getting it done

The Problem Still Exists

Hey All,

I recently wrote a little something for TCG’s blog on gender parity in the arts. Obvs, I figured I’d share it here as well.

If you prefer to read it on an orange background with a silly picture of me sitting backwards in a chair you can click here. Otherwise, the full text is below:

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The Problem Still Exists

(This post is a part of the Diversity & Inclusion blog salon led by Online Curator Jacqueline E. Lawton. Check out further Diversity & Inclusion interviews on Jacqueline’s blog. If you are interested in participating in this or any other Circle blog salon, email Gus Schulenburg.)

Diversity & Inclusion blog salon: Gender Parity in the American Theatre

JACQUELINE LAWTON: Year after year, research shows that approximately 17% of all plays produced in the United States and the United Kingdom are written by women. We’re stuck at this number and it’s hard to comprehend. Last year, Forum Theatre convened a symposium to investigate the gender imbalance in theatre and posed this question: Is there a female dramaturgy (ie. a specific point of view that female writers bring to theatre)? If so, what does it look, sound and feel like? Who holds the agency for it?

ADRIENNE MACKEY: I think that any artist can’t help but create out of the materials of their own experience. Being a woman in the world means dealing with assumptions about how women are and can be.

I work in the devising community so my plays don’t come fully formed and ready for rehearsal. The space between the story/material at the work’s center and those tasked with representing it is a much smaller one and therefore less tricky to navigate. What is the makeup – it’s look, sound and feel – of the female dramaturgy in these works? Its the mixture of the women taking part in the process. And the agency for it is held by the particular women creating that particular piece at that particular moment.

JL: Where do you live? How do you feel your community has addressed the issues of gender parity? How has this particular issue impacted you and your ability to practice your craft?

AM:I live in Philadelphia where it feels the artistic community exists in two spheres – the half that works in the traditional regional theater mode of season programing and the half that works in a generative and original collaboration style without a set amount of content to be produced. Though the two halves are very fluid (many performers traverse between these two worlds often) I make this distinction because I see gender parity playing out very differently depending on which of these two worlds you’re operating in. Most of the women here in Philly, myself included, who feel a high degree of ownership over their artistic output and less at the mercy of others’ biases towards women artists are making their own stuff. They are self-generators and self-producers and they aren’t stuck waiting for roles or slots in a company’s season.

Last year on my blog I surveyed 12 different season-based theaters over the past six years in Philly for numbers on women directors, playwrights, performers and designers. (https://swimponypa.wordpress.com/2013/02/07/true-story/) The results were mostly skewed towards men in all categories (generally with 2 men for every woman) and were most pronounced in this regard the larger the budget size of the company. I see how the weight of that imbalance can simply corrode a person’s soul after a while. So I feel lucky that I am mostly in control of the work I make and my ability to create and program plays that are representative of a world where female narratives are an important part of the conversation. The only real barrier to feeling total equal is my sense that funding organizations may also be mirroring the trends we see in the theaters. My next project probably ought to be the number breakdown on funding sources and whether their support is equally gendered across their grantees…

JL: Do we need gender based theaters? What is gained by having stories of a certain community told by artists of that community? What is lost?

AM: I don’t know if I think we need gender based theaters per se. I think it’s an impulse to equalize the numbers and while I have nothing against it, it doesn’t help integrate the female perspective into the spaces that need it most. We need women in all theaters so that the next time a work has potentially misogynistic imagery or themes, there are women interested in talking through and discussing them. I personally want to give our male allies the eyes with which we see these works rather than simply secreting away. I believe this will pave the way to true equity faster.

Better, I’d propose, to create financial incentives for companies that consistently display a parity of representation in its performers, writers and directors. Reward the outcomes not just the intentions. Try and tell me that a $25,000 grant at the end of three seasons of equitable gender distribution wouldn’t motivate AD’s to find themselves plays with more women writing, directing or performing in them.

JL: What practical action steps would you recommend to local, regional and national theatre companies to address issues of gender parity?

AM: Assume the best intentions of all creators, that no one wants inequity. So when you have these conversations, work hard on both sides to remember not to pull into defensive postures or aggression towards the folks that might want to change but just don’t know how yet.

Find measures that are quantifiable that you want to meet and share them with others.

And while I don’t necessarily advocate for only doing all-women works, I do most definitely advocate for creating an all-female spaces to discuss and strategize how to tackle these issues. It is nothing against one’s male colleagues to say there are certain struggles they just can’t really understand. There are times you need to talk to people who have dealt with the same issues and one of the unfortunate outcomes of an unequal field is that if you don’t seek it out, it’s rare to find that many female creators gathered in one space.

Most recently in Philadelphia, my company Swim Pony launched the Awesome Lady Squad – a forum to meet and use the collective brain power of women to systematically tackle the inequities we see here in our community. In two short meetings I created a longer list of actionable steps to start working on this issue than I have felt able to do on my own in the past several years. (https://swimponypa.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/dispatches-from-the-awesome-lady-squad-4-on-the-topic-what-wed-like-to-see-instead/)

JL: Why is it important that we continue to have these conversations to address issues of gender in theatre?

AM: Because the problem still exists.

When it’s done – when I see an equal distribution of female artists across the theaters of Philadelphia – I’ll stop talking about it.

Adrienne Mackey is the founder of Swim Pony, dedicated to works that are loud, strange and never seen before on earth! She has directed SURVIVE! – a 22,000 square ft installation exploring the universe and LADY M – an all-female take on Macbeth. Most recently, Adrienne directed THE BALLAD OF JOE HILL at Eastern State Penitentiary boasting a completely sold out run and a profile on NPR’s Radio Times. She has received two Knight Arts Challenges, an Independence Fellowship, a Live Arts LAB fellowship and New Edge Residency. Adrienne also sings backup vocals as “The Truth” for Johnny Showcase and the Mystic Ticket.

Jacqueline E. Lawton received her MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James A. Michener fellow. Her plays include Anna K; Blood-bound and Tongue-tied; Deep Belly Beautiful; The Devil’s Sweet Water; The Hampton Years; Ira Aldridge: Love Brothers Serenade, Mad Breed and Our Man Beverly Snow. She has received commissions from Active Cultures Theater, Discovery Theater, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, Round House Theatre and Theater J. A 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color, she has been nominated for the Wendy Wasserstein Prize and a PONY Fellowship from the Lark New Play Development Center. She resides in Washington DC and is a member of Arena Stage’s Playwrights’ Arena. jacquelinelawton.com

3 years and $300,000 and I’ll fix it, for realz…

Alright, enough moping.

