Several months ago I started working on a new stand-up bit about whether it's harder to be a female comic or a female playwright. I concluded that it's harder to be a woman playwright because as a lady comic no one is going to say to me, "You know Mia, we love you and we think you're hilarious, but we can't book you next month because Shakespeare's in town." That doesn't happen in comedy. There are so, so many men out on the comedy scene, but once they stop breathing we women don't compete with them for performance slots any more. But in theatre, the dead guys never go away. In fact, in some instances they get a lot more work than the living playwrights.
So I started wondering: How much is Shakespeare the problem? I say in my set that Shakespeare is the most produced playwright in the United States every year. And I knew it was true, but I wanted hard numbers. I have believed for a long time that theatre people's desperate devotion to the classics is silencing so many new voices and new stories. But how many dead playwrights, composers, and lyricists are produced every year compared to living ones? And what is the gender breakdown? A month or two ago I went onto the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) website, chose the 2012-13 season, and started compiling data. I took long breaks because it's tedious fucking work. This week when The Kilroys announced their fabulous and necessary list (thank you, ladies), I thought, this seems like a good time to put the stats out there, so I finished going through the data and this is what I found:
In the 2012-2013 season, TCG theatres reported that of all the plays and musicals they produced
60% of the credited creating artists were living male playwrights/composers/lyricists,
21% of the credited creating artists were living female playwrights/composers/lyricists,
12.5% of the credited creating artists were dead male playwrights/composers/lyricists who are not Shakespeare
5.5% of the produced plays were written by Shakespeare
1% of the credited creating artists were dead female playwrights (predominantly Lorraine Hansberry.)
*I created a spiffy pie chart to go with the stats above, and if I ever figure out how to import it, I will!*
It should be noted that if Dickens had written a stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol he might actually surpass Shakespeare. I didn't count, but it's mind-numbing how many productions of that story go up every year. It should also be noted that productions of Shakespeare comprise 30% of all productions of classics (if one defines classics as pieces written by artists who are no longer with us). It's undeniable that Shakespeare is the most produced playwright in this country, living or dead. I didn't do individual numbers on any living playwrights this go around, but when I did a different study of the 2007-2008 season this is how the most produced living playwrights measured up to old Bill:
Sarah Ruhl - 23 productions
Martin McDonagh - 14 productions
Jeffrey Hatcher - 13 productions
Theresa Rebeck - 8 productions
William Shakespeare - 136 productions (and that time around I didn't even count Shakespeare productions at theatres that had Shakespeare in their name, so there were likely a couple dozen more).
There's no way to dispute that Shakespeare has a disproportionate amount of stage time. I would argue that when any one voice is heard so very much, other voices are being inevitably withheld from the public. Modern, living, talented playwrights are being silenced because of what I call the Cult of Shakespeare in this country. I have a big problem with it.
BUT if we look at the 2012-2013 numbers we can see that even if we stopped doing classics altogether and gave all of those slots to living women playwrights/composers/lyricists, we would still not achieve gender parity. That would indicate that in order to represent equal numbers of men and women playwrights/composers/lyricists in the American theatre a minimum of 10% of the men would have to step aside,... but that's not actually how the numbers work.
As it turns out (and I didn't track the specific numbers on this) it is far more common to have multiple men creating a collaborative project than it is to have multiple women do the same. Most of the musicals that came up meant at least three hash marks in my notebook under "live men." I counted number of people credited/receiving royalties, not individual projects, because there was no way to do the latter and include composers and lyricists. But this trend of men collaborating and women working individually was true for the 2012-13 study and for the one I did for the 2007-08 season. One can assume if you counted only the number of female-created projects vs. male-created projects the numbers wouldn't be quite so skewed, (though men would definitely still be more produced than women), but you also would need a third category for projects written by people of both genders.
Also, in each category I created there was a relatively small number of artists getting a significant percentage of the productions. For instance of the 28 productions credited to dead women at least half were A Raisin in the Sun. (And one wonders if that's merely a reaction to Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park.) Both Tennessee Williams and August Wilson accounted for between 15 and 20 productions each in the "Dead Guys" category. It's similar with the living playwrights: a handful of names pop up over and over again. It's the flavor of the month phenomenon. We've all seen it; many of us have experienced it. Writers become the cool kid for a season or two and every theatre in America is producing the same seven writers' plays. This is a problem of people not trusting their own opinions and not trusting/conditioning their audiences to except work they haven't heard about in the New York Times or recall from their youth. Theatres play it safe by doing old stand-bys and anointed plays because they're afraid of losing money. We all know it, but I think it's bullshit.
