Australian Women Directors Alliance

Women Playwrights' Roundtable outcomes - 1 Nov 2011

2011-11-12T00:04:00.001+11:00

Women Playwrights' Solutions Roundtable report released

taken from australianplays.org

There’s been controversy recently about a perceived imbalance between opportunities for male and female practitioners in Australian theatre. At the same time, there's also been a lot of energy around ways to address the issue and move forward.

The Women Playwrights Solutions Roundtable, jointly supported by the Australia Council’s Theatre and Major Performing Arts Boards, took place on Friday, 12 August 2011 at the Richard Wherrett Studio generously made available by Sydney Theatre Company.

It was a gathering of women playwrights, theatre programmers and other key stakeholders who set aside a day to consider the under-representation of women playwrights in Australian mainstage productions and contribute practical ideas for a sector-driven response to the problem.

In its larger context, the Roundtable was one of several recent Australia Council initiatives to promote the fair and equitable inclusion of women in the core creative processes of mainstage theatre companies, the other main components being the Women Director’s Forum in May 2010, commissioned research and development of a reporting tool and guiding principles for Council supported theatre companies.

These initiatives are nearing completion and will be considered in their entirety by the Major Performing Arts and Theatre Boards in coming weeks.

The Women Playwrights’ Solutions Roundtable was facilitated by Gail Cork, director of the Australian Script Centre and a commercial mediator. Her report documents the processes and people involved, the substance of the discussion and the outcomes.

For the report, check out Australian plays.org

Laurie Penny: A woman's opinion is the mini-skirt of the internet - Friday 04 November 2011

2011-11-07T18:21:00.001+11:00

http://www.independent.co.uk

You come to expect it, as a woman writer, particularly if you're political. You come to expect the vitriol, the insults, the death threats. After a while, the emails and tweets and comments containing graphic fantasies of how and where and with what kitchen implements certain pseudonymous people would like to rape you cease to be shocking, and become merely a daily or weekly annoyance, something to phone your girlfriends about, seeking safety in hollow laughter.

An opinion, it seems, is the short skirt of the internet. Having one and flaunting it is somehow asking an amorphous mass of almost-entirely male keyboard-bashers to tell you how they'd like to rape, kill and urinate on you. This week, after a particularly ugly slew of threats, I decided to make just a few of those messages public on Twitter, and the response I received was overwhelming. Many could not believe the hate I received, and many more began to share their own stories of harassment, intimidation and abuse.

Perhaps it should be comforting when calling a woman fat and ugly is the best response to her arguments, but it's a chill comfort, especially when one realises, as I have come to realise over the past year, just how much time and effort some vicious people are prepared to expend trying to punish and silence a woman who dares to be ambitious, outspoken, or merely present in a public space.

No journalist worth reading expects zero criticism, and the internet has made it easier for readers to critique and engage. This is to be welcomed, and I have long felt that many more established columnists' complaints about the comments they receive spring, in part, from resentment at having their readers suddenly talk back. In my experience, however, the charges of stupidity, hypocrisy, Stalinism and poor personal hygiene which are a sure sign that any left-wing columnist is at least upsetting the right people, come spiced with a large and debilitating helping of violent misogyny, and not only from the far-right.

Many commentators, wondering aloud where all the strong female voices are, close their eyes to how normal this sort of threat has become. Most mornings, when I go to check my email, Twitter and Facebook accounts, I have to sift through threats of violence, public speculations about my sexual preference and the odour and capacity of my genitals, and attempts to write off challenging ideas with the declaration that, since I and my friends are so very unattractive, anything we have to say must be irrelevant.

The implication that a woman must be sexually appealing to be taken seriously as a thinker did not start with the internet: it's a charge that has been used to shame and dismiss women's ideas since long before Mary Wollestonecraft was called "a hyena in petticoats". The internet, however, makes it easier for boys in lonely bedrooms to become bullies. It's not only journalists, bloggers and activists who are targeted. Businesswomen, women who play games online and schoolgirls who post video-diaries on YouTube have all been subject to campaigns of intimidation designed to drive them off the internet, by people who seem to believe that the only use a woman should make of modern technology is to show her breasts to the world for a fee.

Like many others, I have also received more direct threats, like the men who hunted down and threatened to publish old photographs of me which are relevant to my work only if one believes that any budding feminist journalist should remain entirely sober, fully clothed and completely vertical for the entirety of her first year of university. Efforts, too, were made to track down and harass my family, including my two school-age sisters. After one particular round of rape threats, including the suggestion that, for criticising neoliberal economic policymaking, I should be made to fellate a row of bankers at knifepoint, I was informed that people were searching for my home address. I could go on.

