judy lea steele

Judy is an actress and playwright whose frustration with the lack of stories by and about women, especially over 50, led her to writing them. She creates alternative structures reflecting the voices she has lived and heard. Her current focus is the destruction and reconstruction of patriarchal, canonical stories, recreating them from a woman's point of view. Driven by aural and visual senses, she explores methods of using those tools as text. Her recent play, Gerutha and Margaret, was a semi-finalist in the 2021 New Works Festival at the Garry Marshall Theatre in Los Angeles and received both a table read and online staged reading via Chicago Dramatists’. As an actress she has extensive experience on stage, film, commercials and VO. She is a founding member of Telling Humans playwright studio and Burnished Collective, a grassroots salon for women artists and arts lovers over 40. Currently pursuing an interdisciplinary MFAW at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, she is deepening her lifelong storytelling love to include playwriting, performance studies, and a digital solo voice layering writing, performance, music, photography and video. An alumna of Northwestern University, she has a BS Speech/Theatre. 

WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA:
Website: http://www.judyleasteele.com 
TW:@JudyLeaSteele
IG: @judyleasteele_off_book
NPX: https://newplayexchange.org/users/19492/judy-lea-steele

MORE ABOUT ME
I feel most like myself when I . . . . . .am making art. The literal process of making art itself. The research, discovery, conceptualization, drafting, workshopping, editing, rehearsal, collaboration, community, all of it. It’s invigorating. The process that makes my blood run. How do you overcome disappointment? I take a moment to wallow, then examine the source of the disappointment for truths I might not have realized, seen or wanted to see previously. It’s important for me to chew on it and sort it out verbally. For that I turn to a few close friends and colleagues who are generous, constructive, direct and on occasion patient in the nth degree. And then I go to the nearest body of water/sky/trees and walk, walk, walk, think, think, think, listen, listen, listen. The enormity of the world clears my head and rights any remaining skewed priorities in a way not many things can. And back to work! It's a lifelong journey. If you could bring one change to theatre, what would it be? Creation of accessible vehicles for self production that would eliminate or bypass some of the gate keeping hurdles so entrenched in this industry. What do you want ADs to know? Women in our demographic are among the most consistent consumers of theatre, perhaps in the highest numbers. (The current situation has affected all stats of course.) We want to see complex, fully dimensional female characters over 40! The potential is woefully unexplored and untapped. Make the choice to prioritize it. What is your favorite thing to do when not writing? Go outside and take photos, images with off kilter perspectives that inspire me and often end up in the development process for my work. Make music, listening, singing or playing instruments. Read, read, read, soak in as much art as possible from a variety of mediums and continue to be curious about the crazy animals we humans are. 

WHAT I'M WORKING ON
I am a in the midst of graduate study at the School of the Art Institute, deepening my practice by weaving photography, video, performance studies and playwriting. Additionally I am developing a solo voice that uses the previous disciplines plus music to create personal performance works. Some are designed to be live, some to be delivered via digital platforms as video poems, lyric essays or direct address. At present, in both plays and solo work, I am exploring concepts of duality as lived and seen in my own life.

KEYWORDS
​experimental, alternative, feminist, political, equality, historical, adaptations, fable/folktales