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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop mom? Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House top works dot com. Hello and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. We

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Speaker 1: have said this before, We say it to ourselves all

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Speaker 1: the time. We have the best listeners in the world.

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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I know, from the emails you write us,

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Speaker 1: to the funny and awesome things you guys post on Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and even the mean emails, well those are my least favorite.

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Speaker 1: But by and large, we have awesome listeners who help

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Speaker 1: us put together great podcasts. And a while back on Facebook,

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Speaker 1: I put off the call what are some ideas people

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Speaker 1: have for the for the podcast because it saves us

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Speaker 1: some work, honestly true, and our listener Karen suggested female

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Speaker 1: playwrights and disparities between men and women in the theater world,

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Speaker 1: the theata, and it became all the more pressing to

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Speaker 1: do this podcast that very same week when there was

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Speaker 1: a shake up. I mean, these people are dramatic, but

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Speaker 1: even for dramatic people, this was a This was a

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Speaker 1: world change. I think that you're referring to the walser

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Speaker 1: Stein Prize Kerfuffle. It's the title of my next play.

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Speaker 1: I won't be a good play. I think because yeah,

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Speaker 1: you read, you read some blogs this, some theater blogs

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Speaker 1: about this, and people are up in arms and and

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Speaker 1: even not knowing that much about theater in New York City,

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Speaker 1: I think this is pretty pretty disturbing. The Theater Development

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Speaker 1: Fund has ordered the walser Stein Prize to female playwrights

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Speaker 1: who are under the age of thirty two who have

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Speaker 1: not yet received national attention for their work, and it

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Speaker 1: gives them twenty five thou dollars to ease financial pressure

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Speaker 1: so that they can focus on their work in the

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Speaker 1: hopes of producing a show that will receive that national attention.

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Speaker 1: Not a bad prize, that's an excellent prize. Isn't a

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Speaker 1: sneeze A And this year, after giving out this award

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Speaker 1: for three years, this year they said, you know what,

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Speaker 1: we have all these nominations, but several dozen nominations, but

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Speaker 1: no one's no one's good enough. Yeah, we're just gonna

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Speaker 1: take a bye. This year they are not awarding a

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Speaker 1: prize to any of it. And of nineteen nominees. We

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Speaker 1: were reading about this and someone likened it to the Oscars.

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Speaker 1: Every year there's the best picture, even if the selections

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Speaker 1: are not that stellar, someone always takes home an oscar, right,

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Speaker 1: And you know, some people were like, well, they don't

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Speaker 1: always give a Pulitzer if there's not an artistic work

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Speaker 1: that deserves a Pulitzer. But it's hard to think of

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Speaker 1: any prize that's offered annually other than that that's ever

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Speaker 1: been revoked. And I'm sure you guys out there can

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Speaker 1: think of them. But the fact that this one was revoked,

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Speaker 1: and it's so significant for a young writer, specifically a

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Speaker 1: female writer, that I really thought it deserved our attention.

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Speaker 1: And this decision got so much attention that just a

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Speaker 1: week later, the group said, oh, you know what, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll consider we'll consider them again. We'll do it, we'll

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Speaker 1: take a we'll take them on too, we'll do a

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Speaker 1: do over. Well, we'll consider giving it out, but we're gonna,

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Speaker 1: you know, ask the non needs for more plays. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna you know, maybe maybe change some criteria. And they

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Speaker 1: were kind of shadowy about it, but it was kind

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Speaker 1: of interesting that the petitioning and the outcry it caused

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Speaker 1: in the theater world is causing these people to reconsider

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Speaker 1: their decision to not give the price, but also perhaps

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Speaker 1: reconsider the state of the female play right in today's world.

