Saturday, January 09, 2010

There's A Woman At The Piano!


A recent project that has come across my "desk" has once again stirred up my ire about the disparity in opportunities for women in the arts. I was asked to think of living female musical theatre/composer lyricists that would perhaps like to have their work showcased in NYC and after rambling off a few names, I soon came up dry.

Many moons ago I posted about the imbalance of female directors in Hollywood. I don't know why I should be surprised by the same irksome fact about women in the theatre arts. According to 50/50 in 2020: Parity for Women Theatre Artists, female playwrights, directors and designers receive only 20% of professional production opportunities nationwide. Sadly, this is not surprising. Testosterone still dominates on Broadway, with the big three, The Shubert Organzation, Nederlander and Jujamcyn, helmed by men. Without getting on a soap box, I will simply say that as a female theatre artist, I certainly hope that the male/female ratio on Broadway does reach 50/50 in 2020. Much can happen in 10 years, that is for certain.

So, back to the task at hand. Below is the list of female composer/lyricists that I was able to come up with. Have you got any to add to the list? Surely there are more female musical theatre composer/lyricists with a story to tell. Let's make sure that their story is heard!
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1 comment:

Philip M. Gardiner said...

Hi Alicia,

Check out www.t4ct.org for an inspiring group of women performers, directors and writers. I just played Matthew in an extraordinary production of a hilarious dark comedy by Steven Dietz called Private Eyes.

Hope you are well.

Philip

11:52 PM

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