The Facts

Information below circa 2008 – 2011. More 2012 information coming soon.
For the latest LA FPI stats 2012/2013 re: SoCal, see “News.“

In 1908/09, only 12.8% of the productions on Broadway were by women playwrights. Some 100 years later, the percentage of major New York productions written by women was 12.6%. ¹⁰
There were no plays on Broadway written by women during the 2010/2011 season. ⁶
Latest numbers show that women playwrights, directors and designers receive fewer than 20% of the professional production opportunities nationwide. ³
There are 114 theaters across the country will not be producing even one play by a woman on their mainstage during the 2010/2011 season. ⁶
5 of the 10 most-produced plays at TCG theaters in the 2010/2011 season were written by women. ⁵
From 2002-2010, approximately 20% of the plays on LA-area stages were written or co-written by women playwrights. ⁷
In Chicago, plays written by women constituted just under 19% of plays produced in 2009. ⁸
Of the plays produced by non-profit American theaters in the 2001-2002 season, only 16% had women directors and only 17% were by women playwrights. ¹
In 1998, 30% of the playwrights and 40% of the directors in Off-off Broadway theaters with budgets under $500,000 were women. ¹
It’s harder to get plays produced if they have female protagonists. ²
Plays about women have won 15 of the last 30 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. ⁴
From 2000-2010 more than half of the top ten plays produced at TCG theaters had female leads. ⁵
Broadway plays written by women earn on average 18% more than those written by men. ⁴
Women buy 69% of theater tickets sold, and make up 66% of the audience. ⁹
Of the top ten most-produced plays at TCG theaters in the last 10 years, an average of 30% were written by women. ⁵
The number of women writers produced in America has remained virtually the same for the past century. ⁴

^{¹ The New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Program Report, “The Status of Women: A Limited Engagement?” By Susan Jonas & Suzanne Bennett, released Jan 2002}

^{² Emily Glassberg Sands study, “Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theater.”}

^{³ 50/50 by 2020 Facebook Pages}

^{⁴ “Not There Yet: What will it take to achieve equality for women in the theatre?” by Marsha Norman, American Theatre Magazine, November, 2009.}

^{⁵ “Top Ten Most Produced Plays“, American Theatre Magazine}

^{⁶Guerrilla Girls on Tour Blogspot 2011}

^{⁷ LA FPI Study, March, 2011}

^{⁸Chicago Gender Equity Report, March 22, 2010}

^{⁹The Demographics of the Broadway Audience 2009-2010, The Broadway League, November, 2010}

^{¹⁰Broadway’s Glass Ceiling” by Theresa Rebeck, The Guardian, September 2008}

^{Further recommended reading: Discrimination and the Female Playwright by Sheri Wilner and Julia Jordan

Special thanks to playwright Cindy Cooper, who gathered many of the statistics above in her paper ” A Concise Selection of Down Deep Facts About Theater and Gender” for a New York Dramatist Guild meeting in December, 2009.}

admin | March 30, 2010 9:10 pm