The Interval: On a weekday afternoon, Studio 54—the theatre turned nightclub turned theatre—empty except for the creative team and crew of The Lifespan of a Fact and some front of house staff, has a sense of being at eternal twilight. It is not Broadway’s biggest house, but might be the one with the most outsized aura. It was refurbished with mirrored walls and leopard print carpet meant to evoke its past, which seems very far away. It is also where photographer Tess Mayer spent two afternoons documenting Broadway’s first all-female design team at work during their third and fourth days of tech for the new play The Lifespan of a Fact.
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For such a progressive and ever-changing field, theatre still surprises me with articles like this because it is something I have never even thought about. Having an almost entirely male production team has almost been beaten into my brain as a very normal thing. While that isn’t a bad, it’s refreshing to read articles such as this to show that broadway shows with an all-female production team are needed in order to show that these things CAN happen and CAN be successful. While having more women of color on the team might have added another layer of great exposure to broadway, I still look at this as a sign of growth and change in the theatre world. Also, to make note that Leigh Silverman is a CMU alumni makes me so happy to see just how opportunities the school gives and the way you use the skills you gain from here can make a huge breakthrough in your field.
I am actually shocked that up to this point there hasn’t been an entirely female design team on Broadway before. I guess it goes back to the idea that she presented of theatre claiming that it is a progressive industry when it really isn’t. I think I’ve also held onto the idea that theatre is progressive, or I at least have hope that the industry is moving in that direction. I thought it was a nice coincidence that I expressed in one of my earlier comments the idea of being happy when something like this is no longer news was shared by the director. This news is of course wonderful because it is progress, long overdue progress at that. Though it’s good news it can be disheartening because news like this seems behind where you envisioned the industry being so it readjusts your perspective of how far we’ve come and how we have a very far way to go with a lot of work ahead.
I’m not surprised that there has never been an all-female design team on Broadway, and I think it’s great that we are taking that step and making a statement to prove that women can perform just as well as men in the same positions.
I agree with Director Leigh Silverman and hope that one day this isn’t news. And in the long run, the goal isn’t to have all female teams all the time, that’s just as discriminatory as the all-male teams that dominate the industry today. The goal is to break through in the industry, make connections, prove our points, and be heard and hired. It’s a marvel to me that in 2018 women can still be viewed as less capable than men. Capable women have been proving themselves for decades. I have trouble wrapping my mind around why this stigma is still around because there is no valid, logical answer. It’s simply because that’s the way things have been done, and people view change as hard. But it doesn’t have to be.
Once again, this article represents a step in the right direction and I am grateful for all the women in the industry who are working hard and paving the way for emerging theater technicians and designers and leaving the industry better than they found it.
I love this for so many reasons. For started Leigh Silverman, a Carnegie Mellon University Alumni, is an incredible director who has had some excellent upward movement in the last few years. She is continually choosing projects that have commentary on the world we are living in and reflect and compare to the world we have come from. I worked on a 29-hour reading this summer that she was a part of that was quite powerful commentary. I am not the least bit surprised that she has led this team of amazing women in her team leading history and making ground on Broadway. The pictures are powerful and give so much hope to the future of inclusion and acceptance in areas of the industry and fields that are typically dominated by white males. The boys club can be broken through! Now to get more women of color in the room too!
I want to say that I am surprised that this is the first time an all-female design team has been assembled on Broadway, but I’m really not. I would consider the theatre community to be one of the most progressive ones in the United States and in the world in general, but this is still an issue. We’ve all seen the news recently, and how far from progress this country really is right now, so it’s not surprising that even in one of the most progressive fields, it’s still hard for a woman to succeed the same way a man can. While I am currently a bit pessimistic about the state of our society, I do still have hope in our future. A lot of this hope manifested in me when I started at CMU this fall, to join my Design and Production class—which is around 85% female—we’ll be making a difference very soon.
This is a wonderful thing that an all-female design team is doing brilliant work on Broadway, however the fact that this is a news-worthy item in 2018 is a very sad thing. "We are standing on the shoulders of the fierce women who helped pave the way, and I want to acknowledge this moment while also looking forward to the day where our existence is not news.” We like to think that we have made so much progress, and it is true that we have, but there is also the fact that we have so very far to go. Theatre has always been a medium in which reflection on society is encouraged, and plans to improve upon on society are discussed and thought out. Leigh Silverman summarized this beautifully: "We want to believe theatre is a place of progress, a place where women and people of color and non-binary people are welcomed into leadership positions. Well, that’s just not true—especially in commercial theatre." Commercial theatre is especially tricky, as she mentions, because statistics are necessary to keep a successful business going. However, many business models somehow think female work and female stories won't sell, and this is just false. Ms. Silverman has done something wonderful, and I hope that this is just the beginning of gender-equality in every aspect of the theatre arts.
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