To Accomplish A Less Sexist Theatre World, Start With Gender Parity In Theatre Classrooms

The problem isn’t just Shakespeare; it’s also Chekhov – and Arthur Miller, all three of whom dominate English-language theatre training and thus the classroom, and it’s partially why so many women majoring or doing grad work in performance get to act much less often than their male counterparts. “The coexistence of these phenomena — the paucity of plays by women in the classroom and the narrow selection of roles for women in production — begs the exploration of a connection. Are members of an artistic community less likely to put gender parity onstage if it is not presented to them offstage as artistically valuable?”