The results are down for female playwrights in comparison to last year season's numbers from AT, in which women made up 24 percent of the plays being produced. Female authors penned 407 productions slated in the upcoming season, while male authors were behind 1,281 productions.
Any work that was written by multiple authors and crossed genders, was considered "co-written" and under a third category of gender.
The publication counted each production in two categories: gender and era (new play, revival or classic, which pre-dated 1964). There was a total of 1,914 productions at 363 theatres nationwide, and to be eligible, productions need to be running between Sept. 1, 2015-Aug. 31, 2016, with a minimum of a week's worth of performances.
In the upcoming season, 64 Percent of productions are new plays (1,227), 18 percent are revivals (343), 13 percent are classics and 5 percent are hybrids, which includes adaptations or translations. View the full results online here.
The statistics released by American Theatre Magazine bring to mind "The Count" released this summer by the Dramatists Guild of America and the Lilly Awards, which found that female-written work made up just 22 percent of the plays being produced in the U.S. "It’s not anyone’s feeling that women are underrepresented...It’s a fact; it’s in the numbers," commented playwright Lisa Kron at the Dramatist Guild of America conference in July. Read more articles about women in theatre on Playbill.com:
Jennifer Hudson, Cynthia Erivo and Danielle Brooks on Debuting in Color Purple — "I Didn't Think There Was Any Question"
