CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori on why musical theatre is the slowest to recognise it has a gender problem

www.smh.com.au: Of all the theatrical forms, musical theatre is slowest to recognise it has a gender problem, says the multi-award-winning Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori​ ahead of the Australian premiere of her musical Violet at the Hayes Theatre Company.

"We are by nature and nurture as women taught to collect and gather and smooth over," Tesori says. "If you want to make a difference, you have to be prepared to go against that, stand out and then wrestle with feelings that come from doing that."

1 comment:

Alex Fasciolo said...

I appreciate the fight for feminism, I really do, but I feel like this article didn’t explore that concept enough to explain the title of the article. I’m probably not aware of the gender inequality amongst Broadway composers (and I’m sure much of the public is unaware as well), but it seems to me that if it is a significant problem in the way theatre is evolving, this article didn’t point out enough for me to become invested in that problem, it read more as praise to a strong woman in the industry (which I see nothing wrong with, it just didn’t click in my head). None the less, I agree with the fact that there is a stereotypical female character on Broadway right now, as there has been for a long time. The solution to that is just as Tesori has said, creating something different that doesn’t follow that established stereotype. Something that explores the human experience through the eyes of a female character in a respectful and unique manor.