Vette Berrian has been writing most of her life.
She started with poems at age five, expanded to short stories at 10, and branched out to penning plays in college. So far, only one of her plays has been staged, at a black box theater in college. That changes this month when the Black playwright’s short play “Please Don’t Touch My Hair” is featured in Powerstories Theatre’s fifth Voices of Women Theatre Festival, which runs March 27th through 30th at the USF College of the Arts, School of Theatre & Dance. The annual showcase of women playwrights features nine self-produced short plays and two full-length plays produced by Powerstories.
Berrian, of Valrico, is an Army veteran, retired Air Force spouse, and actress. As a playwright, she’s working on several one-act plays and completing a mainstage play, “Walk A Mile In Her Stilettos.” A friend and who’s active with Powerstories told Berrian about Voices of Women, suggested she submit a play, but predicted she wouldn’t. Berrian wavered on submitting something because she doubted it would be selected. Those doubts turned out to be wrong.
“This is very exciting for me,” Berrian says. “I didn’t think anybody was going to pick it. I didn’t think anybody wanted to hear what I had to say. But I’m a theater person, I’m an actress, and there aren’t many parts out there for us, for Black women. And especially at my age, there aren’t. When you run across directors who aren’t willing to think outside the box when it comes to casting, you end up being left behind. So I decided that I was going to start writing stuff so people who look like me would have an opportunity to be seen on stage.”
Berrian first wrote “Please Don’t Touch My Hair” about a year ago in a writing class as a one-page exercise about a personal experience. The class told her she should develop it into a play. The story is based on something that happened to her when she was going to college and explores “what happens to a person who is culturally curious but doesn’t know how to go about it the right way,” Berrian says.
“I always wondered why people thought our hair was so curious when they tell us that our hair isn’t good enough,” she says. “To have people always wanting to touch it and ask questions about it, but then to see that straight hair is the standard. It was just a couple of years ago that we were able to wear our natural hair into the workplace.”
In the play, the incident happens between 8th and 12th graders, not college-age adults.
“I thought people would find it humorous with children doing it rather than adults doing it,” Berrian says.
On top of presenting and acting in her play, Berrian plans to catch as many performances as possible.
“I’m looking forward to seeing all these women out here telling their stories,” she says. “I am so excited about that. We’re actually getting an opportunity to say what we want to say and I think that’s a great thing. In this climate where people are telling us what we can and can’t do with our own bodies, they’re not listening to what we’re trying to tell them. So I think having something like this is very important and I’m very excited to see what’s out there. I’m hoping to see everybody’s stuff because I really want to see what these women have to say.”
As an actress and the Director of Education at Stageworks Theatre, Dawn Truax is no stranger to the theater. More recently, she’s picked up playwriting.
“I was looking for a platform for myself to get a chance to perform, just looking for more opportunities to perform,” Truax says. “Sometimes you’ve just got to create your own work.”
She’s written and performed one-woman plays for the Tampa International Fringe Festival. At this year’s Fringe festivals in Tampa and Fort Myers, she’s performing her one-woman play about the sister of John Wilkes Booth, saying Abraham Lincoln’s assassin “is not even close to the most interesting member of that crazy family.”
Truax’s contribution to Voices of Women, “Dancing Egrets,” is her first two-person work as a playwright.
“I’m kind of new at this,” she says. “A few years ago, I wrote a short play, a comic piece. It’s very short, we’re not talking ‘War and Peace’ here. I got this notice from Powerstories and I thought, ‘Oh, what the heck!’ They want some comic shorts and I’m a woman. So I sent it in just for the hell of it never thinking it would get accepted and it did.”
The play is a comedy focused on the serious issue of suicide prevention.
“A young man is contemplating suicide while at the beach and a birdwatcher, who is totally based on me, stumbles upon him,” Truax says. “She sees what he is up to and starts pestering him. She says, ‘Well I’m just not gonna leave him alone. I don’t know what to do but I know I’m not going to leave him alone.’ Finally, he just realizes she’s not going to leave him alone and gives up on the project.”
The annoying birdwatcher delivers a message on how to help someone in crisis, she says.
“You don’t necessarily have to be the hero,” Truax says. “You don’t have to say the right thing or do the right thing, you just have to be there. When someone’s in crisis sometimes the best thing to do is be there and not worry about whether you’re saying the right thing or doing the right thing and, at fear of saying the wrong thing, avoid them. The best thing is being there. And this woman is annoying but she’s there.”
Discussing the festival’s impact and importance, Truax borrows a phrase a friend used years ago in a different conversation on a different subject.
“I said, ‘Sometimes, I feel like we’re just preaching to the choir,’” Truax recalls. “She said, ‘Well, Dawn, sometimes the choir needs to be preached to.’ Whether we are making an impact with what we say or meeting the moment, sometimes, it’s just enough to get together and speak to each other, listen to each other, and remind ourselves that we have a voice. There are times when you feel like you’re just shouting into the wilderness, so it’s good to be around other peopIe. What I’m looking forward to the most is being able to be with all these people, hearing what they have to say, sharing with them, and hanging with them. Because these are my people.”
Voices of Women begins at 7:30 p.m. March 27th with a staged reading of Georgia playwright Erin K. Considine’s full-length play “Growth.” The festival continues at 7:30 p.m. on March 28th and 29th with a lineup of six short plays each evening. From noon to 3 p.m. on March 30th, there’s a playwriting workshop led by Jenny Kokai, Director of the School of Theatre & Dance at USF. A staged reading of New York playwright Lori Felipe-Barkin’s full-length play “Ama. Egg. Oyá.” is at 7:30 p.m. on the 30th.
Voices of Women also begins Powerstories Theatre’s “Red Lips, Loud Voices” campaign “celebrating women’s resilience, activism, and storytelling” with red lipstick, a symbol of power and strength.
Ways to participate include wearing red lipstick to the festival, joining the #RedLipsLoudVoices campaign on social media, and taking a selfie in red lipstick to email to
[email protected].
For more information on this year’s plays and playwrights, go to Voices of Women and Red Lips Loud Voices