“Women of Will” Acknowledgments

Posted by Gail M. Burns - May 2010

After 10 years of silence, I am working on Women of Will once more. Wat I saw in the 1990’s I see even more profoundly now: as I begin to shed my Artistic Director mantle and turn more to personal artistic projects. Women of Will is top of my list. As I go back to it again a new team has been supporting me, namely Eric Tucker as Director and Nigel Gore as my on-stage partner. I thank them both very much.

So as I look to the future, I would like to acknowledge all those who helped me in the past. I think all works of art come out of a body of common understanding, and I deeply acknowledge my colleagues at Shakespeare & Company for the ongoing conversations about the issues raised in Women of Will. However, I need to specifically name those individuals who have inspired me to the degree that the work would never have been completed if it had not been for their input.

First, Carol Gilligan who asked me the question “Might there not be a new story for our time?” and pointed out to me the great influence of Apuleuis and the Psyche story on Shakespeare’s work. We were joined by Normi Noel (the original director of Part II with Chris Coucill, the original man in Part III) in many discussions about the women of Shakespeare and the Psyche myth. For fifteen years I collaborated with Kristin Linklater on Shakespeare text and language – so much so that it was often difficult to say who thought what. I have an ongoing life conversation with my son, Jason [Asprey], and my partner, Dennis Krausnick, who had the brilliance to name the piece Women of Will. My sisters at the Bunting Institute spent long hours with me discussing women’s power in the world, and Nancy Jones illuminated the power of lamentation in women’s culture. While I was at Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge, England, I met Zohar Ariel who is researching and writing on the idea of male honor.

From Jim Gilligan, Tony Simotes, and Kevin Coleman I have learned much about violence. Johnny Lee Davenport as the man in Part II and once the director of part II contributed many insights, particularly about living as “other” within a culture. Gary Mitchell kicked off the whole first section, and Jonathan Epstein has had enormous influence on all three Parts, interacting with me in the 1990’s as I put Women of Will together.

Finally, the audiences and even the critics have given me feedback which I have found enormously stimulating and useful. To all of you, I say thank you.

And of course, I would have been able to do none of it without the funding from the Van Waverin Foundation, the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe and that profound influence on American culture, the Guggenheim Foundation.

- Tina Packer

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