Clare Coss, Playwright - Writing and reading one-woman plays about Lillian Wald and Mary White Ovington, feminist women who fought against poverty, racism, and war

“To celebrate Women's History Month the Webster University community attended Clare Coss's
performance of DANGEROUS TERRITORY. We were intrigued by the dramatic use of an individual life to portray substantive issues that resonate with our own time. The audience thoroughly enjoyed what was for most an introduction to Mary White Ovington, W.E.B. DuBois and the founding of the NAACP.”

Seena B. Kohl, Professor, Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Webster University, St. Louis, MO

“Clare Coss's dramatic presentation of DANGEROUS TERRITORY was completely engaging. In thinking seriously about Ovington's journey, we think also about the processes by which we make the political decisions which shape our lives and our society, and the commitments that give life meaning.”

Gerda Rae, Professor, Department of History and Institute for Women's and Gender Studies, University of Missouri, St. Louis, MO

Top photo credit: Jon Snow

CLARE COSS is a playwright, psychotherapist and activist convinced that we have it in our power to create a just and safer world. Her one-woman plays, Lillian Wald: At Home on Henry Street and Dangerous Territory (Mary White Ovington) feature two heroic women who confronted the cruel realities of poverty, racism, and war. In these plays their courageous lives inspire, inform, and entertain.

“The Blessing” producer
Wynn Handman and Clare
Coss at the cast party

Clare's most recent theatre productions are the one-act coming-out comedy String of Pearls at the Provincetown Theatre Company and Our Place in Time, Ten Scenes from the Twentieth Century, co-produced by the Women's Project & Productions and the New Federal Theatre. Other productions include: The Blessing, American Place Theatre starred Anita Gillette and Kelly Bishop; Lillian

“Lillian Wald” producer Woodie King, Jr. and Clare Coss at the opening night gala

Wald: At Home on Henry Street, New Federal Theatre, with Tony Award winner Patricia Elliott, (Lincoln Center Theatre on Film and Video Collection); Growing Up Gothic, featured Crystal Field, George Bartenieff and Joyce Aaron, original sound score by Thiago de Mello, Theatre for the New City/Interart Theatre; co-author with Segal and Sklar The Daughters Cycle: Daughters, Sister/Sister, Electra Speaks, Interart Theatre, (NEA, NYSCA, CAPS, Joint Foundation Support); The Well of Living Waters, Old Testament Story Theatre, lyricist and co-author with Mel Spiegel, original score Thiago de Mello, Cathedral of St. John the Divine; The Star Strangled Banner, called Brechtian-Marx Brothers about the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1848, at the Berkshire Theatre Festival Barn (Playwright in Residence).

Robert Cooper, Chief of the Montaukett Tribe; Clare Coss; Blanche Wiesen Cook; and Lucius Ware, President of the NAACP Riverhead Branch

Clare Coss' publications include Lillian D.Wald: Progressive Activist (The Feminist Press) which features the play and a selection of Wald's correspondence and speeches. Her anthology of lesbian love poems, The Arc of Love, published by Scribner was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist.

She is a member of PEN, The Dramatists Guild, The League of Professional Theatre Women and the Columbia University Seminar on Women and Society. Clare served as a Board Member for The Thanks Be To Grandmother Winifred Foundation (1995 - 2001). She is currently Poetry Editor for Affilia, a journal of women and social work.

As a psychotherapist Clare works with individuals and couples and offers a workshop called "What is a healthy relationship?"

Brought up in New Orleans and New Jersey, "half yankee/half rebel," Clare Coss is passionate for the night sky, swimming, hiking, poetry, and her piano lessons. She lives in New York with her partner and co-conspirator Blanche Wiesen Cook.

Cast party for "The Blessing." 1st row: Leila Boyd, director Roberta Sklar, Anita Gillette, Kelly Bishop; 2nd row: Beth Fowler, Olga Merediz, Clare Coss.

Cast party for "Our Place in Time." 1st row: Elizabeth Hess, Norman Maxwell, Keith Randolph Smith; 2nd row: Daniel McDonald, director Bryna Wortman, Jacqueline Knapp, Gena Bardwell, Clare Coss, co-producer (with Woodie King, Jr.) Julia Miles.