Carol Lashof (born 1956) is an American playwright, educator, and theater producer.

Early life and education

Lashof was born in 1956 to Joyce Lashof and

Richard Lashof Richard K. Lashof (November 9, 1922 – February 4, 2010) was an American mathematician. He contributed to the field of geometric and differential topology, working with Shiing-Shen Chern, Stephen Smale, among others. Lashof was regarded as "the k ...

, one of three siblings. She grew up in the Chicago area. She went to

University of Chicago Laboratory Schools The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (also known as Lab, Lab Schools, or U-High, abbreviated UCLS) is a private, co-educational, day pre-school and K-12 school affiliated with the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. Almost half ...

, graduating in 1973. She then received a B.A. in literature from UC Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies in 1976 and a PhD in Modern Thought & Literature from

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

in 1984. While at Stanford she studied with

Martin Esslin Martin Julius Esslin OBE (6 June 1918 – 24 February 2002) was a Hungarian-born British producer, dramatist, journalist, adaptor and translator, critic, academic scholar and professor of drama, known for coining the term " theatre of the ab ...

and

René Girard René Noël Théophile Girard (; ; 25 December 1923 – 4 November 2015) was a French-American historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science whose work belongs to the tradition of philosophical anthropology. Girard was the a ...

and wrote her dissertation on D.H. Lawrence and

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

. She wrote her first play in 1978.

Career

Lashof is professor emerita at

Saint Mary's College of California Saint Mary's College of California is a Private college, private Catholic college in Moraga, California, United States. Established in 1863, it is administered by the De La Salle Brothers. The college offers undergraduate and graduate programs w ...

where she taught in the Department of English from 1983 to 2008 and helped to establish the Creative Writing MFA Program. Lashof's plays challenge "major myths and stereotypes of western culture," often involving retellings of more classic stories. She explores oppression and patriarchy, often in a classical context. As she describes her motivations, "I am sick of the faithful wife and mother versus the tramp. And I’m sick of the theme of the girl who makes the play for the older professor... and then accuses him of harassment. I’m just sick of these stereotypes." Her one-act drama ''The Story,'' a re-telling of Adam and Eve with Eve as the first person created, premiered in a production at The Magic Theatre of San Francisco in1981 https://magictheatre.org/magic-archive, and aired on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

affiliates nationwide in 1985 and 1986. It was also published in the Kenyon Review https://www.jstor.org/stable/4335116. Lashof's play ''Doing School'' was a semi-finalist for the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in 2020. A scene from the script became the screenplay for Ryan Coogler's award-winning short film ''Gap'' which aired on

BET Black Entertainment Television (BET) is an American basic cable channel targeting Black American audiences. It is the flagship channel of the BET Media Group, a subsidiary of Paramount Global's CBS Entertainment Group. Originally launched ...

. Gap was included in the book ''One on one: the best men's monologues for the 21st century''. Her play ''Witch Hunt'' is a historic drama retelling the events of the 17th century New England witch panic from the viewpoint of

Tituba Tituba () was an enslaved Native American woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693. She was enslaved by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village, in the Province of Massachusett ...

, an enslaved indigenous woman. Her play ''Medusa's Tale'' shows Medusa as "an innocent victim who is betrayed, rejected and punished by cruel gods Athena and Poseidon." In 2018 she wrote the play ''The Melting Pot'' which was a re-telling of the 1908 play of the same name by

Israel Zangwill Israel Zangwill (21 January 18641 August 1926) was a British author at the forefront of Zionism during the 19th century, and was a close associate of Theodor Herzl. He later rejected the search for a Jewish homeland in Palestine and became the ...

, using it to reflect current social struggles. Lashof and Elizabeth "Libby" Vega founded Those Women Productions on International Women's Day in 2014, a theater company in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

which has a mission to "explore hidden truths of gender and power." Their productions employ "radical hospitality," audience members pay what they can. The company was together until 2022.

Honors and awards

Lashof received the Joseph Kesselring Award from the National Arts Club of New York in 1981 and the Jane Chambers Competition.

Personal life

Lashof is married to Bill Newton, a retired UC administrator. They have two daughters and live in Berkeley.

References

External links

Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lashof, Carol 1956 births Living people American dramatists and playwrights