Women Making Money

Theater | Review of: Word of Mouth

By ERICA ORDEN
May 16, 2007

Dressed in a fitted pantsuit with a white crocodile purse, Tamilla Woodard looked right at home among the bustling bankers in the World Financial Center's lobby one recent afternoon. But the building, home to American Express, Merrill Lynch, and Dow Jones, isn't exactly familiar territory to Ms. Woodard. She's an actor participating in "Word of Mouth," a series of seven short plays about women, work, and wealth being staged throughout the World Financial Center — in escalator banks, mezzanines, and abandoned office spaces — beginning today.

The series — created by the nonprofit theater group the Women's Project — is a way to address an issue both taboo and topical to women, particularly those who work in the theater world.

"It's a topic very much on the minds of the 30 lab artists that we mentor," artistic director Julie Crosby said. "These are women who are committed to a career in theater, which even today offers only 20% employment opportunities to them. So how do you bring these young women into this business which doesn't offer a financially secure future?"

For the playwrights, directors, and producers involved — all of whom were culled from the Women's Project's lab workshops — the topic raised some uncomfortable questions. "We tossed around different ideas of women and wealth, or lack thereof," Leigh Goldenberg, a producer of "I Want What You Have," said. "Most of us, as artists, are in the ‘lack thereof' category,'" Ms. Goldenberg said. "So for us, what does wealth mean? Is it even just money? And does making money make you less feminine? Do you sacrifice your femininity?"

Aiming to address some of these questions, the plays, commissioned by the complex's arts organization, Arts World Financial Center, cover a range of contemporary topics. "Dime Show" explores the challenge of balancing a family with a career. "I Want What You Have" contrasts the lives of three women — a banker, an Indian tourist, and a homemaker. One historical work, "A Peddler's Tale: Buttons, Guts, and Bluetooth," is based on the stories of the families who created the Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers banks from their indigent immigrant trappings.

For the writer of "A Peddler's Tale," Andrea Lepcio, the topic of women and finance hit particularly close to home. A former research analyst for Solomon Brothers, Ms. Lepcio continues to work parttime for a private consulting firm to support her theatrical career.

"Theater was my first love, but family circumstances ended up forcing me to earn money, so it took me a while to get back here," Ms. Lepcio said. But little did she expect "here" would be an actual financial center.

"I worked on Wall Street and in these buildings," Ms. Lepcio said. "The first night we were here, I was very apprehensive about the space, but by the end of the night, it felt like ours."

Until May 19 (220 Vesey St. at the West Side Highway).