Comment

Comment by Harriet Scott chessman on July 15, 2009 at 3:12pm

I agree totally -- the question is "Who is Stopping the Great Women Playwrights"? Money's a big part of the issue, I agree, as is the idea of women as a "special interest" group. I DO think this is on the cusp of changing, partly because more and more women playwrights ARE, in fact, getting their work produced (sometimes by smaller, more independent companies like CROWDED FIRE in San Francisco, where my daughter Marissa Wolf is Artistic Director). Sometimes I think it's the smaller companies that take risks first, and more fully.

Comment by Bayla Travis on July 5, 2009 at 2:10pm

I think it all comes down to money. What do people want to put their money behind? Women are still a niche group, a "special interest" group, therefore a financial risk. A theater season with a few women playwrights is considered "inclusive." Look at the number of women in power in every field; why should theater be different? Change is slow. That doesn't mean we shouldn't stir shit up! Darn it, where did I put my bullhorn?

Comment by Anne Toole on July 5, 2009 at 8:58am

The title of this blog is a little misleading. I'd say there are great women playwrights. Why not Wendy Wasserstein? I read a book by Joanna Russ, "How to Suppress Women's Writing," and one of the ways to do so is to dismiss or downplay successful women. Perhaps a better title would have been "Who's stopping the great women playwrights?"

Comment by Theresa M. Diamond on July 2, 2009 at 2:51pm

Here's the link.

"http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10women.html"

Comment by Theresa M. Diamond on July 2, 2009 at 2:48pm

Re: Victoria's post. Yeah, but men are always behind it...they benefit in some way when women bash women. There's a great source on this about women competing with women as part of a study about females bullying females in the workplace.
Re: Sands findings, I downloaded the whole study and am halfway through it. The flaw in the evidence is that there are only a handful of female artistic directors and of those, a good portion are actors. I've always found that combination, whether male or female are antipathetic toward female playwrights. I have had the experience firsthand of working in an off-Broadway company with a female artistic director that exhibited little but absolute contempt for my own and other female playwrights work in her purview. She is an old school Broadway actress.

Comment by Victoria Rosner on July 2, 2009 at 6:35am

I'm not sure why people continue to marvel when confronted with evidence that women can be biased against women. It's all around us: we see mothers passing confining expectations of women's roles down to their daughters, women policing other women's appearances, women who view themselves as "exceptions" acting as gatekeepers to exclude other women, etc.

Comment by Amy Fox on July 1, 2009 at 7:06pm

I'm pretty sure she was a Guerrilla Girl --I met her at one of the meetings and she was calling herself Aphra Behn

Comment by Deborah Siegel on July 1, 2009 at 6:54pm

Me? I'm still wanting to know whether those fact checkers over at the New York Times caught the joke about Aphra Behn, whether the author of the letter was a Guerrila Girl, or whether there's really someone (living) out there named Aphra Behn!

Comment by Amy Fox on July 1, 2009 at 5:17pm

I'm also very happy to see the press that Sands' study is generating. FYI I believe she is on the Colbert Report tonight! As a playwright myself, I attended a series of town hall meetings earlier this year on these very issues about the disparities in opportunities for female and male playwrights. The disparity does exist and has been well documented, especially at the off-Broadway and Broadway level, where sustainable careers are built. There have been lots of reasons explored, including: the prevalence of male artistic directors in decision-making positions, the notion that women tell different kinds of stories that do not fit an accepted paradigm, the existence of an old boys network, a shortage of women playwrights etc. I'm sure actual the reasons are complex and varied. From my own experience I would say that I have seen no shortage of excellent and unproduced plays by my female colleagues. I have noticed that there is a real lack of mentoring in the playwriting world-- opportunities are so few and far between that people are reluctant to reach out to those on their way up -- it's possible this is more true among women, but I don't know. Sands' findings about female versus male artistic directors are interesting, although I've been looking for more details about how she made sure the plays with made up pseudonyms were actually read and rated by the artistic directors themselves-- usually an unknown playwright would be read by a literary intern or associate instead. I do think women and minorities are far better represented in the off off Broadway world, so it's worth looking for the evidence of bias in the juncture where plays make the leap from off off Broadway to larger more visible productions.

Comment by Harriet Scott chessman on July 1, 2009 at 12:40pm

I think it's wonderful that studies like Sands' are being done, and that the results are gaining press. This is all to the good! I also think the field is wide open -- in all the arts -- for such studies, with more and more nuance, and more intricate probing. I'm willing to believe, alas, that female artistic directors rated women's plays lower than men's --- yet I don't think this result is the end point; rather, it's a good start. The culture of theater has been so male-oriented until now, and it's possible, for instance, that women who've made it to the top of their field, as artistic directors -- quite an accomplishment! -- have very complicated relationships to younger women coming up.