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Speaker 1: And I think one of the main reasons why people

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Speaker 1: were so within the theater community were so enraged over

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Speaker 1: the possibility that the wasser Scen price would not be

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Speaker 1: given out was because there has been this struggle for

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Speaker 1: years now and this uh conversation going on about why

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Speaker 1: female play rights are not getting more attention. We've talked

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Speaker 1: about the struggle of female directors, female chefs, certain industries

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Speaker 1: that are typically dominated by men, and female playwrights haven't

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Speaker 1: really pretty bad well. And also when you consider that

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Speaker 1: that some of these theater companies have the mission of

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Speaker 1: bringing a really diverse group of voices to the stage,

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Speaker 1: and some of these theaters are publicly funded, and uh

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Speaker 1: so it becomes this issue of why aren't they bringing

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Speaker 1: women voices to the stage if they have this mission

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Speaker 1: to you know, show bad a broad swath of humanity,

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Speaker 1: right and to underscore just what this means to some

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Speaker 1: of the people in in the theater community and especially

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Speaker 1: in New York, who were completely outraged by this. The

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Speaker 1: playwright Michael Lou who penned Roanoke wrote a letter to

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Speaker 1: protest of the decision to not give out the Washersteaon Prize,

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Speaker 1: and he said, this decision can only be interpreted as

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Speaker 1: a blanket indictment on the quality of female emerging writers

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Speaker 1: in their work, and it is insulting not only to

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Speaker 1: the finalists, but also to the many theater professionals who

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Speaker 1: nominated these writers and deemed their plays prizeworthy. This decision

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Speaker 1: perpetuates the pattern of gender bias. Outline and Julia Jordan

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Speaker 1: and Emily Glassberg sands study on women in the theater,

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Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a minute, and the message

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Speaker 1: it sends to the theater community generally that there aren't

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Speaker 1: any young female playwrights worth investigating. That's a lot, Mr

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Speaker 1: Lou And I think that his, uh, that prominent letter

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Speaker 1: maybe why there's a do over. Yeah, I mean, because

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Speaker 1: it really does kind of sum up this conversation that,

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Speaker 1: like we said, has been going on now for a while,

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Speaker 1: and the struggle of these young playwrights to try to

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Speaker 1: figure out why it is harder for female playwrights, why

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Speaker 1: their plays are not being produced and uh what what

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Speaker 1: kind of factors are going into this where this gender

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Speaker 1: bias or at least alleged gender bias is coming from Well,

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Speaker 1: you mentioned the name Julia Jordan Kristen. Let's so let's

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Speaker 1: start with her work. She is a playwright herself and

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Speaker 1: a few years ago she started organizing these town halls

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Speaker 1: between female playwrights and prominent theater professionals, the artistic directors

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Speaker 1: who make that decision to put on a play. Uh,

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Speaker 1: people who might be able to get more female written

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Speaker 1: plays produced. And some of the numbers she threw out

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Speaker 1: in one of her town hall was that thirty years ago,

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Speaker 1: this is in two thousand eight, seven percent of the

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Speaker 1: plays on national non profit stages were written by women,

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Speaker 1: and that currently that number is around seventeen. So she's like,

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Speaker 1: if this continues, we will finally be a female written

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Speaker 1: plays on the stage in a hundred years. Oh wow.

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Speaker 1: So then the question becomes are women not writing plays?

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Speaker 1: Are women not writing good plays? And if they are,

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Speaker 1: are we not putting them on? And she says, by

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Speaker 1: every measure that you can take into account to figure

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Speaker 1: out if women are pursuing playwriting, it appears they are.

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Speaker 1: They're getting graduate degrees, they're taking fellowships, they'll win awards,

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Speaker 1: but they can't get those plays on the stage. So

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Speaker 1: it's it's not a level of she says, lack of,

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Speaker 1: lack of quantity. Yeah. And the interesting thing too, is

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Speaker 1: that at theater festivals around the United States, out particularly

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Speaker 1: outside of New York. Uh, these festivals, including um, those

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Speaker 1: that Humana and Louisville and the Eugene O'Neil fear Center

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Speaker 1: in Waterford, Connecticut, are dominated by women's It's not that

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Speaker 1: women are completely inactive within the theater community. It's not

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Speaker 1: like they aren't producing works, but there does seem to

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Speaker 1: be especially when we're talking about New York, when we're

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Speaker 1: talking about off Broadway and especially on Broadway. UM. I

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Speaker 1: think Julia Julia Jordan's tossed out the statistic that their

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Speaker 1: male counterparts in the two thousand and eighteen thousand ninth

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Speaker 1: season were produced at fourteen of the largest off Way

