Trish Ayers
Writing For Social Change
Contact Trish at mail4trish@earthlink.net
Trish is a published award winning playwright (Associate member
of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.) whose plays have toured throughout the U.S. and Japan.  Her works have been presented as staged readings and/or full productions at Hedgerow Theatre, Live Girls!, Lexington Children's Theatre, Berea College, Iowa State University, The University of Louisville, Western Illinois University, the Berea Arena Theater, and the 2011 NYC EstroGenius In-Progress Festival. As a recipient of a 2006  KFW Art Meets Activism grant she created and led a playwriting seminar for Kentucky women writers which has continued into 2011. Her plays have been recognized for four consecutive years in the Josefina Niggli Playwriting Awards sponsored by The Appalachian Writers Association.

Trish is using  www.iresolveto.com to help keep her on track on a daily basis with her goals.  Check it out!


Trish's play "Painting the Egress" had a staged reading at the EstroGenius-In-Progress Festival in New York City on July 9, 2011.  If it is chosen by as a favorite by the audience it will have a full production.

On March 10, 2008 Trish's breast cancer play LUMPs had a reading by the McCready Writers, residents living in McCready Manor, an assisted living community in Richmond, KY.  It was great fun and everyone was moved.

Trish was interviewed for the March '08 issue of the online journal www.Wordgathering.com; the journal includes creative writing by those with disabilities, or features articles dealing with those issues.  Check out the interview at http://www.wordgathering.com/issue5/interviews/ayers.html.

A scene from LUMPs in included in this issue:
http://www.wordgathering.com/issue5/excerpts/lumps.html.

Trish is pleased to have had the opportunity to interview well-known Berea writer Sidney Saylor Farr on the recent release of her memoir, My Appalachia.  The interview appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Appalachian Journal:  http://www.appjournal.appstate.edu/.
2001 Sallie Bingham Award presented to Trish Ayers

On September 18th Trish was awarded the 2011 Sallie Bingham Award, which honors outstanding contributions to feminist art and social change in Kentucky.  She says, “I seek to add my feminist voice to the worldwide theatrical community by writing and working to produce and publish my plays dealing with social change.”  Her plays have explored topics including breast cancer, rape, chemical weapon storage, the plight of the disenfranchised, and mountaintop removal.  When asked about her goals for Kentucky women who want to write plays, she says she has “a desire to help in creating a haven of strong women playwrights in the state of Kentucky”.

That goal is well on its way to being fulfilled.  Ayers, with the help of several grants received from the Kentucky Foundation for Women (kfw.org, which bestowed the Sallie Bingham Award) has led the Kentucky Women Playwrights’ Seminar (as well as an advanced seminar) for playwrights since the fall of 2006.  More than a few women from that group have gone on to win competitions and have their plays produced.  The Appalachian Writers Association granted their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place playwriting prizes in 2007 to women from her seminar (including a prize for her own play).  The very prestigious Sallie Bingham Award is the result of her seminars, and the opportunities and encouragement they provide both emerging and published women writers.

While helping other women gain their footing in an industry still dominated by male writers, producers, and directors, Ayers’ plays have been very successful in gaining a foothold.  Her work has had many public readings, productions, and successes.  She recently had a live reading of her 10-minute play “Painting the Egress” at the 2011 Estro-Genius In-Progress Play Festival in New York City.  This play deals with a woman with Alzheimer’s disease and how she and her family face her last day.  Her newest full-length play, “Taking Stock”, includes a cast of horses being taken to a possibly grisly end, with similarities to human ethnic groups that have also faced death at the hands of callous humans.  This play was a semi-finalist in the 2011 Kentucky Theatre Association “Roots of the Bluegrass” new play competition.

Dr. Judi Jennings, Executive Director of Kentucky Foundation for Women with Trish Ayers, recipient of the 2011 Sallie Bingham Award