Seven is a documentary play, first performed in 2008, written by seven women playwrights based on interviews with seven women around the world who have fought for the rights and well-being of women and girls.[1]
The women whose stories form the basis of Seven are all involved in the Vital Voices Global Partnership. They are:[1]
Seven women collaborated to write the play:[1]
Each playwright worked with one of the women whose stories make up the play over a series of interviews in 2006–2007, and wrote a dramatic monologue based on these. The writers met in February 2007 to read the monologues together, and then worked them into a unified script during a Residency Fellowship retreat at Bard College. The first draft was read in July 2007.[3]
The play was first performed on 21 January 2008 at the 92nd Street Y in New York, directed by Evan Yionoulis. Since then it has been translated into 20 languages and performed in 32 countries, as of May 2016[update].[3][4]
Some productions have involved well-known professional actors, as when Meryl Streep read the part of Inez McCormack at the Hudson Theatre on New York's Broadway.[5][6] Other productions have involved amateur groups or public figures, as when a group of senior Belarus government ministers performed it in Minsk in 2015[7] and Washington Supreme Court justice Mary Yu read the part of Farida Azizi at Town Hall Seattle in 2016.[8]
