The Numbers Problem and Why It Matters

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By Laura A. Shamas

Last month, a popular entertainment blog caused quite a stir when it flashed a hopeful headline and post that misstated women playwrights wrote “half of the plays being performed in the upcoming season across the country.” After two days, the blog post was corrected; it was unintentional, a misreading of a New York Times report about Theatre Communications Group’s Annual Top Ten Most Popular Plays of the Season list; half of this year’s list is female-authored (and there are 14 plays on this year’s list due to ties). Until the entertainment blog was corrected, many people were expecting that a 50/50 level of gender parity in production had been achieved in U.S. theaters for female and male playwrights. Not so.  But it raises the question: then what are the actual statistics for female and male playwrights in American theater seasons for 2013-14? Here’s the truth. No one knows, because national data collection on this topic is not currently funded in the United States by any single research entity or institution.

Earlier in 2013, LA FPI volunteers Stephanie Hutchinson and Jan O’Connor undertook what has become an annual measurement task performed by our Los Angeles advocacy group: tracking the League of Resident Theaters [LORT] seasons of nine theaters in Southern California, to find out how many female playwrights and directors are working on their stages. You can read our results from 2013 and 2012 here.  The numbers are down significantly this current season from last: only 16% in both categories.  These are terrible numbers, quite disheartening, miserable. Everyone at LA FPI is very grateful to Stephanie Hutchinson and Jan O’Connor for taking the time to complete the season count for this yearly total, which we use in an attempt to discern any gender parity progress (or lack thereof) in our local theater scene.

Yet, this 16% number is really not an accurate picture of the complete theater scene here, nor were any of our previous annual LORT counts. Here’s why: a SoCal LORT count does not nearly encompass all of the theaters in the area who use professional artists, including Equity actors. If SoCal is defined as the large region from Santa Barbara to San Diego, there are at least 20 “professional” companies here who use full Actors Equity [AEA] contracts –not just 99-seat waiver agreements.  Not all of these companies are members of LORT. Should we be counting the annual seasons of these theaters instead of LORT? Maybe.

Moreover, there are many other companies in this area who are not LORT members, nor using full AEA contracts, yet they could or would say that they, too, are “professional” theaters because they use artists in all disciplines who are members of professional unions. How many of these companies are there in SoCal?  According to a reply tweet to us from Los Angeles STAGE Alliance  on October 14: “Well, we estimate we have around 350 companies working with us in a given year. But we also have a list of 230-some others.”

So, let’s just say that each of those 350 companies (and the sometimes additional +230 groups) produce several shows a year. Who’s counting all of these LA theatre season rosters for gender parity stats? No one.

So do we truly have any understanding of the complete theater scene in terms of gender parity and statistical breakdowns in Los Angeles or SoCal?  No, we do not. And it’s not just here in southern California. Try finding 2013-2014 season data related to gender parity for New York City shows—New York, the exciting heartbeat of our American theater scene. Can you find them? (If you do, please add them to the comments sections of this blog post. Because I could not.)

When LA FPI began, it was in part a response to Julia Jordan’s 2008 decision to calculate the numbers of female playwrights in the New York seasons per non-profit theaters, and her finding that only 12.6% were female-authored. Our website has a “Facts” page where we have attempted to aggregate gender parity/theater data links in the past few years, but I haven’t tried to update it in awhile. I don’t know what data or studies to add, because there are no precise new annual national numbers to report.

To be completely clear, the numbers used most often to describe the typical American female playwright’s status are New York-based stats. In 2011, Ella Martin, Jennie Webb and I partnered to investigate data from the Los Angeles area for the beginning of the twenty-first century. We wanted to find out what the percentage number was in SoCal for productions by women playwrights. Thank goodness for the Los Angeles STAGE Alliance and their willingness to hand count into their 2002 – 2010 records for us, because without their generous efforts, we never would have had a basis for our 20% result, reflecting the 993 shows that were female-authored and produced here during those years.

Some of the problems that plague an accurate assessment of any gender parity stats in American theatre are:
1) lack of funding or resources for any such studies;
2) uniform metrics, methodology and data sources of what should be counted and when.
I’ve shared some samples of these types of questions in the early part of this essay. One of the more famous American studies that garnered attention in 2009 was Emily Sandburg Sands’ report which relied on the Doollee.com database, a source criticized by some as incomplete. You can find Sands’ “Opening the Curtain” report here.  And yet, as Doollee is incomplete, where will more accurate data come from?

Fortunately, there are heroic theater datakeepers in various places around the world who are trying to amend the numbers problem by keeping track of what’s going in the communities where they live, as related to gender parity and diversity.

