Maybe I am showing my age when I say that women in my early years were not often allowed at a podium. And I certainly never saw a female at an important event with a press pass in her hatband. So when my editor offered me a chance to attend the Mae West Fest at the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center and hinted that it might turn into a column, I had mixed feelings.

To have a press pass waiting for me tempted me into the possibility of a stimulating evening of entertainment. The downside of all this was the responsibility for writing about it. What if I were not favorably impressed? How could I downgrade a budding new venue available to all us West Seattleites?

It wasn't long until my friend and I were transported into a myriad of choices being acted on two separate stages. An intriguing Lady Macbeth revisited by playwright Aoise Stratford explores her conflict as we are led to empathize with her. One mix of stage, screen and even different centuries was the play "The Hen Gets a Flag." followed by "Smarty Spice Pants and the Serial Killer" both by L. J. Voss. A shocking twist in the second play jolts the audience by allowing a serial killer to meet his match when his victim turns on him.

"Losing Things"by Ellen West came too close to home in my life of forgetting my car keys or my choir music when hheading for an evening away from full-time care giving. A creative twist to the plot allowed the older woman's inner child to appear on stage creating stress in her life until she finally takes hold of her own future.

I was brought back to my counseling days in the play "Baggage" by Michael Ramirez as a social worker put a professional spin on the down-to-earth street talking young woman who was telling it like it really is in her world.

Our evening ended with a heart-wrenching tale called "The Time the Flower Withered" by Nu Quang. Women's theater hhas never been so revealing of emotion as a young Vietnamese woman meets with a life-changing crisis in a refugee camp. The characters work through their roles involving rape and redemption with a chance for audience feedback afterward.

Remember when you were young and you had a life-changing experience pointing you in a new direction? Well, it can happen late in life as well. I found myself saying after leaving the theater, "I want to write a play." I had been drawn to plays all my life but never before had I realized what an impact playwrights have. After all, I am broadening my writing repertoire by covering the Mae West Fest, so why not write a play?

Why not indeed!

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a free-lance writer and speaker whose second book was written with and about Norman C. Kunkel. "WWII Liberator's Life: AFS Ambulance Driver Chooses Peace" is now available. Contact gkunkel@comcast.net for more information.