Voices Amplified Awarded KFW Grant to Relaunch Feminist Theatre Festival
By Clay Wallace
July 10, 2025 at 7:48 PM EDT
Lexington-based nonprofit Voices Amplified has received a $10,000 "Arts Meets Activism" grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women to relaunch its Voices HEaRd theatre festival after a 7-year hiatus.
The festival returns in 2026 with the theme HERstories of Resilience, showcasing plays and performances that highlight the strength of women and girls. It will feature a ten-minute play festival, musicals by Kentucky women playwrights, and a surprise as-of-yet-unnamed production.
"That play that I can't announce yet has to do with an alternate narrative to a pretty popular story - a play that we all read when we were in high school and middle school - reexamining that story and how, perhaps, the women in that story were vilified," said co-founder of Voices Amplified Vanessa Becker Weig.
The festival will be celebrating and uplifting women-centered stories, and will welcome performers across the gender spectrum to help tell them.
"We are looking to find ways to encourage people to speak up, to speak out, and to keep going."
"That play that I can't announce yet has to do with an alternate narrative to a pretty popular story - a play that we all read when we were in high school and middle school - reexamining that story and how, perhaps, the women in that story were vilified," said co-founder of Voices Amplified Vanessa Becker Weig.
The festival will be celebrating and uplifting women-centered stories, and will welcome performers across the gender spectrum to help tell them.
"We are looking to find ways to encourage people to speak up, to speak out, and to keep going."