Monday, November 16, 2020
20 Powerhouse Women Directors Theatre Fans and Industry Pros Alike Need to Know
Playbill: The theatre is in a moment of reckoning. The events of the summer, including the theatre shutdown, forced the industry to confront racism in our workplaces. And there has been a shift: a call to produce BIPOC artists and BIPOC stories; a call to mentor young Black theatre professionals; a wave of hiring Black artistic directors and associate artistic directors at influential institutions. And as we peel back the layer of systemic oppression when it comes to race, it opens the door for the examination of other underrepresented communities.
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2 comments:
Broadway is not the end all be all of theater. I think we forget that sometimes and I just wanted to put that out there because there are many successful directors who spend their entire lives working only in LORT B theaters and there is no shame or judgement that should be placed on them for their choices. I find this article by playbill a little more than ironic. Yes, we may be in a reckoning, but that doesn’t acknowledge that huge theatrical industry players have not talked about starting to find ways to adapt to less racist hiring, casting, production, etc. The fact still remains that of 14 plays and 4 musicals that premiered on Broadway in the 2019-2020 season, there were only 5 female directors. And while this article talks about how theaters are re-evaluating… the biggest players in this pond haven’t written a statement, spoken a word, or even really acknowledged how they have fueled this problem for years.
I agree with Ella that Broadway is not the end all be all of theatre and honestly should not really be treated as such. Honestly I hated this article. I think more than the fact that there is a lack of marginalized genders and races within the industry it is painfully hard to move up the industry once you have put your blood sweat and tears into it. People who choose to never work on Broadway have made that choice and should never be looked down upon for those choices, however the number of non white men working on broadway does not reflect choice but rather oppression. We should celebrate these amazing women directors highlighted in this article but we should not cover up what they had to go through to get there and the struggle they are still facing to move forward in their career. While theaters around the country seem to be making systemic changes and changes in their company it seems as though everyone on Broadway is letting unions make policies that they will barely follow. The top dogs in the industry have to do something or at least be open to change for anything to happen.
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