So remember how I said that the tough thing about talking about the issue of gender parity, the problem, wasn’t intentions, but a lack of culpability for outcomes.

In other words, how do you get people to not just think about doing the right thing but actually motivate them to do it?

Guess what?

Yesterday, I figured it out.

You just need some money.

You need a funding program that has nothing to do with intentions, because we all have the best intentions. What you need is a reward system that is entirely based on outcomes.

So.

Without further ado, I give you:

SWIM PONY MASSIVELY OVERHAULS THE STATE OF WOMEN ARTISTS IN THREE YEARS AND WHO KNEW IT WOULD BE THIS FLIPPIN EASY GRANT PROGRAM

Also known as:

AWESOME LADIES GETTIN’ WHAT’S DUE (ALGWD for short)

(With support from Pew Charitable Trusts

Or maybe William Penn

Or maybe The Wyncote Foundation

Or The Knight Foundation

Really who cares, someone has to fund this, right?)

Here are my proposed guidelines:

1) The ALGWD team announces to the Philadelphia-area theater community that starting next season any company, of any size, with access to their own non-profit status or a fiscal sponsor is eligible for an award at the end of a three year period.

2) The funding awards will be made in two categories:

$25,000 will be awarded to 5 companies with the highest percentage of women artists represented across three artistic categories (see below).
Any company that achieves 45% female representation across all three categories is eligible to receive $10,000.
PS – You have to hit the minimum in all three. No exceptions.

3) Female artists represented will be calculated based on a statistics over three categories:

Number of women playwrights
Number of women directors
Number of women actors

4) Other rules and guidelines:

Companies will submit their statistics and then have them validated by the grant committee in order to be eligible.
The statistics must include all artistic output by a company.
Artistic outputs included must be open to the public.
A company must meet a minimum of three public works to be eligible for consideration.
Funds are string-free. You can use them for whatever you want.

5) And maybe we could also add this as a bonus:

A $1,000 in additional funds are available for any company that can also show an equal parity across all categories of theatrical design regardless of whether they reach the above minimums.

This means for three years there’s a looming pile of cash incentivizing the choice to bring women artists in. It’s not the only consideration, but it’s enough to help counteract a tiny bit of that un-intentional push away from a female artists in the other direction.

And happily, unlike calling someone out or making a stink, this grant doesn’t hurt anyone who decides they can’t or won’t be able to meet the gender equality minimum. You can do all the dude heavy, dude written, dude directed plays you want. It just means you’re missing out on the free money party.

Of the 12 companies I surveyed numbers on last year, a few were pretty darn close – Flashpoint, Simpatico and Azuka – but not one would have hit this minimum requirement across all three categories. But if there were $10,000 at stake, how much do you want to bet they’d tweak their selections just a tiny bit to nudge them over the line? If the next time the AD’s of these companies looked at their numbers and knew that hiring one more female director got them $10,000 do you think they’d think as hard about whether or not to do it? Do you think that the choice between a female playwright and a male one would be quite so agonizing if one picking the former meant they might be one of those companies competing for the top 5 slot?

For most companies, $25,000 or $10,000 in funds that aren’t project ear-marked would make a huge difference. That’s an entire person’s salary in some cases. That’s the budget for an entire show for the really small ones. And even if you’re a bigger dog, one where the scale you’re operating on won’t be totally transformed by this kind of cash, think about how hard you chase donors on this scale. You could just do the work you’re already doing AND save women artists from inequity while getting money handed to you.

The way I see it there are something on the order of 30 – 40 companies in Philly and the surrounding areas who’d be eligible. If I had to guess, right now, there are probably only a handful – 5 maybe – that potentially meet those guidelines already. From rough estimation it seems like about half those companies could probably hit those numbers with just a bit of effort to add a few female directors or playwrights or plays with more female roles. If I were a betting woman, I’d guess the same half of those 30 – 40 would come out the other side of three years with hands outstretched for their $10,000.

Think about the impact that would make in this community:

5 companies at the top x $25,000 = $125,000
~16 more companies at the minimum x $10,000 = $160,000
~15 that also hit the design minimum x $1,000 = $15,000

That’s $300,000.

This is really not that much money.

Think about that Philly funders… For a single upper limit Pew organizational project grant:

You could have an incredibly concrete means to measure the impact of your efforts by surveying the stats on gender before the award period and after.
You could incentivize not promises or discussions but measurable, quantifiable outcomes.
You could reward those companies already employing positive gender parity practices.
You could send a message that your organization cares deeply about the status of women artists and is able to take steps to do something about it.
You could create an art-making environment in Philadelphia that can be nationally recognized as the most female friendly in the country.
You could massively shift everything about the way this city works for women artists.

No hemming or hawing. No yelling or fighting. No pipelining. No apologies for what we intended to do but couldn’t quite make happen. Just three years to make it happen or not.

Some folks will ask you for a whole new system and ten years or more to implement it.

I’m just asking for three years and $300,000.

Let’s do it now Philly before some other city snatches up our good idea.

– Adrienne

PS – Shout out to Brad Wrenn who dreamed this up in the car with me when I was having a shitty morning yesterday.

The Means To Manifesto

Hey all,

After a couple of mammoth posts past, and a few I’m working on to come, I’m keeping things short and sweet today, if still terribly important.

Instead of sending tons of my thoughts out to you all, I’d like you to send me your thoughts so that I can compile them in time to undertake a task for the next Awesome Lady Squad meeting.

Here’s our first official creation mission: A re-framing of how we look at each other as female artists. Replacing the model of scarcity and competition to a model of abundance.

In other words? An Awesome Lady Lady-festo.

I want to create a code of ethics for how the Awesome Lady Squad will function. This document should contain clear and simple guidelines that underpin the way Awesome Lady Squad members promise to work with each other and the world around them. It is an agreement that details the ways we can model the behavior we want to see around us.

