Most of Great Britain's active women dramatists have found crucial support and encouragement for their work from communities of women in the theatre. Off stage, during the process of planning, writing, and rehearsing, collaborations have changed the standard theatrical work pattern and modified the way women writers conceive of drama. On stage, the products – the plays – reflect their communal generation in their focus on groups. In short, the collaborations, collectives, and groups which have encouraged and advanced women's theatrical work account for its particular verve. And while the position of women's theatre communities is now aesthetically and politically much more complicated than it was in the early 70s, playwright Sue Townsend can still proclaim, albeit more optimistically than most, that collaboration with a group ‘is the only way to work’.