@dramatistsguild @GwydionS

For three years in a row now, I’ve devoted a not-insignificant number of hours to doing some serious number crunching on the plays being produced in DC each season, as well as the playwrights who wrote them. My partner (playwright and data-genius David Mitchell Robinson) and I have analyzed, among other factors, the gender and ethnicity of the playwrights who’ve plays have been produced. Our original intent was to uncover real, actionable information about gender parity—to put hard numbers against the claim that “fewer plays written by women are being produced than plays written by men.” In time, though, we’ve adopted a simpler goal: to hold up a mirror for the DC theater community and reveal how individual choices made by our city’s artistic leaders result in large-scale trends for our city.

Our survey of the current 2014-2015 season is now complete, and we’re happy to share a subset of our data: the numbers we think our fellow playwrights will find the most compelling. First, though, a bit of context: our survey covers a total of 192 plays produced by 52 different theaters in the DC metropolitan area. Our survey period includes all shows that have opened (or that are scheduled to open) between September 1, 2014 and August 31, 2015. (We will perform a final reckoning at the end of the survey period, but we believe the current data are between 98 and 99 percent complete and accurate.) We excluded productions from the Capital Fringe Festival, but we included every other full production at every other theater in the city.

With regard to gender, the 2014-15 data revealed a modest continued trend toward parity: 28.7% of the authors whose work appeared on DC stages during the survey period identified as women. By contrast, the figure was 25.9% in 2013-14 and 21.0% in 2012-13. Of note is the fact that the upcoming 2015-16 DC theater season will begin with the city-wide Women’s Voices Theatre Festival, an event that organizers expect will move the city even further toward parity. With more than 50 productions of plays by women, we expect to see a change in our data for the coming year.

With regard to ethnicity, the 2014-15 data also revealed a modest continued trend toward diversity, with a sharp increase (from 5.0% to 11.3%) in the number of plays written by African American playwrights. In 2012-13, 14% of the plays produced in DC were written by playwrights of color; in the following year, 2013-14, that number rose to 15.4%, and in the current survey period, the number has risen again to 18.3%.

Geographically, the 2014-15 data reveal that 15.6% of the plays being produced were written by authors who live in the DC metropolitan area. That number was 13.7% in the 2013-14 season and 16% in the 2012-13 season.

For the past two years, our survey has also included the status of the plays being produced. The percentage of plays by living playwrights has increased very slightly from 76.8% in 2013-14 to 77.9% in 2014-15. In addition, the percentage of world premiere productions has risen somewhat sharply from 21.1% in 2013-14 to 26.6% in 2014-15. Again, given the fact that the upcoming Women’s Voices Theatre Festival consists entirely of world premiere productions, we expect to see an additional increase here as well.

gsuilebhan@dramatistsguild.com