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WOW2 – January’s Women Trailblazers and Activists, 1-25 thru 1-31 [1]

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Date: 2023-01-28  

January 27, 2020 – British theatre has an institutional problem with sexism and gender inequality, according to the authors of a study who say Arts Council England (ACE) is ignoring the issue and failing to help redress the balance. The research, conducted by the playwright Jennifer Tuckett and the Sphinx Theatre Company compared their findings for the 2018-2019 theatre season to research in 2012 by the Guardian newspaper in collaboration with Elizabeth Freestone, then artistic director of Pentabus theatre, which showed that women were vastly underrepresented, with a persistent 2:1 male-to-female ratio in British theatre roles. Tuckett’s latest research has found that in some cases the situation has worsened – for instance, only 31% of artistic directors are women, compared with 36% in the 2012 study. The new study found only 0.64% of national portfolio theatre (NPO) funding from 2015-2018 went to women’s theatre companies (defined as those whose aim is to work with women), such as Clean Break. As two of the best-funded institutions in the UK, the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company were singled out in the new report. The RSC featured no productions by female writers between December 2018 and September 2019, while 25% of the National’s plays produced from November 2018 to April 2019 were written by women. The 2012 research had found 29% of new plays at the RSC were written by women, while 18% of plays at the National were by woman playwrights. In addition, no new writing prizes were awarded to women playwrights in 2018-2019. In 2017, 90% of theatre critics in the UK were men, and 73% of UK university professors teaching theatre and drama were male. In the ACE 10-year strategic plan for the arts also published in January 2020, “persistent and widespread lack of diversity across the creative industries and in publicly funded cultural organisations” was listed as a key issue that needed to be addressed, but gender bias and sexual discrimination were not. Sue Parrish, artistic director of Sphinx Theatre Company, said, “Despite our efforts and reassurances that representation was being taken seriously, it clearly is not. We are not listed in priorities or outcomes at all, there’s no separate reference made to 51% of the population. It’s extraordinary. I’m stunned.”

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/28/2149595/-WOW2-January-s-Women-Trailblazers-and-Activists-1-25-thru-1-31

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