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Speaker 1: off Broadway institutions at four times the rate that women

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Speaker 1: were being produced. So then the question becomes, if women

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Speaker 1: produce these plays, they're doing fine in these little festivals,

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Speaker 1: if they're doing fine outside of New York City, are

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Speaker 1: they just not trying hard enough in New York And

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Speaker 1: she goes to the agents. The agents say no, women,

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Speaker 1: women submit their work just as much. Um. And then

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Speaker 1: the question becomes, well, maybe it's the ticket buyers, Maybe

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Speaker 1: they don't want to see plays written by women, But

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Speaker 1: women make up the bulk according to research of Broadway

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Speaker 1: and off Broadway ticket purchasers and the top two most

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Speaker 1: successful plays of each of the past ten years. According

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Speaker 1: to Julia Jordan's there twenty four plays. Fourteen had female

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Speaker 1: protagonists and seven had male protagonists, and the rest were

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Speaker 1: ensemble work. So it's not that there's some stereotype that

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Speaker 1: female playwrights, right, female characters that you know, men don't

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Speaker 1: want to watch. They are already successful plays that have

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Speaker 1: female protagonists. Um. So it's it's not that they're writing

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Speaker 1: work that people don't want to see. It's not that

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Speaker 1: they're not submitting their work, and it's not that they're

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Speaker 1: you know, just not ryan plays at the same level

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Speaker 1: of men. Uh, they're just talking on the stage. So

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Speaker 1: what is that disconnect? Well, there's also within the sort

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Speaker 1: of on the on an internal level, there's an idea

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Speaker 1: that maybe since a lot of theater directors are male,

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Speaker 1: they just don't jive with um, females works. And there

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Speaker 1: was one playwright who said that women's plays often did

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Speaker 1: not resolve as conclusively as those by men, and they

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Speaker 1: don't follow the more standard model of dramas, and directors

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Speaker 1: aren't as comfortable. I guess it sounds like, actually, women

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Speaker 1: play rights are thinking a little bit more outside the

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Speaker 1: box and maybe, um, the male directors aren't comfortable going

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Speaker 1: into those spaces. But again it's just hypothesizing, and I

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Speaker 1: think there has been this tendency Kristen to blame the

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Speaker 1: male directors and the male artistic directors as this reason

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Speaker 1: why women aren't getting produced, and that completely shifted in

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Speaker 1: two thousand nine with this really groundbreaking work by Emily

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Speaker 1: Glassberg Sands, who at the time was just an undergraduate,

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Speaker 1: but a very impressive undergraduate. As The New York Times noted,

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Speaker 1: she went to Princeton and she was heading for graduate

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Speaker 1: work at Harvard. In just her undergraduate career, she had

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Speaker 1: gotten uh the co author of for economic Stephen do

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Speaker 1: You Lovett collaborating with her. She had Cecilia Rouse, a

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Speaker 1: member of the White House Counsel of Economics, working with her. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, she had she had the big wigs working

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Speaker 1: with her, and she decided to look at this issue

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Speaker 1: of discrimination against female playwrights and uh, and she found

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Speaker 1: that there may be in a surprising culprit in the

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Speaker 1: and the reason that women aren't getting produced. So a

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Speaker 1: Glassberg Stands did was she she started out reviewing information

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Speaker 1: on twenty thousand playwrights who were in the Dramatist Guild

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Speaker 1: and duley dot com, which is an online database of playwrights.

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Speaker 1: And while she did find that there were twice as

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Speaker 1: many male playwrights as female ones and the men tended

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Speaker 1: to write more, that wasn't the most interesting thing that

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Speaker 1: she figured out, because what she did next was she

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Speaker 1: wanted to find out, Okay, well, even if women are

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Speaker 1: are not producing as many plays with the ones that

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Speaker 1: get into the hands of artistic directors and literary managers,

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Speaker 1: are they just being discriminated against? And that do people

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Speaker 1: really not want to produce women's plays? So what she

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Speaker 1: did was she took some plays that had already been

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Speaker 1: written but just hadn't been produced, right, but by pretty

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Speaker 1: acclaimed playwrights, So we're not dealing with you know what

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Speaker 1: the washers team priz Kripfuffle might have writ by Molly

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Speaker 1: and Kristen. Yeah, I mean these were there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: let's not lie, Molly. I mean, we are headed for

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Speaker 1: the Tony's, but it's just gonna take a little while.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's I mean, we had to battle all

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Speaker 1: this discrimination exactly anyway, So Sands took took these plays

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Speaker 1: and changed the author names to something you know, some

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Speaker 1: pretty generic names, saying Joe Smith's versus Jane Smith. So

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Speaker 1: she gave these plays to the artistic directors and literary

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Speaker 1: managers and wanted to see if there was a difference

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Speaker 1: in how they responded to the same play from Joe

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Speaker 1: versus Jane. And those plays were rated differently, yes they were,

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Speaker 1: but only by women. Yes, So when it landed in

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Speaker 1: the hand of a female artistic director, she had the

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Speaker 1: tendency to rate a female written play lower than a

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Speaker 1: male written play. And Sands had included this list of

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Speaker 1: questions like do you think this work can be staged?

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Speaker 1: Like would your company stages blah blah blah. And it

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Speaker 1: was the female artistic directors who rated these female plays.

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Speaker 1: They had the names of the playwrights in front of

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Speaker 1: them that said, when they had you know, Joe Smith

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Speaker 1: versus Jane Smith, Joe Smith always ranked higher. The male

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Speaker 1: artistic directors always rated the men and the women who

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Speaker 1: had written plays of those those scripts in front of

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Speaker 1: them exactly the same, right, So this was a groundbreaking Like,

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Speaker 1: like we said, for for many years people are like, oh,

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Speaker 1: everything is so male dominated. These artistic directors are are

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Speaker 1: you know, they see a female name and they think

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Speaker 1: hormones and they throw it away. But it's actually the

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Speaker 1: female artistic directors. And you know, there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of discussion as to why this would happen. And I

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Speaker 1: think that you see this in a lot of professions

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Speaker 1: that because women sort of expect the females to have

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Speaker 1: a harder, harder time then they you know, it's almost

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Speaker 1: like you have to produce the best play ever for

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Speaker 1: a female artistic director to consider you because she knows

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Speaker 1: you've got this long, hard road that your name might

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Speaker 1: not may not open doors. And instead of you know,

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Speaker 1: helping helping each other out, you know, they're saying it's

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Speaker 1: not as good as this guy's, when in fact that

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Speaker 1: guy was actually a female playwright. And clearly we're not

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Speaker 1: saying that these artistic directors need to give female playwrights

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Speaker 1: an unnecessary hand up. I mean, the work should stand

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Speaker 1: for itself. But when it comes to the box office.

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Speaker 1: These artistic directors and managers might be shooting themselves in

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Speaker 1: the foot a little bit, because at the end of

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Speaker 1: the day, if people don't come to your play, if

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Speaker 1: they're not buying tickets, it's not gonna go anywhere. You know,

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Speaker 1: no one's it's just gonna die. Right. So Stands was like,

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Speaker 1: are these companies losing out on money by not producing

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Speaker 1: the female written plays? And the answer is yes, plays

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Speaker 1: and musicals by women sold sixteen percent more tickets a week,

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Speaker 1: and we're eighteen percent more profitable overall. And shows that

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Speaker 1: were written by women that were profitable were cut shorter

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Speaker 1: than less profitable plays that were written by men. And

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Speaker 1: she compared this to uh the nineteen sixties and seventies

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Speaker 1: when they did a lot of work on discrimination in baseball,

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Speaker 1: and there are the studies from that time that showed

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Speaker 1: that black baseball players had to just have astronomically higher

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Speaker 1: and better batting averages and statistics than the white players

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Speaker 1: just to get to play. When they played, they were

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Speaker 1: so much better. And it's the same thing with female

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Speaker 1: play rights. According to this research, that when the female

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Speaker 1: playwrights get the chance to put on their work, you

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Speaker 1: can have magic. And I think we should note too

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Speaker 1: that those statistics come from her examination of nine new

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Speaker 1: plays and musicals produced on Broadway in the past ten years,

