Donna Kaz

"I loved this book by a woman with dreams that don't get realized but she makes her life work, no matter what, and tells her story with such honesty and clarity. An incredible achievement. It is unique, original and Donna Kaz is what Arthur Penn would say, somethin’ else.” —Estelle Parsons, Oscar winning actress

"In alternating chapters and eras, Donna Kaz’s memoir divulges her secret lives. In the ’70s her public identity was that of a struggling actress and girlfriend of a famous Hollywood star, while privately she was a victim of domestic violence, chil

"I loved this book by a woman with dreams that don't get realized but she makes her life work, no matter what, and tells her story with such honesty and clarity. An incredible achievement. It is unique, original and Donna Kaz is what Arthur Penn would say, somethin’ else.” —Estelle Parsons, Oscar winning actress

"In alternating chapters and eras, Donna Kaz’s memoir divulges her secret lives. In the ’70s her public identity was that of a struggling actress and girlfriend of a famous Hollywood star, while privately she was a victim of domestic violence, chillingly addicted to her life-threatening relationship. Two decades later she began a nineteen-year career as an activist with the clandestine arts gender-justice warriors The Guerrilla Girls, granting the reader a security pass into a mysterious and renowned revolutionary arts secret society. A compelling and page-turning read, and a testament that fighters for fairness and justice are not born: they are made."
– Kia Corthron, playwright

“Fierce, funny and shrewd, much like the Guerrilla Girls themselves, Donna Kaz aka Aphra Behn has written a memoir filled with so much hope and frustration it’s impossible to put down. A page-turning how-to about changing the world, and the challenges therein.” - Theresa Rebeck, playwright (Seminar), television writer (Smash) and novelist (I’m Glad About You).

Kaz's work has been seen at Harlem Stage, the New York Musical Theatre Festival, Theatre at St. Clements, Northeast Theatre Ensemble, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Tribeca Performing Arts Center. She is the author of the plays Performing Tribute, 9/11; JOAN; The Wanderer; Get Out Your Dead Stamp; A Window and Waiting as well as the musicals LIVE! NUDE! GIRL! and FOOD, the musical. She has been published in Lilith, Turning Wheel, Step Away Magazine, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Western Press Books, Mason’s Road and Hawai’i Review (Ian MacMillian Award). A 2013 Pushcart Prize nominee, Kaz is also the recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, The Blue Mountain Center, CAP21, Wurlitzer and The Ucross Foundation. Her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Dramatist, Ful Art magazine, Girl Drive Blog, Gender Across Borders and the Women’s Studies Quarterly. Her screenplay, King Me, recently won a Boundary Stone Screenwriting Award. Kaz has been a featured reader at the Pulse Poetry Slam, Carpo, Uncle Mo’s and Wordstock. She has received a Jason Miller Award for excellence in directing, a New York State Council on the Arts grant and two grants from the Manhattan Community Arts Fund. In 2014 she received an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant to support the completion of her memoir.