Friday, March 15, 2019
30 Female Playwrights You Should Know
Theatre Nerds: Throughout the years, women have written intriguing, provocative works for the stage. Composers such as Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Lambert have won Tony Awards for their musicals, whereas singer-songwriters such as Sara Bareilles and Cyndi Lauper have achieved crossover success with their musicals. With the plethora of authors in more niche circles, here’s a list of 30 more female playwrights we want you to know.
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4 comments:
After reading this article, I was actually surprised at how few playwrights I actually recognized and knew, even though I knew the works of some of them. I think this speaks to the lack of representation of women as writers in the industry and how, even though progress is being made, there are still so many women who’s names we have never heard of or recognized even though they are producing incredible, evocative works. Even if it is more work for us to seek out (which ultimately it shouldn’t be) we should take more attention to the work that is being done. This article also not only recognizes women but they are also recognizing women of color, which is so important. Equal representation of all people (no matter their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation) needs to be showcased in theatre, and it is important that stories that are being told, are being told by people who can speak to that experience.
I went into the article thinking I would have heard of most of the playwrights because I make an effort in my life to see work written by women and to read work written by women, and while I had head of some of the playwrights and their work there were still so many that I had never heard of. And I think this really speaks to the theatre culture of America. Works written by women are not produced enough and that is the problem, not that I have not sought out their work because I have. Most plays I read these days are off the Kilroys list, and those are some of the best plays I have ever written. It is really a shame that plays like that are not produced more often, and I think this is probably a reflection on the fact that most major theatre companies are run by men. I also found it interesting that most of the female playwrights on the list had their shows produced at the regional or community level or Off-Broadway. There were very few of them that actually had shows produced on Broadway.
Always a fan of articles that allow me to see into what is typically a less represented sector of playwrighting. I did know some of the women and their work, with that being said a large number of the works and authors I was un-familiar with. I don’t think this is particularly surprising for me I have really slacking on keeping up to date with new plays and my volume of consumption of new plays has really decreased since starting graduate school due to my schedule. It is unfortunate because it makes me less informed on the current happening of theatre and I really love reading plays so I’m missing out on many levels. It was good to see in this article some diversity with the women who they choose to wrote about though the majority were white women and I would’ve loved to see more diversity included. I was happy to add some more plays to my list from this article and think it’s great to see into the lives of these women and learn about how so many of them are being successful at so many things beyond judt playwrighting.
It bothers me that this article has to exist. We have to instruct people to acknowledge work from an underrepresented population and say “See! They are good too!”. While it does bother me that this is something that we must do, I appreciate that someone is forcing the world to recognize it, until this practice becomes natural. I appreciate the step towards intersectionality of this list. While the title specifically recognizes women, it is a more diverse group within that constraint than I expected to see, and I hope that, in the future, it does even better in that aspect. While I have heard of most of these women and their work, I am a bit disappointed in myself that I haven’t actually seen or read many of them. Part of that has to do with my general focus not being on the content of my recreational reading, but still this article encouraged me to hold myself to a higher standard in terms of pursuing exposing myself to this work.
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