So you tell me: what does it mean to be an Awesome Lady creator? How do we define what kinds of working models we want to hold up?

Think specific, think concrete, and ideally concise.

Throw thoughts in the comments or on facebook or by email (swimponypa@gmail.com). I’ll be compiling and setting up a committee for this soon.

– A

PS – for some initial inspiration look to the Core Principles of Artist U

The more (of us) you know…

When you really start looking for something you start see it everywhere.

This is how I’ve been feeling the past few days as I draw my attention fully focused onto the topic of gender parity in the arts.

When you really start looking for something you start seeing it everywhere.

I’ve had more substantive conversations and been struck by more observations about this in the last 48 hours than I probably have in the last 48 days. And that’s really saying something, because I think about this a lot. But what’s most interesting and exciting? I’ve also felt freer and more invested in really trying to articulate the difficult honest version of my thoughts. I haven’t dumbed it down. I haven’t tempered my real feelings for the sake of the easier chit-chat. I’ve really tried to say what I believe and then listen back in a way that is open, non-presumptive and curious.

I want to try and capture some of those observations and conversations. I feel like talking in generalities gets us only so far. I really want to share and discuss real world examples here in Philly and figure out how we as a community feel about particular choices. I think this is the best way to really get into the meat of the matter. But I am also cognizant that part of creating safe space is making sure people don’t feel like they might say something to me and then see it online without having been consulted or that I’m putting really specific thoughts about their company in the public eye without being invited to the table.

So I’m gonna work a bit on those writings and I’m going to send them to the people they are in reference to, and my hope is that those folks will not only consent for me to share my thoughts, but possibly get in on the action.

So for today, instead, I’m going to start with what I know: female directors.

One of the things I catalogued last year was the number of women directing for companies in Philly. Female actresses and playwrights didn’t have it easy, but female directors (most especially at larger sized companies) had a rough go of it, especially if you factor out directors who occupy multiple directing slots in a season.

Part of the problem, I think, is a chicken and egg syndrome. More guys are directing which reinforces the idea of the pool of directors being more guy heavy generally and so when AD’s think about bringing in outside directors their first instinct is likely one of the people already visibly working.

Elissa Goethschius started an awesome thing on her website in which she literally just catalogs names of female directors. There is no plug or assessment of each particular person, just a list that shows the sheer size of the population that a person in a position of choice might choose from.

So in that vein I’d like to put out into the Philly arts ether a list, as comprehensive as I can muster of female directors/lead artist types (cause sometimes that distinction is fuzzy) who are working in theater (though again that line gets blurry) that I know of who you might consider to direct the next time you’re considering…

Abigail Adams

Krista Apple

Gedney Barclay

Samantha Bellomo

Suzana Berger

Deb Block

Cara Blouin

Carly Bodnar

Tina Brock

Karen DiLossi

Anne Marie Cammarato

Liz Carlson

Jen Childs

Candace Cihocki

Jess Conda

Ginger Dayle

Emmanuel Delpech

Amber Emory

Lisa Jo Epstein

Lee Etzold

Rebecca May Flowers

Charlotte Ford

Kate Galvin

Allison Garrett

Tamanya Garza

Arianna Gass

Brenna Geffers

Anisa George

Karen Getz

Amanda Grove

Jill Harrison

Allison Heishman

Jenna Horton

Candra Kennedy

Maura Krause

Kathyrn MacMillan

Manon Manavit

Deb Marcucci

Sarah Mitteldorf

Maria Möller

Sebastienne Mundheim

Gigi Naglak

Charlotte Northeast

Megan O’Brien

Erlina Ortiz

Malika Oyetimein

Michelle Pauls

Lizzy Pecora

Martina Plag

Harriet Power

Nora Quinn

Erin Reilly

Gwen Rooker

Jen Rose

Sarah Sanford

Chelsea Sanz

Rebecca Schaffer

Jessica Schwartz

Joanna Settle

Micki Sharpe

Catharine Slusar

Amy Smith

Eva Steinmetz

Elizabeth Stevens

Sam Tower

Meg Trelease

Mary Tuomanen

Daniella Vinitski

Meghann Willians

Becky Wright

Blanka Zizka

And of course me, Adrienne Mackey.

That’s it for today.

PS – I know there are more. Let me know and I’ll update. Also, I’ve only included in town folks for now, though I know there are many who work in Philly but may not permanently reside here.

Talking about talking

So I’ve been thinking a lot in the hours since my last post about how to have this conversation.

I’ve been thinking about how we can best begin to discuss issues of unequal representation in a way that both is honest and straightforward and is also productive and provokes dialogue instead of defensiveness?

In other words, I want to start by talking about how we talk about this.

I find it easy to provoke and push when the target seems large and imposing. I find strength in feeling myself becoming a David in the face of a Goliath. My guess, without having been there, is that this was the awesome power of what happened at #thesummit. It was a moment where the folks on the stage, the ones with some degree of sway and power and perhaps a degree of unknowing complacency, had to take in the might of opinion and feeling of the voices sitting on the other side.

But in a business as tiny as this, in a community where community is key, when networking and positive relationships determine your ability to get a job or a grant next week, month or year, it is easy in the micro-moments of inequity to excuse the tiny things. Too often any one moment or choice or thought seems isolated or small enough to swallow. And as the distance between we and the “giants” gets smaller, the harder it is to see them as the Goliaths they once were. Little things amass because it’s sometimes hard to know what is and isn’t a battleground.

And let’s also point out that these are really hard conversations to have.

Because so often I see an cry to battle dissolve when it has to translate into the daily implementation of such ideas on the nitty gritty detail level. Based on the conversation in our few meetings of the Awesome Lady Squad I hear female artists find the balance of when and how and where to try and bring these issues up the biggest barrier to change. “Do I really want to make this tiny line or scene or interaction a soapbox?” “Do I want to be that actress today, tomorrow, through this whole process.” “Am I really seeing this or am I being overly sensitive?”

It’s exhausting constantly trying to parsing it out in the moment.

