BECHDEL PROJECT and Ensemble Studio Theatre Announce the   World Premiere Reading of Jeanne Dorsey’s play, THE KIT: MADE BY MARTHA, as Part of the Alfred P. Sloan 2023 First Light Festival. Bechdel Project and Ensemble Studio Theatre will present the world premiere reading of Jeanne Dorsey’s play, The Kit: Made by Martha, directed by Jackson Gay, on May 7th (3pm)  and 8th (7pm) in New York City at Alchemical Studios ( 50 W 17th St.) Reserve tickets here. Commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre/Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Science & Technology Project , and developed with support from Bechdel Project’s year-long ROO Residency , The Kit: Made by Martha explores the life and work of Martha Goddard, inventor of the first standardized rape kit. While working a crisis hotline for runaway teenage girls in 1972 Chicago, Goddard ponders how rape could be investigated as an actual crime rather than a made-up story. At a time when sexual violence in America is rarely prosecu...

Photo By  Amanda Demme  for New York Magazine New York Magazine just published a piece on 35 women who were willing to come forward with stories of being assaulted by Bill Cosby over the years. These allegations were first made decades ago and yet they have been largely ignored. Now documents obtained by the New York Times show the veracity of their claims, in Cosby's own words, and new attention and legitimacy has been given to the issue. Why does the Bechdel Project care? It is no accident that a culture whose stories ignore and gloss over women, is also a culture that actually ignores and glosses over women. The Bechdel Project wants to be a part of changing that. The New York Magazine article , in addition to the recent media coverage, has brought many of these women together for the first time. They were all interviewed separately, but what is shocking is that their stories are so similar, from the descriptions of their interactions with Cosby,...