@dramatistsguild  @GwydionS

           Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that DC recently played host to the Women’s Voices Theatre Festival: more than 50 new plays, all written by women, produced by more than 50 theater companies in DC. Quite an achievement.

           The mission of the festival was to “highlight the scope of new plays being written by women, and the range of professional theater being produced in the nation’s capital.” Given the quality of the work that appeared our stages, it’s safe to say that the mission was, in fact, accomplished. But did the festival actually move the needle on gender parity… which was, it would seem safe to assume, its raison d’être? The unfortunate but honest answer: a bit, but only time will tell whether the changes will stick.

           According to the early results of this year’s DC Theater Demographic Study, which I conducted with my partner Olivia Haller, 36.7% of the plays being produced this season were written by women. (It’s a preliminary number—our final report will be issued this coming spring—but it’s at least 95% accurate.) That 36.7% seems like progress. It represents an increase over the previous three years, during which we saw numbers of 28.7% (2014-15), 25.9% (2013-14), and 21% (2012-13), after all. But a quick dig below the surface tells a more complicated story.

           The first number that gave us pause was 23, which represents the number of plays whose authorship would STILL have to change from male to female to achieve parity. Another 23 plays in a season that only includes 180 overall: it seems like a tall order, especially given the fact that the Women’s Voices Theatre Festival was a one-year phenomenon. We may, in fact, see a bit of a regression next year, rather than continued progress, though only time will tell.

           (On the other hand, 23 plays isn’t THAT huge a number. There are only 44 theaters in our study, after all, so if half of them take one more step forward, we might be there. Fingers crossed?)

           Here’s another data point that seems to be worth examining: 38.9%. That’s the percentage of new plays in the current season as well, a figure that’s bumped up quite a bit from the previous two seasons (32.6% and 30.2%, respectively, in 2014-15 and 2013-14).

           (For context, our analysis divided the season into three types of productions: new plays, which included first, second, and third productions; plays by living playwrights; and plays by dead playwrights.)

           During a season in which DC theaters produced a significantly larger number of world premieres than they ever have before, where did those production slots come from? They were largely taken from what we might call the entrenched power base of classical theater: the dead playwrights, whose share of the season fell from 22.1% to 18%. (Plays by other living playwrights fell, too, but less sharply: from 45.3% to 43.1%.) Seems like a victory for those of us living and writing in the 21st century, no? Let’s hope it holds, though it’s safe to assume a bit of a regression here, too, now that the Festival is over.

           And the final number to take a look at: 16.2%. That’s the number of plays in this year’s DC theater season that were written by playwrights who live in the DC metropolitan area. It represents a slight uptick from last season (15.6%), which was itself a big jump from two seasons ago (12.6%)… but the number three seasons ago was pretty much the same (16%) as it is now, so there’s no clear trend. Perhaps a DC Voices Theatre Festival might make sense somewhere down the road, too?

           And perhaps, at the end of the day, the only thing that will actually move the needle on gender parity is… well, gender parity: a commitment by theaters to maintain a five-year or seven-year rolling average of 50% plays by women. Then we won’t need any festivals at all. We’ll be able to celebrate Women’s Voices all the time…      

gsuilebhan@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @GwydionS

What does it take to get 60 or 70 dramatists in the same room at the same time? In DC recently, promising to help them all start to take control of their own fates did the trick.

On May 4 at the Kennedy Center, playwrights from both the DC and Baltimore regions gathered for a daylong workshop on a variety of subjects all centered around the notion of career empowerment. Speakers and panelists and attendees discussed and debated a wide variety of ways to stop “waiting for yes” from the American theater and start “saying yes to yourself.” It was an exciting six-hour conversation.

The first panel, moderated by playwright Brett Abelman, was devoted to playwrights producing their own work in fringe festivals all around the world. Abelman, a self-production veteran and the author of several popular blog posts about producing in the Capital Fringe Festival, moderated a discussion among playwrights Stephen Spotswood, Regie Cabico, Ann Fraistat, Bob Bartlett, and Laura Zam. They all shared advice both practical and inspirational, as well as a few war stories that served as cautionary tales for those among the group who’d never ventured into the world of self-production.

After an hour-long lunch, during which playwrights from throughout the region were able to mix-and-mingle and get to know one another better, playwright and nationally-known social media expert Devon Smith gave a detailed presentation about how playwrights can market themselves and develop their brands via any number of social media channels: not just Facebook and Twitter, but everything from Vine to Instagram to YouTube (and beyond). After her presentation, the group grilled her about tactics for specific platforms and reasons to keep exploring new tools.