And even if you are sure and you do know it’s an issue, it is so so so so so so so much more difficult to say things that are tricky and sticky to people we know and care about. It sucks to be a watchdog. To be a nag. To feel like you’re stopping everyone’s fun. To put people on their guard. It can feel like the opposite of the artistic impulse, where we want to feel open and accepting of each other. And I think it’s so hard because to have that conversation is also to acknowledge that the ills of our culture, the biases and darknesses that float around us all the time, also make their way into our brains. That we are sometimes making choices with little pushes from beliefs or stereotypes we’d never support if we said them out loud.

I wrote a while back about a study that showed how academic scientists displayed preferential treatment of men when filling a position for a lab manager.

In that post I explained how candidates in the study were never seen in person and scored based on identical applications save for the gendered first name of the potential employee. I underscored that this bias was shown in both men and women assessing the candidate. And I made a particular point of noting that none of the decision makers felt their choice had been affected by the applicant’s gender in any way. They all felt they were being totally gender objective in their assessments.

In other words, you can display bias and stigma and stereotype even when you don’t subscribe to them, EVEN when YOU are the negative recipient of them.

It is scary to think that stuff is in us. Even scarier to come to terms with the fact that it can affect our actions despite the best of our intentions. And when confronted with it, defense is natural. From the outside it seems ignorant and bigoted. But my guess is that the real cause is that no one wants to find in themselves dark things they didn’t ask to be in there. So sometimes it’s easier to believe they aren’t.

And it is here I want to point out the latent superpower we are missing: Yes, this is hard. Yes, It is tricky to talk David to David rather than David to Goliath. But. The closer we are, the more potential impact we are likely to have. The closer we are to them, the more likely we can get people to let that guard down. The closer we are to the offending source, the more likely we are to find a safe space to excise these demons with their hosts intact. And if we can win them to our side we grow our army of soldiers. The less it looks like a war and the more it looks like a conversion, I think the faster the battle will be over. If we have to kill them all, we may still do it, but I bet we lose much more time and resource and energy.

So I think we should begin with two assumptions, even if it may seem idealistic or naïve:

1) No one intentionally wants to make harmful choices to women artists.

2) Everyone imbibes some level cultural crap that will predispose him or her to doing so.

So when we look at the choices of a company, or another artist (or in our own work for that matter) and we see something that makes us feel squicky, our goal should be to remind them of #1 and help them see where they might be displaying the crap of #2 (pun by the way, totally intended).

To do that I think we start by asking these questions:

Is it conscious? – i.e. Does the person or company know and realize what they’re doing? Do they identify their behavior as a problem or are they truly unaware of it and its effect?

And

Is it conscionably contextualized? – i.e. Have they passively presented potential problematic material/decisions or have they taken steps (even if imperfectly) to justify them through dialogue or contextualization? In other words, do they balance a guy heavy Glengarry Glen Ross with another play with mostly female cast? Do they perform a problematic cannon text in context of a conversation series about historical representation of women in history to point out the potential in conflict with the morals we have today?

How we assess the answers to these questions will help set the stage for the modes through which we express our concerns and I think also help start to identify the solutions. And in tailoring it in this way, I think we get closer to coming to real understanding of what’s at play in each specific case. Because the devils really are in these details. And if we don’t treat all offenses alike, I think we’re likelier to find specific tailored solutions, likelier to find and commit the people who are ready and wanting to change but may not yet be brave enough or know how on their own to do so.

#thesummit

Look.

I am bad at twitter. I don’t tweet much or well. Call me twit-illiterate. It’s also been a heinously busy couple of weeks. Which is why it’s taken me a bit of time to catch up on #thesummit.

More than a few people have passed along thoughts about this. More than a few have asked my opinion. But I wanted to wait until I felt like I’d really read enough about it to have an informed opinion before responding. If you haven’t caught up check out this for an overview. And this for the much commented on tweets in-situ. And here’s the quote from Ryan Rilette quoted from the DC Theatre Scene article:

“It’s really hard, and here’s why it’s hard. I think it’s hard because there’s not enough in the pipeline right now. …There are a lot of new plays that are getting produced by small theatres that are by women.”

He went on to discuss how there are not enough plays by women produced in New York City and not enough in London (although he credited London with doing a great job), and said that a theatre needs something that’s going to help sell any play they put on. He said one can’t choose a total unknown, and that to find three plays a season by female playwrights would require them to have name recognition or something else to draw audiences, if one is not going to go the route of using star actors.

He said there are “not enough yet in the pipeline” and that “it’s gonna take a couple of years… a decade… before it’s going to shift, but it’s going to shift.”

A decade. Wow. I’ll be in my 40’s then.

That would be awfully… depressing to have to wait that long for more opportunities to arise. Probably depressing enough to just stop entirely. Something I see an awful lot of my female counterparts begin to contemplate around this age. It would be something I’d contemplate if I actually believed it would take that long. If I really thought my female peers had to wait around for these folks to use that whole decade’s worth of time to see some progress.

But I don’t buy this. And I also don’t feel like waiting.

Which is why what’s far more interesting to me, and what seems to have shifted this forum out of the standard and unremarkable bias women artists see and deal with all the time, is the final provocation of the night from Elissa Goetschius from Strand Theater that included a series of statistics:

At Signature, since the 2005 season, only 10 of 90 credited writers have been women, with women directing 2 of 54 productions.
Since Ford’s reopened after renovations, 2 out of 29 productions have been directed by women – the same woman.
At the Shakespeare Theatre, since opening the Harman in 2007, they have produced 51 shows – none of which have been written by a woman. 3 were adapted by women, and 9 were directed by women.
At Arena, since the 1998 season, 44% of productions have been directed by women. However, three women account for over half of those woman-directed productions, while 49 different men have directed here. The plays and lyrics that have appeared on Arena’s stages reflect the work of 110 men, but only 35 women.

When I read that and I thought, “Sounds familiar.”

I’m guessing, like myself, she’s been having this conversation for a long time. And as I went digging into her online presence I found this from March 2013.

I went back and checked my own blog for my statistics project on representation of women in Philly theaters. The dates of these posts? January 8th, 2013 AND February 7th, 2013 AND Febraury 8th, 2013.

Just about a year… Just about a year those facts have been out there. Hard numbers that do not lie about the state of the art we are in. Mine in Philly and Ms. Goetschius’ in DC. As a former student of chemistry, I really thought when I threw my info out there it would set something off in other people. But it’s been a year now and not enough is different. I still think numbers and data are useful; they are a tool to wield. But they are not, as it turns out, enough on their own. I admire Elissa Goetschius for going to #thesummit with numbers but I believe it is her fortitude to require their presence in the conversation that really started the firestorm.