I think there are ways to spread the wealth around so that more voices are heard, but it will require that artistic directors and managing directors and boards stop being lemmings. The Kilroys just published a list that says, "Look! Look at these fabulous, important plays by all these women writers that no one is producing! They've been pre-screened and pre-approved for you!" I hope ADs take advantage of it. But I also hope we acknowledge that there are hundreds of male playwrights out there who are also not being seen; so many plays by writers of both genders that get one or two productions and then vanish, discarded like some deflowered 19th century ingenue. I don't know about Tennessee or Bill, but I have to think August Wilson would gladly sacrifice a couple of productions of Fences if it meant that Jonathan Norton's Tidy List of Terrors or Marsha Estell's Heat could be produced instead. Shakespeare would probably love that his plays are still so popular, but I'm guessing that he'd be appalled by what a small section of the population actually attends the theatre these days.
Going to the theatre is an act of faith for the audience. We-the-theatre-makers are asking a bunch of strangers to come sit in a dark room and trust us, but we don't even trust our own opinions? We're asking them to take a risk, but leaders in our field won't? Going to see a new play is an act of quiet bravery: the audience puts their minds and emotions into the hands of some artists for a few hours and they just see what happens. I swear the only time I'm still excited to see a play is when I know almost nothing about it beforehand. I haven't read reviews or an early draft. I don't read my program. And when the lights go down a thrill goes through me because I have no idea what's about to happen... on stage or inside of me. It's like going on a rollercoaster blind-folded.
We are a country of thrill-seekers. It should not be so hard to get audiences on board for an adventure. But I don't think the thrill-seekers believe that theatre has any adventure. In their minds it's old and stodgy and full of plays they got tested on in high school. Today's programming is directed at the converted: the Classics Cultists and the people who believe everything they read in the New York Times. But if we want our audiences to grow and we want theatre to matter we're going to have to do better than that. And we're going to have to start with what plays we teach in high school English classes. If we want new generations of kids to become theatre-goers we have to let them know that there are characters on stage that look like them and sound like them. They're going to need to feel included, not alienated if we wanted them to show up. And that means teaching new plays, by men and women, by people of color, by the LGBT community. It means teaching people that theatre is something that is happening now, not 400 years ago. It means making it seem possible that their voices too can be heard if they choose to write a play one day. But how can we convince them of that when most of our voices aren't being heard and we're the "working professionals?"
So I started wondering: How much is Shakespeare the problem? I say in my set that Shakespeare is the most produced playwright in the United States every year. And I knew it was true, but I wanted hard numbers. I have believed for a long time that theatre people's desperate devotion to the classics is silencing so many new voices and new stories. But how many dead playwrights, composers, and lyricists are produced every year compared to living ones? And what is the gender breakdown? A month or two ago I went onto the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) website, chose the 2012-13 season, and started compiling data. I took long breaks because it's tedious fucking work. This week when The Kilroys announced their fabulous and necessary list (thank you, ladies), I thought, this seems like a good time to put the stats out there, so I finished going through the data and this is what I found:
In the 2012-2013 season, TCG theatres reported that of all the plays and musicals they produced
60% of the credited creating artists were living male playwrights/composers/lyricists,
21% of the credited creating artists were living female playwrights/composers/lyricists,
12.5% of the credited creating artists were dead male playwrights/composers/lyricists who are not Shakespeare
5.5% of the produced plays were written by Shakespeare
1% of the credited creating artists were dead female playwrights (predominantly Lorraine Hansberry.)
*I created a spiffy pie chart to go with the stats above, and if I ever figure out how to import it, I will!*
It should be noted that if Dickens had written a stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol he might actually surpass Shakespeare. I didn't count, but it's mind-numbing how many productions of that story go up every year. It should also be noted that productions of Shakespeare comprise 30% of all productions of classics (if one defines classics as pieces written by artists who are no longer with us). It's undeniable that Shakespeare is the most produced playwright in this country, living or dead. I didn't do individual numbers on any living playwrights this go around, but when I did a different study of the 2007-2008 season this is how the most produced living playwrights measured up to old Bill:
Sarah Ruhl - 23 productions
Martin McDonagh - 14 productions
Jeffrey Hatcher - 13 productions
Theresa Rebeck - 8 productions
William Shakespeare - 136 productions (and that time around I didn't even count Shakespeare productions at theatres that had Shakespeare in their name, so there were likely a couple dozen more).
There's no way to dispute that Shakespeare has a disproportionate amount of stage time. I would argue that when any one voice is heard so very much, other voices are being inevitably withheld from the public. Modern, living, talented playwrights are being silenced because of what I call the Cult of Shakespeare in this country. I have a big problem with it.
BUT if we look at the 2012-2013 numbers we can see that even if we stopped doing classics altogether and gave all of those slots to living women playwrights/composers/lyricists, we would still not achieve gender parity. That would indicate that in order to represent equal numbers of men and women playwrights/composers/lyricists in the American theatre a minimum of 10% of the men would have to step aside,... but that's not actually how the numbers work.
