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Gender

Content here is about theatre works that explicitly address gender or about issues around gender in the field at large. Don’t miss MJ Kaufman’s series Gender Power and Politics or studies on who designs and directs in LORT theatres by pronoun and women’s leadership in LORT theatres. Many of these pieces also take an intersectional approach, such as “We Have Suffered Enough: The Cost of Performing Trauma for Women of Color” and “Let Them Speak: It’s Time to See More Works from Women Writers of Color on Stages Across America.”

The Latest

Beyond the 2 Percent—A Manifesto: Raising the Bar for Womxn Composers
Video
Beyond the 2 Percent—A Manifesto: Raising the Bar for Womxn Composers
Watch as the panel creates and signs a global manifesto demanding immediate change and decolonization in a still deeply entrenched patriarchal field.
Wednesday 7 February 2024
New York City
Who Designs and Directs in LORT Theatres by Pronoun, 2012-2020
Essay
Who Designs and Directs in LORT Theatres by Pronoun, 2012-2020
by Porsche McGovern
6 November 2023
More Cultivation, Less Crane Machine: Who Gets to Design in LORT Theatres
Essay
More Cultivation, Less Crane Machine: Who Gets to Design in LORT Theatres
by Porsche McGovern, Sherrice Mojgani
6 November 2023
seven panelists
Who We Harm When Parenting Isn’t Considered
Essay

Who We Harm When Parenting Isn’t Considered

13 November 2018

Parent Artist Advocacy League for the Performing Arts (PAAL) founder Rachel Spencer Hewitt discusses three crucial ways theatres can improve their support for parent artists.

An actor in period costume holds up a fist on stage
Four Hundred Years of #MeToo in the Anthropologists’ Artemisia’s Intent
Essay

Four Hundred Years of #MeToo in the Anthropologists’ Artemisia’s Intent

12 November 2018

Emily White takes a deeper look at the parallels between artist Artemisia Gentileschi’s sexual assault trial from the 1600s and the trial testimonies of today, all of which is explored in the show Artemisia’s Intent.

Illustration of a woman in a brightly colored dress
Learning About Mary Ann Yates with Dr. Elaine McGirr
Podcast

Learning About Mary Ann Yates with Dr. Elaine McGirr

Theatre History Podcast #68

8 October 2018

Why is Mary Ann Yates the greatest actress you've never heard of? Dr. Elaine McGirr introduces us to this eighteenth-century star and recounts her fascinating career.

photo collage of Malawi actresses
The Changing Theatre Landscape for Women Artists in Malawi
Essay

The Changing Theatre Landscape for Women Artists in Malawi

4 October 2018

Isaac Mafuel examines the role women have played in the theatre industry in Malawi, from its birth in the late 1960s until now.

a group of people on stage
Men and Women and Non-Binary People On Boats
Essay

Men and Women and Non-Binary People On Boats

Exploring New Styles of Gender Diversity

26 September 2018

Theatremaker Sloth Levine uses the casting conceit in Jaclyn Backhaus’s play Men On Boats as a jumping off point to explore gender diversity in casting.

two actors
A Non-Binary Awakening in Philadelphia
Essay

A Non-Binary Awakening in Philadelphia

12 September 2018

Pax Ressler looks at both the successes and challenges for non-binary theatre artists in Philadelphia.

a mother and a baby
Working Like a Mother
Essay

Working Like a Mother

11 September 2018

Playwright Rachel Bonds reflects on being a working artist since the birth of her son, and maps out tips for theatres working with other parent-artists.

a study group
How to Host a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Activists
Essay

How to Host a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Activists

10 September 2018

Dramaturg Sierra Carlson describes her process for hosting a Women in Theatre Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at her university, and encourages others engage in digital dramaturgical activism.

Clowning While Female
Video

Clowning While Female

A Conversation at the Brick Theater in New York City

Sunday 9 September 2018
Borderlands Theater, Tuscon, AZ, United States

Clowns Ex Machina (Kendall Cornell, Artistic Director) presented the panel Clowning While Female: A Conversation as part of the Brick Theater’s New York Clown Theatre on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Sunday 9 September at 12:00 p.m. PDT (San Francisco) / 2:00 p.m. CDT (Chicago) / 3:00 p.m. EDT (New York).

a drawing
Dr. Sara B.T. Thiel on Pregnancy on the Stage in Early Modern English Drama
Podcast

Dr. Sara B.T. Thiel on Pregnancy on the Stage in Early Modern English Drama

Theatre History Podcast #66

4 September 2018

How do you depict pregnancy when you're working with an all-male cast? Dr. Sara BT Thiel joins us to discuss this and other issues connected to pregnancy on the Stuart stage.

a person with a microphone
On Harassment Policies for Critics in the Age of #MeToo
Essay

On Harassment Policies for Critics in the Age of #MeToo

26 August 2018

Kitty Drexel discusses how the New England theatre community is working to improve their harassment policies, and what the critic's role can be in making inclusive spaces that are safe for all.

