(Laura Collins-Hughes’s and Alexis Soloski’s article appeared in The New York Times, 5/31; via Pam Green.)
On Broadway, it has been a year of women: waitresses, shopgirls, concubines, Revolutionary sisters, a literary editor, a morphine addict and many victims of abuse. Is this cause for celebration or despair? Or pie?
The musical “Waitress” and the play “Eclipsed” featured all-female creative teams. Yet even as women constitute two-thirds of the Broadway audience, women still lag far behind men as playwrights, composers, directors and designers.
In a season hailed for racial and ethnic diversity, what about gender parity? The New York Times theater critics Laura Collins-Hughes and Alexis Soloski recently discussed the role of (and roles for) women this year, on Broadway and off. Here’s an edited version of their conversation:
ALEXIS SOLOSKI Let’s get right to it. Has this been a good year for women?
LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES There’s been progress, sure. But I wouldn’t say that makes it a good year. It’s interesting that this is the season when the producers of “Waitress” and “Eclipsed” have marketed their shows by touting the presence of women in key creative roles. If that weren’t a rarity, it wouldn’t be a marketing point.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/05/theater/women-on-broadway-a-year-of-living-dangerously.html?_r=0