I'd like to say that none of this bothered me – to be one of those women who are strong enough to brush off the abuse, which is always the advice given by people who don't believe bullies and bigots can be fought. Sometimes I feel that speaking about the strength it takes just to turn on the computer, or how I've been afraid to leave my house, is an admission of weakness. Fear that it's somehow your fault for not being strong enough is, of course, what allows abusers to continue to abuse.

I believe the time for silence is over. If we want to build a truly fair and vibrant community of political debate and social exchange, online and offline, it's not enough to ignore harassment of women, LGBT people or people of colour who dare to have opinions. Free speech means being free to use technology and participate in public life without fear of abuse – and if the only people who can do so are white, straight men, the internet is not as free as we'd like to believe.

Australian Women Directors Alliance Meeting / AGM

2011-10-14T14:44:00.001+11:00

Monday 24th October, 2011.
7.30pm
Wesley Anne (Beer Garden)
250 High Street, Northcote

Agenda
Report on the 2011 Australian Theatre Forum outcomes
Presentation of Annual Budget
Informal social catch-up

All Welcome!
Please RSVP by reply email

Staging the gender imbalance: women in theater - Theatre Treffen Blog

2011-07-25T13:07:00.001+10:00

Von Cory Tamler - 19. Mai 2011 - http://www.theatertreffen-blog.de/tt11/english-posts/staging-the-gender-imbalance-women-in-theater/

From the theme of the Talentetreffen, to a women-in-directing exhibit, to yesterday’s “Feminism: Today a Dirty Word?” discussion and more, gender has been a big topic at this year’s Theatertreffen. As the Theatertreffen Stückemarkt prepares to wrap up tonight with the awarding of the 2011 playwriting prizes, which include cash for the author and a production of the winning play, there are numbers that beg the question: what is the Theatertreffen as a whole really doing to contribute meaningfully to the gender debate – other than just talking about it?

We’re thrilled to see a debate happening on the blog – over a sexist-or-maybe-not-remark Herbert Fritsch, invited twice to the Theatertreffen this year, and both times with a play centered on a strong female character (in the case of A Doll’s House, one of the strongest female characters in the dramatic canon). For you non-German speakers, it boils down to a little something like: Fritsch says he likes a woman who’s a “Luder” (hard to translate but suggestions include “hussy,” “minx,” or my personal favorite, “a sly cow”). Some folks find this sexist and unacceptable for a theater director because of the way that implies he interprets female characters onstage, others find it to be a mere personal preference and therefore don’t see the harm in it, still others seem to be worrying about how the actresses themselves must feel having to act out Fritsch’s female caricatures for an audience. from director

Personally, I’m inclined to say Fritsch can go ahead and show whatever he wants onstage – as long as there’s room left for other perspectives to be shown. It shouldn’t be a problem for him to tell a story the way he wants to tell it – as long as other stories are getting their chance to be told.

And in theory, everybody gets to tell their story. But there’s a big gap here between theory and practice.

The “post-migrant theater” movement represents one part of the population not getting its proportional share of stage time. Yet there is another group whose presence in the theater world is far smaller than it is in the real world, whose voice is not being heard, whose perspective isn’t being seen. So let’s look at it through some numbers, because after all, numbers are neutral, aren’t they?

Let’s start with the Stückemarkt. There are 15 playwrights listed among the “Stückemarkt Success Stories” (playwrights who were invited to the Stückemarkt in some capacity in past years and are now doing well). 3 of them are women. Huh? 20%? Are there really that few women out there writing plays? Are their plays really that bad? How does that 20% happen?

Well, let’s take this year as an example. Out of 356 submitted plays, 156 were written by women, 200 were written by men. So about 44% of the submissions were by women. Not quite half, but not terrible.

However, of the eight plays selected for the Stückemart (by a jury that is 40% women), only three have female authors. That’s down to 37.5%.

And not all Stückemarkt plays are created equal. Five of the plays receive staged readings; the other three playwrights receive a workshop. The idea with the workshop is that the plays are “less finished” – there’s more work to be done. Instead of receiving individual, fully staged readings, these three workshop scripts are lumped together into one “reading of excerpts,” to be shown tomorrow night.

Of the five plays receiving full readings, one was written by a woman.

So we’ve gone from a 44% representation among submissions to a 20% representation among selections. And if you were at the writer’s panel with the Stückemarkt playwrights last week, you wouldn’t have seen even that 20%; the playwrights at the table were all men. (And Simon Stephens, who opened the Stückemarkt with his keynote, is also a man – don’t let his luscious locks fool you.)

