Wendy Lement

My dramatic writing is informed by my belief that theatre has the potential to connect us with our shared humanity and promote positive change. I’ve written and co-written over forty plays that have been produced regionally and nationally, including Salem’s Daughters, Remember Last Night, Woman with the Red Kerchief (co-written with Firouzeh Mostashari), Dolphins: The Myth of Persephone, and Keri Tarr: Cat Detective, based on my children’s book (Breakaway Books 2004). My latest play Red Swans, about two art students in Berlin—both half-Jewish—who joined the anti-Nazi resistance during WWII, premiered at Cape Cod Theatre Company in April 2022.My writing often delves into the lives of “ordinary people” confronted by extraordinary challenges. While chair of the Theatre Department at Regis College, I wrote and directed a series of plays with my students based on oral histories they conducted. The plays, which represent a variety of theatrical genres, include Radio Stories, about women in radio in the Roosevelt era; Testimonio, examining the plight of human rights workers and people who fled Central America in the 1970s and '80s; I’ll Be Seeing You, which juxtaposes the fantasies of war brides during WWII with their harsh realities; Voicings: The Rosenberg Case, about radical women of the 1930s, ‘40s, and '50s; and Six Pairs of Hands, a musical that chronicles the triumphs and heartbreaks of Gloucester’s fishermen’s wives—the play toured to the Blackburn Theatre in Gloucester. In 1992 I co-founded Theatre Espresso, an AEA* company that to tours to schools, museums, and courthouses with interactive plays. During my 27-year tenure as Artistic Director, the company received a National Endowment for the Arts award for American Tapestry: Immigrant Children of the Bread and Roses Strike. The plays I wrote and co-wrote for Theatre Espresso explore connections between historical events (e.g., the desegregation of schools in Little Rock, the Japanese Interment Camps, and the Boston Massacre) and issues of justice we face today.Committed to excellence in theatre for young audiences, I served as Producer of Wheelock Family Theatre in Boston. There I co-wrote an adaptation of Pinocchio with Steven Bogart, and established the “Emerging Playwrights Program” for Boston’s youth.*Member of Actors' Equity Association