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Speaker 1: so clearly the numbers don't lie. She's doing some pretty

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Speaker 1: thorough research. So after finding that out, there's been and

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Speaker 1: this came out what around two thousand eight. This really

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Speaker 1: spark the big, the big conversation. So it left a

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Speaker 1: lot of these female playwrights and these women in the

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Speaker 1: theater community asking why and what what to do, and

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Speaker 1: then only to have a year later to have this

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Speaker 1: Wasser's Team Prize kerfuffle when we've just learned that if

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Speaker 1: it's female artistic directors who are not giving these female

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Speaker 1: playwrights a chance, it's it's very frustrating to see this

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Speaker 1: this prize being revoked because it's the same thing. It's

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Speaker 1: like dangling the carrot. Like female playwrights, the artists explore

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Speaker 1: the world but don't get rewarded. So one suggestion that

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Speaker 1: Julie Jordan's who we referenced earlier, had for addressing this

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Speaker 1: gender bias in the theater community is to perhaps take

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Speaker 1: a cue from orchestras. And this was pretty interesting. I

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Speaker 1: thought she was saying that in the nineteen seventies and eighties,

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Speaker 1: in response to a discrimination suit of gender bias in orchestras,

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Speaker 1: I guess, depending on decide on deciding who plays what

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Speaker 1: and who gets a chair and who doesn't, most major

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Speaker 1: u S orchestras began auditioning new members. Blind screens would

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Speaker 1: be used to hide the identity of the musician, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes they even went so far as to roll out

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Speaker 1: carpets to muffle the click of women's heels that would

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Speaker 1: give away their gender. And as a result, many orchestras

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Speaker 1: have achieved parity largely due to the screens and maintain

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Speaker 1: it by continuing to use blind auditions today. So and

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Speaker 1: that idea you know, is held up in Sand's research

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Speaker 1: that if you've got who plays, one of them has

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Speaker 1: a male name, one of them has a female name,

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Speaker 1: the male name does better with some artistic directors than

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Speaker 1: maybe having no names on on those plays could help

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Speaker 1: achieve more balanced Some other initiatives we've seen. One example

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Speaker 1: is fifty, which is a grassroots movement that is empowering

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Speaker 1: women and men to create positive change through a variety

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Speaker 1: of independent initiatives. And some of these initiatives just include

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Speaker 1: simple things like gathering people together and reading a bunch

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Speaker 1: of work by women so that people start, you know,

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Speaker 1: thinking about what is a work by woman? And hey,

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Speaker 1: that was pretty good. Maybe we should listen to more.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's one of them. And also, in response

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Speaker 1: to the lackless representation of women in the Tony Award nominations,

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Speaker 1: a group of people in the theater community in New

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Speaker 1: York got together and organized this year the first annual

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Speaker 1: Lillian Hellman Awards for outstanding achievements by women in the theater.

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Speaker 1: They just called them the Lily Lily. I'd rather one

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Speaker 1: to Lily len Antoni, although then you couldn't get an

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Speaker 1: egot exactly. Maybe the egal Yeah, an egal An eagle. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Just free dirty rock fans out there who are trying

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Speaker 1: to get your egots right. So these women are, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're they're making some moves there getting headlines, but who knows.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one one comment we saw in these articles

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Speaker 1: is that the story has been written, you know, every

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Speaker 1: decade that female play rights are trying to get more representation.

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Speaker 1: So hopefully the Wasserstein Prize for Fuffle soon coming to

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Speaker 1: theaters near you. Well, we'll maybe keep this in the

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Speaker 1: conversation a little bit more, and I wonder if by

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Speaker 1: the time this podcast comes out, if the wasserstcene will

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Speaker 1: have been awarded. We will definitely make a note of

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Speaker 1: it on the blog, on Facebook and Twitter and all

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Speaker 1: our ways of keeping up with you guys. Indeed, so

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Speaker 1: theater buffs out there. Let us know what you think.

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Speaker 1: Send us an email Mom Stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. And in the meantime, I've got a little

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Speaker 1: email here that we can read. Molly. It sounds wonderful.

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Speaker 1: This is in response to an older podcast that we

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Speaker 1: did on mail order brides, and this is from Michael,

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Speaker 1: and Michael says, I have to take exception with your

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Speaker 1: podcast concerning mail order brides. I understand the anecdotal stories

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00:18:12,520 --> 00:18:14,879
Speaker 1: may not be indicative of the world at large, but

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Speaker 1: the personal experience of my friends and I with marrying

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Speaker 1: a foreign bride run counter to many of the points

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Speaker 1: you make in your podcast. So here is my comment.

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Speaker 1: My friends and I fall into the category of the

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Speaker 1: nice guy. We believe in being respectful and carrying towards

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Speaker 1: the women we love as a whole. We are hard

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Speaker 1: working men with established careers. Are I qus are above

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Speaker 1: average when we have good senses of humor or tech savvy,

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Speaker 1: which makes us nerds where average are less in appearance.

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Speaker 1: We are shorter than average. Rather than sitting on the

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Speaker 1: couch watching football, we go out and engage in life.

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Speaker 1: We snow ski, motorcycle and travel. We aren't afraid of adventure.

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Speaker 1: We don't live with our moms and don't play Star

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Speaker 1: Wars models play with Star Wars models. We're grown men

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Speaker 1: who lack something in our lives, and that is love. Well,

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Speaker 1: it seems superficial for a and to use a foreign

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Speaker 1: bride agency. It's driven by the fact that our choices

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Speaker 1: have become limited here in the US. Just go to

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Speaker 1: any of the dating websites and see how many women

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Speaker 1: want to date men who are tall. Look at the

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Speaker 1: shopping list of criteria posted on their profiles. We have

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Speaker 1: tried dating and are tired of the modern US game.

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Speaker 1: Most first dates, especially from dating websites, are more like

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Speaker 1: job interviews rather than having an enjoyable evening. I personally

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00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:26,640
Speaker 1: refuse to do any more safe dates at Starbucks where

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Speaker 1: I'm sized up in the first three minutes as to

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Speaker 1: my suitability as a partner or even as a man.

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Speaker 1: Combine this experience with women who seek the dark triad

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Speaker 1: and consider guys like me only friend material. In fact,

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Speaker 1: my friends and I are baffled by the observation that

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Speaker 1: so many women are so willing to date complete jerks.

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Speaker 1: Unlike the eighteen hundreds of the world is a much

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Speaker 1: smaller place. In a few hours, we can be on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the world. We can. We have

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Speaker 1: phone and internet connectivity. It's easy to remain connected into

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Speaker 1: talk as never before. Just turn on the webcam. If

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Speaker 1: an agency is helping people connect, what's the problem. Yes,

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Speaker 1: bringing a foreign bride to the US is expensive. It

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Speaker 1: can cost ten to to do this. But rather than

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Speaker 1: thinking we are quote buying a wife, perhaps consider that

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Speaker 1: we have a natural desire to love and be love,

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Speaker 1: and that search for love, we're willing to search the globe.

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Speaker 1: How many love songs tell of a man's willingness to

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Speaker 1: climb the highest mountain and swim the deepest sea for

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Speaker 1: the bureaucratic seas in the hope of finding love. Be

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Speaker 1: aware that we are cautious when we think about meeting

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Speaker 1: a foreign woman, we are aware of the fact that

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Speaker 1: we may be viewed as a ticket to a green

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Speaker 1: card or a path out of a difficult economic situation.

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Speaker 1: And then men I've met who marry a Russian bride

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Speaker 1: take great pains to avoid being used. There is a

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Speaker 1: Rather than being condescending about our choice, please consider nice

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Speaker 1: guys too, who deserve to be loved. Michael, I guess

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Speaker 1: say that's a it's a pretty greedy meal. Quite a story, yes,

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Speaker 1: and food for thought. So if you would like to

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Speaker 1: send us meals of food for thought in form of email,

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Speaker 1: email us and mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com,

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Speaker 1: or head on over to you our Facebook page and

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Speaker 1: give us alike if you will, or check us out

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Speaker 1: on Twitter at mom stuff Podcasts. And then finally you

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Speaker 1: You at how stuff works dot com for moralness and

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Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, cook on the podcast

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