Recent teaching work has gotten me thinking about how I talk about and model gender parity while wearing my teaching artist hat.
This is still evolving, but here are a few thoughts:
1) if a girl brings in a monologue for a male character, a boy brings in a monologue for a female character - no judgement. If they've read and understand the circumstances of the monologue and the play it's from, and the language speaks to them - do it & work on it - understand that this may not fly elsewhere, but the boy who brought in Tilly from Gamma Rays and the girl who brought Charlie from Perks of Being a Wallflower - go! (although technically I said bring in monologues from plays not movies)
2) when I'm assigning scenes or monologues - check myself on writer gender parity. For a program that ended with students doing 2 and 3 person scenes from published plays, I notice that for 8 scenes, I have 3 female writers, 6 male writers (one of the pieces was co-written by two women). So I need to do better on this one - continue to educate myself on the women writers out there, so that I can assign, share, promote women writers.
What are other ways that we can bring gender parity to our teaching work?
And, if anyone's got suggestions for plays for teens by women writers, throw those into the comments section too!
Side note: Bay Area folks, if you don't already know about it, I strongly encourage you to check out worksbywomensf.wordpress.com, like Works by Women SF on facebook, and/or join the Works by Women SF group on meetup.com - we've got a few great outings planned to attend shows and support women making theater in the region - it'd be great to see you there, Bay Area.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Counting Actors July 2013
A whopping 17 shows for July, bringing the project to 299 shows, which means that at some point in the coming month I'll be at 300 shows, and do some more in depth analysis of shows 201-300 and compare that to the previous 200 shows. Stay tuned.
If you want to know more about the project, see previous posts in the series, and learn how you can contribute, go here.
17 shows counted:
Marin Shakespeare/Comedy of Errors, The Spanish Tragedy (a few actors cast in both productions and counted 2x, including 6 interns)
SF Playhouse/Camelot (male director and male music director, male writer book/lyrics and 2nd male writer music, video only female actor not included in this count, child role shared by 2 boys, both included here)
San Jose Rep/Minister's Wife (male director, female music director, writing team man/book 2nd man/lyrics woman/music)
Shady Shakespeare/Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet (Feste and Toby played by women; Feste as a female character, Toby as male, Benvolio, Apothecary and Gregory played as female by women actors)
Aurora/This is How it Goes (female crew member appeared onstage briefly in a non-speaking role and is not counted here)
SF Mime Troupe/Oil and Water (script credit is 2 men & SFMT - so 2 men are credited, but actors and director contributed to the writing during the rehearsal process)
Livermore Shakespeare/The Liar, Taming of the Shrew (1 intern in Liar cast, 4 interns in Shrew cast)
California Shakespeare Theatre/Romeo and Juliet (cutting of script by f director so that show could be done by 7 people. 5 actors double cast and roles of Benvolio and Prince are played by women as male/gender-fluid characters)
Dragon Productions/Becky's New Car (originally scheduled to be directed by a woman, but when she had to leave the production and the company had to scramble to replace her, the new director was male)
Off Broadway West/Betrayal
Central Works/Pitch Perfect
Just Theatre/A Maze
Bay Area Children's Theater/Cat in the Hat (female actors played all gender neutral characters in this piece)
TheatreWorks/The Loudest Man in the World (non-local incl. one union, one non-union and non-union actor is deaf)
Porchlight/Scapino (one female role very small, no dialogue and kind of a stage crew person in a costume)
The Stats:
11 male directors, 9 female directors
20 male writers, 3 female writers
173 total actors
103 male actors, 70 female actors
42 union actors, 133 non-union actors
24 union men, 18 union women
168 local actors, 5 non local actors
Many many thanks to the cast members, audience members, crew and theater artistic staff who contributed to this month's count, including: Karen Altree-Piemme, Vera Sloan, Karen Thomson Hall, Phoebe Moyer, Meredith Hagedorn, Hugo Carbajal, Arie Levine, Cassidy Brown, Paul Cello, Eowyn Mader, Patricia Milton, Rebecca Ennals and Corrie Bennett.
Please share and talk about these numbers with your friends and colleagues. And if you're in a show or see a show with performances in August, please go here for info on how to contribute your stats.
The count for August will go up between Sept 1st and 5th.
If you want to know more about the project, see previous posts in the series, and learn how you can contribute, go here.