One of those people is Niall Tangney of Sydney, Australia. Tangney is a long-time hospitality employee and theatre enthusiast who has “rediscovered his love of theatre in his middle-age.” He promotes theatre free of charge to the theatre community of Sydney and NSW via the Theatre in Sydney website [found at www.theatresydney.info], which he runs as a fairly intensive hobby. Niall writes: “I am a regular theatregoer but am not involved in making theatre in any way, so I am able to stir the pot in a way that no one can accuse me of it being self-serving. I think perhaps this is part of the problem. Regarding speaking out on the issue, I think (but do not know for sure) that some female playwrights may not want to be seen as simply complaining that their particular play was not selected or got rejected by a major company… but if no one speaks up, nothing will change.“ Here’s Tangney’s tally of the 2013-14 season as related to gender parity. For the 2013-14 season, Tangney found that from a total of 59 shows of five state-funded theaters, approximately 30% are plays written by female playwrights, and approximately 30% of plays will be solely directed by female directors.

Tangney thinks that collecting the numbers does matter, related to fairness:  “The issue has been discussed in Australia for a number of years already, particularly by this group of playwrights called 7-ON  who raised the issue as a collective. I also have three sisters, none of whom are writers by the way, but they give me a fair insight into things as well, in terms of equality. So I just say to myself…’if I was a woman would I think that was fair?’  One thing I have been thinking about with this issue is that, where theatre companies receive state funding, you could argue that since taxpayers are funding the art, and governments are committed to equal opportunity, that the theatre companies should be required to represent the genders equitably in their choices of work by (at least, living, and taxpaying…) playwrights. But it is a tricky question, and not being involved myself in theatre I have no idea how you would implement this practically. But it is worth thinking about. If people in theatre are smart enough to put on all this great theatre, which I love, surely they are smart enough to work this out.”

In 2012, a major report on Women In Theatre was released by the Australia Council, in hopes of raising awareness about the current state of gender equity in the art form, and advocating for action to bring about change. Those who authored the report found “no progress over the decade since 2001 and there is evidence that the situation for women in creative leadership deteriorated over that time” (pps 4-5).

Hilary Bell also makes a strong case as to why it matters to keep track of gender parity-related stats.  Bell writes for theater, radio, film, TV, opera, and music theatre; she graduated from Julliard in 1998 and lives in Sydney, Australia. Bell responded to me on behalf of  the “7-On” Playwrights. Bell wonders what would happen if 16% male quotas were proposed for theater seasons, such as: “’In our next season, we will give male directors 16% of the productions.’ There’s an unconscious bias towards giving creative roles in theatre to men. The only way to redress the balance is to make employers conscious. Rightly, there’s a hue and cry about women being underrepresented on boards, in business and government. In the arts – supposedly inclusive, progressive, liberal – women artists are consistently marginalised. An all-male playwrights season raises no eyebrows; an all-female season (were anyone to ever propose one) is seen as a provocative statement. This, despite an equal number of female artists and a majority of female ticket-buyers. The ‘merit’ argument is as spurious as it is insulting. Only when artistic directors see the numbers, over and again, will they wake up to the fact of this discrimination, and do something about it.”

Another theatre data keeper here in the U.S. is Gwydion Suilebhan of Washington, D.C.; he’s a playwright, transmedia artist, arts advocate, and digital strategist for arts organizations. Suilebhan is part of the new D.C. company “The Welders, A Playwrights’ Collective.” Suilebhan has partnered with playwrights Patricia Connelly and David Mitchell Robinson to keep track of theatre demographic data from the area. The season results for 2013-14 are here. You can access the full study, launched in 2012, here. From the 2013-14 results: “Of the plays being produced in D.C. in the 2013-14 season, 73% were written by men, 27% by women. By comparison, in the 2012-13 season, 79% of the plays were written by men, 21% by women.”

Of why the numbers matter, Suilebhan writes: “Looking at data is like looking into a well-polished mirror. It shows us exactly who we are, whether we like what we see or not…and helps us make reality-based decisions. If we really want to achieve gender parity in the American theater, we have to know exactly where we’re starting from…and monitor whether our choices are really making a difference or not. That’s why I gather data.”

Performer Valerie Weak tallies data from the San Francisco area in monthly posts called “Counting Actors.” In a Tactics Interview with Amy Claire Tasker posted earlier in 2013 on the “Works by Women Blog,” Weak said: “The big tactic with Counting Actors is to let the numbers speak.  When I do my monthly blog post, I don’t say anything about how the numbers make me feel, about what’s bad or what’s good.  I just say here are the numbers, please talk about them.” Weak’s count may be found here. In one of Weak’s recent posts, she reports: “There were 56 shows (56%) that were on [AEA] contracts that use health weeks.Those shows had: 46 male directors, 21 female directors (67%, 33%), 58 male writers, 15 female writers (79%, 21%), 274 male actors, 208 female actors (57%, 43%).”

In the United Kingdom, Professor Maggie Gale made headlines this summer at a National Theatre panel in London with an assessment that women playwrights there are produced in the 8-12% range; this estimate is especially discouraging when compared to “18.4% in 1923, 20.4% in 1936, and 22% in 1945.”  (For a response to Gale from a different perspective, please read Katy Brand’s view.)

