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| Pascale Armand, Lupita Nyong’o, and Saycon Sengbloh in ECLIPSED Off-Broadway at The Public Theater (c) Joan Marcus |
It’s
Time to Make Sure That Women Stop Getting Upstaged
By
Lauren Yarger
2016 may just be the year we start to see some change for women in theater. As much as we hear about equality and change
in the news, the numbers, when it comes to women represented in professional
theater productions, haven’t been keeping up.
The next time you sit in your seat for a production,
take a look around you. More than likely, you will see a majority of women sitting
in those seats with you -- according to industry studies, women represent about
65 percent of audiences. In fact women make about 70 percent of theater ticket
purchases. So why then, in a recent study conducted of major non-profit
theaters across the country, do we find that women are represented in only
about 30 percent of shows being produced?
One reason is that because many theater artistic
directors – the ones deciding what show to present – are men. It’s not
surprising that they would be drawn to stories about men, presented from a male
perspective, most often written by men. And who better to direct all that, but
a man? In the old-boy environment of theater, it is really easy to assemble an
all-male, or mostly all-male creative team.
Theaters who are interested in serving the interests
of their audiences, however, make an effort to ensure that the shows being
presented are what their ticket-buyers want to see. Now this isn’t to say that
women want to see shows that only are written by or about women. There are many
wonderful male writers and directors. And this also is not to say that any play
written by a woman is good, or that plays should be included on a theater’s
season simply to say a female is represented.
But not enough is being done to ensure that we will see women’s issues created by women on
stages (and we won’t even get into the need for more women represented behind
the scenes designing sets, lighting, sound, costumes, etc.) More good plays by
women, about issues that are of interest to women, directed by women who
understand those issues would be welcome both here in Connecticut and in New
York where I sit through many more shows by and for men.
With all of the theater I see every season, I often do
find myself yearning for something to which I can relate. Theaters seem to understand the need to
produce shows of interest to kids, to LGBT groups, to persons of various ethnic
and racial backgrounds (which they should), but seem to bristle at the thought
of seriously engaging the people who are buying most of their tickets.
Some directors claim they don’t know where to find
good plays by women. That seems a lame excuse. In fact, one of the oft-repeated
themes at the recent GoodtoGo Summit in New York was that directors who use
that excuse probably shouldn’t have their jobs. Just check out some recent Pulitzer Prizes and you will find female playwrights. Goodtogofestival.org itself is a platform of plays, musicals and
songs written by women and ready for full production. In addition, The Kilroys.org are
a group of playwrights and producers in LA who generate an annual list of plays
written by women.
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Lisa Kron (Book and Lyrics),
Sam Gold (Director)
and Jeanine Tesori (Music) FUN HOME.
Photo: Joan Marcus
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There are even some folks who scoff, and deny that there
is a gender parity problem in theater at all by pointing to successes like 2015’s
Fun Home, for which Lisa Kron and Jeanine
Tesori were the first all-female writing team to win a Tony Award for a
musical's score, or the upcoming Eclipsed
by Danai Gurira, which, when it opens in March 2016, will mark the first
time a Broadway cast, director and playwright are composed entirely of female
artists. These are wonderful accomplishments, but the fact that 70 years of
Tony Awards had to be passed out before that finally happened tells me we still
have a ways to go.
So how are we doing here in Connecticut? We have an
unusually high number of female theater artistic directors here: Jacqueline Hubbard
at Ivoryton Playhouse, Wendy Goldberg and Paulette Haupt at the O’Neill Theater
Center, Darlene Zoller at Playhouse on Park and Semina De Laurentis at Seven
Angels, so we are better off than many states in this area.
At the larger theaters presenting new plays, Yale
Repertory, under the artistic direction of James Bundy, consistently presents
works written by and directed by women.
Take a look at the 2015-2016 season and you’ll want to give them a
parity prize (only three of these names are for males):
·
Indecent,
written by Paula Vogel, directed by Rebecca Taichman
·
Peerless,
written by Jiehae Park, directed by Margot Bordelon
·
The
Moors, written by Jen Silverman, directed by Jackson
Gay
·
Cymbeline,
written by William Shakespeare, directed by Evan Yionoulis
·
Happy
Days,
written by Samuel Beckett, directed by James Bundy
TheaterWorks in Hartford, under the artistic
direction of Rob Ruggiero, offers five productions this season representing
three female writers and two female directors. Long Wharf (Gordon Edlestein,
artistic director) and Hartford Stage (Darko Tresnjak, artistic directors) both
offer six-show seasons with one of the works written by a woman and two
directed by women. At Westport Country Playhouse (Mark Lamos, artistic director) the new season has just one female represented among the writers and directors of its six-show season. It would be an interesting project to see how these numbers compare to prior seasons.
So what can be done to continue to increase
awareness about the parity issue and actually do something about it?
Professional theater women in Connecticut will be
forming a state chapter of the League of Professional Theatre Women, which is
committed achieving parity for professional women theater artists by 2020. An
event in September will feature a panel discussion and perhaps play readings or
a play contest. And there’s talk of mounting a festival here, inspired by the
Women’s Voices Theater Festival recently held in DC. More than 50 theaters there
joined together to present new works by women over several months. Now that’s
making a difference!
If you are a woman working in theater in Connecticut
and would like to be involved, sign up for one of two brainstorming sessions
coming up in Hartford or New Haven:
For more information, visit these sites:
