ABSTRACT
Distrusting traditional theater practices that sought to divide performance from audience, house from stage, feminist theater creators and performers looked for ways to emphasize the similarities and blur the distinctions between audience and performer. Patriarchal culture was believed to operate divisively, separating women from women and teaching them to distrust their own experiences and impressions. Feminist theaters, working within the context of the specifically feminist community, intended to counteract that effect by bringing women together to celebrate or validate their experiences and impressions. To achieve this experience, performers and audiences had to abandon previous models of theater dynamics for new ones they would create through feminist performance. Roberta Sklar and Sondra Segal described the unique relationship of feminist performer and audience as a mutual and ongoing struggle. “Performer and audience member became partners in a process that moved towards change on both sides of the performing line.”1 Conceptualizing performance as a process requiring performers and audiences to work together radically altered the dynamics of the event and was part of the project to represent the experiences of the feminist community.
