Rhode Island Feminist Theater (Mss. Gr. 158)

Historical note

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.)