17 shows counted:
Marin Shakespeare/Comedy of Errors, The Spanish Tragedy (a few actors cast in both productions and counted 2x, including 6 interns)
SF Playhouse/Camelot (male director and male music director, male writer book/lyrics and 2nd male writer music, video only female actor not included in this count, child role shared by 2 boys, both included here)
San Jose Rep/Minister's Wife (male director, female music director, writing team man/book 2nd man/lyrics woman/music)
Shady Shakespeare/Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet (Feste and Toby played by women; Feste as a female character, Toby as male, Benvolio, Apothecary and Gregory played as female by women actors)
Aurora/This is How it Goes (female crew member appeared onstage briefly in a non-speaking role and is not counted here)
SF Mime Troupe/Oil and Water (script credit is 2 men & SFMT - so 2 men are credited, but actors and director contributed to the writing during the rehearsal process)
Livermore Shakespeare/The Liar, Taming of the Shrew (1 intern in Liar cast, 4 interns in Shrew cast)
California Shakespeare Theatre/Romeo and Juliet (cutting of script by f director so that show could be done by 7 people. 5 actors double cast and roles of Benvolio and Prince are played by women as male/gender-fluid characters)
Dragon Productions/Becky's New Car (originally scheduled to be directed by a woman, but when she had to leave the production and the company had to scramble to replace her, the new director was male)
Off Broadway West/Betrayal
Central Works/Pitch Perfect
Just Theatre/A Maze
Bay Area Children's Theater/Cat in the Hat (female actors played all gender neutral characters in this piece)
TheatreWorks/The Loudest Man in the World (non-local incl. one union, one non-union and non-union actor is deaf)
Porchlight/Scapino (one female role very small, no dialogue and kind of a stage crew person in a costume)
The Stats:
11 male directors, 9 female directors
20 male writers, 3 female writers
173 total actors
103 male actors, 70 female actors
42 union actors, 133 non-union actors
24 union men, 18 union women
168 local actors, 5 non local actors
Many many thanks to the cast members, audience members, crew and theater artistic staff who contributed to this month's count, including: Karen Altree-Piemme, Vera Sloan, Karen Thomson Hall, Phoebe Moyer, Meredith Hagedorn, Hugo Carbajal, Arie Levine, Cassidy Brown, Paul Cello, Eowyn Mader, Patricia Milton, Rebecca Ennals and Corrie Bennett.
Please share and talk about these numbers with your friends and colleagues. And if you're in a show or see a show with performances in August, please go here for info on how to contribute your stats.
The count for August will go up between Sept 1st and 5th.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Counting Actors June 2013
The project counts 9 shows for the month of June, now up to a total of 281 shows since June 2011 and is now 2 years old! For more info on the project, including what you can do to contribute a set of stats, please check the Counting Actors Page on this blog.
My apologies for a late post - the goal is to get this info out between the first and fifth of the month, but with the BART strike, my commute to direct summer camp was extra lengthy, and I'm just now catching up!
9 shows counted:
ACT/Arcadia (count for this show does not include 4 understudies, all local, 2M, 2F and 3 union, w/1M non-union)
Impact/Jukebox Stories (this show has no credited director, and 2 credited writers, 1 songs, 1 stories. The writers are also the performers)
Bigger than a Breadbox/Tis Pity She's a Whore (this production both cut and combined characters and changed a male character of Friar into a female Nun)
Cal Shakes/American Night
Crowded Fire/ 410[GONE]
MTC/Beauty Queen of Leenane
NCTC/Birds of a Feather (both genders and species crossed in this production - men played women, women played men, humans played animals of both genders!!)
Cutting Ball/Crispy Critters in the Scarlet Night
San Jose Stage/Reefer Madness (of the two male writers on this production, 1 did lyrics, the other did music and both collaborated on the book)
The stats:
6 male directors, 2 female directors
10 male writers, 1 female writer
67 total actors
38 male actors, 28 female actors
25 union actors, 42 non-union actors
17 union men, 8 union women
59 local actors, 8 non local actors
A huge thanks to the folks who've helped make this project possible for the last two years by sharing stats from shows they've seen or worked on. From the most recent batch, thank you to Phoebe Moyer, Alisha Ehrlich, Galen Murphy-Hoffman, Ryan Courtney, Karen Thomson Hall, Colin Thomson, Paul Cello and Lily Tung Crystal.
Please share and talk about this info and this project with your friends and with the community at large - whether it's at half-hour or at a five minute rehearsal break, this info is only worth something if we keep talking about it.
And, if you've got a show with performances in July that hasn't been counted yet, please submit statistics following the instructions on the Counting Actors Page, and help me keep this project going for another year!
Thanks!
My apologies for a late post - the goal is to get this info out between the first and fifth of the month, but with the BART strike, my commute to direct summer camp was extra lengthy, and I'm just now catching up!
9 shows counted:
ACT/Arcadia (count for this show does not include 4 understudies, all local, 2M, 2F and 3 union, w/1M non-union)
Impact/Jukebox Stories (this show has no credited director, and 2 credited writers, 1 songs, 1 stories. The writers are also the performers)
Bigger than a Breadbox/Tis Pity She's a Whore (this production both cut and combined characters and changed a male character of Friar into a female Nun)
Cal Shakes/American Night
Crowded Fire/ 410[GONE]
MTC/Beauty Queen of Leenane
NCTC/Birds of a Feather (both genders and species crossed in this production - men played women, women played men, humans played animals of both genders!!)
Cutting Ball/Crispy Critters in the Scarlet Night
San Jose Stage/Reefer Madness (of the two male writers on this production, 1 did lyrics, the other did music and both collaborated on the book)
The stats:
6 male directors, 2 female directors
10 male writers, 1 female writer
67 total actors
38 male actors, 28 female actors
25 union actors, 42 non-union actors
17 union men, 8 union women
59 local actors, 8 non local actors
A huge thanks to the folks who've helped make this project possible for the last two years by sharing stats from shows they've seen or worked on. From the most recent batch, thank you to Phoebe Moyer, Alisha Ehrlich, Galen Murphy-Hoffman, Ryan Courtney, Karen Thomson Hall, Colin Thomson, Paul Cello and Lily Tung Crystal.
Please share and talk about this info and this project with your friends and with the community at large - whether it's at half-hour or at a five minute rehearsal break, this info is only worth something if we keep talking about it.
And, if you've got a show with performances in July that hasn't been counted yet, please submit statistics following the instructions on the Counting Actors Page, and help me keep this project going for another year!
Thanks!
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