Warwick playwright: Listen to the voices of women

Warwick - “Hanging Women,” a two-act play by local playwright Donna Spector, will open at Where Eagles Dare Theatre in Manhattan on April 12. The play is a dark comedy about three women - Alicia and her daughters, Celandine and Peony - who have put their lives on hold until the man they loved returns to them. When they finally realize this man, like their lives, was a fantasy, they exorcise the forces that limited their potential as women, and free themselves. A native Chicagoan, Spector grew up in Los Angeles and attended U.C.L.A. on a theatre scholarship. She later transferred to U.C. Berkley where she earned her B.A. and M.A. in English with a minor in French. In the late sixties, Spector directed and acted in an improvisational theatre group called Dementia, which performed with rock groups like Santana and the Grateful Dead. She relocated to Warwick in the mid-seventies where she went on to teach English, French and creative writing at Vernon Township High School for 21 years. A recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities grants to study in Greece, Spector has visited Greece many times, often on classical archaeological tours with her high school students. She studied Greek at a school in Middletown after visiting Greece for the first time on a sabbatical in 1988, and takes pride in the fact that her students arrived in Greece capable of conversing in Greek. Spector retired from teaching a few years ago and devotes most of her energies to writing from her old farmhouse across from a wildlife sanctuary in Warwick. In addition to this full-length play, Spector has written more than 15 other plays and many one-act plays. A member of Dramatists Guild, Women Playwrights International, ICWP, Harbor Theatre in Manhattan, New Jersey Theatre Educators Coalition and Poets & Writers, her poems, stories, scenes and monologues have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Her plays have been performed or given readings in Greece, Scotland, Ireland and Canada. “Hanging Women” was previously given a staged reading at the International Women Playwrights’ Conference in Galway, Ireland in 1997, and a staged production at U.C. Hayward in 1998. “It is exciting to attend the conferences and hear about women’s theatre from all over the world, particularly in those areas of the world where women’s voices tend to be suppressed,” Specter said. “Hanging Women” will be presented at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 12, 13 and 14 and again the following week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, April 19, 20 and 21. Where Eagles Dare Theatre is located at 347 W. 36th street, 16th floor, in Manhattan.