Wendy Thomson, Editor of FemaleArts.com, an online U.K. magazine promoting women in the arts, pointed me towards several key sites with research on gender parity and playwrights, such as the excellent Archives of the Sphinx Theatre, which lists on its header: “35% of actors, 17% of writers, 23% of directors…52% of the population.”  Thomson also referred me to this excellent Datablog piece in The Guardian from December 2012, about the 2:1 ratio of men to women working in theater, compiled in collaboration with Elizabeth Freestone: 35% of new plays in this Datablog are female-authored.

Another great U.K. site with specific regional data is the 17Percent Blog. In a guest post by Lindsay Nicholas, Nicholas writes that keeping track of what’s happening is purposeful: “For now, it seems to be down to writers themselves, such as Sam Hall at 17Percent, dedicated to changing a very bad statistic through regular showcases of women’s writing, to explore the issues. She suggests that close monitoring of gender ratios in theatre writing could bring about improvement. This has worked well in Sweden, for example, where in 2011 46% of new plays were written by women.”

Thomson, too, believes there’s value in keeping track of parity-related data. “It is important to monitor on a regular basis if gender inequality is decreasing or increasing and this activity should be funded! The public must be aware so they can celebrate when things get better and campaign when things get worse, we can never be complacent. There should be equality on stage just as in every walk of life. There can be rapid deterioration of women’s rights and achievements and that is why we need campaigners like Malala for girls education and LA FPI for Los Angeles playwrights.”

What of Canada? I do not have specific data from any regional sites to report. But here are some recent studies that address the general topic of Women in Theatre.

1) “…only 27 percent of the plays produced in Canada are written by female playwrights.” – “The Status of Women in Theatre: Disturbing Reports from Australia, Canada, and the US” by Sarah O’Conner, August 2012, Vol. 1, No.2, published in Women in Theatre. From March 2011, the same 27% stat for female playwrights is quoted in “Females Try to Smash Glass Ceiling” by Kathleen Renne, but there’s also a mention that most stage managers and costumers are female.
2) The 2006 Study on the Status of Women in Canadian Theatre  – “Adding It Up”
3) The 2009 Equity in Canadian Theatre Report, from Professional Association of Canadian Theatre [PACT], discussed here.

Rebecca Burton, of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, shared an update on overall 2012-2013 stats and plans for a new Canadian initiative: “The Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) has followed-up every year since then [2006] with a straw poll to see how women playwrights are faring. This year, for the 2012/13 season, women constituted 23% of the produced playwrights (men were 61% and mixed gender collaborations accounted for 16%). These stats suggest that the situation is regressing rather than improving! PGC has plans to launch an industry-wide Equity initiative next year to help combat the problem.”

One global organization for women playwrights is the International Centre for Women Playwrights [ICWP]. They feature a research page for gender parity data on their site.

Margaret McSeveney is a writer, poet, and playwright who resides in the U.K. McSeveney has been an ICWP Board Member since 2000, was ICWP President from 2009-2011, and ICWP Vice President from 2011-2013. McSeveney, too, feels that data should be collected on gender parity in theatre: “It matters a great deal because the figures will show the progress (hopefully not the lack of progress) theatres are making towards treating women playwrights fairly, as artists worthy of equal treatment and human beings worthy of an equal share of the commissioning and production funding used to support the theatre industry.”

Winding back to New York City, I have discussed these same gender parity data issues recently via e-mail with several members of the League of Professional Theatre Women. There is a desire for a more formal study about gender parity in theater from LPTW members, and there’s a hope for future funding. Jenny Lyn Bader is a playwright and author, a Dramatists Guild member, the Artistic Producer at Theatre 167, and an executive board member of the League of Professional Theatre Women. Bader generously shared some of her thoughts about data collection related to gender parity arts stats, or lack thereof.

In regards to New York stats, Bader writes: “It’s shocking how little hard evidence there is to document this problem that so many are aware of — and how difficult it is even to find a record, not just of gender breakdowns in our industry, but of everything in our industry! It’s nearly impossible to find a comprehensive list of all Broadway and Off-Broadway openings. And forget Off-off-Broadway — we’re talking about 2,000 productions. “

A methodology for data collection is also daunting, related to the shows produced in New York. Bader notes: “I realize that the statistics are not easy to compile. For example, just look at new plays on Broadway in 2012. I found one list that seemed comprehensive. But it included Rebecca, which never even opened. So I narrowed it down to shows that opened. But does that include musicals? It might be easier not to count musicals since they are frequently co-authored. But then how do you count a play with music? Do you count one-person shows? Does Kiki Tyson count as a female playwright, since she co-authored, with Randy Johnson, Mike Tyson’s one-man show? Does the comedian Lewis Black whose Running on Empty played 8 performances on Broadway during its tour count as a male playwright? Should William Shatner’s one-man show count as a play? What about Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which has been produced on Broadway four times? Should that still count as a new play? Should Wit, by Margaret Edson, previously produced Off-Broadway and already having won the Pulitzer, be counted as new? Maybe since Edson and Albee are both alive, they can be put in the ‘new play’ category, but then how do we count Nora Ephron, whose play was produced posthumously but was new?  In the end, using any consistent method, it still looks like women playwrights wrote fewer than 15% of new plays produced on Broadway in 2012. But how do we decide on what the method is?” And of course, any variance in data collection methodologies may mean that the data is not directly comparable.

