The LMDA Discussion List has held an extensive conversation on the topic of women in North American theatre, particularly the appalling statistics about the low percentage of productions by women writers and the low percentage of productions directed by women.

Much of the conversation was about collecting accurate statistics. You'll find below and in the accompanying attachments, statistics from a recent Canadian survey and the comprehensive report that followed. Naomi Campbell's introductory note gives some context and a sense of both the achievement of the survey and the frustrating lack of tangible action in its aftermath.

We have also attached the Summary report on the Status of Women in American Theatre from 2002; thank you to Susan Jonas for providing the report.

LMDA hopes this further stirs up the conversation and urges you to take action.

Brian Quirt, LMDA President.

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Dear Colleagues,

About 3 years ago Nightwood Theatre - Canada's preeminent feminist theatre company - in collaboration with the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres and the Playwrights' Guild of Canada, decided to conduct a thorough survey on the Status of Women in English Canadian Theatre. One of the bases of the study was a similar one done in 1982 by Rina Fraticelli, which had identified extreme inequities between men and women in professional Canadian theatre; we hoped that a current study would indicate at least some improvement in the situation.

With modest funds, a national committee was struck and researcher Rebecca Burton was engaged to devise and distribute a questionnaire, analyse the data, and write a study. Using statistics from 2004/05, we now have a comprehensive 139 page report.  We looked at playwrights, directors, artistic directors, casts, general managers, stage managers, designers etc. The survey was thorough, but as such, time consuming, and not much fun to fill out.

In the end our findings were skewed because the larger, often male dominated, theatres were less likely to fill out the questionnaire, so in some ways our earlier, unscientific polls from brochures and websites were actually more accurate while less detailed. We figured that the lack of replies actually altered the stats by as much as 15%, making it appear that things were not as bad for women as they actually are. Because the women-run companies were more diligent about filling out the questionnaires they were more fully represented statistically. This is the challenge of the voluntary questionnaire.

Once the study was launched, we were confronted with a great deal of resistance and defensiveness from some of our male colleagues, especially those who thought they had been equitable by programming anything by women at all. Many Artistic Directors admitted that they do not consider equity at all when making programing choices and were as shocked as we were by the records of their own companies.

This season (2007/08), after 3 years of panels, polls and much discussion, there is little sign of improvement. There is fatigue in these endeavors, a feeling that if we have talked about it, we have dealt with it, but a quick perusal of the larger venued companies here in Toronto reveals an appalling season:

2007/08 Season
8 theatres
8  male artistic directors: LKTYP, TPM, Tarragon, Factory, CanStage, BIBT, Soulpepper, TFT
60 plays

17 female directors  28%
39 male directors  65%
4 female/male teams 7%

13 female playwrights 22%
44 male playwrights  73%
3 female/male teams 3%

Of course I have only considered the venued, established, well funded companies in this list, not the dozens of small independent artist-driven companies who would assuredly have improved the overall statistics. But even then, not enough. No matter how much we talk about this, theatres justify their choices as being led by excellence and the particular tastes of their leadership and their audiences.

So, we can gather all the stats we like - American numbers will be similar to ours - but the challenge is what to do? Boards of Directors in Canada are full of women (it's a volunteer position after all), but we don't want them programming our seasons. Our theatres are more subsidized by government than those in the US, but they don't insist on 50/50 programming nor are juries bound to any particular representation - and would we even want them to be?

Our study concluded with lots of action items, but we were all so tired by the end of it that we haven't followed up on them as much as we ought to, and the stats above speak volumes about the lack of impact our study (published in Oct. 2006) has made in this city, the so-called centre for theatre in Canada.

yours,
in solidarity, frustration, and bemused familiarity with the cause,
Naomi Campbell
Toronto