Is it odd, do you find it strange, that within weeks of my post about gender parity in Philly theaters last year that another female director in another large America city was taking up another numerical compilation project in much the same way?

I do not think this is incidental. This means that it is clearly time to be having this conversation. I think it’s a sign we are gearing up for the real deal fight. I think it means the troops are gathering the tools we need to start taking this on. The numbers are a beginning. And now it’s time for all of us to make the response to them a necessity.

Elissa, if you happen to be reading this, I want you to know we are having this conversation in Philly too.

Like you, I am not waiting 10 years. I’ve already waited one, and not enough has changed.

So, like you, I’ve decided we’re having it now.

Which is why in honor of last March’s statistics project, I’m devoting this entire March’s blog to this issue. Every day a new article.

Every. Day. A few hours of time devoted to thoughts or actions to tackle this shit.

Cause it is shit.

Which why it stinks so badly.

You can expect more updates from The Awesome Lady Squad soon.

You can expect more thoughts about how we can critique and work with critics to change the way we frame women in theater to our audiences.

You can expect more observations about the myriad of ways we undercut women in subtle and unintentional ways.

You can expect more on what we can start doing NOW to make next year look different.

And hopefully by the end of March, by the time my 3/30 birthday rolls around, I’ll get a big fat present in the form of some actual movement and change.

I’m not giving it a year to start moving.

I’m giving it a month.

Are you ready?

I am.

– A

PS – Also worth reading is the fateful final question-er Elissa Goetschius’ thoughtful response and Brett Steven Abelman‘s as well.

Dispatches from the Awesome Lady Squad #4: On the topic what we’d like to see instead

Yesterday I reviewed the last meeting of the most Awesome-est of Lady Squads and I ended with a section called:

What we’d like to see instead

This section for me is key.

I believe in the power of talking and sharing and creating a sense of community in perspective. But I value even more the ability to take the power of that sense of community and perspective and identify problems and find awesome ways to solve them. Tackling the issues we identify, this is for me what elevates support into a sense of empowerment. It’s the thing that brings me back to my super lofty goal for us Awesome Ladies: To make Philadelphia a model city for how women work in the arts. Some part of that will be discussion of the problems we face. But I hope a much bigger part is piece by piece finding concrete projects to start tackling them.

And I find that the easiest way to get to that new place is to have a vision of what it might be. So in identifying how to best channel the building energy of the Awesome Lady Squad I started with a line from the “What we’d like to see instead” category and coupled it with a concrete projects to help start to accomplish it.

This is the list I came up with:

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– A re-framing of how we look at each other as female artists. Replacing the model of scarcity and competition to a model of abundance.

A project that could help us get there:

– Create a concise and clear code of ethics for how the Awesome Lady Squad. Inspired by the Core Principles of Artist U this document should contain clear and simple guidelines that underpin the way Awesome Lady Squad members promise to work with each other and the world around them. It is an agreement that details the ways we can model the behavior we want to see around us.

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– More models of women in roles of leadership and success in the arts. Seeing female artists successful in their practices. A commitment by established artists to identify and foster talent in emerging female art makers.

Two projects that could help us get there:

– Foster an Awesome Lady Squad Recruit! This could include: creating an survey for young artists to talk about interest areas that is then used to pair them with artists and administrators already working in the field, “Take an Emerging Lady to work day” in which young creators get to shadow women doing their awesome professional thing in action, and/or an “Ask the Lady Squad Anything” advice column in which new Squad members send their questions to the email list in search of advice.

– An Awesome Lady Arts Administrators caucus. Bring together women who already get to make choices about the work they make and produce (as self producers or as a member of a larger company) and talk about how they can use that leverage for positive gain.

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– Skills to handle tough conversations about gender parity. A way to talk about this that doesn’t become apologetic or defensive. Something to say when I sense people starting to roll their eyes.

– The ability to say no to a project that doesn’t conform to my moral code.

Three projects that could help us get there:

– A “manifesto” of the AwLaSq that details in a fuller form the believes and aims of its members. Defining your core principles specifically will help when you have to articulate them to others

– A workbook or simple writing project that helps codify and set bars for situations you will and won’t tolerate artistically that you can come back to when trying to decide if you want to take part in a new project.

– Conversation toolkits and practice. Just like a business negotiation, knowing that you’ve done this thing before is half the battle. This task force will identify such potentially sticky moments and help craft language and talking points that are clear and concise. It will also identify the potential counter arguments and possible responses. These “toolkits” could be downloadable online. We could also organize a session where people simulate these conversations with others coaching from the outside so that there is a low stakes situation to practice so they are more confident and comfortable in the moment.

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– Female directors, designers, administrators and actors represented in equal numbers.

A project that could help us get there:

– Create a symbol of Awesome Lady Approval for arts organizations that meet a certain minimum set of Awesome Lady requirements. Before minimum wage was mandated if you were an employer willing to pay a certain wage you could display a certain color flag. What if Philly had a stamp that you could put in your program, on your door, in your marketing material that indicated that your company had a commitment to women in the artistic community? Using this positive reinforcement, we could also find ways to make sure our audience bases understood what this symbol means and to help promote the theaters that make this commitment.

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– More awareness of the size and scope of the problem.

Two projects that could help us get there:

– Create an Awesome Lady Squad shirt. Make it something awesome that you will definitely want to share with the world. Then make a promise that any time you wear it and someone sees it and asks about it you stop and take a second to share a bit about the vision of the squad. Possible offshoots:

Use any proceeds to fund childcare at future Awesome Lady Squad events
Organize a city-wide Awesome Lady Squad “shirt-in” day to show the size and reach of all the awesome ladies that live and work here

– A marketing effort in conjunction with our other projects (like the gender report card or Awesome Lady approval symbol) to help reach not only fellow creative sector workers but audiences as a whole. Use the model of the DC based female playwright initiative to create powerful marketing leverage that makes it Awesome and sexy to be a part of the movement.

