by

Flynn Center for the Performing Arts,
with the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize

Directed by

Leslie Patrick

November 2, 2026

-

Women+ On the Edge of Democracy

Catherdral of Hope

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Before the midterm elections, people across the United States and beyond are coming together and share short plays exploring the state of democracy in America.

Democracy isn't only shaped at the ballot box. It's shaped wherever people gather to ask difficult questions, listen to one another, and imagine a different future. Women+ on the Edge of Democracy invites communities to spark those conversations in theaters, libraries, schools, community centers, and public spaces across the country.

THINGS I WORRY ABOUT.

by Bridget Carpenter

A speaker gives a talk.

Speaker - Sherry Boyd

Powerpoint - Kateri Cale

Woman's Voice - Becki McDonald

Worry Doll 1 - Shalini Patel

Worry Doll 2 - Joshua Timmons

Stage Directions - Hadley Shipley

AN UPLIFTING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION SPEECH

by Sarah Ruhl
A woman is invited to speak at her Catholic high school in Texas not long after Roe v. Wade is overturned.

Woman - Kateri Cale

Stage Directions - Hadley Shipley

MAYA

by Dael Orlandersmith

Maya - Anyika McMillan-Herod

Stage Directions - Jocelyn Tiner

ATTESTATION

by Lynn Nottage

Candidate - Sherry Boyd

Moderator - Chad Cline

Stage Directions - Jocelyn Tiner

BECAUSE WHO KNOWS?

by Deb Margolin
Sitting in a circle with others in recovery, a high school history teacher struggles with the ways in which history’s recurring narrative of war and cruelty has been reflected in her own life.

Dorrie - Denise Lee

Stage Directions - Jocelyn Tiner

AGGRESSIVELY SOOTHING WHALE SOUNDS

by Sarah Mantell
I don’t want to write about my family. The last version of this play had whales. Do we still have the cue for the whales?

Dereck - Chad Cline

Stage Directions - Becki McDonald

NIGHTLIGHT

by Kimber Lee
Two teenagers fight to find light in a dark place.

Narrator - Denise Lee

Kaia - Shalini Patel

Danny - Joshua Timmons

Cast & Crew

Bridget

Carpenter

THINGS I WORRY ABOUT

BRIDGET CARPENTER writes plays, musicals, television, and film. Ms. Carpenter’s plays have been seen at Steppenwolf, The Public Theater, Clubbed Thumb, Berkeley Repertory Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Trinity Rep, Theatre de la Jeune Leune, Shakespeare & Company, Arena Stage, the Actors Theatre of Louisville, Woolly Mammoth, the Mark Taper Forum, the Alley Theater, and numerous other theaters across the country. She has recently partnered with producer Jane Abramson to found Mantle Productions, a production company focused on new work for theater. An alumnae of New Dramatists, Ms. Carpenter holds an M.F.A. from Brown University, and has taught writing in elementary school, high school, college, and prison. @carpenterbwrites

Dael

Orlandersmith

MAYA

Dael Orlandersmith is a playwright and performer whose plays include Yellowman, Beauty’s Daughter, The Gimmick, Monster, Stoop Stories, Forever, and Until the Flood. Yellowman was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Sarah

Ruhl

AN UPLIFTING HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION SPEECH

SARAH RUHL is an American playwright, author, and teacher. Her twelve plays include In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2010; Tony Award Nominee, 2010); The Clean House (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); and Eurydice (Named one of the most impactful plays of the last 25 years by The New York Times). Her plays have been produced on Broadway and across the country as well as internationally and translated into fourteen languages. Most recently, Signature Theater dedicated a season to her body of work. Her opera Eurydice (with composer Matthew Aucoin) debuted at the Metropolitan Opera and earned a Grammy nomination, and her musical Wonder with A Great Big World recently finished running at the American Repertory Theater. Her books include Smile, a memoir, 100 essays I don’t have time to write, and Lessons from my Teachers. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a PEN Center Award for mid-career playwrights, a Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, and a MacArthur “genius award” Fellowship. She teaches at the Yale School of Drama and lives in Brooklyn with her family. @sarah_ruhl_

Lynn

Nottage

ATTESTATION

Lynn Nottage is a playwright and screenwriter whose plays include Intimate Apparel; Ruined; Sweat; Clyde’s; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Fabulation, or the Re-Education of Undine; and Crumbs from the Table of Joy. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for both Ruined and Sweat. @lynnnottage

Deb

Margolin

BECAUSE WHO KNOWS?

Deb Margolin is a playwright, actor, and founding member of Split Britches Theater Company. She is the author of numerous plays, including Imagining Madoff (nominee, Helen Hayes / Charles Macarthur Award for Outstanding New Play), Three Seconds in the Key (Kesselring Prize), Turquoise, Bringing the Fishermen Home, and That Old Perplexity (Keen Company commission)as well as 11 solo performance plays which she has toured throughout the US. These include 8 STOPS, a comedy concerning the grief of endless compassion. Her most recent multi-character play, Insurrection, finds an old man near the precipice of death as he suffers the torment of remembered horror at the hands of Joseph McCarthy. Deb has been resident artist at Tulane, Hampshire College, NYU, USC, and many others. OBIE award for Sustained Excellence of Performance, the Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright Award, NEA grant, NJSCA Fellow, Edwin Booth Award, Tanne Foundation Award, and the Richard H. Broadhead Prize for teaching excellence at Yale University, where she is Professor in the Practice in the undergraduate Theater and Performance Studies Program.

Sarah

Mantell

AGGRESSIVELY SOOTHING WHALE SOUNDS

Sarah Mantell (they/them) is the recipient of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (Playwrights Horizons). Their other plays include Everything That Never Happened (Baltimore Center Stage, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Boston Court Pasadena), The Good Guys (Second Stage, PlayPenn), Tiny (Seven Devils, Seattle Rep), and Fight Call (Artists Repertory Theatre, Breaking the Binary) They have been first-runner up for the Leah Ryan Award, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, nominated for the Pulitzer, and longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize. Sarah is also a two-time MacDowell fellow and Yaddo resident. They run the independent workshop Five Weeks to a First Draft as well as a Free Application Help pilot program for historically underrepresented writers. BFA Rhode Island School of Design. MFA Yale School of Drama. @sbmantell

Kimber

Lee

NIGHTLIGHT

Plays: the water palace (Susan Smith Blackburn Special Commendation), to the yellow house (La Jolla Playhouse), untitled fck mss s**gon play (Royal Exchange Theatre & Young Vic, UK), saturday (Colorado New Play Summit), RE- (Upcoming production, Escola do Largo/Lisbon), tokyo fish story (South Coast Rep, TheatreWorks/SV, Old Globe), brownsville song (b-side for tray)(Humana Festival, LCT3, Long Wharf Theatre), and different words for the same thing (CTG). Recipient of the inaugural Bruntwood Prize International Award, Hodder Fellowship, Helen Merrill Award, 3-time Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist, Edgerton New Play Award, Ruby Prize, PoNY Fellowship, Horton Foote Award, and Herb Alpert Award in the Arts. MFA: UT Austin.