Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?

Because the world is sexist

Give Theresa Rebeck a call, I'm sure she'd love to talk with you for hours about that.

Look, there's no guarantee of success in the arts, and no artist gets an edge by being male. There are plenty of women in the theatre, but the ultimate deciding factors on working on Broadway are talent+luck+connections. That's it.

Because men are superior.

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Well, Distinctive, given that statement, what makes theater "gay?" Because, for at least the past seventy years or so, it has been. Why not film instead, for instance?

I've wondered about this as well. What I don't know is if there are numbers of female directors trying to break in but can't, or if it's just not a profession that women pursue in as many numbers as men. That's an important piece of missing info in this conversation I think. And I don't know.

I am developing a show with a female composer and a female director as we speak, though.

"Why are there so few black lesbian hermaphrodite directors on Broadway?"

I'd guess that they're probably way too busy with other, more pressing matters.

Who could forget in 2008 when we had not one but TWO women who wrote the book, music & lyrics set to two of the world's most famous novels...

The West End mega-flop of "Gone With the Wind" (starring Jill Paice) by Margaret Martin and the Broadway mega-flop of "A Tale of Two Cities" by Jill Santoriello.

They were both rookies too... Go figure! (Though I loved Tale)

""Professional wrestling is what theater would have turned into if it weren't for the gays."

Professional Wrestling IS what it is because of gays. Or are you trying to say "straight" men enjoy watching physically fit tanned men with over developed muscles roll around in speedos getting all sweaty with each other? Hell they even added music and light and grand entrances. If that shiz and gay....well.....I'm just saying.

Unrelated to my post, but I agree with what Jon ^ posted.

I think the lack of female writers on Broadway is also a symptom of a general trend regarding women and writing. Women's writing is overrepresented until around, maybe nineteen years old? Then women's writing mostly drops out of the public sphere. Within this generation the older a woman is, the less likely it is that she has current writing in the public sphere.
All of the converse is true for men. I have absolutely no statistics supporting that. I wish there were studies done on this.

As evidenced by my lack of proper grammar, I'm not a professional writer, my experience with writing for the theatre doesn't go beyond getting some scrawls of mine performed in Boston theatres. However, I have female friends and teachers who are professional writers for Broadway, as well as for some other less elite but still well recognized stages. This topic has come up in conversation with them, and no one personally felt their writing discriminated against due to gender.

Women writers just aren't happening in higher education anymore, and while school is by no means the only route to becoming a professional writer, it's the main. Again, no statistics to support that assertion, I'm just dancing around here.
Seems to me that this issue needs to be focused on more in the school system (for young men as well) than in theatre. It's easy to just pass the blame though. And really what can a university do about this? Bah.

Updated On: 4/23/11 at 07:22 PM

The Public Theater, the toutedly "inclusive" Off Broadway theatre, has lined up a season which, in terms of including women, only Stew's show has a woman co-writer and a woman director named.
The Public Theater 2011-12 season