S4E0: Season 4 TEA-ser
In this episode, Hayley and Amy spill the tea on what’s new this fall with Women & Theatre: A shiny new vision and mission statement, virtual and in-person community events, bonus podcast content, and lots of ways for you to get involved! Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello beautiful people, and welcome back to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: And Amy Andrews. Grab a cozy beverage and join us as we talk to women and gender-expansive folks about their experiences at the intersection of womanhood and theatre.
Hayley: On the pod, we cultivate open conversations across identities and professional roles…
Amy: We look for opportunities to support one another in growing our careers…
Hayley: And we pool our collective wisdom to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future.
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people! It feels so good to say that because it is our first episode of the Women & Theatre Podcast this season.
Amy: Woohoo!
Hayley: Yes Amy, shout it out!
Amy: Season 4 - I’m excited!
Hayley: I can’t believe we’re here. Yes. I’m excited too, I’m so pumped.
Amy: What a journey!
Hayley: It has been. Yeah, it feels really good to talk to you. I know this isn’t our first first official episode, but we had to get in your ears before we even get started, because we have so much we’re doing differently this season and so many exciting things coming up, and we wanted to chat with you guys and walk you through it and let you know what we’re doing.
Amy: So let’s start by reminding the listeners who we are, yeah? I am Amy Andrews, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m here with my partner in crime…
Hayley: Hayley Goldenberg, she/her. I’m a writer and director, mostly in the musical theatre space, along with being the co-founder of Women & Theatre with the beautiful Amy Andrews.
Amy: And I’m also a writer, a dramaturg, and sometimes a producer, and I love the work that I get to do here at Women & Theatre with Hayley. So Hayley, let’s chat about some of the things that our listeners can expect this season from Women & Theatre!
AND if you keep listening to this little teaser episode to the end, we may just name-drop an upcoming interviewee or two.
Hayley: Amy, so do you want to tell our friends here about our upcoming fall events and ways that you can get involved with Women & Theatre? What are we doing differently this season?
Amy: Oh my goodness! Friends, we are so excited to share with you that Women & Theatre is not just a podcast. We are also a community project, and this fall, we are showing up as a community project in new and exciting ways. So this upcoming fall, we have several events going on, we’ve shouted them out on social media…
Hayley: Yeah, we’re super excited about these community events that we have planned for you all. And here’s the thing, everybody - we’ve wanted to be a community project for a while, and we’ve done a couple of pilot events and done a couple of things where we’ve invited folks to be involved. But Amy and I took some time over the summer to really evaluate our impact and what we wanted to do with this project, which is where the new mission comes from - our new shiny mission statement. We just had a really great time refocusing and figuring out: What is our place in the space? And we know that that will continue to evolve as we grow as a project, but one of the things that came along with that was reenvisioning how we could be more involved in the community and connect you all with each other and connect with you ourselves.
Amy: A big part of the impetus behind this is we wanted to create specific ways for you to get involved with us. And for us to bring people together and create the community that we are envisioning. So that’s what we’re doing this fall. Please join us for our upcoming events, which include virtual coworking sessions online. Just show up for an hour, we’re going to do some dedicated work time together, accountability, and maybe some goal sharing. We are going to be - very soon, next week, in fact - we’re going to be having a season launch party! So please show up to that, it’s on Zoom, we’re going to be chatting with you all about the season and about our upcoming events and answering any questions you all may have. It’s a great opportunity for you to tell us what you would like to see from this project this season and in future seasons.
Hayley: It’s also gonna be really fun! So just come!
Amy: It’s gonna be so fun, we’re gonna have a blast. Oh my gosh!
Hayley: We can’t wait to meet you guys in person. You know, there are some folks we’ve been connected with on social media for a while. We’d love to see all your faces so that we can celebrate the launch of Season 4. We’re so excited to see you there. So please, please join us, it’s gonna be really fun.
Amy: Absolutely!
Hayley: If you want to come, you can RSVP online. We now have a new beautiful community events page, where you can also subscribe to all of the different things we’re up to. And you can RSVP to the party.
