Gender

Charlotte Meehan and Adara Meyers follow up “Snapshots from the Field” with a look at women theatre artists.

Scholar Magda Romanska presents an overview of contemporary women directors in Poland.

Catherine Trieschmann tackles what happens when she leads storytelling exercises with her daughter’s Girl Scout troop, and almost all of them write about boyfriends.

Emma Weisberg considers the complexities of language and summarizes conversations with fourteen women playwrights discussing the question “How do you define gender parity?”

Cecilia Copeland explores what her play R Culture brought up for her as a playwright, as well as what a play about “rape culture” means for her community at large.

Activist and artist Yvette Heyliger shares her petition for new legislation mandating women artists receive equitable funding from nonprofit arts organizations and institutions.

Playwright Elaine Ávila illuminates her eye-opening trip to Portugal—wittingly nicknamed Tíaland—as the winner of the DISQUIET International Short Play Competition. There, she is met with historical narratives of overcoming socialized barriers. 

In his essay, Director Evan Caccioppoli explores the future of sex in American theatre.

Director Will Davis shares his experience navigating theatre spaces as a queer person.

Zak Berkman offers insight into implementing diversity and inclusion as the Producing Director at People's Light.

In this last installment, Armando Huipe shares his observations about the identity affinity groups at the 2014 TCG Conference.

Patricia Davis interviews DC-based director Stevie Zimmerman, discussing casting, directing styles, and the challenges of new work.

P. Carl interviews Julie Crosby on leadership, gender parity, and Women’s Project Theater. 

My hope is that for an issue as important as this one, we’ll all extend our collaborative impulses beyond the rehearsal room. (We’re not always so good at that.) Instead of working at cross purposes and duplicating each other’s efforts, let’s pool our resources and face facts together. We’ll be stronger for having worked side-by-side, don’t you think?

Last night there was an outpouring of disgust, sadness, confusion, anger, and frustration over a decision to again treat our field as though we are not as important as the rest of the team. This rush of emotion comes because this is not new to us at all. The amount of work in order to be validated by the Tony Awards as a category, which was instated in 2008, seems to have meant nothing at all if it suddenly goes away. It’s not about an award. It’s not about the spotlight—most of us work very hard to go unnoticed during a performance (unless we need to be noticed). It’s about validation for the work that we do and how hard it is to do this work.

Jonathan Mandell offers his opinions on dviersity in theatre. 

Is there really no institution in 2014 that will sponsor an ongoing annual study of American women playwrights working in theater seasons around the country (and directors, producers, designers, for that matter)? What if there were a way to fund some sort of new national study, to formalize a precise methodology of what shows/seasons to count and when, and get an accurate assessment of what the gender equity percentages for women playwrights in the United States really are in 2014? If we can’t find an institution or university that will fund this (which seems a shame), is there a DIY way to organize an all-inclusive study that includes every region of the country? Can we pool our resources and do this?

Karla Jennings provides insight into the benefits of blind submissions in playwriting.