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Where are the Women? A Roundtable Discussion
Lisa Bohn, Holly Derr, Shannon Ivey
Southeastern Theatre Conference, 2015
“There were some great shows, and there were some stinkers, and there was a lot in between, just
like any season on Broadway. There were new plays, and revivals, and musicals. There were jukebox
musicals, and biopic musicals and musicals based on movies—there were actually a good number of
those. There were movie stars and TV stars and straight up theater stars. What there wasn’t a lot of,
was women.” ~Theresa Rebeck, “Broadway in Review,” Dramatist magazine, June 2014.
The State of Things

2013-14 report from The Broadway League: 68% of audiences were women, average age
was 44, almost 80% of all tickets were purchased by Caucasians, average household income
of $201,500

Pulitzer Prize for Drama
o
2014: Three nominees, all women; None have been produced on Broadway (Fun
Home scheduled to open in April)
o
Since 2000, 5 winners have been women, 9 men (no award 2006); 14 nominees were
women, 20 were men

Tony Award for Best Play
o
2014: Winner was a man, other 4 nominees were men
o
Since 2000, only 1 woman has won (Reza, God of Carnage) (13 men); only 6 women
have been nominees (40 men)

Broadway productions, 2013-14 season:
o
**Of the ten new plays presented in the season, none were written by women**
o
**47 bookwriters/composers and lyricists; 6 were women**
o
**Dramatists Guild members working on Broadway that season = 89.3% men,
10.7% women**
o
Richard III and Twelfth Night in rep, all-male cast; Waiting for Godot and No Man’s
Land in rep, all-male cast; Bronx Bombers, all-male cast; Macbeth at Lincoln Center,
witches were men (25 men already in the cast, and the two women left are killed);
Rocky had 22 men, 8 women; All the Way (LBJ biography) had 22 men, 3 women;
Casa Valentina, 7 men, 1 woman; Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 5 men, 1 woman; A
Time to Kill 14 men, 4 women; Of Mice and Men, 9 men, 1 woman (also gets killed)

League of Professional Theatre Women, gender parity study regarding women employed OffBroadway from 2010-14:
o
355 productions from 22 companies; 13 employment categories
o
Women playwrights reached a high of 36% in 2012-13 but a low of 28% in 2013-14
o
Women directors ranged from 39% in 2012-13 to a low of 24% in 2011-12
o
1/3 of set designers are women (36% in 2012-13; 27% in 2010-11)
o
Sound designers were at a high of 22% in 2011-12 and a low of 14% in 2013-14
o
Stage managers ranged from a high of 79% in 2010-11 and a low of 71% in 2012-13
o
Only 14% of composers, 9% of lyricists, and 7% of musical directors and
conductors

American Theatre, “Women Push for Equality On and Off Stage,” 9-17-14:
o
Only 24% of all plays produced across the country in the coming season are
written by women, living or dead
o
Of those 24%, only 2 women are on the Top 10 Most-Produced Plays list for the
coming season

The Summit: Feb. 2014 panel of D.C.-based artistic directors
o
Women often don’t speak out for fear of backlash, blacklisting, etc.
o
Advocacy did emerge: playwright Elaine Romero solicited the names of female and
trans playwrights and compiled them into an open-source spreadsheet called “We
Exist”
o
In June, LA-based writers and producers called the Kilroys solicited names of femaleidentified authors from managers, producers, etc. and received responses from 127;
accumulated a list of more than 300 nominees and created the List, 46 of the “most
nominated” plays; Joy Meads (one of the Kilroys): “We have been trained to see
men as speakers and actors and people of consequence, and throughout history
we have produced accordingly. But that does not mean that women haven’t been
speaking or telling stories. They have been. We believe we have been assuming
that the canon is more male than what actually exists.”

2013-14 DC theatre season: 26% by women

LA Female Playwright Initiative found that 20% of productions in LA from 2002-10 were
women; Chicago Gender Equity Report found 19% of productions in 2009 were solely
authored by women

Past two seasons at TCG member theatres, unofficial count shows women playwrights
account for 22% of productions in 2013-14 and 24% in 2014-15
Some Problems/Questions

Why are women dominating the audiences?

Why are women underrepresented in creative positions?

What needs to be done on a personal level, community level, artistic level, etc. to spark
change?

How do women’s larger societal roles (e.g. expectations to be a wife, mother, etc.) contribute
to a lack of representation?
Some Solutions?

If you are able to help decide your season, be intentional about inclusion of women and
people of color

Gender-flipping roles (roles originally written for a man, but cast a woman)

Encourage students to write their own plays

Create a season with the same gender ratio in the cast that you do in the department

When possible, intentionally hire women and POC to direct shows about women and POC;
teach classes focused on plays by women and POC
The Good News

Suzan-Lori Parks’ play Father Comes Home From the Wars (parts 1, 2, & 3) recently won the
Edward M. Kennedy Prize for a theatrical work inspired by American history (other three
finalists all men)

Terrence McNally’s It’s Only a Play is set at an opening-night party, originally premiered OffBroadway in 1986; McNally has updated the play so that older references are more current;
10 of the 19 mentioned are women

Robert Falls, Artistic Director of the Goodman, has good balance (47% over the past 5
seasons); actively setting an example

Upcoming DC Women’s Voices Theater Festival in fall 2015; 44 area theatres will program a
world premiere production of a play by a woman