Another set of numbers can be found in the March 2011 edition of Theater heute. Some of them have to do with Germany as a whole:

There are 124 Intendanten (artistic directors) in Germany. 19 (15.32%) are women.
29% of German theater directors are women.
Only among dramaturgs (48.5% women) and assistants-to-the-director (50.6% women) does it begin to even out. A majority of theater administrators are, on the other hand, women – just like in the USA.

Other numbers are specific to the Theatertreffen. Of the 472 total productions invited to the Theatertreffen from 1964-2010:

34 (13.88%) were directed by women.
The very first production directed by a woman was invited in 1980, 16 years after the Theatertreffen was founded.
Of the 100 productions invited from 2000-2010, 11 were directed by women – a lower percentage than that of all 46 years taken together.

Fritsch liking a woman who’s “a sly cow” is no scandal, in and of itself. What is a scandal is that the Herbert Fritsches of the world get far more stage time and pay for their work than the Karin Henkels. What is a scandal is that male playwrights are the face of the Stückemarkt – that they continue to be the face of modern as well as of canonical drama. What is a scandal is sub-titling an exhibit about female directors “a male profession in female hands,” turning what should be a celebration of women in theater into an affirmation that theater belongs to men. And it’s oh, so nice of them to let us in.

Let’s be clear. I don’t like the idea of a quota and will not argue for one here. I don’t think it works and I think it is a lazy attempt at a solution. The problem is incredibly complicated. Tradition and history are naturally a part of it. The assumption that success for women in the field consists of succeeding within a male heteronormative structure that Leo beautifully criticized (in German) is another part of it. We also can’t write the gender disparity off as blatant sexism. The Stückemarkt plays, for example, were read anonymously; the jurors didn’t know the gender of the playwrights. So how do we assess the dramatic difference between the percentage of women applicants and that of selected female writers? Does this support the thesis that there’s some kind of empirically discernible “female aesthetic” that’s “boring” – or is it that “women just can’t write”? (In the States, the 2010 Wendy Wasserstein Prize jury seemed to be of a similar opinion. This is not a Germany-specific problem by a long stretch.)

And what about this: Uwe Gössel, the director of the International Forum at the Theatertreffen, says that every year the Forum receives far more female than male applicants (which they correct for in their selection, trying to create the “most diverse possible” group). Why is that? Could be because the proportion of women in the independent theater scene, which is where most of the Forum applicants come from, is also much higher than the proportion in the state-funded theaters. And that is also something that brings down the average pay for women in theater. It’s not just that they’re taking breaks to have babies (which is what every woman wants, after all!). It’s that they’re running groups like She She Pop and Gob Squad and Turbo Pascal, working at the boundaries of theater – and, in many cases, not because they couldn’t or can’t get a job at a state-funded theater, but because that isn’t what they want. As the independent scene gains influence and attention, maybe this implicit criticism of the traditional theater structure will lead to a gradual and organic change – more meaningful, with more lasting potential, than imposing any quota could bring.

The theater is a space where artists present their – naturally subjective – visions, preferences, interpretations and dreams. You may find, like Kathrin Röggla cautioned Theater heute, that “feminism has become unsexy”: but even if that’s true, you should still listen up. Because if theater is going to be a relevant part of modern society and a place where we are truly able to engage in meaningful discourse, it can’t continue to obsess over the dreams and visions of the white heterosexual European male.

Women in theatre: let's get rid of the equality myth - Guardian Theatre Blog

2011-07-25T12:30:00.001+10:00

Women are under-represented in theatre – not for lack of interest, but because the industry is failing to provide long-term support.

Krystina Nellis Monday 18 July 2011 - www.theguardian.co.uk

We already know how the cuts in arts funding are going to reduce a lot of good companies to one show a year and possibly put some companies out of business entirely. But what I've not seen any discussion of, anywhere, is how these cuts will affect women working in the industry, possibly even more disproportionately than within other industries. Instead we seem content to parade a few "success stories" as examples of how all-inclusive the arts are, reducing legitimate achievements to a headline and unwittingly shutting the door to more women through sheer ignorance.

The Running in Heels blog recently published a list of successful female theatre practitioners, designed to demonstrate support to those achieving success within the arts. But showcasing a few successful women – often part of corporate structures, an entirely different prospect to the freelancers who actually drive the industry – implies that other women will only be interested in the arts if given permission. While trying to fix something that's not broken we're avoiding addressing the genuine issue of opportunity.