And even though issues of collection, such as funding and methodology, are challenging, it is necessary that we collect the data, according to Bader. “We’ve exploded glass ceilings in so many fields, but not in this one. There are different numbers, but everyone can agree that of produced plays, a minority are written by women, while women make up the majority of the audience. So women are coming to see these plays mostly written by men. At some point, that has an impact. It’s a question of putting women’s stories at the center of stories and not just on the sidelines, of privileging voices from both genders, of not teaching young women always to be considering things from the male point of view. It seems surprising and bizarre that we have not reached gender parity in a field such as theatre which is normally not perceived as exceptionally traditional or conservative. Indeed it seems so surprising and bizarre that many knowledgeable people don’t even believe it. That’s why the numbers matter. It’s important to collect them.”

With so many people in so many places agreeing on the need for gender equity data collection in theater, isn’t it time we start a serious conversation about ways to solve this numbers problem, so that studies may be executed to encompass all communities of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and the entire world beyond–including the vast number of non-English language theaters? And shouldn’t we extend our data numbers to embrace all positions held in theater, including designers, stage managers, costumers, etc.?

In closing, and in an attempt to answer the question I began with, about the ratio of female to male playwrights in American 2013-14 theater seasons, I do have one final piece of data to share. A volunteer in Los Angeles (who wishes to remain anonymous) counted all productions listed in the American Theater magazine 2013-2014 season preview, pages 48-97 of the October 2013 issue. This is only an estimate, as some slots were To Be Announced or listed no authors, and thus were unable to be tracked. These are the current seasons of 500 Theatre Communication Group member companies only, spread over 47 states. The data encompasses some non-English language shows. In keeping with other counting methods, any plays by William Shakespeare were not included.  This estimate found that 35% of the shows listed for 2013-14 were female-authored, and 65% were male-authored (female-authored shows, 446.93; male-authored shows, 1,274.77).

Again, this is only an estimate.

© 2013 by Laura A. Shamas. For permission to reprint or repost this article, please inquire: blog(at)lafpi(dot)com

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ADDITIONAL LINKS, ORGANIZED BY GEOGRAPHY

(If you have more links to share, please let us know in the comments and we will add them below as we can.)

AUSTRALIA
Career Playwrights: (Australian) Working Women Dramatists, 1928-1968, by Michelle Arrow, University of Sydney
Seven On
Theatre in Sydney, Niall Tangney’s Site
2012 Women in Theatre Report by the Australian Council

AUSTRALIA – MISCELLANEOUS, RELATED
AusStage
Playwriting Australia

CANADA
The 2006 Study on the Status of Women in Canadian Theatre: “Adding It Up”

From Rebecca Burton of the Playwrights Guild of Canada, on 2012-13 stats:
“The Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC) has followed-up every year since then [2006] with a straw poll to see how women playwrights are faring. This year, for the 2012/13 season, women constituted 23% of the produced playwrights (men were 61% and mixed gender collaborations accounted for 16%). These stats suggest that the situation is regressing rather than improving! PGC has plans to launch an industry-wide Equity initiative next year to help combat the problem.”

CANADA – MISCELLANEOUS, RELATED
Playwrights Guild of Canada, Women’s Caucus

GERMANY – MISCELLANEOUS, RELATED
Statistics on Women Filmmakers

NEW ZEALAND
Gender Issues for Female Playwrights and Filmmakers

UNITED KINGDOM
Sphinx Theatre Archives
The Guardian Datablog in collaboration with Elizabeth Freestone
The 17percent Blog

UNITED STATES
Boston
The Blog of the Playwrights’ Commons – 2012-13 Stats
Company One – Season 15, 2013-14, all female playwrights

Chicago
Gender Equity Report, 2010

Cleveland
8 of 10 shows at Cleveland Public by women, 2013-14: Cleveland Public Theatre

Los Angeles
2011  LA FPI “The Study,” lead by Ella Martin
2013 – “News”

New York
June 2013, Scream into a Bucket Alert – Guerrilla Girls On Tour
“Why Playwrights Horizon Isn’t Talking About the Gender Imbalance in Their Season”

North Carolina Triangle Theaters
2012-13 Data Compiled by Jules Odendahl-James, Resident Dramaturg, Duke University
“Women writers & directors representation in the 2012-2013 seasons of 20 Triangle NC Producing Theaters/Theater Companies.
94 shows announced. For 21 of these shows, directing staff unknown as of July 21, 2012.
27 women directors. (Some of these are directing more than one show in a season, e.g. Meredith College; some also creators of the work so they are given credit for directing and writing.)
2 women co-directing shows with men. (A Christmas Story, Haymaker’s Elektra).
13 female playwrights.
17 women working on projects as co-writer/part of devising company.”

