Baker Artist Portfolios

        I am a Unitarian ex-nun lesbian grandmother...so I have spent much of my life confronting and trying to resolve conflict--in the context of a dramatically changing world.  Thus many of my  plays reflect a life-long obsession with values: how they are formed, challenged, changed; what happens when they are inadequate, misguided, conflicting.  The themes of my plays include faith and forgiveness, religion and repression, challenging authority and cherishing mentors, seeking justice and celebrating spirit.

​        My works include full-length dramas and comedies, history plays, epic theatre, musicals, feminist satires, adaptations of Greek classics, story-theatre versions of Japanese and Native American folk tales, as well as ten-minute pieces and monologs.

​        Because the strongest--and equal--influences on my life and art have been my Catholic upbringing and the feminist movement, the conflict between these two is explored in a number of my works.  Perhaps ironically, this conflict has also developed my sense of humor, which informs not just my playful satires but also my serious dramas.

​        I've had 25 plays published, separately or in anthologies or textbooks (Samuel French, Playscripts, Inc., Meriwether, Heinemann, Applause, Dramatic Publishing, Blue Moon Plays, Prentice-Hall, International Center for Women Playwrights, ​Dramatics Magazine).

​        My plays have enjoyed readings at the Kennedy Center, Baltimore Center Stage, Rep Stage (Columbia), the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, and the Abingdon Theatre (NYC), and productions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the Nebraska Repertory Theatre,  and several NYC venues (the Manhattan Theatre Source, the Harold Clurman Theatre, the Nat Horne Theatre), as well as local venues (Theatre Project, Fells Point Corner Theatre, Spotlighters, Loyola University, Towson University, Notre Dame of Maryland, Goucher College, Bowie State University, Catholic University).  I was one of 50 playwrights nationally commissioned by Center Stage to write a monolog for the "My America" series celebrating its 50th anniversary.

​        My work has been supported by a Kennedy Center Playwrights Intensive, by residencies at the Millay Artists' Colony (NY) and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program (CA) and by grants from the Pennsylvania Arts Council, the Maryland Arts Council (3 Individual Artist Awards and a Creativity Grant), the Deutsch Foundation (a Rubys and a post-Rubys R&D grant), the Shubert Foundation, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, and Warner Brothers.

       I'm a member of  the Dramatists Guild, the Baltimore Playwrights Group, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the New Play Exchange.

​        I have a Ph.D. in Theatre Arts from the University of Minnesota, have taught at Towson University, UMBC, Goucher College and Johns Hopkins (Odyssey Program), and for seventeen years chaired the Theatre Department at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, where I directed some 40 productions.

​        I also have an M.A. in theology from the University of Notre Dame (IN) and have had seven op-ed pieces on seasonal rituals published in the Baltimore Sun.  My book ​In Nature's Honor: Myths and Rituals Celebrating the Earth ​was published by Skinner House.  

        My poetry has been published in The Lyric, America, The Classical Outlook, The English Journal, and The Boston Review of the Arts.

​        I share my life--and a pathological passion for theatre-going--with my partner of 44+ years (married in 2004), Sally Wall.