Judy Lea Steele

Judy Lea Steele

Judy is an interdisciplinary writer, performer and producer. As a playwright, she explodes and recreates stories from the patriarchal canon from the imagined standpoint of the women in the stories. Her play, "Gerutha and Margaret" was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National New Play Conference and The Garry Marshall Theatre New Play Festival. Her poetry often evolves off of the page into...
Judy is an interdisciplinary writer, performer and producer. As a playwright, she explodes and recreates stories from the patriarchal canon from the imagined standpoint of the women in the stories. Her play, "Gerutha and Margaret" was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National New Play Conference and The Garry Marshall Theatre New Play Festival. Her poetry often evolves off of the page into performance, exploring her own conception of self-ventriloquism. As a producer, her work includes workshops and readings of her own plays and performance, EMXBODY in Chicago, an original adaptation of Anne Sexton's TRANSFORMATIONS and others. Her theatrical career spans stage, film, commercials and VO. Judy is the owner of Wisteria Root Productions, a founding member of both Telling Humans playwright studio and Burnished Collective, a grassroots arts salon for women over 40 as well as a member of both the Dramatists Guild and Honor Roll. She is also a 2023 MFAW graduate of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Besides talking to trees, she sings and fiddles around on the piano, autoharp and an accordion half her size.

Plays

  • GERUTHA AND MARGARET by Judy Lea Steele
    Recommendations: 1
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    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic + 4 more
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    Keyword: women, feminist + 4 more
    Genre: dark comedy, docudrama/historic, drama, experimental, movement/physical, political
    Keyword: women, feminist, patriarchy, experimental, duality, History
    In an undetermined place and time, Gerutha (Gertrude of Hamlet fame) invites Margaret (Henry VI trilogy, Richard III fame) to coffee as they “share more than they know” and she wants Margaret’s help. The two women, who mirror each other in the duality of their external public persona and internal actual persona, establish a kinship through their shared anger over Shakespeare’s hijack of their lives and the...
    In an undetermined place and time, Gerutha (Gertrude of Hamlet fame) invites Margaret (Henry VI trilogy, Richard III fame) to coffee as they “share more than they know” and she wants Margaret’s help. The two women, who mirror each other in the duality of their external public persona and internal actual persona, establish a kinship through their shared anger over Shakespeare’s hijack of their lives and the subsequent erasure of their actual life stories. Via a spiraling conversational, confrontational journey, their actual stories are revealed, shifting their external and internal duality and forcing them to confront the grim price paid for taking agency in a world designed, dominated and controlled by the patriarchy.
  • Breaking Eden by Judy Lea Steele
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: drama, experimental + 1 more
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    Keyword: feminism, ageism + 7 more
    Genre: drama, experimental, political
    Keyword: feminism, ageism, experimental, alternative, non-linear, mythic, lyrical, Audio, video
    Journey with Eve and her fantastical mentor Lilith, “the first Eve”, as she struggles to break free of the patriarchal stamp of the ideal feminine so ingrained throughout western culture by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Mixing mythic and contemporary storytelling, we encounter Eve grappling with life in Eden and Eve grappling with life in the modern world via four parts based on Milton’s enduring feminine tropes...
    Journey with Eve and her fantastical mentor Lilith, “the first Eve”, as she struggles to break free of the patriarchal stamp of the ideal feminine so ingrained throughout western culture by John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Mixing mythic and contemporary storytelling, we encounter Eve grappling with life in Eden and Eve grappling with life in the modern world via four parts based on Milton’s enduring feminine tropes – woman infantilized, sexualized, idealized and villainized. Can Eve and Lilith break Eden, freeing Eve to define herself in her own image?
  • FURIOUS by Judy Lea Steele
    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, experimental, mystery/thriller
    An otherwordly passenger desperately enlists her driver’s aid in an attempt to control her rage and her destiny.