09/04/2026
On behalf of the Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective , we honor and remember Gloria Steinem.
Back in 1971 she enthusiastically became an active member of the Collective’s Board of Sponsors. Her support was vital in their endeavor to create one of the country’s first feminist theater groups - to write and produce plays that spoke with rawness and urgency about women’s lives and the political and domestic realities they faced.
With Steinem’s encouragement, the Collective not only produced plays of their own and others, but also poetry readings, film screenings, parades, and musical evenings., They hired women producers and directors, stage managers, lighting techs, and set designers specifically to give them the experience necessary to further their careers in stage production. Westbeth gave them free rehearsal and performance space. The co-founders of the Collective were all Westbeth resident playwrights: Gwen Gunn, Christina Maile, Dolores Walker, Patricia Horan, Susan Yankowitz, Helen Duberstein, and Sally Ordway.
In the ensuing years, the original playwrights emboldened by Gloria Steinem ‘s example of breaking barriers, went on to become lawyers, bishops, landscape architects, filmmakers, and writers.
Gloria Steinem carried the torch of 2nd wave feminism and kept it lit for all of us . In these dark days, her example burns brighter for all of us to blaze forward. Gloria Steinem Christina Maile
