Holly L. Derr

January 15, 2014

Dispatches from LALA Land: Diversity and Its Discontents in Southern Californian Theater

Originally published by HowlRound The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation recently hosted a panel discussion on diversity in Southern Californian theater at the Pasadena Playhouse. “Diversity: Through a Director’s Eye” featured Tim Dang, Artistic Director of East West Players; Seema Sueko, Associate Artistic Director of Pasadena Playhouse; Christopher Ashley, Artistic Director of La…

December 17, 2013

Platonov and Anton Chekov’s Proto-Grunge Philosophy

Originally posted at HowlRound Before he shot himself in the head, Kurt Cobain wrote a suicide note in which he said, “I still can’t get over the frustration, the guilt and empathy I have for everyone. There’s good in all of us and I think I simply love people too much, so much that it…

December 16, 2013

How Much Do You Know About “Women’s Lib”?

Originally posted at Ms. Magazine During my years as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I took as many classes as I could in their well-reputed women’s studies department. When I was required to take a sociology class, I took “The Foundations of Feminism.” For my philosophy requirement, I chose…

December 9, 2013

The Story of Holly L. Derr

I was working on a cover letter for an application for a teaching job and having trouble figuring out how to start. “I am writing to apply for your open position …” is not exactly an attention grabber. Plus, it is hard for me to talk about myself with the kind of authority required in…

December 3, 2013

What Really Makes a Film Feminist?

Originally published by The Atlantic Last week, Swedish movie theaters created a media foofaraw when they announced that they would begin providing a rating based on the Bechdel test for the films they screen. The test, created by comic artist Alison Bechdel in 1985, asks whether a film has at least two female characters…

November 20, 2013

Dispatches from LALA Land: Radar L.A.

Originally published by HowlRound The 2013 Radar L.A. interdisciplinary theater festival brought artists from around the world to perform alongside and in collaboration with Los Angeles theater artists. Presented by REDCAT and CalArts in association with Center Theatre Group, and curated by Mark Murphy of REDCAT, Diane Rodriguez of Center Theatre Group, and Mark Russell of…

November 18, 2013

A Feminist Guide to Horror Movies, Part Five: The Blood of Carrie

Originally published by Ms., Sociological Images, and The Huffington Post Carrie is largely about how women find their own channels of power, but also what men fear about women and women’s sexuality. Writing the book in 1973 and only three years out of college, I was fully aware of what Women’s Liberation implied for me…

November 15, 2013

Ripley: Believe it or Not, It’s About All That

Originally published by Women and Hollywood When Women and Hollywood asked me if I wanted to do a couple of guest posts on horror movies, I jumped at the chance. Like Kerensa Cadenas mentioned in her introduction to the series, I have an abiding fascination with horror movies and the way they manage to articulate…

November 13, 2013

Playing Shakespeare’s Men

Originally Published by HowlRound Though Shakespeare created around 798 male characters, his dramatic corpus contains only about 149 female ones. That’s a ratio of roughly sixteen to three. Yet every year the best conservatories accept at least as many women as men—if not more—and every year they graduate both men and women trained to act…

November 11, 2013

The LA Femme Film Festival: By Women, For Everyone

Originally published by Women and Hollywood Leslie LaPage launched the LA Femme Film Festival in 2005 after a dispiriting trip to the Sundance Film Festival, where she saw precious few films directed or written by women. The first LA Femme festival featured 40 films and two seminars; this year’s festival screened over 100 films, hosted…