Collateral Bodies
Winner of the 2009 Jane Chambers Student Playwriting Award
awarded by the Women & Theatre Program at the Association of the Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) Annual Conference
Collateral Bodies explores the human rights violations that happen specifically to women, also known as "femicide." The experiences these women relate are experiences that are currently being lived by many in places all over our world: sex-trafficking, rape, female circumcision, bride burning, domestic violence and incarceration. The stories told here are fictional yet based in truth from research, interviews, documentaries and historical texts. As the play opens, all of the women are brought back to life by the Woman in White so that they may tell the stories of their lives-who they were and how they died. They are Hope, Rajeey, Omid, Esperanza, Nadiya and Asha, women from six specific cultures-American, Mexican, Indian, Iranian, Somali and Eastern European-whose lives were ended in various ways simply for being female. The goal of this piece is to enlighten spectators about the state of women in our "modern" world and give an impetus for action against the atrocities presented in the play, so that the next generation of women have a better chance at life. These women are motivations, meant to empower us to stand up, act, make our voices heard. We, and our actions, are their legacy.