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– A genuine curiosity in discussions we have with people about these issues. Figuring out what’s really motivating the choices that undercut female artists and getting at them. Not assuming the worst of our peers even if they display behavior we don’t approve of.

A project that could help us get there:

– Create a “Gender Parity Report Card”:

Develop a set of standards as a Squad for what poor, mediocre and outstanding work at creating equal opportunity for Awesome Ladies looks like.
Gather measurable, concrete, data to evaluate artistic producers in Philly and then create an awesome and well-articulated assessment of that data we share with these companies along with an invitation for dialogue about the results.
The key here is to find out 1) if theaters know their own stats in this regard 2) if there are trends that might indicate a lack of opportunity for women if they are willing to dialogue about how and why such trends occur 3) if they are willing to make a commitment to change

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– A way to share these issues with my male colleagues. A means by which they can help support these issues when they see them.

A project that could help us get there:

– Bring together an Awesome Lady Squad support team: Set up a meeting that includes a discussion forum specifically for guys who think the Awesome Lady Squad is awesome. Talk about ways that they can become Awesome Lady Allies and strategize about means through which they can help. Give them some of the tools we offer the core members so that they can go and spread the Awesome word.

And finally:

The “What we’d like to see instead”

– Funding targeted for women that doesn’t carry a social change element.

– Non-traditional funding opportunities and alternate way to fund and produce work

– Subversion of some of the power systems that currently undercut the issues we’ve discussed. Starting a conversation on “this is the way that funding has worked” and “here’s how it might work in the future”

A project that could help us get there:

– An Awesome Lady Grants and Funding Task Force that:

Meets and discusses what might be problematic about certain kinds of funding structures
Strategizes about ways to approach funders about these concerns
Envisions and articulates the kinds of funding we would wish in Philadelphia for the future and shares this vision with the funding community
Works together to try and brainstorm and create alternatives to the current structures

These are what I envision as the first tangible steps towards seeing the “What we’d like to see instead.” And over the next year, they’ll be the ways the Lady Squad starts gathering energy and focus around all those things we discussed.

The next step is to figure out which of these takes our energy and focus first.

If you have thoughts about what should happen first, let me know.

If you have expertise in one of these areas and want to help out, let me know.

If you have a lot of passion about one of the items and want to get in on the ground floor, let me know.

If you don’t really care where we get started but are interested in helping to organize or send emails or type minutes or whatever just let me at it, let me know too.

And soon, let’s say in the next couple weeks, we’ll roll out the first phase of one or more of these…

Until then…

Dispatches from the Awesome Lady Squad, #2: In which the ladies plan to meet for a second time

I’ve been feeling lighter lately.

I’ve been walking around with just a bit more bounce in my step.

I’ve been feeling, well there’s just no other word for it, rather awesome indeed.

I believe I’ve been feeling that way because for the first time in a long time it seems like change is imminent. Over the past few years, I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about finding my place as an artist in the world. I’ve worried about whether I was doing the right thing. I’ve worried about whether a choice I made would get me on the right path. I’ve worried if I’d ever land in the place where I was supposed to be. But you know what? I think I’m finally, finally, finally, realizing that the whole idea that there is a right place, that there is one just path, that there’s even a standard of measurement that is anything close to absolute is a load of crap. And that realization is part of what I think is making me feel so awesome in particular about the Awesome Lady Squad.

After the last squadron meeting I felt the positive power of defining a new perspective. About refuting the idea that there is an absolute when it comes to what’s “normal or that there is a fixed set of disadvantages and that there are givens that stay given about the way that things work.

I thought about the way I run my theater company: as a hybrid artist somewhere between non-profit and individual who is able to make the kind of creative work that doesn’t fit easily into categories and still manage to pay my collaborators the same level as many mid-sized theaters in town. I’m pretty sure that if I’d asked my mentors first coming out of school if such a set up would be possible, they’d have all said no. My guess is that at that time they would have told me there wasn’t funding or structure or opportunity for such a different way of doing things.

At the time, there probably wasn’t an obvious route towards what I wanted.

Now, there is. But that’s only because I found it.

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2013 fretting about whether it’s possible to change how women are treated in the arts. And as one of the attendees from the last meeting said, it’s a feeling that has taken up a lot of space in my life. I’ve felt mad that things aren’t the way they should be. But at this moment, I’m a lot more interested in putting that energy towards actually getting them so they are.

Right now, the route to doing that isn’t obvious.

But after we do it, other cities can look to Philly and see that it was there all along.

The resolution I want you to join me on in 2014 is this: you have to know – not desire, not wish, not hope – but deep down truly know that there is a future world where the Awesome Lady Squad doesn’t need exist because we’ve solved all the problems we’ve identified. And we need to know that it’s going to become reality, and soon. Gathering people and realizing that you are not alone, that your perspective is one that is shared by many, that your view of the world need not be rage-inducing or isolating, that you can indeed find a space where every person around you also starts from the same set of ethical givens, this is the first step. It’s an important one. Because it’s the one where we all have to stop and say, hey, the things that I disagree with are actually NOT truth. They are NOT givens. Not in this room. Not right now.

And once we carve out a little bit of space to stake our the Awesome Lady Nation, we’ll be able to invite the rest of the world in as citizens. One by one, we’ll make them all denizens of our Awesome new world.

Charting that course is already underway and you can check out our first scouting mission here. On Sunday January 26^th from 7 – 9pm at the Arts Parlor (1170 S Broad) we walk just a little further down that road.

We’ll use the same format from last time, me asking some big questions, and you guys sharing your big answers. For a few hours in a few square feet of space we’ll create a world where people believe in equity and fairness and respect for female creators. And if we can make it true in a room at the Parlor for a few hours at a time, there MUST be a way to expand that perspective, that new sense of reality past that room and out into the world.

Hope to see you there.

An as always, thanks for being awesome.

– A

Dispatches from The Awesome Lady Squad: #1

At the start of 2014 I made a resolution to become a superhero.

I made a resolution to seek out and form a superhero-style team of bad-ass ladies who are art makers to help spread our art and bad-assery across the city of Philadelphia. I began forming a group that will henceforth be known as The Awesome Lady Squad.

Oh, excuse me. I meant to say:

First thing you ought to know: there are a lot of us.

