@dramatistsguild @cheryl_coons

            We surprised you, didn’t we? Perhaps when you read about The Count in the November/December issue of The Dramatist you were astonished to see Chicago leading the nation, both in productions of plays by female writers (36%) and productions of plays by writers of color (28.4%).

           Frankly, we surprised ourselves. We were surprised- or perhaps ‘chagrined’ is a better choice of words- that our percentages were not higher. We were especially shocked by that second statistic. We have a diverse and vibrant community of theatre artists, and we were saddened by the fact that only 28.4% of plays produced during the survey period, 2011 to 2014, were written by playwrights of color. (We’ll address that issue in a future report.)

           The Count surveyed the seasons of the following Chicago area theatres: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Court Theatre, Drury Lane Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Marriott Theatre, Northlight Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre and Victory Gardens Theatre. Many of these companies take their institutional citizenship seriously, and make extraordinary efforts in both outreach and inclusivity, but the Goodman Theatre deserves special recognition for its support of female writers.

           This year the Goodman announced that its Playwrights Unit, a special program designed to support and develop new work by Chicago playwrights, would have an entirely female slate of writers. (Kristiana Rae Colón, Sandra Delgado, Jenni Lamb, and Calamity West.)

Since its inception in 2010, the Playwrights Unit has tried to maintain gender parity, but Goodman Theatre Director of New Play Development Tanya Palmer said the choice of writers was based on genuine enthusiasm for their work and the particular projects they proposed, rather than the intention to select an entirely female cohort. “This year we had twice as many applicants as in the previous year,” said Palmer. “We narrowed the field to a group of 20 proposals for consideration, most of which happened to be written by women. We thought, it’s great that we have so many strong writers to consider, and it’s also great because they’re women.”

           Why is our community ahead of the national curve in producing the work of female playwrights? Palmer points out that a number of leaders of prominent Chicago theatres are female, and many highly visible directors coming out of Chicago are also female, including Anna D. Shapiro, who succeeded Martha Lavey as the Artistic Director of Steppenwolf Theatre this summer.

           Tara Mallen, Artistic Director of Rivendell Theatre, Chicago’s only professional theatre company dedicated to the work of women theatre artists, believes that key leaders in the Chicago theatre community go out of their way to provide opportunities for women. “Rivendell is here on the shoulders of many female artists: Martha Lavey from Steppenwolf, Sandy Shinner, formerly at Victory Gardens and now at Shattered Globe, Tanya Palmer at the Goodman.” Mallen values the mentorship Steppenwolf Theatre offered to Rivendell when they produced shows in Steppenwolf’s Garage Series. “We didn’t just have the use of the space- we were mentored by the Steppenwolf staff in all areas of production, box office, management. Our company grew exponentially every time we did a Garage show.”

           Rivendell now has its own space, and Mallen is dedicated to forming a network of Chicago theatres that produce new works by women. “It took me ten years to put the word ‘woman’ into our mission statement. Really, we look at universal challenges from a female perspective. Yes, there are a lot of Boys’ Clubs in Chicago, but even among them there is a realization that we are a community of artists first.”

           Perhaps this kind of “community first” thinking, as well as the Guild’s ongoing commitment to measure our progress with The Count, will move us toward the goal that Marsha Norman so beautifully articulated, “We want life in the arts to represent life as it is lived in the world. We want to hear the whole human chorus, not just the tenors, basses and baritones.”      

ccoons@dramatistsguild.com