The Shaw University writing instructor is the mastermind behind Raleigh’s first ever Women’s Theatre Festival. The idea for the event came to Popio after being disheartened by statistics about women’s roles in theatre. One particularly upsetting statistic was the fact that only 24 percent of theatrical shows produced nationwide are written by women.
“Even when women are cast in shows, they are cast in small bit parts or parts that are cliched instead of parts that are interesting and in-depth,” Popio said.
Washington, D.C. had its first Women’s Voices Theater Festival in the fall of 2015 as Popio was doing the research, and the success of the event encouraged her to keep going with her idea.
Popio held meetings to get anybody who was interested involved with the festival. Among those in attendance was Naima Yetunde Ince, the writer and director of “Men Always Leave,” which is being performed at the festival.
Ince went to the meeting after a colleague referred her to Popio, she knew very little about the festival beforehand. After hearing Popio’s message, she was sold.
“That meeting for me was very inspiring,” Ince said. “One, it was a lot of different women all together in a room — which I thought was great — and so I loved that and the energy seemed very positive and upbeat. I didn’t even know the whole mission at that point, and was like, ‘Yes I’m with it.’”
Another artist inspired by Popio’s purpose was Maribeth McCarthy, who decided to get involved with Women’s Theatre Festival after recently moving to the Raleigh area.
“She is a force — she just has this great way of bringing people together,” McCarthy said.