I didn’t need to send out a bat signal. I only had to put up a single facebook post and a note on the blog. Almost as an afterthought. I thought I’d get a handful of people. A dozen if I was really lucky. Instead I found 40 people gathered with me last week for two hours to talk and share and start to plan. Clearly, there’s a need to be filled here.

Because from what I can tell, these awesome ladies are just the tip of the iceberg.

So here’s what we, the Awesome Ladies of the Awesome Lady Squad, did in our first gathering:

1) We put out a whole bunch more chairs (Because there were, you know, a lot of us).

2) I said hello. I said that I was excited (Because I really really was).

3) We went around and said our names and the kind of awesome stuff we make.

4) I shared a vision. It went something like this:

Hi, I am Adrienne.

And you are all awesome.

You are all awesome ladies.

I’ve been thinking a lot over the last year about what it means to be an awesome female artist and the rewards and challenges that come with that. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, in lots of different ways – through writing, through conversation with friends and colleagues, in the back of my brain as I do my work each day.

I think part of the reason I’ve been thinking about this so often is that one of the most powerful developments in my artistic life of last few years has been finding other women who make work. I’ve found women further along in their careers who have experience that inspires me. I’ve found brand new artists who come to the table with a whole new perspective that invigorates and uplifts me. And in meeting these creators, I’ve been craving a way to take all the interactions and thoughts and excitement generated with them individually, and collectivize that into something more power than any of us singularly might be able to achieve.

I believe in talking about problems and highlighting them. I’ve done a fair share of that over the last year. But even more, I want to assume that there are concrete things we can do, that with effort over time, can shift the problems we see into solutions. I believe very strongly in Philadelphia’s strength as an artistic community. I think we are different than most places in our support of each other as not only as creators but as human beings.

Which is why I’m inviting you to join me in a lofty goal: To make Philadelphia a model city. A model of the way we believe that female artists should be treated, a model for the kinds of work that’s possible when such awesome artists are allowed to access their full capacity, a model for how an imperfect situation can be shifted through collective effort and a will to do better.

What I want to do today is ask a series of questions that I hope will be useful in the future. I want to use your responses as a kind of divining rod for what work we should be doing. For what it’s worth, my assumption is that there is no such thing as a singularity of perspective. I think there is no such thing as “a” female creative voice. So it’s great if you share someone else’s experience. But I think it’s interesting and useful to hear a multitude of opinions even if they differ. We begin from a place of respect and support. So feel free to respond to a question however you want to, even if you are a minority voice. That’s the Awesome Lady Squad way.

And for today, you’d prefer to just listen, that’s cool too.

I think we ought to get started.

And then we moved onto the last part of the meeting:

5) We got down into the dirt and started digging.

The two-hour conversation that followed, it flowed, it morphed, and it moved all around. It was, I have to say, pretty damn awesome. These are the three main questions we talked about in the general order we tackled them:

i) What is your work?

Does being female affect you as an artist or creator? Does it change the kind of work you make or the way in which you make it? If applicable, has that shifted in any way over time?

ii) How do you get it made?

How you get your work into being? Does being a female artist differ from being a male one? What are the advantages or disadvantages? Are there things you crave or stuff you wish could be different? If applicable, has that changed in any way since you started your career?

iii) What should the future look like?

If money, time and other people’s attitudes were no barrier and the world could be exactly as you wish, what would be the working theater community look like? Try and answer as often as possible with “It would have –” or “It would be – ” versus “It wouldn’t –”

And these are some excerpts of what people shared, grouped roughly by my own intuitive categories:

Making it work in the current system or setting off on your own

– When I started working, I was auditioning in NYC with a million women and 5 men who all got cast. It was a constant feeling of, “God I hope there’s a part for me.” That was the model for a long time. But at some point I decided I wasn’t willing to sit and wait around for theaters to call me. That all changed when I started making my own work.

– I stay away from classic pieces. I don’t like the kinds of women in those stories. They aren’t familiar. They aren’t modern. They say things I don’t agree with. And yet, a lot of modern drama, I don’t see myself in either. I think this is why there are so many creator-slash-director-slash-performer-slash-I do everything people here. Because it’s an outlet. If I’m always going to be assigned this kind of play through the traditional spaces, I’ll just go make my own.

– It’s a real privilege to be able to make one’s own work, to self-produce and get space and money, etc. In addition to gender both race and socioeconomic status factor in. It can be shocking how segregated theater is.

– A few years ago I did this show that required me to bring myself to the work. It was a turning point in my life. Men have had a big voice for a long time. I see the context of this moment in this room, of women finding their voice. We are getting closer. The younger people in this room, I wish I had come out of college like you saying, “Yeah I can do whatever I want.” And it makes me hope this room may not be needed 20 years from now.

Juggling identities, finding one’s place in the artistic world

– There’s a catch 22 sometimes. The roles that are available are fewer, and they are more likely written poorly or as a stereotype. But if you protest how women are represented you’re not supporting the director’s vision. It’s actually a very patriarchal system by its nature. I want to work and it feels like I’m choosing between being seen or sticking to principles.

– I have kids and lots of life in addition to my identity as an artist. I have to juggle so much more compared to men. My sense is that unlike men I see who just say yes when opportunity arises, I have to “check” to see if there’s a conflict with others’ need for me. I’ve started embracing the doing of everything. And realizing I just need to say yes rather than check.

– I have been lucky in not getting cast by “regular” theaters. It’s meant I primarily have a resume of projects that are devised rooms full of women that are awesome and not “normal” roles. Go up for things that aren’t me, I always felt really strange at the auditions. That strangeness and otherness that kept me from getting parts became the work I’m now known for.

– As a young artist, I sign on for projects because I want to be doing. But I think I have to look at it and saying, do I really want to be doing this? Maybe I just can’t be a part of this. Ethically sticking to our guns will matter in the long run.

Strengths and challenges in being a female artist

– I notice that I’m often asked to be nurturing. I’ve never seen actors ask a male director ask for that. I’m not looking to be cruel, but I don’t want to be required to have a motherly element.

– I think it’s important to remind myself sometimes that I believe in listening and being attentive. That’s my strength as a creator. It took a long time not to feel bad about it.

