The Bridge Initiative

Promoting parity in the arts, leading with gender

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2019 Events 

Bechdel Test Fest 2019

David Dickinson
 

BECHDEL TEST FEST 2.0, April 26-28 

Festival of new plays and films that pass the Bechdel Test:
2 female characters, who speak to each other, about something other than a man

Tickets $15 / $10 students/seniors plus service fees. (Free events noted below) 
Festival passes available $35 general, $25 students/seniors (no additional service fees, not available online – available  at the box office in person or by phone 480-350-2822).

DIGITAL PROGRAM
Festival Program 		 Bechdel Festival Survey QR Code
Festival Survey

All events take place at Tempe Center for the Arts unless otherwise noted below. Talkbacks follow every event.  Due to ongoing construction, allow extra time for parking. See TCA website.

 

Friday, April 26

click here for more info, including creative teams & synopses

6:30 – Panel discussion: “Bechdel and Beyond” (FREE)

7:30 –  Cafe Abundance  & The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood 

9:30 – Opening night party @ Tempe Center for the Arts  (NO COVER)

 

Saturday, April 27

 Click here for more info, including creative teams & synopses

4:00 – SHORTS:  Apricot / June in January / Scattered  &  Lilies from Iron / Is it Cold in Here? 

7:00 –  A Land Shaped by Women &  An Ocean of Bees

 

2:00 – Mother’s Way & The Way North

4:00 – Awards ceremony 
(FREE – including new AUDIENCE AWARDS to be voted on throughout the festival)

5:00 – Closing party @ Rula Bula  (NO COVER)

This year, we received over 100 eligible play submissions from 19 states and the District of Columbia, as well as the U.K. and Canada.
 
National contest winner The Tragic Ecstasy of Girlhood by Kira Rockwell has enjoyed two recent workshop productions at the Boston Playwright’s Theatre and Third Culture Theatre in Los Angeles, sponsored by HBO. The Bridge producing team is excited to enable the next steps in Rockwell’s writing process. After its reading in Arizona, the new script will receive a reading with our sister theatre, InProximity Theatre Company in New York City. The play explores the pathos of being both disadvantaged and female in America through the lens of teenagers at a residential treatment facility. While the piece deconstructs cycles of abuse, poverty and dysfunction, it revels in human connection, sensuality, and girlhood.

Arizona winner Susan Hansell‘s An Ocean of Bees is also receiving a development process. Playwright Tira Palmquist workshopped The Way North with Phoenix Theatre in January/February a newly revised script will be presented at the Bechdel Test Fest. We are also excited to present two short play winners, Alison Campbell and Ann Marie Wilding’s Lilies from Iron and Julie Weinberg’s Is it Cold in Here?

Additionally, the festival features short films selected in coordination with the Worldwide Women’s Film Festival. From 89 films selected for their festival, 17 passed the Bechdel Test from which 6 official selections were chosen to be screened as part of the Bechdel Test Fest, including those named a Grand Prize winner and two Honorable Mentions (as listed above).

HUGE thank you to all of our readers, screeners, and submitting playwrights  and filmmakers. We are honored to work with you.

Check out the article in BroadwayWorld about our play contest selections and a feature in Phoenix New Times previewing and discussing the festival.

Artistic Director: Brenda Jean Foley
Literary Manager: Laurelann Porter
Festival Production Manager: Jason White

Event photographer: Laura Durant, Durant Communications

The festival would not be possible without the generous support of our donors, our partners at Durant Casting and  Worldwide Women’s Film Festival, as well as Arizona Commission on the Arts, The City of Tempe, and Tempe Center for the Arts.