Persisting with the myth that women are under-represented due to lack of interest serves nobody. On my drama school MA alone, there were 30 women and six men on the course – hardly a dearth of interested, intelligent and engaged females. Lack of interest is not the problem; women are already flocking to the industry in their droves. Opportunity to progress, meanwhile, is nowhere near as bountiful. In assuming that simply bringing more women into the industry will fix under-representation, we're addressing completely the wrong issue. Surely the real goal should be supporting women to stay in the industry for longer than a few years, therefore at least partially addressing the frankly ludicrous turnover in the process?

Showcasing already successful women as an example of the industry's "equality" will, also, not help a young stage manager struggling in a career based on living in a different town each week, while managing any number of family obligations. Nor will lists like this negate the fact that a freelance fringe theatre producer is usually self-employed, and thus entitled only to the bare minimum statutory maternity leave. Add to that the fact that the rare staff roles are often more business-oriented than theatre production's creative drive, and we end up presented with the same glass ceiling bemoaned by businesswomen the world over. With those practicalities in mind, is it any wonder that many young women, forced to choose between an unstable career, family or sheer burnout, end up leaving the industry to the next generation of theatre's big cliche, middle-class, white men?

Women in theatre are too often stuck between a rock and a hard place. The work ethic of the arts industries is, by necessity, both notoriously "flexible" and demanding; it is what is thrilling and frustrating about the profession. It cannot be met with a government response to issues like maternity leave which ignores the industry's fundamental quirks, and leaves women with next to no support. The cuts will only make these issues more pressing, diminishing already scarce opportunities for a sustainable career further; opportunities which many women will have to forego due to their personal circumstances.

It will offend some quasi-liberal sensitivities to say so, but if we are truly serious about encouraging more women to achieve success within the arts, it's vital we now stop pretending equality prevails. Maintaining the status quo only prevents us from solutions that will enable women towards a sustainable career path. Until we do, using a few successful corporate examples as poster girls for the industry's supposed equality will only continue to disguise the massive inequality that is many female arts professionals' reality.

DRAMA QUEENS - WHEELER CENTRE - Female Playwright Debate, 6:15PM - 7:15PM, Thursday 24 March

2011-03-20T22:20:00.003+11:00

Whe eler Centre, 6:15PM - 7:15PM, Thursday 24 March 2011

Why do we see so few plays by Australian women?

Something, somewhere, in Australian theatre is not working. Are female playwrights not out there, or are they being denied opportunities? And if there is a problem, what’s being done? With calls of sexism and a push for the introduction of quotas, many Australian women playwrights are on the warpath. Playwrights Patricia Cornelius and Van Badham talk with Artistic Directors Marion Potts and Ralph Myers, moderated by Chris Mead from Playwriting Australia.

Presenters

Patricia Cornelius

Patricia Cornelius is a playwright, novelist, dramaturge and founding member of Melbourne Workers Theatre.

Chris Mead

Chris Mead is artistic director of PlayWriting Australia.

Ralph Myers

Ralph Myers is Artistic Director of Belvoir Street Theatre and one of Australia’s foremost set designers. He has designed for most of the country’s major theatre companies, including extensively for Belvoir and Sydney Theatre Company as well as Melbourne Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare, Griffin Theatre Company and Legs on The Wall.

OFF CUT

2011-03-20T16:54:00.002+11:00

A call for new and undiscovered playwriting talent

In Company Theatre has opened for short play submissions to be part of Off Cut 2011 – the short play festival where the audience votes for the winner.

There will be 28 plays chosen to be part of the festival at The Riverside Studios in Hammersmith.

Please click here for information on the Festival. We would be grateful if you could post it on any of your notice boards, online forums and websites.

There is no charge for submissions.

Please email us, if you would like any more information,

Please click here for details on full length production of the Off Cut 2010 Panel Writer Award winner. Sweet Engineering of the Lucid Mind by Mitch Feral runs at the Hen & Chickens Theatre from 29th March until 2nd April.

Regards,
Janet Palmer
Production Manager, Off Cut– In Company Theatre

“The Off Cut Festival was a wonderful experience, not just winning but being involved. As a direct result of Off Cut I was signed by Lisa Babalis at The Agency and have been working closely with Ben Rix of Little Brother Productions which has resulted in them commissioning me to write a TV Series treatment. Then working with In Company to produce BENDER - my prize for winning the festival - was brilliant too! CLOSER TO GOD and BENDER are now both running as part of The Wet Rep at Waterloo East Theatre. I would recommend any budding or more established writers to get involved! “ Anna Jordan - Off Cut 2009 Winner.

