Founded in January 1973, the Rhode Island Feminist Theatre (RIFT) is one of the earliest known feminist theatres in the United States. As an organization it was committed to social progress using social and political issues as material for their scripts. Their goals were to create quality professional theatre with a feminist perspective, to increase public awareness of the experiences of women and to provide a stable workplace that was largely managed by women. It employed and paid full-time actors, a director, a collaborative writer and a stage manager. It also employed women in all areas of production.
Kate Phelps, a student at Brown University, is credited as the major force behind establishing RIFT. She took her interest in experimental theatre, which stressed ensemble acting and collective creation, to other students. Although not officially affiliated with Brown University, there was initial sponsorship with Rites and Reasons, a theatre group run by George Bass at the time. Eventually a group of five women and five men joined together to create RIFT. The founding company members were Nancy Buell, Mary K. Fox, Bill Frayer, Mark Halliday, Dan Murphy, Jessica Murray, Kate Phelps, Fred Radway, Dennis Sykes and Lucy Winner. The men were interested in exploring collaborative playwriting methods while the women were mainly interested in exploring feminist issues. Both groups were interested in exploring the topic of male and female roles in society.
RIFT produced twelve original scripts, mainly full length, and seven other scripts. The topics of these scripts were social issues relevant to the emerging women's movement. Generally, these plays were a result of collaborative, improvisational playwriting during a four month development period. By naming no single person as the playwright, this collaborative process unified the group as creators of each play. These plays toured extensively in New England and throughout the United States and were produced with simple production values. After an unsuccessful search for a full-time artistic director, the company officially disbanded in 1987. (In 1990, there was a brief series of correspondence between former members of the RIFT and the Women's Studies department at URI. That correspondence can be found in the Women's Studies Collection.)
Open for research.
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Rhode Island Feminist Theater, Mss. Gr. 158, University of Rhode Island, University Archives and Special Collections
This manuscript group is arranged into five series: Scripts, Publicity, Research, Administration, and Audiovisual. There are several oversized items located at the end of the collection in an oversized box and in a map case. The records date from 1973-1985 and are arranged alphabetically within each series and chronologically within each folder.
This collection is arranged into five series:
The records of the Rhode Island Feminist Theatre were received by Special Collections in February of 2002. They were donated by Sherilyn Brown, a company member since 1976 and the managing director at the time. The records were transferred by Julie Pember, the acting artistic director at the time. Both were actors in the company, but also took care of most of the day to day operations.
No further materials are expected for this collection.
The Script Series contains original and revised scripts as well as technical scripts and notes used for local productions and tours. Twelve original scripts and seven others were produced locally and throughout the country. Also included are scripts from the Playwrights Premier Series, a program added to the season when the theatre was restructured in 1982. The goal of this program was to produce three to five plays, chosen from a nationwide search, that would be presented locally by volunteer actors. The scripts in this series represent RIFT's focus on difficult and unrecognized social problems, addressing issues like domestic violence and women in the workplace.
This series consists of material used to promote the group and its work and is targeted at three distinct groups: the public, the media and organizations who might be interested in hiring RIFT. Material given directly to the public includes brochures, playbills and newsletters. Material given to the media includes press releases, brochures and advertisement mock-ups. Material given to organizations who might hire RIFT includes brochures, reviews of the plays available for bookings and the names of original RIFT scripts available for purchase. Also included is material used to assess the success of promotion and the success of the group, such as one project analysis report, two folders of newspaper clippings and feedback from the audience. Large items are stored in the oversized box or cabinet drawer as indicated. Much of the materials are arranged as they relate to a specific play and are arranged the way they were received by Special Collections in February 2002.
This series includes research materials used for individual plays that were produced by RIFT, research for topics that might make good plays, and research on political and social issues that address the goals of RIFT. Also included is literature about feminist organizations, and feminist theatres and artists who addressed feminist issues. The Readers Committee play evaluations show the process used by RIFT in assessing a play that might be a good candidate for production.
The Administration series contains basic organizational information about the operations of RIFT as a business. Included are the articles of incorporation, tax exempt status forms, by-laws, board of directors' list and RIFT's mission statement. The majority of this series is made up of correspondence and contracts, which reflects the organizations active touring schedule and provides a sense of the day to day operations of the theatre. However, the series lacks financial information about the overall operations of the theatre, such as salaries, a publicity budget and production costs. No complete budget was included in the collection when it was submitted. Information important to the dissolution of the company can be found in the closing announcement and staff issues folders.
This series consists of reel to reel audio recordings from various play productions. Also included are two cassette recordings, 17 slides and two video recordings of the productions "Anne Hutchinson" (professionally recorded) and "Strength of the Stone" (VHS). Items are reel to reel audio unless otherwise noted.