The ROO Residency, inspired by Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, is designed to remove the systemic and financial barriers that often sideline feminist writers. Bechdel Project , the feminist new play incubator, is proud to announce that acclaimed Broadway playwright Sandy Rustin has been selected as the 2026 ROO Resident . The announcement coincides with Women’s History Month and the anniversary of a watershed moment in feminist history: the 1970 Ladies’ Home Journal Sit-In . During her two-year residency, Rustin will develop a new farce centered on this radical act of defiance, bringing the high-stakes, 11-hour takeover of the magazine’s editorial offices to life for modern audiences. In March of 1970, a coalition of nearly 200 women from Media Women, New York Radical Feminists, the National Organization of Women (NOW), the Redstockings, and Barnard College Students staged a tactical occupation of the Ladies’ Home Journal offices. Protesters targeted the magazine becaus...

Learn more about them and their projects! Ania Upstill - ELLA, ANNIE, & STELLA Long before Ru Paul’s drag race and drag queens ruled the lands of gender performance, male impersonators triumphed on the American and British variety stages. In the late nineteenth century, the hype wasn’t about men dressing as women - it was about women (or at least, female people), dressing as men. These performers were some of the best paid and most in demand of all performers on the variety stages, and their stories have mostly disappeared - until now. Melisa Tien - ANTIDOTES TO PATRIARCHY After travelling to Yunnan, China, and Sumatra, Indonesia, to learn about two thousand-plus-year-old matrilineal societies, how might one create a participatory cultural event that gives rise to a natural inclination—nay, compulsion—to place women at the center of society, that is at once theatrical and authentic, and unique to our corner of the world? Kimberly Senior - THE REINVENTION OF ANNIE BESANT Annie Be...

  Out of nearly 400 applicants from 23 states and 22 countries, comprising TONY and Emmy (and other) award winners as well as those new to playwriting - covering subjects from Cannibalism to Nude Dinner Parties, Drag Kings to Godhood, Birthwork to Assassinations, our 2026 ROO Applicants have it all!  We are thrilled to introduce the 2026 ROO semifinalists! Adina Aaron - Textiles Lindsay Bourne - Some Place You Don't Have to Take Your Body with You  Ella Rose Chary - The Wrong Question Jayne Deely - Legacy Steph Del Rosso - Damage Control Penelope Gould - Untitled Women's House of Detention Play Zoë Kim - Famished Megan Medley - I'm God Mamie Parris - The Circle Sandy Rustin - Ladies Home Journal Project M.D. Schaffer - Untitled White Woman Militia Play Kimberly Senior - The Reinvention of Annie Besant Melisa Tien - Antidotes to Patriarch - A Series of Theatrical Events Ania Upstill - Ella, Annie, and Stella - a Drag King Musical Liza Wyles - The Raft