The five members of the Pipeline Playwrights are (clockwise from left) Nicole Burton, Ann Timmons, Jean Koppen, Patricia Connelly and Crystal Adaway. They collaborate to produce plays by women and mentor other female playwrights. Photo courtesy of Pipeline Playwrights

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In fewer than eight years, five women over 50 have produced six full-length plays, two Fringe shows, staged scores of readings, led three playwriting courses, and established a mentoring program for new authors. They also managed to expand their audience during the pandemic. 

This is the work of Pipeline Playwrights, a group based in Northern Virginia that is passionate about making space for women’s voices in the theater world. Their mission — to showcase work that reflects the experiences of women — results in stories seldom told. 

“The vision of Pipeline Playwrights has always been to get women’s stories on stage,” Jean Koppen, one of the three founding members of Pipeline Playwrights, told the Beacon in a recent interview. 

“There are as many women playwrights and as many plays being written [by women] as men. But men get produced far more,” she said.  

Koppen noted that the canon includes a lot more plays by men because, for centuries, only men’s plays were produced. 

“We have to be very conscious about it and do a lot of work to ensure that women’s plays are seen on the stage,” she said, “so that women, who are the primary audience members of theater, get to see themselves.” 

The collective also tries to hire as many female artists as possible for all levels of theater production.  

Pipeline Playwrights’ work has appeared on several stages in the Greater Washington, D.C. area, as well as in Texas, New York and online, showcasing narratives that speak to today’s issues.  

But its search for the perspectives of older women in particular is central to its identity.  

“What we were seeing and experiencing in the bigger theater world was [that] women in their, let’s say, ‘second act,’ are not getting produced or considered much at all,” said Patricia Connelly, another co-founder of Pipeline Playwrights.  

Gathering feedback 

The group workshops new plays-in-progress to exchange feedback and refine the works.  

“There’s something about confederating with other writers — for support, for ideas on where to apply for festivals, to get your plays done, where to find directors,” said Nicole Burton, a member of Pipeline Playwrights and producer of the play To Be Still, which runs through October 27. 

This collaborative process often includes the audience, either virtually or in person. The playwright hears her work read while watching how the audience responds.  

Afterwards, the audience participates in a feedback session moderated by one of the other Pipeliners, Burton explained. “We would find out from the audience what was confusing, what worked, which characters” they liked or didn’t like, she said. 

Fostering an environment of creativity, encouragement and support, this collaboration is the backbone of the collective’s success. 

“There’s something really different about playwriting, and so special because it is an intimate experience with an audience every single time,” said Crystal Adaway, the most recent member to join Pipeline Playwrights and author of To Be Still. 

 For the audience, a play can be “a transformational experience a lot of times,” she said. “That’s what we all, as writers, strive for.” 

A cooperative venture 

At Pipeline, each member of the collective gets a chance to get their play produced and, in turn, be the producer for another member’s play. 

“We made the very wise choice that no one person should produce their own play,” Koppen said.  

This frees up the playwright to focus on refining the creative aspects of the play. At the same time, the producer manages the practical aspects, like securing a venue and hiring a costume designer. 

The collective members also act as dramaturgs for each other, a role Burton describes as “a special mentor voice, advisor, listener for the other.” 

The stories that Pipeline Playwrights tell aren’t just entertaining — they invite reflection and encourage conversations that continue long after the performance ends. Panel discussions centered around the themes of their plays allow theatergoers to engage directly with the actors, director and playwright, as well as with each other. 

For instance, to explore the themes of Adaway’s play To Be Still, which is about the loss of a child in a flash flood, the group will host a panel discussion titled “How Words and Rituals Help Us Deal with Grief” with artist Patricia Dubroof, a Death Café moderator, and Val Walker, an end-of-life doula, among others. 

Expanding their reach 

During the pandemic, the collective produced a play by Pipeline Playwrights co-founder Ann Timmons entirely online. The audience for A Very Present Presence grew to include people who could not go to the theater for a variety of reasons, including caregivers, people who don’t drive at night, and people who are immunocompromised. 

After the theaters reopened, the collective “didn’t want to turn [their] back on that audience,” said Burton, so they adopted a hybrid model.  

Now, a professional videographer films the live production and edits it. A couple of months later, the performance gets a second run on the group’s website. For very modest ticket prices, audiences can stream it online for a period of time, usually a couple of weeks, without having to pay for parking or childcare. 

The group also started adding closed captions to their plays for the hearing impaired. “The accessibility piece is very important to us, and it’s important to other people in our community as well,” Burton added. 

Pipeline Playwrights would love to expand its audience, even virtually, to New York or even Portugal. 

“We have a lot of resources that we have built and a lot of…institutional knowledge that we have developed. So we’re going to see what comes,” Connelly said. 

In the meantime, the members of Pipeline Playwrights will continue to collaborate with each other and find newcomers through its mentoring program, Inspiring New Voices. 

“It feels like incredibly important work because we are raising those voices of women [with] stories that don’t get enough telling,” Adaway said. 

To Be Still runs Oct. 18 to 19 and 24 to 27 at Joe’s Movement Emporium, 3309 Bunker Hill Rd., Mt. Rainier, MD. Tickets are $33. It will stream online in January. For more information, visit pipelineplaywrights.org.