San Francisco
Counting Actors by Valerie Weak

Washington, D.C.
DC Theatre Demographics, 2013-14, collected by Gwydion Suilebhan, Patricia Connelly and David Mitchell Robinson
DC Theatre Demographics, Full Study

USA – MISCELLANEOUS, RELATED
2002 – “Report on the Status of Women: A Limited Engagement” by Susan Jonas and Suzanne Bennett
2010 – Discrimination and the Female Playwright by Julia Jordan and Sheri Wilner
2011 – Karen Kinch’s data on 2011 LORT counts, as cited in a 2012 post by Diane Grant
2012 – The VIDA Count 2012
2012/2013 – Guerrilla Girls On Tour Annual Girlcott List

With special thanks to Niall Tangney, Hilary Bell, Gwydion Suilebhan, Wendy Thomson, Margaret McSeveney, and Jenny Lyn Bader. 

Let me think about that

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diana-ephesus-detail

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Many Breasted Diana Has A Hard Time Saying No

By Cynthia Wands

 

I enjoyed reading this post from Bitter Gertrude about her blog post:  Why Your Play Was Rejected.

I like this kind of smart, mouthy humor. But then again…..(this section is from her post):

“Luckily for you, you live in the WORLD OF TOMORROW, where submitting a play is as easy as hitting “send.” Take a moment to think of the poor playwrights of yesteryear (15 years ago) who were copying out scripts at work when their supervisors were in a meeting and having to mail them out to theatres at $2.50 a pop if they didn’t work in a company with a mailroom (I remember getting submissions from Lehman Brothers regularly). The flip side of the newfound ease of the submission process is that we’re all getting hundreds and hundreds of scripts, all the time. Even if your script is fantastic, is it better for THAT THEATRE at THAT MOMENT than the other 412 the theatre will get that year? Maybe the AD has done three comedy-heavy seasons and is considering moving to a more drama-heavy season the next year. Maybe the theatre is hoping to work with a specific director and looking for scripts that will appeal to her. Or perhaps this director is already involved in the selection process. Maybe this director had a recent personal experience that increases her interest in a certain topic, and although your play is just as awesome, the play submitted right after yours is about exactly that topic. The point is: You don’t know. The variables are endless, and the competition is just insane. When I’m in season planning season (ha) in Dec/Jan, I’ll sit at my computer and open file after file after file, reading plays for hours every single day. I don’t even glance at the name of the playwright or the title of the work unless I’m already interested in moving it up to my contenders file, or if I’m sending an email to my LM indicating which ones to reject. It’s truly crazy how many plays we get, and we’re the smallest dog on the block.”

I guess I don’t live in the World of Tomorrow, where submitting my play is as easy as hitting the send button.

I live in a world where I carefully consider what I am writing and who and where the play belongs.  And that does mean that the rejection of my play does seem personal, and costly and difficult.

But I also know that I hate disappointing people, that I have a hard time saying no to someone I like/respect/want to succeed. So I’m glad I don’t have the job of being Bitter Gertrude.

Bitter Gertrude Post About Rejecting Plays

Time Management

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Steven Kenny (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artwork by Steven Kenny

by Cynthia Wands

I found a posting from the writer Barry Lancet that spoke to his challenges with time management for writing.

I loved reading this:

Barry Lancet Article: What It Takes

There have been times in my life when I’ve been able to write in a car/train/airplane/Starbucks/concrete prison cell (I wasn’t actually in prison but I can tell you I now know what that feels like), and my kitchen.

I also have a very nice office set up with a totems and books and scripts and a beautiful handmade lamp sitting on the desk. I can have a hard time writing there.  (Especially if there is a cat sitting on the keyboard.)

But I loved reading about this writer’s determination and follow through.

 

 

Empathy: The wrong word

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Christian ScholeTwin Heart

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artwork by Christian Schole

by Cynthia Wands

When I was a child,  I remember thinking that empathy was another word for sympathy.  I don’t know where I got that idea – but it made for some confusing conversations as I got older. (Especially around funerals and the dialogue around funerals…)

I’ve been blessed with being simpatico, sympathetic, understanding and yes, followed with a strong dash of empathy for the people in my life. A lot of that has to do with being born a twin, and having a twin sister that I could learn from, with and around.

