Mz. Fest is a world-premiere look at women’s stories onstage

How the story turned out depends on which version you listen to, but everyone agrees that the Greek King Agamemnon got pretty darn close to sacrificing Iphigenia, his own daughter, for the sake of a breeze to take his warships to Troy. Jephthah, a Biblical judge of Gilead, swears to God to sacrifice the first thing out of his door at home if he can just defeat those pesky Ammonites. Well, turns out it’s his own daughter, and he sticks to that promise. What are the things we’re willing to sacrifice to get what we think we want?

Plays & Players’ premiere Mz. Fest, produced by Amber Emory and featuring three new works-in-progress by three different woman-centric theater companies, will ask those questions and more.

“What do we cling to?” the Fest asks with Kaleid Theatre’s Take/Sacrifice. “What do we want so much that we’ll destroy each other for it?”

Actor, poet, and playwright TS Hawkins will contribute her first full-length play, The Secret Life of Wonder: a prologue in G, about the life journey of seven girls who “expand beyond their assigned genders while exploring how their differences bring them together.”

ReVamp Collective is bringing Shit Men Have Said to Me: Tales of How Men and Women Communicate, a “devised piece” that takes on catcalling, slut shaming, and the ways men and women relate.

The week-long festival has a diverse range of supporting partners, including the Philadelphia Asian Theater Project, InterAct, the Wilma, the Lantern, People’s Light, Azuka, Egopo, and the Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists.

Plays & Players’ Mz. Fest is coming up March 31 through April 5 at the Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia. For tickets and more information, including the full list of participating artists and the full lineup of shows, call 866-811-4111 or visit the fest online.