I have spent the better part of my 30s & 40s fighting with myself on getting older. Outside of surgical procedures, I have tried everything I could to stay as young looking as possible, because let's face it, we live in a youth-obsessed culture.

Now that I am in my 50s, I have fully embraced my age realizing the wisdom, power & joy that comes with being alive at this stage of my life!

So, when Pamela Weiler Grayson first reached out to me about Honor Roll!’s 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50, I knew right away this was a conversation I wanted to be part of.

A list celebrating women+ playwrights over 50, while also calling out the age and gender bias they continue to face in theatre? YES, please!

After my interview with Pamela, I was thrilled when she suggested I also speak with Jacquelyn Reingold and Cheryl L. Davis, both Honor Roll! Executive Committee Members, playwrights, TV writers, and passionate advocates for change.

I am so excited to share Jacquelyn’s interview with you. She speaks with such clarity and heart about gendered age bias in theatre, the importance of intergenerational storytelling, and the power audiences have to help make change happen.

She also shines a light on a startling truth: many theatre Artistic Directors cannot name even one play by a women+ playwright over 50.

Cheryl’s interview is coming soon, so keep your eyes out for that!

In this interview, Jacquelyn answered my call to share:

• Why women+ playwrights over 50 are still fighting to be seen, heard & produced

• How she &  Cheryl L. Davis challenged New York theatres to confront gendered ageism

• The creation of 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 & why theatres can no longer say they “don’t know any”

• Why audiences have more power than they think when it comes to supporting women+ playwrights

• Her honest take on advocacy, age, visibility & what theatre loses without intergenerational voices

• So much more

Connect with Jacquelyn: Website, Instagram

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

Evan Handler & Jacquelyn Reingold
Photo Courtesy of Jacquelyn Reingold's Website

1. Since this our first interview together, who or what inspired you to become a playwright? I was the assistant to the artistic director at Ensemble Studio Theatre, where I became entranced with the weekly literary meetings. I couldn’t get enough of reading plays and discussing plays. I loved it.

That inspired me to take a playwriting class there where I wrote my first play, Freeze Tag. It was produced by The Working Theater, directed by Evan Handler, and it was so fulfilling, challenging, meaningful and fun. When it got a great review in The New York Times and I thought “that was easy!" I was hooked.

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!? After that first production, (when I was 30), I was invited into various “emerging” writer groups, then I received some commissions, awards, prizes, and most importantly, my plays were produced by small off-off Broadway theaters in New York. Though I didn't get produced by the big off-Broadway theaters in NY, (most women didn’t then, since there was maybe one “woman” slot), I did have the joy of seeing my work on stage.

But once I passed my mid forties — it became a trickle, and then it dried up completely once I hit 50. And since, to my surprise, I was getting hired to write for TV, I went through the open door where my age and my writing were valued. But I missed the theater. A lot. I kept writing plays. But it felt like I’d been shut out. I figured it was me.

Until Honor Roll! which began with a Facebook post from Brooke Berman ranting about the lost generation of women playwrights that had disappeared. Responses flooded in! People started naming A LOT of women writers who were no longer produced. I was one of them. I suddenly realized I wasn’t alone. And with so many women realizing they’d been shut out, I hoped we could create change in the theater.

3. How do you feel Honor Roll! has helped women+ playwrights? Since 2018 Honor Roll! has raised awareness, and encouraged women+ writers to confront gendered ageism. Honor Roll! is a grassroots organization of self-directed actions, so it’s up to each member to advocate for all of us. There is a long list of accomplishments, including: play publications, readings, seminars, productions, activist campaigns.

I think we have 100% created awareness of gendered ageism in theater. Changing the production landscape has been a bigger challenge. We live in a sexist/ageist society, and the theater, for reasons not completely clear to me, seems to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to producing plays written by under-recognized women+ over 50.

4. After spending five years on the Honor Roll! Executive Committee challenging gendered ageism, you & Cheryl L. Davis 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 keep going to fight for this equality? I found it so profoundly wrong that under-recognized women+ playwrights over-50 were produced so rarely, I couldn’t not take action.

The more theaters Cheryl and I visited, the more we learned about how few of these women were produced and/or developed, and/or commissioned, and/or accepted into “emerging” or “early career” or “under 30” groups, the more we realized how high the odds were stacked against women like us.

One on one meetings SEEMED like it HAD to work. And we did hear some very encouraging words from some very thoughtful artistic directors. But then we saw some of them — did nothing.

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? Cheryl and I were not on the selection committee for the list. We did not choose any of the plays.

During our visits to 30 theaters, we asked them for 1-5 plays they really liked, but were not (we noticed) producing, by under-recognized women+ over 50—so we could share those titles with other theaters.

But many of them, we found, could not name even one play. They kept asking US for a list. So we decided to create one. But we didn’t choose the plays. We did choose the Nominators. We invited about 180 theater professionals to nominate plays. We heard back from about 60 of them.