A side effect of all this connecting behaviors, is my impulse towards collaboration.  I’ve come to realize that I work better in a group/cast/team/workshop than left to my own devices.  I feel a stronger sense of obligation/commitment and process in a group dynamic – left alone I tend to distract myself with other issues (does the cat needs another kind of kitty litter?)

So it Iwas very interested in this interview about collaborative design as a kind of “empathy.”

60 Minutes Interview with David Kelley

From 60 Minutes:

What makes a great designer? According to IDEO founder David Kelley, who gave the TED Talks “Human-centered design” and “How to build your creative confidence,” being an incredible designer isn’t necessarily about having a great aesthetic sensibility or coming up with out-of-the-box ideas. No,  Kelley says that the key characteristic is empathy. “Be empathetic.”

He explains, “The big thing about design thinking is it allows people to build on the ideas of others. Instead of just having that one thread. You think about it, I come up with an idea, and then somebody from somewhere else says, ‘Oh that makes me think we should do this and then then we could do that.’ And then you get to a place that you just can’t get to in one mind.”

This reminded me so much of the creative process when we work in theatre together.  And it does bring us to a place where we can’t get to by ourselves.

By Cynthia Wands

 

Reviews

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by Cynthia Wands

I had a trusted colleague edit one of my scripts recently, and he did an incredible, insightful, generous job of helping me see the problems in the script, and better choices I can make. His “review” of my work was invaluable, and I’m really grateful to him for the insight and consideration he gave me in his comments.

I’m still trying to process his comments to make the changes to the script.  And today, I stumbled across a review for a production of “Romeo & Juliet” at Playwrights Horizon Theare, by John Simon, a theatre critic I used to read.  I’ve seen several shows at Playwrights Horizon, and have had wonderful and dreadful experiences watching their shows.

Having just raved about “The Hollow Crown” series on PBS, I read this review with a strange sense of relief that I wasn’t in this production. And a weird sense of relief that someone could write with such zinging bitterness about what he saw. I’m aware of the history of “outrage” this critic feels about the director from past productions, someone who is referred to as “one of the world’s worst directors.”  But it did give me pause.

I have performed in productions that have received horrible reviews, desevedly or not, and I hated that exposure and helplessness. And I know some actors  who won’t read reviews from critics. (At least they try and not read the reviews from critics.) I’ve also been in shows that were praised to the skies and I wondered what the critics were they looking at.

And I know that The Westchester Guardian isn’t The New York Times or Variety, and John Simon isn’t the Drama Critic for a wide audience like he used to be. But boy, is he cranky in this review.  I guess I want to share it with you:

 

Romeo and Juliet

The faulty governing idea behind the production of “Romeo and Juliet” is that the Montagues are white and the Capulets black, and the whole thing predominantly modern but of no particular place, none of which the play can accommodate. This includes a Romeo who arrives on a motorcycle, and a Nurse who pushes around a bicycle she manifestly cannot ride. And the Prince here is black, sealing the illogic.

There are all kinds of meaningless fires all over the place, except in the performances, and the men keep jumping on one another, piggyback or prone, once even in a threesome. Condola Rashad’s Juliet speaks in a maddening singsong; Chuck Cooper’s Capulet bellows like a demented trombone; Christian Camargo’s Mercutio carries on like a flagrant homosexual; the death of Paris, like so very much else, has been cut; and instead of germane and fascinating swordplay, we get quick, prosaic stabs by switchblades.

The usual trouble, this, when one of the world’s worst directors, David Leveaux, whose Britishness must seem to some proof of quality, is in charge. Why he is repeatedly imported only to ruin everything he touches is beyond comprehension. Here again nonsense prevails. The set is a giant quasi-Renaissance mural that can split in three, the top mounting out of sight, the rest bisected, off to opposite sides. A large bell is omnipresent, displayed at various heights, but rung only one not particularly compelling time.

There is a rather measly masked ball, with animal masks worn flat on the top of heads, or missing altogether. There is Juliet’s bed, with her on it, raised sky-high and overhanging several scenes. There is a Lady Capulet with shaved head looking ridiculous. There is Jayne Houdyshell hamming it up as Nurse, and carrying on as if she were the central character. There is a Friar Lawrence, well-spoken by the good Brent Carver, but about whom there is nothing religious. There is the monochrome snarling Tybalt of Corey Hawkins. And there is the excellent Benvolio of Conrad Kemp, who outshines the merely acceptable Romeo of movie star Orlando Bloom.

And then there is the famous balcony, here a peculiar structure low enough for Romeo to chin himself on, looking like nothing on earth and having to double as Juliet’s bedroom. If after all this—and more—you still want to see this aberration, on your head let it be.

The Westchester Guardian Review of “Romeo & Juliet”

 

Kevin Sloan the_reminders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh the salad days

Uncategorized

Will Or What You Will

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Cynthia Wands

 

I’ve been watching the PBS series: The Hollow Crown, which follows Shakespeare’s Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1,  Henry IV, Part 2 and Henry V.

I performed some of these shows when I was an actor, and was curious to see how they would hold up for me as an audience member years later.  I have to say the performances are stunning, the character development, the concept of the times and the machinations of the royals – beautifully done.

But I found myself waiting for the women to appear. In a cast of several dozen, there are usually three, maybe four women in a Shakespeare show.  And I’d forgotten that so much of these “history” plays are about war, posturing about war, arguing about war, playing the chess game about war.  And so much of the issues about “history” seemed to me, in the viewing, to be about men claiming their place in the world. So much yelling.

I’d also thought that the Henry V was a herioc tale of England legacy; and in this time and place, I saw it more as a story of an invading country trying to justify grabbing French real estate. I kept thinking how different would this history be if women, who give birth to the soldiers and the rulers of this story, actually were decision makers during this time.  Would women look at a body count of 10,000 dead in the battle of Agincourt as a gift from God?

Mabye it’s the mood I’m in, with the debacle in Congress on governing our country, and the feeling of being lost in the “history” of things.  But I think the reason I’m feeling all these things from watching this series, is that the performances were so transcendent. The characters were in conflict and torment and finally, in resolve, of their life’s purpose.  And that, to me, is great acting from great writing.

And I keep thinking of the King Richard as played by Ben Whishaw. His ability to speak “immortal verse” and make it as accessible as any contemporay conversation was amazing. I found myself holding my breath during some of his speeches: I have never heard an actor make such beautiful connections with this language before. I loved how he kept surprising us with the sharp turns and twists in the landscape of his mind: what a generous and brilliant actor.

It really was quite a gift to witness this production. I hope you get to see it.

The Hollow Crown on PBS

 

 

 

Re-visiting Childhood Love

Feminism, , , , , , , , ,

by Cindy Marie Jenkins

Last Friday was rough. For a lot of reasons. Just a rough day.

And then, surprise! A package came in the mail and it was the Disney dvd of Cinderella, a longtime desire for me to own. Being named cinderella-240-0737dbCindy, Cinderella was an obvious nickname (even though it was longer than my name, so probably doesn’t qualify within the strictest of definitions). I was Cinderella for Halloween, fiercely desired her to be brunette, and the default gifts when no one knew what to get me – Cinderella swag.

My parents even went so far as to commission a Cinderella travelling up the hill to the Prince’s castle cake for their version of my wedding reception. It was a pretty good rendition, even if a little crooked, causing us to speed up dinner so the castle wouldn’t fall before we cut it.

I’d also become really interested in the Cinderella story with recent re-watches of Jim Henson’s The Storyteller, where her name is Sapsorrow. More on that later, but let’s just say I understand why the father is usually minimal if ever in the stories we hear more recently, since they’re almost made to commit incest.

It’s no secret I am stocking up on my movie collection to show my future son or daughter. But now….not so sure.

It’s a perfectly fun little tale as told by Disney, and certainly in line with the time it was made. I remembered of course, that it wasn’t as dark as Sapsorrow, who is almost forced to marry her father, runs away to become a scullery maid in the palace (undercover as an incredibly hairy ‘thing’), meets the Prince first as this creature and teaches him some lessons in true beauty before revealing herself to also be the woman he’s adored these last three nights at the ball.

Sapsorrow below stairs
Sapsorrow below stairs

The Prince in Sapsorrow actually has an arc. As opposed to what’s-his-name-but-yeah-he’s-a-good-dancer. As a viewer of Sapsorrow, I didn’t really like this Prince at first, and

Sapsorrow above stairs
Sapsorrow above stairs

changed my mind as his character changed. That’s brilliant storytelling.

Disney struggled with both the animation and characters of princes in their first movies (Snow White commentary captures this beautifully), and choosing to fluff the story with mice and cats and dogs certainly worked for me as a child. As short as her back-story is in Once Upon a Time, that Cinderella’s motive was more out of the desire to leave her horrid life than love. Disney has the fairy godmother, Sapsorrow has no such thing in Jim Henson’s version, and in OUAT, Ella’s fairy godmother is snuffed out by Rumplestiltskin, causing her to make an oath it seems she never really plans to keep. At that point, she doesn’t even know the Prince will fall in love with her; Ella just thinks one night at a ball will make her feel better about her dreary life.

I just come out of the whole thing much more a Sapsorrow fan than any other. I haven’t even begun to dig into all the versions that Once Upon a Blog details, and for some reason, the Cinderella in Into the Woods didn’t really factor into my thinking on her character. I know that I thoroughly approved of her giving her Prince the door once she heard of his cheating. I never liked stories where someone takes back a cheater, male or female.

I don’t plan on not showing my future child the Disney movie. I just think s/he will see Sapsorrow soon after, or even before watching Disney’s. I remember being scared out of my mind by some of those Jim Henson’s The Storyteller episodes, and also know how they enriched my feelings on fairy tales and telling stories.

Since I love hearing different versions of the same story, I’ll open these variations for discussion if s/he has questions, and encourage us to find more and even write our own stories. I guess it’s never too early to learn that you change the story based on your own point-of-view or audience, or that you have control over stories you want to tell, just by speaking them out loud or picking up a pen.

Inspiration Playlists

News, playwriting, , , , , , , ,

by Cindy Marie Jenkins

Hello! It’s been a while. After an incredibly life changing August (turns out I was pregnant the whole summer and didn’t know it – surprise!), and hustling for audience to attend three very different shows (What Kind of God?, Pato, Muerte y Tulipan and Lagrimas de Agua Dulce), I see the light.

So instead of writing once a week, I’m back to waking up early and writing with as little editing as I can humanly handle, until my official work day begins (around 9am). I’m lucky that I created this flexibility for myself, and turns out a proto-person inside you makes you wake up early anyway. That is, when you don’t stay up until 2a.m. re-reading Mists of Avalon. 

Even though working from home provides the ultimate in productivity – the ability to shut email and social media tabs you just can’t handle, or that only serve to make you mad right now – I still need to create the space to write. Usually this involves four important steps:

1. Leaving my phone in the bedroom, on silent.

2. Turning my old school desk calendar over or removing it from writing area entirely.

3. Using headphones even if I am the only one home.

4. My Inspiration Playlists.

I thought I’d share some of the Inspiration Playlists. They are incredibly specific to me and my projects, and meant to be background (once you’ve already watched it). This especially works for me because although I tend to force myself into a writing focused frenzy, I still need a short break once in a while. These specifically curated Inspirations are meant to be there when I need a distraction, then inspire, and drive me into the next phase of the writing cycle.

Please share yours in the comments.

I’ll add more Michael Wood soon, but he’s incredible. Check his varied netflix selection out as well and you’ll see why he was quite the intellectual British heart-throb.

Ursula K. Le Guin. Just magical.

Neil Gaiman. Because Neil Gaiman.

Storyboard is Hit or Miss, but Sooo interesting when it hits. Mary Robinette-Koval is also a puppeteer, so she references playwrights and theatre frequently.

The By Appointment live streams at East LA Rep in this playlist capture some golden artistic kicks in the butt. I’m looking at you, Luis Alfaro and Adelina Anthony.

Sweet Sixteen

Play

by Jen Huszcza

As I said on Monday, this is my 16th time blogging for LAFPI. I have also decided to go on hiatus for awhile. This hiatus could last six months or six years or sixty years. There’s no scandalous story behind my hiatus. I just need some time off.

I want to thank Jennie Webb, Robin Byrd, and all my fellow bloggers for all the hard work they have put into this blog since 2010. When I started, they gave me a mandate that I could write about anything relating to playwriting and LA Theatre. I also want to thank them for letting me do my thing.

When I turned sweet sixteen, I received a brown leather jacket as a birthday present. It reminded me of Indiana Jones. When I put it on, I felt adventurous. I still have that jacket. It’s a bit beaten up, and I had to patch the shoulder. It doesn’t fit the way it used to, but I still put it on from time to time although nowadays I don’t need a jacket to feel adventurous. I just need myself.

Keep it positive.

Peace.

Jen

On Rejection

Play,

 By Jen Huszcza

Today I want to talk about something all playwrights have dealt with at some point. Rejection.

We’ve all been there. We apply for thing we really really want. We think we have a really good shot at getting the workshop/grant/production. We put a lot of work into the application.

Then we don’t get it.

And it sucks.

Now, this is the point where I should be inspirational, where I should tell you to brush yourself off and keep going, where I tell you that you can do it and you will find a place for your play.

But I’m not gonna do that. I’m going to let you relish in the misery of the suckiness of your rejection.

Now, take all that misery and suckiness and anxiety and depression and roll it up into a little ball as tight as you can.

Look at that ball, study its awful grossness until you are ready to vomit.

 Now throw the ball away.

 And move on.

It’s not about how hard we fall, it’s how we get up from our falls. I recently learned that sometimes after a fall, it’s okay to spend a minute or two on the ground to catch your breath. When boxers get knocked down, they get a ten count. Sometimes it’s better to get up at five or six or seven than at one or two. It’s a few more seconds and a few more breaths.

Rejection does suck. Rejection is bad. I wish there was a way for all the playwrights to get everything we want, but playwriting is a dying art with very little financial incentive in a bottom-line country which does not support arts and culture on a government level.

I will also say that I have worked on the other side of the rejection line as a grant reviewer and play reader. I have championed folks on the basis of their work. However, a lot of the work I have read was crap. It needed one more thing, one more element to make it shine. Think about how you want to shine. The people who read your work and your applications are people with a hard job to do. Please don’t make their job harder. Please check your spelling.

And move on.