THE ROO
The Year-Long ROO Writer's Residency
The Room of One's Own (ROO) Writer's Residency - takes its name both from the space it provides for the resident artist and the 1929 book by Virginia Woolf.
In "A Room of One's Own" Woolf wrote, “fictitious women, are too simple — contrary to the living, breathing, complex women of real life, (they) are almost always depicted only in their relation to men.”
The one-year residency supports the creation of new work for the stage or screen by feminist writers (of any intersection) who are creating new work that is in line with the Bechdel Project mission.
The residency is largely directed by the writer themselves, and provides access to the spaces in Brooklyn and Berlin for writing, research, workshops, and readings as well as the Bechdel Project staff who provide logistical, dramaturgical, and producorial support.
Jeanne Dorsey
ROO Resident
Jeanne Dorsey is a New York based writer of plays, screenplays, teleplays, and essays. She was awarded a 2021 Sloan Commission for her play The Kit: Made by Martha. She wrote, directed, and produced the short film Blood from a Stoner, which screened at the Anthology Film Archives in New York and was an official selection in the 2015 Chain Film Festival, the 2014 Big Apple Film Festival, the 2014 FilmColumbia Festival in Chatham, New York and the 2014 Hoboken International Film Festival. Her plays have been produced at Ensemble Studio Theatre, SoHo Playhouse, Apartment A Theatre, The Play Group, at Gilgamesh Theatre Group, and New Georges. Her essay “Motherhood, Adoption, Ambivalence” is included in No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood, published in April of 2013 by Seal Press. Her monologues have been published by Smith and Krauss, Heinemann Press, and Applause Books. She has received fellowships to Fundación Valparaiso in Spain, Monson Arts, Ragdale, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Ucross, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Dramatists Guild, Honor Role, and is a New Georges Affiliated Artist.
Her ROO Residency will culminate with a staged reading of The Kit: Made by Martha, directed by Jackson Gay at Alchemical Studios on May 7th and 8th.
Jeanne Dorsey, 2022/23 ROO Resident
Applications for the 2024/25 Residency will open on Feb 1, 2024