That’s not “women’s theatre.” That’s powerful theatre. The way it was always intended.
Where women-driven stories command center-stage. We commission, produce, and amplify theatre that centers all women’s voices and experiences. We invest in women artists, pay them fairly, and build the canon that’s been missing for centuries. This is where visibility begins and power begins to shift.
Where every production advances gender equity beyond the stage. We direct a percentage of production revenue to sister organizations on the frontlines of education, healthcare, legal protection, and economic empowerment for women and girls. We also create and run theatre-based programs that build leadership, sharpen civic engagement, and put agency in the hands of women and girls. This is where power intentionally changes hands.
Where impact emerges. When women are centered on stage, paid fairly behind it, and resourced beyond it, the effect is cumulative. Communities stop treating gender equity as an aspiration and start treating it as infrastructure. Representation becomes structural, not symbolic. And this is when the question shifts from “whether women belong in positions of power” to “what happens when they claim it.”
In fulfillment of its philanthropic mission, WAM donates a portion of the proceeds from their Mainstage productions to carefully selected recipients. Since WAM’s founding in 2010, they have donated more than $80,000 to 19 local and global organizations taking action for gender equity in areas such as girls education, teen pregnancy prevention, sexual trafficking awareness, midwife training, and more.
In addition to Mainstage productions and special events, WAM’s activities include innovative community engagement programs and the Fresh Takes Play Reading Series. To date, WAM has provided paid work to more than 500 theatre artists, the majority of whom are female-identifying.
As a civic organization that embraces intersectional feminism (feminism that acknowledges how multiple forms of discrimination overlap), WAM understands that to address one piece of systemic discrimination means we have to address them all. This is on-going personal and professional work at WAM for the staff and board.
WAM Theatre has been widely recognized for having a positive impact on cultural and community development in the region. WAM is the recipient of the Creative Economy Standout Berkshire Trendsetter Award and previously, was named Outstanding Philanthropy Corporation of the Year by the Western MA Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Kristen van Ginhoven, WAM’s Producing Artistic Director, was honored by the Berkshire Theatre Critics Association (BTCA) with the prestigious Larry Murray Award, presented at the discretion of the BTCA Board to a person or theatre project that advances social, political, or community issues in Berkshire County.
In 2010 co-founders Kristen van Ginhoven and Leigh Strimbeck read the book HALF THE SKY: TURNING OPPRESSION INTO OPPORTUNITY FOR WOMEN WORLDWIDE by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and it inspired them to found WAM Theatre as a way to use theatre as philanthropy for women and girls.
“Half the Sky” invites people to ‘join an incipient movement to emancipate women and fight global poverty by unlocking women’s power as economic catalysts’. WAM Theatre is one way we are joining the movement and taking action.
WAM stands for ‘Where Arts and Activism Meet’. WAM’s vision is to create opportunity for women and girls and we do that through our mission of theatre as philanthropy. As we grow, we realize that we are also a civic institution that creates theatre for gender equity.
Read this blog from our co-founder, Kristen van Ginhoven, to learn about the evolution of what WAM stands for, literally and philosophically: Kristen’s blog
WAM Theatre engages that community by:
