Fefu........Jessica Klein

Cindy.......Stephanie Wells

Christina...Elizabeth Stroder

Julia.........Mary Alice Beck

Emma......Donna Burns Phillips

Paula..........Jessica Cooper

Sue..........Dena Michelle Warmuth

Cecilia........Jacqueline Ann Smith

Director's Note: Fefu and Her Friends is the "breakout" work of the woman who at 70-something has become America's hottest "new" playwright. Winner of eight Obie awards, ms. Fornes was recently featured with ARthur Miller, Horton Foote, John Guare, and Edward Albee in a feature interview in the New York Times. In it she said that wilhe writing plays, "You are in heaven. It's like a love affair. And everybody else can disapprove of it and think you're an idiot, but when you had it, you never forget it, and that is really what lives inside you..." A passionate, articulate woman--who happens to be of Cuban-American stock--Ms. Fornes speaks eloquently with her own unique voice.

Usually numbered among feminist writers of our day, Ms. Fornes is nonetheless more difficult to categorize. Eschewing the materialism of many prominent feminists of her generation, she has embraced a psychgological and mystical feminism that puzzles and fascinates critics and audiences alike. Like renegade feminist Camille Paglia, Ms. Fornes sometimes angers her more political colleagues. Says Fefu, "I still like men better than women..."--hardly a view popular with mainline feminists. And like Ms. Paglia, Ms. Fornes' quest for the truth is far more important than the approbation of others. She seems mildly amused and fascinated with her newfound prominence.

This play deals with eight women all with distinct and very feminine (the word is used with all due post-modern circumspection) personalities. Each, like her creator, is gently asserive of her own place in the cosmos. She seeks equality--true equality--rather than mere revolution. On one level, the play may be seen as an exploration of privileged women's roles in the 1930's America. On a deeper, poetic level, the play is a mystical explication of the psyche of American womanhood, as it seeks its primal, worthy nature.

This is the first time her work has been seen at Cleveland State University.