Women and Broadway: what EXACTLY do we hate?

Clearly there is discrimination against women in the film industry. Hell, if Ela Thier’s open letter didn’t make that clear enough, the associations most of society has with “Hollywood” and “women” should do the trick. However, the same is not so obvious about the theatre industry.

At the end of June, research was conducted exploring if there is discrimination against women playwrights on Broadway. The conclusion: yes and no.

Quick Facts from the Findings:

• There are twice as many male playwrights as female ones and men are more prolific, turning out more plays
• When identical plays save for some with a male author listed and others with a female artists listed were sent out to artistic directors and literary managers around the country, the women received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response. Here’s the kicker: the results were driven by the response of female artistic directors and literary managers.
• Fewer than one in eight shows on Broadway are written by women and plays and musicals written by women were 18% more profitable over all (i.e. women’s plays had to do better than men just to be produced along side them)
• Plays that feature women as the protagonist are less likely to be produced (similar to a claim Ela Thier made in her letter about Hollywood)

For example, this year is turning out to be a record year for women in the theatre industry. This month three new Off Broadway shows directed by women are beginning previews; on Broadway eight shows last season had a woman in authority (a record) with most of them receiving rave reviews and various awards for their work. Not exactly equality, but a huge leap in the right direction.

So we’re not discriminating against women who work in the theatre industry (much). We’re just discriminating against the idea of having to sit through an hour and a half plus watching a story about a woman. We don’t want to see a play starring a woman. We don’t want to hear about those insignificant “chick” problems.

Which, to me, is a much bigger problem. It can’t be solidified by facts, statistics, research, like the discrimination against women working in theatre was. It can never be more than an observation or claim. And how do we solve that?

Girls, get your pens ready, because I think we have a lot of writing to do. Maybe if we swamp them with our brilliance, show them that "chick" problems are everybody's problems, we'll finally convince somebody. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but we can't give up.