Gender Parity Linkfest

I wanted to point out some of what's new in the blogosphere about gender representation in theater around the world.

1) Australia's official arts funding body, the Australia Council for the Arts (kinda like an Australian NEA), has just published a report called Women in Theater.  This report, a first of its kind in Australia, offers ' a detailed analyis of the representation of women in creative roles in the Australian theatre scene from the early 80s to today.' The creative roles the report looks at are directors, writers, as well as artistic director, general manager and board.  It includes not only the numbers and how they've changed over time (not much), but also an attempt to diagnose some of the symptoms as to why female representation is low, and offer solutions.   It's worth a read.  A brief intro, with links to different ways to read the report, is here.

2) If you've been under a rock, Minneapolis's Guthrie is under a ton of flack for the lack of diversity in the directors and writers chosen for their 50th anniversary season.  Minnesota Public Radio has a great article summing it all up here.  And the Guthrie's season announcement is here.

A quick reminder - if you're working on a show or have seen a show with performances in April, take 5 minutes and send an email to me for the Counting Actors project.  With your help, I'm tracking some key questions relating to gender, union status and local/non-local hiring of actors, writers and directors in Bay Area theaters.  So go to this page to learn more, and to learn how to send in some stats.