Women have participated in different ways and in many forms of Turkish theater. In the village plays (köy oyunları) – ritual orientated, traditional folk theater – women formed the audience as well as the performers. In these plays, women played the roles of men and women. The subjects of these plays are geared to the perception of their feminine environment. In forms of urban traditional folk theater, such as the shadow theater (karagöz), theater in the round ( orta oyunu ), and storytelling (meddah), women do not participate as performers. When in the nineteenth century West…