WHY IT MATTERS: GAINS FOR WOMEN PLAYWRIGHTS

It’s no secret off the WALL Productions is a huge advocate for women playwrights. It’s a busy world we live in, and sometimes we fail to question the obvious as we go about our day-to-day lives. We accept ‘things’ for what they are. ‘Things’ become so ingrained within a culture that few bother to think about them, let alone ponder or question the reasoning behind the current status or possible solutions for change. And we get that. If you’ve been to our theater, you know we like to select productions that tell a meaningful story, productions they may in their own small way allow you to see life through the eyes of another. Another perspective per say.

So when it comes to hearing the voices of women, we 100% support parity in theater. Parity as applied to playwrights would mean that 50% of the time, the audience is hearing the voice of a female playwright, and 50% of the time that of a male playwright. As it is, just one in five plays currently produced around the country are written by women. And that’s accounting for a significant increase in the number of staged female playwrights over the past few years. This quote by Marsha Norman, one of the playwrights overseeing a study on the topic of female parity in theater, sums up this disparity perfectly:

“If life worked the way theater does, then four out of five things heard in an entire life would be said by men,” Ms. Norman said. “That’s a grim prospect given how much valuable information comes to us from women.”

Marsha Norman as quoted in Cara Buckley’s article ‘Small Gains for Female Playwrights’ in The New York Times
We urge you to take a few moments and read this article Small Gains for Female Playwrights by Cara Buckley as it appears in The New York Times.  The article focuses on a new study “The Count” that is being overseen by playwrights Julia Jordan and Marsh Norman to track, study and improve parity among playwrights. Here are a few points from the article:

Lisa Kron
Lisa Kron – playwright of WELL
The number of productions by female playwrights across the country rose to 22% from 17% in 2002.
There is a disparity between cities. For example 36% of plays in Chicago were written by women as opposed to 17.5% in Portland, Oregon.
And of special noteworthiness, Lisa Kron, the playwright who wrote WELL which was staged at our theater in December of 2013, along with Jeanine Tesori, made history for being the first all-female team to receive a Tony Award for best score. Read more in this article in the New York Times on the Tony Awards by Michael Paulson and Patrick Healy.

So remember, when you visit our theater, you’re supporting the voice of women… and hopefully gaining a broader perspective of the world around us at the same time.

Carnegie Stage | a Pittsburgh Theater
25 West Main, Carnegie, PA 15106 | 6 miles from downtown Pittsburgh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women Count at at off the WALL

WOMEN COUNT In case you missed the theatre industry’s gender parity movement, here’s a recap: women have been writing plays for millennia and landing productions for centuries.   Over time, they’ve also come to play key roles onstage and backstage.   But female theatre artists of all kinds still find themselves bonking their heads on a glass ceiling known as the “glass curtain.”   Even today, female playwrights, directors, and designers are atypical.   Shakespearian gender-swapping has been mooted as a partial solution; however, such theatrical “novelty” only serves to distract from the main issue – the absence of contemporary dramas reflecting the complexity of women’s lives.   Cross-gender casting fails to question the over-representation of dead and living male playwrights.   It does not address the fact that half our contemporary creative world is missing. In an essay in howlround.com, Jenny Lyn Bader writes: “We live in a world dominated by...
Read more

GHOSTS: A SET IN THE MAKING (PART 1)

Image
In this two-part blog, I’m going to focus not on the play itself, but on the set. Why? Because quite simply the set is astonishing! If you’ve been keeping up with our blogs, you already know that our current production Ghosts is set in the early 1880’s, that it was written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Isben and that though it is a revered classic today, it was considered absolutely scandalous in its time. The exposed secrets and immoralities conflicted with society’s moral taboos. If you’d like to learn more about the history of the play, the storyline, the characters or director, please peruse our recent posts. Scenic Design: Rich Preffer In the meantime, let’s take a look at the set. The set design, by Rich Preffer, captures the essence of the play. The mood. The character. The unsaid meanings and implications. The set itself includes a cage like structure, including a canopy structure, which encompasses the entire set. Looking at the set, you at once feel both the sense of h...
Read more

Celebrating family and friends in 2019

Image
Thank you for making 2018 so special As 2019 starts to gear up, we’re left remembering the many moments we’ve shared with you in 2018. It was a great year and we hope to make 2019 even better! We sincerely offer our most heartful ‘thank you’ to our creative partners, patrons, employees, and collaborators – Carnegie Stage and off the WALL surely wouldn’t be the same without every single one of you who make up our humble little community. From the bottom of our hearts, we’re happy to have you as part of our family. Erika Cuenca - Virginia Wall Gruenert Byhalia, Mississippi, May 2018 If you’d like to join the Carnegie Stage/off the WALL family, consider donating – no amount it too big or too small… and every little bit helps! With your help we are able to pay EVERY single person who works for us – there are no volunteers; only paid employees. We believe all working artists deserve to make a living doing what they love. To help support our cause, consider donating monthly or a...
Read more