WOMEN ON FIRE

 

PRODUCTION HISTORY

Women On Fire began as a series of performance poems Irene O'Garden wrote and read regularly throughout the Hudson Valley. She then performed 15 of them for Octoberfest 2000 at Ensemble Studio Theatre.

Women on Fire had its premiere production in 2001 at The University of Florida at Gainesville as a featured part of Women's History Month. Fifteen actresses performed. Women On Fire has also enjoyed excellent reviews and recurring productions in Riverhead and Southampton, Long Island, courtesy of the Women's Voices, Women's Lives Production Company.  

In the summer of 2001, Irene sent the script to the remarkable actress Judith Ivey. That September, Judy taught a week-long Master class at the University of Michigan, and read several characters to a warmly-responding public. In March 2002, Judy conducted another week-long Master class at SUNY, Fredonia. She performed a cutting of the show for the public at the beautifully restored Opera House there. Later that summer, Judy played selections from Women On Fire to packed houses at Actor's Theatre of Nantucket. Last fall after a producer's audition, Artistic Director Angelina Fiordellisi of The Cherry Lane Theatre chose the play for development and offered a fall slot, with two weeks of performances, October 20-November 1, 2003. Director Mary B. Robinson, who also heads the Directing Program at NYU, will direct.

JUDITH IVEY

has been performing on stage, film and television professionally for more than 25 years. While her just-released film, What Alice Found, won a special award at Sundance (Special Prize for Emotional Truth), and instantly sold out at the recent Tribeca Film Festival, and while you may catch her as Will's Mom on Will and Grace, Ms. Ivey has graced Broadway stages since 1979 when she moved to New York City with productions such as Bedroom Farce and Piaf.

Ms. Ivey won her first Tony award in 1983 for Best Actress in a featured role as Josie in Pam Gem's British import, Steaming. Her second Tony came in 1985 as Best Featured Actress in David Rabe's acclaimed Hurlyburly with William Hurt, Christopher Walken, Sigourney Weaver and Jerry Stiller. She has performed at the Public Theatre, The Manhattan Theatre Club and many other Off-Broadway houses as well. Ms. Ivey has gone on to play leading roles in Blithe Spirit with Richard Chamberlain and Geraldine Fitzgerald, Park Your Car in Harvard Yard with Jason Robards (Tony nomination for Best Actress), Precious Sons with Ed Harris, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and A Fair Country by John Robin Baitz at Lincoln Center. She also starred on Broadway in Voices in the Dark by John Pielmeier and in the recent revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

Her film career of more than 30 major features includes performances in The Lonely Guy with Steve Martin, The Woman in Red with Gene Wilder, Harry and Son with Paul Newman, Sister, Sister with Jennifer Jason Leigh, In Country with Bruce Willis, The Devi!'s Advocate with Al Pacino, Mystery, Alaska with Burt Reynolds and Washington Square with Albert Finney. Television credits include the final season of Designing Women on CBS, Down Home on NBC, Buddies on ABC, The Five Mrs. Buchanans on CBS, three Hallmark Hall of Fame television movies and many guest spots on hour-long dramas on all the major networks.

Ms. Ivey resides in New York City with her husband Tim Braine, a television and film producer, her daughter, Maggie and son, Tom

MARY B. ROBINSON

has directed more than 50 productions of both classics and new plays Off-Broadway and in regional theatre. In New York she has directed String Fever by Jacqueline Reingold at Ensemble Studio Theatre; Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher at Manhattan Theatre Club; Lemon Sky by Lanford Wilson (for which she received a Drama Desk Nomination) and Moonchildren by Michael Weller, both at Second Stage; A Shayna Maidel by Barbara Lebow at Westside Arts; Copperhead by Eric Brogger at the WPA and Twelfth Night at Theatre for a New Audience.

Regionally she has worked at Seattle Rep, Milwaukee Rep, South Coast Rep, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, Hartford Stage where she was Associate Artistic Director and the Philadelphia Drama Guild where she was Artistic Director. She was the first recipient of the TCG Alan Schneider Directing Award in 1987. Currently she heads the directing program at Playwright's Horizon's Theatre School at NYU, and teaches in the Graduate Program at Brooklyn College.