Do new plays have better parity than classics?
- Women wrote 5 out of 100 of the shows counted from prior to 1960.
- Women wrote 4 out of 10 of the shows counted from between 1960 and 2018.
- Women wrote 4 out of 10 of the shows counted from between 2000 and 2018.
Though an answer to this question seems obvious to many, the reason to ask it is because many folks I’ve talked to, especially those who work mostly with new plays, are very eager to blame ‘the canon’ of classic plays for the lack of gender parity.
And while the shows from prior to 1960 (the ‘Classic’ group) feature only 7 female playwrights total, which does drag overall numbers down, when we look at plays written from 1960 to present (the ‘Modern’ group), we are still at a 60/40 split favoring male writers.
Women wrote 5 out of 100 of the shows counted from prior to 1960. The 7 female writers & shows in the Classic group are: Lillian Hellman (Watch on the Rhine) Aphra Behn (The Rover), Agatha Christie (The Mousetrap), lyrics writers Betty Green and Carolyn Leigh, part of a 6 person writer team (Peter Pan) , and Dorothy Fields, book writer on a 3 person team (Something for the Boys). I think it’s also significant to note that two of the productions counted here (The Rover & The Mousetrap) were both part of a season of women playwrights at Shotgun Players. Lillian Hellman was also one of the lone classic womens’ voices in 2015’s Not Even.
Women wrote 4 out of 10 of the shows counted from between 1960 and 2018. While there is a nearly ten-fold increase in the number of women playwrights produced in the modern group, this group still falls short of parity.
| Women | Men | Trans | |
| Classic Shows (Pre 1960) 101 shows |
5% 7 playwrights |
95% 131 playwrights |
0% 0 playwrights |
| Modern Shows (1960-2018) 500 shows |
39% 293 playwrights |
59% 464 playwrights |
<1% 4 playwrights |
Table 4: Classic and Modern Shows
How about slicing the set of plays even further and just looking at plays that are written since 2000 (the ‘Millenial’ group)? Unfortunately, there are no representation changes.
The Modern and Millenial sets both have 4 of 10 shows written by women playwrights.
| Women | Men | Trans | |
| Millennial Shows (2000-2018) 420 shows |
42% 271 playwrights |
58% 369 playwrights |
1% 4 playwrights |
Table 5: Millennial Shows
How does this data compare to the Not Even data set?
Women playwrights have slightly better representation in all three time periods. If we compare the data of these Classic, Modern and Millenial sets to the Not Even data, female playwrights have moved up a very slight percentage in all 3 groups.