As it turns out (and I didn't track the specific numbers on this) it is far more common to have multiple men creating a collaborative project than it is to have multiple women do the same. Most of the musicals that came up meant at least three hash marks in my notebook under "live men." I counted number of people credited/receiving royalties, not individual projects, because there was no way to do the latter and include composers and lyricists. But this trend of men collaborating and women working individually was true for the 2012-13 study and for the one I did for the 2007-08 season. One can assume if you counted only the number of female-created projects vs. male-created projects the numbers wouldn't be quite so skewed, (though men would definitely still be more produced than women), but you also would need a third category for projects written by people of both genders.
Also, in each category I created there was a relatively small number of artists getting a significant percentage of the productions. For instance of the 28 productions credited to dead women at least half were A Raisin in the Sun. (And one wonders if that's merely a reaction to Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park.) Both Tennessee Williams and August Wilson accounted for between 15 and 20 productions each in the "Dead Guys" category. It's similar with the living playwrights: a handful of names pop up over and over again. It's the flavor of the month phenomenon. We've all seen it; many of us have experienced it. Writers become the cool kid for a season or two and every theatre in America is producing the same seven writers' plays. This is a problem of people not trusting their own opinions and not trusting/conditioning their audiences to except work they haven't heard about in the New York Times or recall from their youth. Theatres play it safe by doing old stand-bys and anointed plays because they're afraid of losing money. We all know it, but I think it's bullshit.
I think there are ways to spread the wealth around so that more voices are heard, but it will require that artistic directors and managing directors and boards stop being lemmings. The Kilroys just published a list that says, "Look! Look at these fabulous, important plays by all these women writers that no one is producing! They've been pre-screened and pre-approved for you!" I hope ADs take advantage of it. But I also hope we acknowledge that there are hundreds of male playwrights out there who are also not being seen; so many plays by writers of both genders that get one or two productions and then vanish, discarded like some deflowered 19th century ingenue. I don't know about Tennessee or Bill, but I have to think August Wilson would gladly sacrifice a couple of productions of Fences if it meant that Jonathan Norton's Tidy List of Terrors or Marsha Estell's Heat could be produced instead. Shakespeare would probably love that his plays are still so popular, but I'm guessing that he'd be appalled by what a small section of the population actually attends the theatre these days.
Going to the theatre is an act of faith for the audience. We-the-theatre-makers are asking a bunch of strangers to come sit in a dark room and trust us, but we don't even trust our own opinions? We're asking them to take a risk, but leaders in our field won't? Going to see a new play is an act of quiet bravery: the audience puts their minds and emotions into the hands of some artists for a few hours and they just see what happens. I swear the only time I'm still excited to see a play is when I know almost nothing about it beforehand. I haven't read reviews or an early draft. I don't read my program. And when the lights go down a thrill goes through me because I have no idea what's about to happen... on stage or inside of me. It's like going on a rollercoaster blind-folded.
We are a country of thrill-seekers. It should not be so hard to get audiences on board for an adventure. But I don't think the thrill-seekers believe that theatre has any adventure. In their minds it's old and stodgy and full of plays they got tested on in high school. Today's programming is directed at the converted: the Classics Cultists and the people who believe everything they read in the New York Times. But if we want our audiences to grow and we want theatre to matter we're going to have to do better than that. And we're going to have to start with what plays we teach in high school English classes. If we want new generations of kids to become theatre-goers we have to let them know that there are characters on stage that look like them and sound like them. They're going to need to feel included, not alienated if we wanted them to show up. And that means teaching new plays, by men and women, by people of color, by the LGBT community. It means teaching people that theatre is something that is happening now, not 400 years ago. It means making it seem possible that their voices too can be heard if they choose to write a play one day. But how can we convince them of that when most of our voices aren't being heard and we're the "working professionals?"
Thanks Mia for the shout-out. I really appreciate it. I’m kind of numb after reading this because it is everything I’ve been feeling for the last few months. I truly feel the problem is that most theater artists who are not playwrights, are blind to the process/challenges of writing plays. If they understood the long hours, blood sweat and tears, and personal sacrifice that goes into our work then it would be much harder to dismiss us. It would be much harder to treat us as liabilities. They don’t know what it feels like to write a play, get one production then watch all that hard work die on closing night. Our colleagues work from project to project. There is no expectation for each individual project to have a life beyond the run of the show. But it is different for playwrights. I don’t think most theater artists truly appreciate the difference.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Jonathan. We are so different from other theatre artists in that way, though I will say I am currently having the experience of a group of artists who did a production of one of my plays banding together to try to figure out how the play (and the production) can have a larger life. I'm so, so grateful for that kind of support because it's not that common in my experience.
DeleteI'm right there with you, Mia. To supplement your point about "the classics" -- another big reason Shakespeare is so big is because much of the general public treats drama like a museum piece. Just like you go to the Louvre to see Mona Lisa, folks come to the theatre to see Hamlet & Crucible & Streetcar. The challenge is convincing the general public that theatre is a living, breathing form and not just a collection of artifacts.
ReplyDelete