Following Devon’s talk, we addressed one of the perpetual elephants in the room: money. Jojo Ruf – the executive and creative director of The Welders’ playwrights collective – led a discussion about how to raise funds for playwright-centered projects. Panelists included her Theater J artistic director and playwright Ari Roth, Longacre Lea artistic director and playwright Kathleen Akerley, playwright/performer Anu Yadav, and playwright/dramaturg/advocate Jacqueline Lawton. Although no one had any magic solutions to offer – because, of course, there aren’t any – there was terrific encouragement all around mixed into a discussion about crowd-funding tools, ways to “make the ask,” and reasons to keep going.

The conversation then moved to a discussion about local playwright-led initiatives. Moderator Renee Calarco – a co-founder of The Welders – spoke with her fellow Welder co-founder and playwright Caleen Jennings, Field Trip Theatre artistic director and playwright Danielle Mohlman, Wait Don’t Leave artistic director and playwright Joanna Castle Miller, and Fortune Cookie Collective co-founder Pooja Chawla. A few brief introductory questions about why each playwright on the panel founded her own company led to a passionate hour-long discussion about the necessity of new models for the development and production of plays, the transformation in the regional theater ecosystem, and the challenge of balancing organization-building with the demands of creativity: how to keep writing for other theaters, in other words, while you also make your own.

The day closed with straightforward community-building. Breakout groups led by DC’s young ambassador Noelle Viñas and Baltimore’s regional representative Brent Englar allowed playwrights from throughout the region to share their thoughts about how to move the region forward on a variety of fronts, from diversity to professional development to the need for writers groups outside the city. By the end of the event, new relationships had been forged between playwrights as far apart as southern Pennsylvania and northern Virginia… and new initiatives designed to help playwrights take control of their own fates were founded, we hope, throughout the region!

gsuilebhan@dramatistsguild.com

@dramatistsguild @gwydions

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably caught wind of the Women’s Voices Festival: during the 2015-16 season, almost 50 theaters large and small throughout DC will be blanketing the city with world premieres of new plays authored by women for two straight months. The Festival is being billed as an attempt to address the fact that, as Signature Theatre artistic director Eric Schaeffer (an event co-organizer) has noted, “Female writers are too often underrepresented in the theater.” Although several commentators have questioned whether the Festival will, in fact, have a positive, long-term effect on playwright gender parity, there’s doubt whatsoever that it’s likely going to be a huge boon for the city’s new play sector as a whole.

In the current 2013-14 season, out of 215 productions, 41 are world premieres. (Another 20, for the record, are plays that should still perhaps be considered new, given that they’re only having their second or third productions… but the Women’s Voices Festival is only focusing on first productions, so we’ll keep things clean for comparison’s sake.) So the math is pretty clear: 41 world premieres all season long this year versus 50 already scheduled—for a two-month period ONLY—two years from now. By the time that season is fully programmed, we could be looking at, say, a total of 77 new plays produced in DC during the 2015-16 season.

Impressive, no? Now think about those second and third productions, too. Add 20 of those into the mix, and if we’re lucky, almost half of the entire city-wide season could be devoted to new plays. How do you like them apples?

Of course… what might happen is that the city’s theaters could decide to pour all of their new play energy into the Women’s Voices Festival. The 41 world premieres in the current season might just be swapped out for the 50 world premieres in the festival: a lateral move, pretty much, if ever there was one.

This is, of course, also a concern with regard to the very issue the festival is supposed to address. In the current season, 54 of the plays being produced have female authors. The festival will feature plays by 50 women in a two-month period… which means that if the other ten months of the year don’t include a healthy number of female playwrights, too, the gender parity problem in DC theater might not get any better. Which is, presumably, the point of the festival.

Consciousness about gender parity in the theater is slowly being raised: not only in DC, but worldwide. (I’ve seen similar stories about Australian theater, believe it or not.) In the 2012-13 season in DC, 21% of the plays produced throughout the city were written by women. In the current 2013-14 season, that number has grown to 25%. (Since this issue of The Dramatists focuses on directors, I feel obliged to note that only 32% of the directors in the current season are women.) Is that progress, though, or a statistical blip? Only time will tell.

gsuilebhan@dramatistsguild.com

(Reprinted from the May/June 2014 issue of #TheDramatist)

The January/February 2013 Technology Issue of The Dramatist features cover illustration by artist George Gozum with dialogue by playwright Gwydion Suilebhan.