Still Bearing Witness: The Conversation Continues

Apr 17, 2026

Emily Mann by Dan Romer for The Dramatist

T wenty-two years ago, “Bearing Witness,” a conversation between Caridad Svich and Emily Mann, was published in the September/October 2003 issue of The Dramatist. Since that time, Mann has continued her career as a ground-breaking director, playwright, translator, theatre administrator, and mentor to a generation of change-makers in our field.

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Emily Mann

is the Artistic Director/Resident Playwright Emerita at the McCarter Theatre. Plays include Having Our Say; Execution of Justice; Greensboro, a Requiem, Still Life; Mrs. Packard; Gloria: A Life (Steinem); The Pianist, a play with music. Adaptations: Scenes from a Marriage, Uncle Vanya, Cherry Orchard, A Seagull in the Hamptons, House of Bernarda Alba. Favorite awards: Hull-Warriner, NAACP, Margo Jones, Guggenheim, Helen Merrill, Dramatists Guild and Gordon Davidson Lifetime Achievement Awards, Peabody Award, Theater Hall of Fame. She is currently working on her newest play, Code Red.

Erica Stevens Abbitt

, Associate Professor Emerita, University of Windsor (Ontario, Canada), is co-editor, with Scott T. Cummings of The Theatre of Naomi Wallace: Embodied Dialogues (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Her writings on feminist theatre have appeared in Theatre Journal, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Performance Research, American Theatre, and Signs: Journal of Women and Culture. She currently serves as Associate Artistic Director, Playhouse Creatures Theatre Company (New York).