L to R: Cheryl L. Davis, Cady McClain, Jacquelyn Reingold
Presenting Cady with WE SUPPORT PLAYS BY WOMEN OVER 50!! bubbly award
for developing & producing plays by women+ over 50
Photo courtesy of Jacquelyn Reingold's Social Media

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 hope theaters will produce these plays. I can’t predict if they will.

My bigger goal, though, is to bring more attention to the issue, overall, so that ALL women playwrights over 50 will have a fighting chance. So that every theater will look at every season and make sure plays by these women are ALWAYS included.

And when we return to meeting theaters, none of them can now say they don’t know any of these plays.

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 would never tell anyone what to do re: their age. Up to each writer.

8. How has Honor Roll! & 50 Plays by Women+ Over 50 helped you in your own career as a playwright? Honor Roll! and the “50 Plays” list has not helped my playwriting career. I think it has likely hurt it, more than helped.

No artistic director or literary manager wants to be challenged and questioned and told they aren’t being equitable. But I figured I had nothing to lose, and if I can help the next generation of writers, that would benefit many.

L to R: Jacquelyn Reingold & Cheryl L. Davis
Axial Theatre
Photo Courtesy of Jacquelyn Reingold's Social Media

9. What are some steps everyday theatre goers can do to help your mission? Support theaters that produce women+ playwrights over 50 in every season. Donate, subscribe, buy tickets from theaters that produce these women in every season.

Alternatively, do not donate to, subscribe to, or buy tickets, if a theater does not regularly produce these plays. When a theater reaches out for a donation, ask them how many of the playwrights are women+ over 50? If the answer is “none,” tell them you’ll consider a donation when the answer is “we always include plays by women over 50."

If a theater wants to sell you a subscription, ask them the same question. And it’s even better if the writers are under-recognized, and not the same handful of “names” (though they are wonderful) who became well-known when young and get produced over and over.

10. What is something else you'd like my audience to know about this issue of gendered ageism in theatre that we didn't get to talk about? Several theaters told us about the importance of their “emerging” groups and how they like to develop and produce work by these writers. These same theaters told us these groups only have young writers in them.

Also, many theaters told us they attend play readings sponsored by well-known MFA programs to find playwrights to develop and produce. But these MFA programs are also almost always filled with young writers.

If theater isn’t intergenerational it isn’t serving younger writers, the audience, or the art form.

Jacquelyn Reingold, Photo Credit: Jody Christopherson

More on Jacquelyn Reingold:

Jacquelyn Reingold is a playwright, TV writer, teacher, and advocate. Her plays, including Fear Less, Kiss Me Somewhere Else, The Samovar, String Fever, Luggage, I Know, A Story About a Girl, Girl Gone, 2B (Or Not 2B), Freeze Tag, seen in NY at EST, Naked Angels, Working Theater, MCC, HERE, Axial Theater; Actors Theatre Louisville, Portland Center Stage, Theater J, PlayLabs Minneapolis; London, Lima, Dublin, Berlin, Belgrade, Hong Kong.

Honors include: Kennedy Center‘s Fund for New American Plays, a “Go Make Theater” Lilly Award, finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, finalist for the O'Neill, EST/Sloan Foundation commissions, Oscar Ruebhausen commission, New York Foundation for the Arts grant, New Dramatists' Whitfield Cook & John Callaway Awards. Plus Yaddo, MacDowell, Ucross, Albee, and Hermitage Artist Fellowships.

Jackie’s plays have been published in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays, several Best American Short Plays, by Samuel French, Vintage Books, Smith & Kraus. A collection of her one-acts Things Between Us is published by DPS. Her short plays have been recorded by Playing On Air with Hope Davis, Richard Kind, William Jackson Harper, Matthew Cowles, Jodi Long. Jackie wrote the Preface to She Persisted: 10 Minute Plays by Women+ over 40 and She Persisted: 100 Monologues by Women+ over 40.

In television, Jackie was a writer/Executive Producer for the critically acclaimed The Good Fight starring Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald; Executive Producers, Robert and Michelle King. Other TV writing includes Best of Both Worlds, a pilot for John Wells Productions; CBS’ East New York; Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, NBC’s Smash, CBS’ Brain Dead; NBC’s Law & Order CI; MTV’s Daria. Jackie wrote all the Mia episodes for Emmy nominated Gabriel Byrne and Hope Davis for HBO’s Peabody Award winning In Treatment.

Jacquelyn has taught TV writing and/or playwriting at Tisch/NYU, Stonybrook-Manhattan, Ohio and Columbia University. She's been a frequent teaching artist across the country, and consults privately. A member of Ensemble Studio Theater, The Tent, and a New Dramatists alum, Jacquelyn is a founding member of Honor Roll! And she's a mentor for Young Playwrights Ukraine.

She lives in NYC, with her musician/composer husband, Rich Campbell.

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