Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
RyanB83
Chorus Member Joined: 9/26/08
#1Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 8:17am
There are certainly some great and prominent ones but this season the ratio of men to women in those jobs is particularly bad...especially on the writing side of things.
http://www.crazytownblog.com/crazytown/2011/04/where-my-ladies-at.html
chewy5000
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/1/09
#2Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 8:32amBecause the world is sexist
RyanB83
Chorus Member Joined: 9/26/08
#2Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 8:59am
Hoping for a discussion about this issue a little more nuanced than that lol.
For example, there were no new plays by female writers on Broadway this season.
Updated On: 4/21/11 at 08:59 AM
#3Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 9:25am
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.
#4Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 10:18pm
RyanB83, you do raise an important question that has been asked a lot but never really answered. I don't think there is a clear answer. The theater has always been a male-dominated industry: men write plays about men and men play those roles, and perhaps because the plays are so male-oriented, men end up directing them most of the time. Of course, this is more true about straight plays--in musicals, you do have more female directors, although the writers/composers do tend to be male as well.
Honestly, the theater industry is in many ways an extension of the gay community (the gay male community that is), and I think that that has a lot to do with it. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." :)
#5Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 10:23pmBecause men are superior.
--Aristotle
#6Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 10:24pmBecause Julie Taymor ruined it for all women.
--Aristotle
#7Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/21/11 at 10:27pmWell, 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?
#8Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 1:19pmDarquegk, I never said that theater is gay. I pointed out the well known fact that they make up a large part of the theater industry. And I love gay men, because they are always giving me acting work.
#9Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 1:44pm
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.
crewdude
Understudy Joined: 11/29/10
#10Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 3:40pmBecause like many careers - one sex or the other has a disproportionate number of persons pursuing that career. There aren't a lot of female airline pilots. There aren't a lot of female electricians. But there are a lot of women that want to be ballet dancers and not as many men. There aren't a lot of women that want to be race car drivers. FACT - there are more men pursuing careers as playwrights and directors than there are women. You could also make the statement why are there so few male directors and playwrights represented on Broadway compared to how many male directors and playwrights are in the business. Why are there so few black lesbian hermaphrodite directors on Broadway?
#11Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 3:42pm
"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. 
#12Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 3:47pm
I didn't say that theater, by its nature, is "gay" in some adjectival sense. I just meant that, for the past half century or so, if not longer, it has been not only extremely associated with the gay community, but dominated by members of that same community.
It's an interesting demographic question.
Slightly off topic, but I have to share this quote/joke from one of my classmates: "Professional wrestling is what theater would have turned into if it weren't for the gays."
philly03
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/20/07
#13Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 4:35pm
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)
CAX
Featured Actor Joined: 8/12/09
#14Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 8:46pmGood question. Not sure I know the answer to it but I can't help but think that the perceived failures of women directors/writers on bway (Taymor comes to mind) and beyond (Kate Whoriskey @ the Intiman) must affect the number of invitations women will receive to the the (mainly) white male party.
crewdude
Understudy Joined: 11/29/10
#15Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 10:27pm
""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.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#16Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/22/11 at 11:07pmRe: theatre and gay men - to a certain extent, gay men are attracted to careers in theatre because they feel they will be accepted, and find others like them. If you are a gay high school kid who kind of likes sports AND theatre, are you going to try out for the football team, where you will be harrassed and humiliated, or the spring musical, where you will be welcome?
#17Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/23/11 at 7:22pm
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
lightguy06222
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/3/06
#18Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/24/11 at 4:10pm
I don't think it has anything to do with sexuality.
It's not the gays fault that women don't direct/write more. It's a male dominated industry. Look at the bigger picture of entertainment industry.
I'n 2009, kathryn bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for best direction for the film THE HURT LOCKER.
Only two women have ever won best direction of a musical Tony. Taymor for LION KING I'n 98, and Stroman for THE PRODUCERS I'n 01.
Also, two female winners for best direction of a play: Zimmerman for Metamorphosis I'n 02, and Shapiro for AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY.
As far as writing is concerned:
Best new play- only 2 women(but one has TWO Tonys!)
The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein- 89
Art by Yazmena Rena- 94
God of carnage- Rena, 08
Best book of a musical:
2005: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee – Rachel Sheinkin
1991: the secret garden, Marsha norman
So I'n 60 years, those are the only women to win Tonys for direction/book
The entertainment business has always been a white male dominated society. It's been changing slowly I'n the last 20 years.
nomdeplume
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/20/05
#19Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/26/11 at 4:11pm
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
theatreguy
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/31/03
#20Why so few female writers and directors on Broadway?
Posted: 4/26/11 at 4:16pm
2 additions to lightguy's list of Tony winners:
Frances Goodrich won Best Play (shared with Albert Hackett) for The Diary of Anne Frank in 1956.
Garry Hynes (a woman) won Best Direction of a Play for The Beauty Queen of Leenane in 1998.
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