– All of the working models were very male. Very auteur mindset. I get so tired of that word. But its useful to remember there are things that style can’t do. Collaborating, cooperating, being sensitive, working differently with different people, facilitate for collaboration. Those are artistic strengths. And I think we need a model that celebrates that.

– Collaboration that is very deep produces different art. It can solve problems in new ways. If you don’t have to worry about the desire to put a stamp on everything as “mine” you have room to find the actual best idea.

– Creating a warm and collaborative environment has demonstrably powerful effects. Collaborators have told me it’s an easier space to work in.

Habits, situations and problems that need to change

– I hate saying sorry. I hear sorry a lot. “I’m sorry can I ask this question?” “I’m sorry but have you noticed this?” I’m sorry but I think that maybe there’s another way to do this.” I hear myself making excuses before even start talking.

– I also can get mad about the fact that if I were a man I’d be working more. And when I see scripts that say shitty things about women I get mad that I can’t direct them. Because I want more work, but I also can’t do that play.

– This is the trouble with being a “mercenary” working on other people’s shows. Lately I feel like the representative woman in the room. I become acutely aware if I end up seeing something I disagree with. I only want to put my name on things that represent my ethics but I am young and don’t want to overstep bounds. I don’t want to “not work” because of this.

– I’ve been told that I didn’t have enough vision as a director. I think what’s actually going on is that I don’t articulate “vision” in this masculine way.

– I also don’t know why but I get worried if my work feels like a stereotype. If I explore gender in my art it feels like a stereotype. Why do I feel defensive about exploring genuine questions for myself?

– It’s tricky to try and start these conversations. I don’t want to punish people who don’t realize what they’re doing but it’s tiring. It feels like I’m doing calculus on this issue and they’re doing arithmetic. At a certain point it’s hard to be impressed that they can add simple numbers.

Getting the support to get your work made

– A huge aspect of this also comes into play with the funding community. Often you’re forced into writing about your work in male language. Can we talk to the funding community about how the way their language is gendered? The most insidious glass ceilings are in the semantics of that language itself.

– I dealt with a funder who just didn’t think the work I did qualified me as an artist. And I had to realize they don’t hate me, they literally just don’t understand. That took an enormous amount of energy and engendered a world of anger in my life. I am tired of feeling like all the dudes get opportunities. I am tired of thinking “This is no fucking fair.” I don’t want that rage to take up all that space in me.

– It’s also important to stop seeing status that doesn’t matter to you. It’s easy to get caught in what other people tell you are important. How can you say no to this thing that other people would kill for? I’ll tell you how, because I don’t value it.

– The funders, the presenters, they need to change. We also need more women in these roles and need to become aware. Eventually they have to die. But we also have to get into positions where we can make them change the system.

And finally, we ended the conversation by starting a list of things we’d love to see, things that might be a good place to start if we’re trying to make an awesome future:

– I wish Philly had a grant for women that was not linked with social change

– I want to see equal genders represented in directors, actors, plays, etc.

– I’d like a world where we stand up for each other.

– I want more resource sharing – of space, info, etc

– I want more women becoming the new gate keepers of festivals, funding, etc

– I’ve never seen a woman direct, never assisted, etc. I want to see that.

– I want funded apprenticeship with younger artists with older female artists.

– I want to offer and accept opportunities, not just wait for things to come to me, but actively give whatever I can to folks coming down the pike.

So.

What comes next?

First thing: another meeting. This will either be Sunday 1/26 or Monday 1/27 in the evening with the same format as meeting #1 to give 9 – 5ers that couldn’t get to the first one a chance to share their thoughts too.

And then?

Well, I’m going to think long and hard about how to take these awesome thoughts and feelings and translate them into a setting where we can start to take action. This is really where I think the Awesome Lady Squad really will become a superpower. I know that we are capable of changing some of the problems we see and my hope is to come up with a plan for how to do that. If you have ideas, feel free to send them along!

That’s it for now.

Oh, and thanks for being awesome.

– A

Resolution for 2014: Form the Awesome Lady Squad

Happiest in the new year Swim Pony friends.

Can I share some stuff I realized in 2013?

I spent a ton of time this fall teaching. In so doing I realized I’ve been rather taken with many of the young women that I’ve worked with.

I also met a bunch of young female artists who are trying to get their feet wet in the Philly scene. In doing so I realized that I wanted them to get their artistic voices out there and that it’s possible I could make that easier.

And as you likely know if you’ve landed here, I’ve been writing over the past year about women in theater and what I see happening and how it’s been making me feel and think.

And the previous two combined with this last thing has brought me to reflect in this, a newly formed 2014, back on my own early career. It occurred to me that all of my mentors were men. That one of the things that it took me a really long time to find was other female art makers a bit further along in their career. That it wasn’t until I made a show that was an explicitly all female undertaking that I really felt like I’d found a cadre of female voices to share the female art-making experience with. It made me think about the fact that while I appreciate the necessity of talking and discussing and highlighting inequity, I’m really most interesting in figuring out how to actually do something about it.

Many of you who read this blog have had smart insightful things to say. And in writing so much lately about women in the arts I’ve wanted a way to pool thinking about this topic, especially with those just coming into the field.

I don’t know what form yet this will take – drop in sessions where young female creators can meet and ask questions, round tables on topics that I’ve been discussing, a small talk from a female artist each month or all of the above – but it feels like something on the once a month scale would be a project I’d be interested in and have the life space for.

So as a resolution for the new year, I’m starting by collecting some female folks on Tuesday Jan 7th at 10am at the Arts Parlor (1170 S Broad) from a variety of career stages, to ask what they wish they’d had then or what they wish they could have now as a female artist, things they’d like to see different and what might be useful to explore in an open source format. So feel free to pass this along to folks of any variety of career stage, I’m interested in getting a variety of perspective. I’d especially love to get any students, young creators, newer female artists, to hear their perspectives on entering the artistic workforce now.

Y’all know I slant towards the generative side of the arts but I’m interested in a solving a variety of problems, so come with whatever you want to talk about.

If you’re interested and want in, come, and if you can hit me up first so I have a sense for numbers: swimponypa@gmail.com

If you can’t come, but want to throw a few cents in, post your thoughts below on topics for this or future discussions…

I’ll be in touch about this again soon.

Thanks,
A