ABSTRACT
Experimental playwright Megan Terry (b. 1932), best known for her pioneering work with the Open Theatre, significantly shaped the late 20th-century's avant-garde theatre movement. An iconic figure for feminist theatre and theory in the Americas, Terry pioneered “transformation plays” and collaborative methods for theatre praxis in the 1960s. Her commitment to “total theatre” and radical pluralism continued across three decades of collectivist praxis at the Omaha Magic Theatre, founded by Artistic Director Jo Ann Schmidman, her life partner. Hailed by Helene Keyssar as the “Mother of Feminist Drama,” Terry can be understood as part of a longer genealogy of the avant-garde, play-based theories of learning and theatre, and of pioneering women transforming social ideas about gender, labor, history, and metaphysics.
