Only 1 in 5 Plays Written by Women This Season — Down from Last Year | Playbill

News Only 1 in 5 Plays Written by Women This Season — Down from Last Year Following last week's announcement of the Top Ten Most-Produced Plays of the 2015-16 Season, American Theatre Magazine has released the metrics of the gender of playwrights for the upcoming season. The results show that 21 percent of plays are written by female playwrights, 67 percent by male authors and 12 percent are co-written.

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:

Paula Vogel On Her New Play Indecent, Historic Controversy and the "Beautiful Love Story of Two Women"

What It Means to "Transform" — This Transgender Actress Is Telling Her Story (Through Song and Theatre)

A Woman’s World: Hamilton’s Leading Ladies, The Schuyler Sisters, on Being the Kardashians of the 1700s

Will Audiences Accept an Ugly Woman? Mamie Gummer and Women of Ugly Lies the Bone Search For the Answer

Jennifer Hudson, Cynthia Erivo and Danielle Brooks on Debuting in Color Purple — "I Didn't Think There Was Any Question" 

 
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