to have been exposed to plays by eligible playwrights.

We tried to make it a diverse group from a number of standpoints, to better ensure that the list itself would be  diverse.

6. How do you feel this list will help women+ playwrights over 50 get more productions when some of the powers that be are still resistant to the idea of producing their plays? I don't think we spotted resistance so much as ignorance.

One of the arguments we heard in our meetings with artistic directors and literary managers was that they weren't aware of who these playwrights were, or what plays they had written; this list has removed that argument. We were repeatedly asked to provide names and titles of plays; here they are.

We hope that now more theaters have the opportunity to read and consider the works for themselves, these playwrights and plays will find their way to the recognition they so richly deserve.

L to R: Jacquelyn Reingold, Eric Ting, Cheryl L. Davis
Meeting with Artistic Director of Soho Rep
Photo Courtesy of 50 Plays by Women Over 50 Social Media

7. According to press notes, there were some playwrights you selected that turned down being included because they did not want to be known as a playwright over 50. Why do you feel it's important for women+ to embrace their age & not hide from it? I understand their hesitance; ageism (and more specifically, gendered ageism) is a very real thing in our society.

I myself dye my hair (more accurately, have my cousin the hairdresser dye it for me), because  it's how I've seen myself for years; I expect I'll let the gray conquer at some point, but I don't know when.

There's a reasonable desire to "be discreet" about something that you're afraid might make people see you in a negative light ("old lady"), or dismiss you for it.

But I think we're also seeing more aging actresses and other women coming forward on social media sharing their experiences, which I think will help us all see that our age gives us insight and experience that can benefit others and enrich our work -- and the very different types of work that Honor Roll! members write will help show that neither we nor our work can be characterized or stereotyped.

8. How has Honor Roll! & 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 helped you in your own career as a playwright? My involvement introduced me to Cady McClain’s Axial Theatre, which was lovely enough to offer me a slot in its reading series. That opportunity encouraged me to write my first new full-length drama in over 10 years.

9. What are some steps everyday theatre goers can do to help your mission? Put your money where your beliefs (and your age) is. If you want to see women like you onstage, to watch stories about experiences that women like you have had or are currently having, buy tickets to those types of plays, and ask theaters to produce more of them. Go with your friends and ask them to tell their friends.

Attend readings and mention these points during the audience talkback.

When theaters call you asking for donations, ask them how they're producing the work of or otherwise supporting women playwrights over 50 -- and if not, why not.

More 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 Interviews:

2026 (Read Here): Jacquelyn Reingold - Challenging Gendered Age Bias in Theatre
2026 (Read Here): Pamela Weiler Grayson - Fighting Gendered Ageism in Theatre

Cheryl L. Davis
Photo Courtesy of Cheryl L. Davis Website

More on Cheryl L. Davis:

Cheryl L. Davis has received three Writers’ Guild Awards for her work on the daytime dramatic serials As the World Turns and Days of Our Lives, and is currently on the writing team for Beyond the Gates, the first new network soap in decades.

She was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Days of our Lives, as well as for As the World Turns. She has written for Law & Order: SVU and her episode “Garland’s Baptism by Fire” is available on Peacock On Demand.

Her short play Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep streamed as part of #WhileWeBreathe and received a write-up in the New York Times.

Cheryl received the Ed Kleban Award for her work as a musical theater librettist, and her musical Barnstormer, written with award-winning composer Douglas J. Cohen, received a Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation Award under the auspices of the Lark Play Development Center.

Her play Maid’s Door was produced at the Billie Holiday Theatre, received seven Audelco Awards, and was presented at the 2015 and 2017 National Black Theatre Festivals, and was published in Holy Ground: The National Black Theatre Festival Anthology.

Her musical Bridges was commissioned and produced by the Berkeley Playhouse and received great reviews, including from the San Francisco Examiner; it was a finalist for the 2018 Richard Rodgers Award. 

Don’t Stay Safe, the short film musical based on Bridges, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and screened and won awards in several film festivals.

She is the co-librettist for a new version of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, received its world premiere in Toronto in June 2023 to great reviews (including a writeup in the New York Times as a Best Classical Music Performance of 2023); it was recently nominated for 11 Dora Mavor Moore Awards in the Opera Category.

Cheryl’s play about the desegregation of the nation’s school system, The Color of Justice, which was commissioned by Theatreworks/USA, received excellent reviews in the New York Times and Daily News, and toured for a number of years. Her play Winnie the Pooh KIDS was commissioned and is currently licensed by the Disney Theatrical Group.

Her play Cover Girls, which is an adaptation of the Bishop T. D. Jakes' novel was produced and toured by ClearChannel Entertainment. She has written commissions for the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science and Technology Project, the Red Mountain Theatre Company (Mandela and The MLK Project), and the Birmingham Children’s Theatre (Tuxedo Junction, about Alabama Jazz musician Erskine Hawkins).

Cheryl is a librettist and lyricist and is an alumna of the Advanced Workshop of the BMI/Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop. She has a degree in English and a Certificate in Theatre and Dance from Princeton University and has studied playwriting with Jean-Claude Van Itallie and Jeffrey Sweet.

She is a former Dramatists Guild Fellow, having been mentored by playwright/librettist Alfred Uhry. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild and a Board member of the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund.

Cheryl received her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law and her M.S.J. from the Columbia University School of Journalism. She is a practicing attorney in Manhattan and is the General Counsel for the Authors Guild.

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