Female Playwrights Receive Small Gains According to 'The Count'

This past season, Broadway fans watched the 69th Annual Tony Awards with baited breath as history was made. For the first time the prize of for Book and Score of a Musical was given to a team of women, Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori for FUN HOME.

Females representation in the theater is slowly gaining momentum. With Tesori and Kron paving the way more and more productions are featuring females at the helm. This year alone WAITRESS at American Repertory Theater will feature a book, score and direction by women. With these small changes being recognized playwrights Julia Jordan and Marsha Norman have been overseeing a study called "The Count."

The new study will be updated every year. According to The New York Times article "besides a handful of older analyses, it had been unclear just how many female playwrights were seeing their work staged."

Ms. Jordan says "We wanted to create a baseline...and to document the change." The New York Times article points out that in a 2002 report from the New York State Council on the Arts only "17 percent of productions across the country had female playwrights. According to the new report, that figure now sits at 22 percent."

Ms. Norman says "That's a significant increase...If that could continue, we could get to where we need to be, which is parity." The study will focus on 2,508 productions at nonprofit theaters. Nonprofit theaters continue to be the starting point for major Broadway shows. FUN HOME and HAMILTON both started at The Public Theater before making the leap to Broadway.

"The Count" helped reveal that there are also differences in cities. Over the last 3 seasons, 36% of production in Chicago were by women while in Portland only 17.5% of productions were by women.

"If life worked the way theater does, then four out of five things heard in an entire life would be said by men," Ms. Norman said. "That's a grim prospect given how much valuable information comes to us from women."

For the full New York Times article visit here.