How Post-Colonial Imagination Can Make Theatre into an Agent of Revolution
Essay

How Post-Colonial Imagination Can Make Theatre into an Agent of Revolution

16 August 2018

Using three different plays—M. Butterfly, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart, and QPH—playwright Massi Monfiletto examines theatre’s revolutionary potential.

The Rise of Women in Chilean Theatre
Essay

The Rise of Women in Chilean Theatre

6 June 2018

Elana Gartner, founding co-chair of the International Centre for Women Playwrights 50/50 Applause Award, interviews Chilean playwright Sally Campusano about women in theatre in her home country.

Decolonizing Theatre/La Descolonización del Teatro
Essay

Decolonizing Theatre/La Descolonización del Teatro

an Introduction/Introducción

27 May 2018

Annalisa Dias and Madeline Sayet introduce the Decolonizing Theatre series by exploring the ways the American theatre has been and still is complicit in the legacy of colonialism.

Roma Artists Telling Stories of Resistance, Not Victimhood
Essay

Roma Artists Telling Stories of Resistance, Not Victimhood

24 May 2018

Mihaela Drăgan interviews Sandra and Simonida Selimovic of Mindj Panther about their show Roma Armee, and the activist work they are doing in Austria to fight against Roma oppression.

Sustaining a Career as a Female Playwright in Ireland
Essay

Sustaining a Career as a Female Playwright in Ireland

10 May 2018

Pamela McQueen talks to Irish playwright Deirdre Kinahan about the political nature of her work, her creative process, and how she's sustained a prolific career as a female playwright.

The Ugly Truth About Arts Institutions Led by Women of Color
Essay

The Ugly Truth About Arts Institutions Led by Women of Color

9 May 2018

Founder and executive artistic director of Dallas’s Bishop Arts Theatre Center Teresa Coleman Wash looks at the realities of running a theatre company as a woman of color.

Southern-Style Sisterhood
Essay

Southern-Style Sisterhood

How the Women of Nashville Claim Their Space

25 April 2018

Producer and director Jessika Malone explores the theatre scene in her hometown of Nashville, Tennesee focusing on the powerhouse women who are at the helm of many of the city’s most significant arts organizations.

Gender Parity in Canadian Theatre
Essay

Gender Parity in Canadian Theatre

15 April 2018

Elana Gartner, founding co-chair of the International Centre for Women Playwrights 50/50 Applause Award, interviews Rebecca Burton, co-founder of Equity in Theatre at the Playwrights Guild of Canada, about gender parity for women playwrights in Canada.

#MeToo
Essay

#MeToo

Power, Complicity, and Collective Responsibility

11 April 2018

Holly L. Derr writes about recent cases of sexual harassment in the American theatre, and asks when and how institutions and abusers will truly be held accountable.

Shifting the Leadership Paradigm
Essay

Shifting the Leadership Paradigm

the Berkshire Leadership Summit and Beyond

9 April 2018

Sara Brookner interviews the steering committee of the Berkshire Leadership Summit, which brought together a hundred present and future US and Canadian women leaders to discuss equity and advancement in the theatre field.

Representation Matters
Essay

Representation Matters

The Monologue Project

8 April 2018

Gab Cody reflects on the birth of The Monologue Project, an initiative that started in Pittsburgh, USA and Dallas, USA to increase the canon of audition-length monologues for women of African Descent.

Taking Shakespeare’s Measure in the Twenty-First Century
Podcast

Taking Shakespeare’s Measure in the Twenty-First Century

Dr. Nora Williams and Measure (Still) for Measure

3 April 2018

Dr. Nora Williams joins us to talk about Measure (Still) for Measure, a devised theatre project in the US that revises Shakespeare's infamous "problem play" in order to engage with issues such as sexual consent.

Manahatta's Gender Flip
Essay

Manahatta's Gender Flip

Equity in Action

2 April 2018

Holly Derr discusses the dramaturgical implications of playwright Mary Kathryn Nagle changing one of her characters to a woman in her newest play Manahatta, which premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in March 2018.

Anger / Appetite / Ambition / ART
Video

Anger / Appetite / Ambition / ART

A Symposium on Women Innovators in the Arts

Wednesday 28 March 2018
Montclair, NJ, United States

Montclair State University in New Jersey presented Anger / Appetite / Ambition / ART—a Symposium on Women Innovators in the Arts livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Wednesday 28 March at 10 a.m. EDT (New York) / 9 a.m. CDT (Chicago) / 14:00 UTC / 3 p.m. BST (London, UTC+1) / 16:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC+2).