Melbourne's Queen Lear: stats and more from Australia

Thanks to one of the arts news aggregator blogs I look at, I caught this article yesterday.  

Gist: In Melbourne, a woman will play King Lear this season because the theater was (italics mine) ordered by its governing body to designate an equal opportunity officer when only one mainstage production was given to a female director.   

While I was intrigued by the cross gender take on the classic (somewhat novel, Mabou Mines, anyone?), I was even more intrigued by the whole business w/the governing body and the equal opportunity officer.  So I googled, and found some more interesting info.

My thoughts were similar to what I saw at No Plain Jane's blog post, and I appreciate the stats collected there. And yes, 'one woman in the role of one man will not tip these scales'

I found a Sydney Herald article, about some writers who would like to see quotas established in Australia, saying:

"Any theatre company that receives public funding should be compelled to report annually on their gender representation in their program and processes that they are pursuing to achieve equity,'' 

Would this fly in the US?  Should companies that receive NEA funding, or funding from their state arts council be required to represent both genders equally?