Women Talking: Director's Note

When I sat down to write this note, I found myself staring at a blank page. How can I possibly sum up everything I’ve worked on through the past four years? I first came across the film a few years ago. When it came time to decide on a capstone project, I remembered the film and how empowered it made me feel. I wanted to share that empowerment with those around me. 

As a Theatre student, I have had the privilege to be part of the many different processes that a production goes through while being at Fairfield University. As the first Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies major, I have had the opportunity to study my passion. The lack of gender equity in the world is something that has never sat right with me. This project challenged me entirely as a playwright, director, actor, and a feminist: a true culmination of my four years as a Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies & Theatre double major at Fairfield University. 

Women Talking is about a group of women who take ownership of their full humanity for the first time in their lives. These women have suffered greatly. They have never been afforded the privilege of education. They have never been told they are worth anything more than the animals they take care of. They are not aware that they are allowed to have opinions. However, these women, all at various stages of their lives, come together and realize, for the first time ever, that they are people first and foremost. They have a voice, and what’s more is that they can use it.

Women Talking is about all women. Women who have to compromise themselves in some way every day. Women who have to make terrible decisions. Women who live in countries that strip away our human rights every day. Women Talking is for you. 

To all the women here: we are forces to be reckoned with–may God help any person who stands in our way.

--Katharine Gutkoski, April 2026

A drawing that my friend, Grace Karangekis, made from a photo when another friend, Emma Maselli, got all three of us pinky promise rings.