Amy: Yes! And speaking of getting our community together, we are so excited to share that we are going to be having an in-person holiday party this December to celebrate the holiday season and ring it in with our favorite Women & Theatre community. So stay tuned ‘cause it’s gonna be fabulous. And we hope to see many of you in person there, whether you live in the New York area or you’re just visiting for the holidays, it’s a great time to be in New York. So come on out, and let’s ring in the season together!
Hayley: Yeah!
Amy: Hayley, I think we have some special bonus content coming up this season too. Would you like to chat about that a bit?
Hayley: Yeah. Y’all, this season is just an embarrassment of riches, it’s kind of amazing. We’ve got our usual eight interviews with a variety of women and gender-expansive folks in the theatre industry who I know you’re gonna be so excited to hear from. And our two discussion episodes as usual, which I think are going to ring really true this season. We’ve got some really delicious discussion episode content for you, we had some really good talks.
We’re so excited to bring you bonus content this season from the RISE Summit. So if you’re not familiar with RISE or our relationship to them, we’ve been a network partner of RISE Theatre for a couple of years now. RISE stands for Representation, Inclusion, and Support for Employment, and RISE seeks to build a more equitable and inclusive theatre industry by centralizing DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility] tools and resources through a network of partners and a national personnel directory that focuses on folks from underrepresented backgrounds, including but not limited to: people of color, women, trans, non-binary, deaf, and disabled theatre professionals.
So RISE did their Inaugural Summit this year, and we were invited to partner with them to do a podcast booth. So we’re actually going to share our interviews from the RISE Summit, where we got to talk to eleven of the network partners of RISE about their work to make the theatre space more equitable. So we’re going to be bringing our interviews with those organizations to you this season.
Amy: Yeah! We were so excited to partner with Playbill to create this content as part of the RISE Inaugural Summit. What I love about what RISE is doing is that they’re basically trying to bridge the gap between all of these theatre advocacy organizations that have been working in silos, and so they’re building connections between the organizations so we can work together and use all of our collective strength to help make the theatre industry a more equitable space. And we are all about that, as you know, listeners! So we are excited to be sharing the interviews from the RISE Summit every week, in addition to our regular season content. It’s gonna be fabulous!
Hayley: Yeah! So you’re gonna get our usual Tuesday episode drop. But in addition to that, on Fridays, you’re gonna be getting a little extra mini-episode from us that features one of those people that we got to interview at the RISE Summit.
Amy: Yeah! So with all of this new and exciting stuff that we’re doing this fall, there are so many ways for you to get involved with Women & Theatre! If you listen to Women & Theatre and love it, please share it with someone else who you think might love it. Please follow us on social media, on Instagram and Facebook, sign up for our email list. Come to an event - we’re having events, come to them! We’re also taking signups for volunteers to help out at our events. Anything else to add, Hayley?
Hayley: We hope that you’ll join us. We’re gonna have such a great time this season and moving forward.
Amy: We’re excited for you to be a part of it!
Hayley: Yeah! If you’ve ever listened to the podcast and loved it, if you’ve ever seen our content on social media and thought “I want to be involved with these people,” now’s your chance, and we’re so excited to welcome you in and to continue to build the equitable theatrical spaces of the future together with all of you.
So join us next week - Tuesday, October 8 - for the first official episode of Women & Theatre this season! And since we promised you a little tea at the end of this episode…
Amy: We are so excited to announce that the first episode of the season, which launches next Tuesday to kick off Season 4 of the Women & Theatre Podcast, is going to be with abs wilson and Veronica Mansour, an up-and-coming musical theatre writing team who are really hitting it quite hot right now. They’ve been winning lots of awards this year for their musical Lighthouse. And we had a great conversation with abs and Veronica, they had lots of wisdom to share and just a really interesting perspective on where they are in their career right now and where they’re going. So please tune in next week to check it out. We can’t wait to see you there!
Hayley: Between now and then, take care, and we will see you on Tuesday. Love you!
Amy/Hayley: Bye!
(Music)
Hayley: Join us for our upcoming community events!
Amy: Coming up, we have our Women & Theatre Season 4 Launch Party on Thursday, October 10 at 7:30 pm on Zoom.
Hayley: Then you can join us on October 16 at 10am for our virtual coworking space.
Amy: Visit our community events page on our website to learn more and RSVP, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you never miss an event.
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
