365 plays is a chart of my endeavour to read a play a day for the next 365 days*.
Why am I doing this?
a) Procrastination – I’m supposed to be working on my PhD
b) I love reading plays
c) I’m in the middle of writing a play
d) I’m hoping it’s going to make me a better writer
e) All of the above
There is also a serious side to this project. I’m sick to death of seeing and hearing only men’s voices on stage. People have been asking where the female playwrights are and I want to be able to answer that question. Next time you see a state theatre company program a season of all male playwrights (or maybe one token woman in the mix), you’ll be able to look through this blog and speak loudly about the lack of representation.
On the toolbar on the right you’ll see a button called categories. Click on it and you’ll see a drop down menu that includes female writers and male writers. At a glance you can see how I’m progressing in my endeavour to read as many plays by women as by men. If you select female writers, you’ll get the chance to look through all the plays by women that I’ve read thus far. (Same goes for Australian plays.)
You can find out more about me at my personal blog, although I imagine it will be pretty quiet this year while I’m reading and responding to 365 plays!
Thanks for sharing the journey with me,
Katherine Lyall-Watson
* 22 September, 2011: A play a day for a year was my goal and I managed 162 days straight, no breaks, no excuses. But then I went into a bit of overwhelm and had to take a little hiatus. The last 203 plays will be read and responded to but without the self flagellation to read and respond daily. Some plays will take two days to read. Sometimes life (I do vaguely recall the notion) will get in the way. My hope is that less pressure will mean more enjoyment and pleasure from this project.
365 plays 
hey kath, are you gonna add suzan-lori parks to this list 🙂
Good suggestion, Rob. I’ve added SLP to the blogroll. I tried to add her project, 365 days 365 plays (where she wrote a play a day for a year), but that website has been taken over by someone else and goes to a whole bunch of junk instead. 😉
Hi Katherine, apart from your varied reasons as to how you got into reading so many plays, what are your main motivations to keep you going with this many campaign of yours?
I have to admit that I haven’t been posting for a while. I have been reading – I was recently a judge in the playscript category of the Queensland Literary Awards and was reading a minimum of a play a day for that, but I felt it would be unprofessional to critique the plays I was judging.
So, despite the plentiful reading, there hasn’t been much posting. My challenge in the next few months is to submit my PhD thesis. Once that’s done I’d like to finish the challenge I’ve set myself. I have a pile of plays waiting to be read …
Hi My name is Soraya Broukhim, an actress based in NY
email contact@sorayabroukhim.com
Not sure this will get to you. I am looking for strong female contemporary monologues.
Age range 29- 35 about. And since you have read so many plays I thought you would be the best person to ask. Comedic and dramatic. any suggestions?
Hi Soraya,
If you’re happy to look at Australian monologues, Playlab has released a digital version of a collection of monologues for women from contemporary plays.
Hope this helps.
Hi Katherine! I stumbled on to this blog through the magic of internet search engines today and just wanted to say that it sounds like a great project. I’m really looking forward to reading your posts and reading about Australian playwrights as well, we don’t hear a lot about them in Finland. If you want tips on playwrights from Finland, or Scandinavia, I’d be happy to help!
I would love some tips on playwrights from Finland and Scandinavia! Thanks so much for reading and responding to my blog, Hanna.