Starting with the left-wing fringe theatre of the 1960s, Putting Your Daughters on the Stage comprehensively traces lesbian involvement in the Gay Sweatshop performances of the 1970s to the development of lesbian-specific theatre companies such as Red Rag, Hard Corps and Shameful Practice.Using her insight as a playwright, Freeman side-steps the limitations of a dogmatic terminology, and reveals how closely lesbian theatre is connected with the inner feelings of its participants. Extensive interviews with key figures in the history of lesbian theatre provide the basis for a wealth of lively excerpts in which these lesbian actors, producers, thinkers and playwrights explore what engaged them in their work and why they did things in certain ways.
Freeman addresses some of the important ideological issues reflected in both women's theatre and other fringe productions including the portrayal of the lesbian character, the appropriation of venues as 'lesbian spaces', the role of the Arts Council and state subsides and the ways in which these have both restricted and facilitated the evolution of lesbian theatre.
