On Sunday, January 21, there will be worldwide public and private readings of unproduced plays by women in the International Women's Voices Theatre Festival. As part of this, in Canberra, Pigeonhole Theatre, formed to highlight women's voices in theatre, is holding a reading of Emma Wood's unproduced play The Third Act. It will be directed by Jordan Best and feature a cast of Canberra actors: Karen Vickery, Lainie Hart, Liz Bradley, Amy Dunham, and Michael Sparks.

Best played the lead role in Pigeonhole's award-winning 2017 production of Summer of the Seventeenth Doll and last year also took the company's 2016 production of Playhouse Creatures that she directed to an international festival in Monaco.

She says what attracted her to former Canberran Wood's play was that "It's not about the pretty young people. It's about a woman at that stage in life when we become largely invisible, as you get older and you try to figure out what to do with your marriage and your children and you're trying to refind who you are and what the next stage is for you."

In the play, Sue's daughter Lara is getting married but while Lara is excited, it's not such a happy occasion for her mother. Her long marriage is over, her estranged husband has a new partner and she is facing a future very different to the one she had imagined and must find the strength to rebuild her life anew.

"It's not intended to be a performance piece," Best says of this reading, presented with the support of the Canberra Theatre Centre.

There will be no set, costumes, special lighting or movement in the presentation: the idea is simply to draw people's attention to this unproduced work by Wood, whose other plays include the Pride and Prejudice prequel Mr Bennet's Bride (which was performed at Theatre 3 by Newcastle Theatre Company in 2015) and Water Child.

"I want everybody to come," Best says. Sue's situation in the play - of finding life hadn't turned out as she had hoped and having to deal with a new reality - is one many people face as they grow older.

"It's not just a feminist agenda."

Best says Wood drew her attention to the Women's Voices Theatre Festival, which began in Washington, DC in 2015 as a way to highlight the variety of plays written by women and the range of professional theatre being produced there. It's become international in its scope and Best brought Pigeonhole on board and named the first Canberra event International Women's Voices - Just Shut Up and Listen.

"I'm hoping it can be a yearly event for us," she says.