Women and theatre program

Vice President and Pre-Conference Planner. Immediate Past President. Instructor, Indiana State University. Conference Co-Planner. Lecturer in Theatre, Boston College. Assistant Professor of Arts Administration,. Oklahoma State University. Jane Chambers Coordinator. Associate Professor of Theatre, Georgetown University. Student Jane Chambers Coordinator.

And if you seek the convenience and flexibility of online learning, a unique hybrid program established in is one of only a few in the nation allowing students to earn a Master of Arts in Theatre degree almost entirely online. As a TWU theatre student, you will be encouraged to team up with your peers and engage in community service through membership in Alpha Psi Omega , an honorary theatre fraternity on campus.

Among their projects, fraternity members help with fundraising for department scholarships and work on an annual holiday gift drive for local families in need. Over the summer, you can learn on the job and network with professionals in your field while completing an apprenticeship or internship with a local theater company. Because TWU has a strong relationship with the local arts community, our students find work at prestigious venues in Denton, Dallas and Fort Worth.

The theatre, thus far, has had no organization willing to commit resources to provide the kind of ongoing quantitative analysis of gender differences that Catalyst has provided for women in businessor various law schools have provided for women in law. Until we have more comprehensive data, our picture of employment in theatre will be incomplete and means of identifying discrimination limited. Challenges The W. Playwrights Neena Beber and Tina Howe remembered being pressured to write plays from a male point of view, because they were more commercially viable.

Panelists observed that men and women tend to identify with men. As Carole Rothman noted, even television cartoons are created with the expectation that girls will identify with male characters, but not the other way around. The gender of the author also provokes assumptions and generalizations about the nature and universality of the work.

We produce plays by women. Bernfield contended that while the work of women is marginalized within most large theatres, theatres that exclusively produce plays by women are marginalized wholesale. The gender of the playwright even informs expectations about the form of the play, and the skill of the playwright.

Furthermore, when form is indeed experimental or unconventional, plays are evaluated differently by critics according to the gender of the author. But the relationship between gender and judgment about quality runs deep. White men. But what about the selection process among women? Unless men and women become conscious of these assumptions, and make a conscious decision to achieve parity, they will automatically prefer men-even in fields where women predominate.

Valian used a model to demonstrate the repercussions of even slightly preferential treatment. This might help to explain why women, though often trained in equal numbers with men at the most prestigious theatre training programs, and though they receive a majority of honors as emerging artists, are nonetheless usually outpaced down the line by their male counterparts. The disadvantage of women, however slight, accumulates until there is an unbridgeable gap in competitiveness.

If, for all the reasons outlined, plays by women are deemed less commercially viable, then an additional significant factor intensifies the effects of assumption. They also depend more heavily on consumer guidance from mainstream reviewers-almost exclusively male—Linda Winer reminded participants that after twenty years on the job, she is the sole female first-string reviewer at a daily newspaper. And risk, once the very rationale of the non-commercial Off-Broadway and regional theatre, is now to be avoided rather than embraced.

The predominantly white male elders are safe bets. For good and ill, women tend to operate outside the mainstream. Mailing list Sign up to get the latest information and updates from MTC. Login Donate. Applications for are now closed.