off-stage right

Last week I posted some questions about gender disparity in theatre – did it exist, was it industry-wide, etc.  The post got some really interesting comments and I encourage folks to keep adding thoughts there.  The post was inspired by conversations I had been having with friends and the invitation I got to a presentation on a study of gender equality in Playwriting.

Yesterday I was among the 150 or so people who attended the presentation hosted 59E59 Theaters and the wonderful Primary Stages (go subscribe to their next season – with GREAT plays that all happen to be written by women).

I was pleasantly surprised as the audience filled the theatre that there was a nice diversity to the audience (sadly I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had all been women under forty, but it wasn’t).   Of course it would be great to know who was really there as we all know many times events like this are moments for “preaching to the converted” and there are a lot of producers from the commercial and nonprofit world that I didn’t see in the room who I thought would have been interested in the event.

First I want to congratulate Julia Jordan who has really rallied the troops over the last year to make several conversations happen about the field and for using some great personal connections – most importantly Steven Levitt (Freakonomics) to get a real study of the issue done.

The exceedingly well spoken, entertaining, and obviously intelligent economist (yes, economist) who undertook this study is named Emily Glassberg Sands who used the study as her thesis, for Princeton, before she heads off to Harvard for her PhD.  The information she uncovered is fascinating and more importantly, she seems to have been bitten by the theatre bug and it looks like she will continue exploration in the theatre and the arts.

Before I share my notes and quick impressions of the presentation, I want to note that I have emailed Emily for a full copy of the study as well as her PowerPoint summary from yesterday (she was nice enough to offer so of course I took her up on it.)  I look forward to reading all 170 pages of her work.  With her permission I will post her presentation as well.

I truly hope and will be suggesting to organizations like Theatre Communications Group, ART-NY, The Broadway League, the Off-Broadway Alliance, and others that they immediately schedule a presentation by Sands for their membership, but that they actively assist her in finding funding to further her work.  Those of you who run foundations that fund theatre don’t be surprised if I suggest she call you!

So some quick and eye-opening information from the presentation:

Julia Jordon did a quick introduction of how all of this evolved.  She and Sarah Schulman had two “town hall meetings over the last year.  The first was attended by playwrights who expressed frustration at the discrimination or bias they felt existed in the field.  For the second, they invited several artistic directors to join in the conversation.  Essentially the artistic directors argument was that there just weren’t as many good plays by women as here where by men.

I was struck by a comment she made that related to a similar discussion I had regarding the industry as a whole.  Basically Julia noted if there was some sort of standardized test for playwriting her rough study of the field would support the idea that women would likely do better and would have a easier time in the field.  Similarly I had been discussing that if theatre were more quantifiable like say sales – women would have it easier being on an equal playing field.

She also noted rough figures – 31.6% of CREATIVE jobs held in the calendar year of 2008, nonprofit subscription houses, were held by women (writers/actors/choreographers/lighting/setdesigners/directors).   SAD FACT

Julia then turned the stage over to Emily Glassberg Sands.  Now I should note through out the presentation Emily explained the methods used for the study and for validating the data.  I am sure the newspapers and magazines (see links below) will delve into that, I just will list the things that I jotted down while listening.  There was so much wonderful information, I am still digesting what it means to the field.

I should mention by the end of the presentation, Sands proved the playwrights were right – there were perceptions in the industry that were creating biases against and discrimination against female playwrights—the “bar was set higher”; however, importantly she also proved that there were fewer “quality” scripts by women as the artistic directors has stated.  “Quality” was defined through plays getting produced and how often to remove subjectivity.

Sands essentially did three studies – (1) analysis of the field through data on www.doolee.com to determine if there were “too few scripts from which to choose” (2) Is a script received better if written by a man – she sent same scripts with different gender names to 250 theaters (3) Is the bar set higher for female playwrights – using Broadway profits for analysis.

Basically the answer to all three was YES.

Analysis of the field through data on www.doolee.com to determine if there were “too few scripts from which to choose”

• 25% of produced plays were written by women
• the rate of attaining production was the same for men and women
• plays with more female roles were less produced
• women tend to write smaller shows which was the reason (compensating factor) that the rate for attaining production were the same

Is a script received better if written by a man – she sent same 4 original scripts (donated to the study by 4 female playwrights) with different gender names to 250 theaters and had folks fill out a questionnaire (cheers to Princeton for awarding four $1000 grants to theaters to participated in the study even though the theaters didn’t know what the study was fully about).

• the scripts “submitted by” women were perceived differently: the characters were considered less likable, the prospects for production were less likely, it was assumed the audiences would not receive them as well and the plays didn’t align with the theaters mission as much as those “submitted by” men.
• all of the bias was directly attributed to women responding the survey.  Statistically the men who participated rated the scripts the same whether submitted by men or women. [read that again, yes it is true]

Is the bar set higher for female playwrights – using Broadway profits for analysis using the last 10 years of new work presented on Broadway.

• shows written by women make more money over the course of a run (18% more)!  Note that commercial producers – the stats chart was really clear about that!
• shows by women on a weekly basis had 16% higher sales than those by men
• the length of run of the shows was equal whether written by men or women
• basically scripts by women face higher scrutiny by producers when it comes to keeping them open

Some thoughts by Sands from her work:

• the bar is higher for women playwrights so the script have to be better to get produced
• theoretically there are better scripts available from women that haven’t been produced than men
• women have likely been discouraged from the field by the biases or perceptions of biases

I think it is vital to keep this conversation going and to expand it to the obvious effect it has on the industry as a whole (i.e. less female roles).  Needless to say the last week has been filled with a ton of issues for the field to think about – firing of artistic directors to save money, the disclosure of complete financial mismanagement of North Shore Music Theatre, and budgets cuts and staff reductions (Long Wharf Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Met Museum).  Of course all of these require immediate attention and warrant conversation, but we can’t lose sight of underlying long term problems like gender disparity, creating new financial models, non-profits focusing on mission, and truly serving our audiences.  Lots of work to do folks!

Emily Sands Presentation Deck from her study

Articles on the presentation and study:

New York Magazine

New York Times

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