“Just wanted to say thank you so much for asking me to be a judge for Offcut – I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was completely bowled over by the writing! It’s such a great showcase and concept” Lisa Babalis - The Agency - Panel Member 2010

“The professionalism of the entire company, which brought to life so splendidly not only my own play but all the plays I was able to see.” Virginia Hayden – Off Cut 2010 Writer

“I wanted to convey to all of you how much I enjoyed, and was impressed by, the plays and whole experience of Saturday night. You must all feel very proud of yourselves for creating such a successful festival. It was both informal and friendly as well as slick and professional. I enjoyed all the plays greatly, including the couple for which I held reservations. It was tricky having to award prizes when they were all so commendable!” Anna Brewer - Methuen Drama - Panel Member 2010

“Since the Off Cut Festival 2010 I have had some amazing opportunities come my way and it has really helped raise my profile as a writer. I have been in conversations with a very well known literary agent, have been approached by numerous producers regarding my work and have rekindled my links with BBC Writersroom and am now embarking on my first TV writing project. It has proved an amazingly fruitful, creative and positive experience and I would like to thank everyone involved for creating such a strong platform for emerging writers to showcase their talents. I shall definitely be looking to get involved again next year! ”Tanja Mariadoss - Off Cut 2010 Writer

“I was delighted to reach the final with my play The Trunk and quickly went on to collaborate with fellow Off Cutters to develop it at a second festival. The theory works. Off Cut is a great opportunity for writers to meet like minded talented individuals and develop their work” Mke Carter Off Cut 2010 Writer
Copyright © 2011 In Company Theatre Limited, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
In Company Theatre Limited
First Floor, Raine House
Raine Street, Wapping
London, Greater London E1W 3RJ

Assistant Directors

2011-01-17T15:07:00.000+11:00

ASSISTANT DIRECTORS

MTC has 4 paid Assistant Director positions available in 2011 for emerging or mid-career directors. The positions will be divided equally between women and men. For more information about these positions and the application process, please see
http://www.mtc.com.au/about/employment/employment.aspx.

Applications close on Friday 11 February 2011 at 5pm.

Victorian Theatre Network Meeting ‘3 Minute Pitch’ September 16th, 2010

2010-12-02T15:57:00.001+11:00

Lucy Freeman

Straightjacket Productions: Artistic Director

Chair: Australian Women Directors Alliance

La Trobe University: Theatre and Drama Department

The Underrepresentation of Victorian Women Director’s on the main stage

While many industries have been adopting strategies toward a ‘critical mass’ of one third representation of women in leadership roles, the past 15 years in Australian theatre has seen the number of women in key creative appointments decrease. The statistics are particularly bad for women directors in the Victorian professional sector. Of the last 58 productions at the MTC, 7 shows were directed by a woman. 3 by Kate Cherry and 4 by other women who do not reside in Victoria. The news is no better out of The Malthouse. In the past five years, Victorian based women directors have had as much opportunity to increase their perceived ‘merit’ (which dictates their appointment suitability) as women seeking leadership roles in the AFL, the Armed Forces and the Catholic Church.

My pitch is for subsidised companies to outline their Equal Opportunity strategies and have their effectiveness assessed by a regulatory body. Non-compliance should carry consequences and results or reports be made public.

In the face of limited opportunities throughout history, a few Victorian women directors have shattered glass ceilings, some prefer the artistic freedom found working in the margins, and many have found strength in the community, youth, independent and education sectors. But many have walked away, fatigued at forever being dubbed ‘emerging creatives’ and ‘alternative’ to an imposed norm. Many are frustrated by the banging on seemingly locked doors, the unanswered invites to see their work and the longitudinal development opportunities offered young male directors – whose artistic sensibilities align with those of the monolithic decision makers. The popular catch-cry that women directors are responsible for their plight because they do not network and pitch “like men” – derives from a gendered assumption that men pitch the “right” way.

Under the leadership of Melanie Beddie, Jane Woollard and myself, the AWDA (Australian Women Directors Alliance) has recently reminded the theatre industry that workplace equity is not a choice, but a legal, ethical and moral requirement. Similar to the atmosphere in 1994, it is currently felt that ‘a breeze is blowing’. The current theatre industry’s legacy will be how well the issue is addressed THIS time. For lasting change, political and industry leaders must take the baton from the un-resourced AWDA and strategically advocate for an increase in interpretive female voices in the nation’s theatre.

The theatre industry is not exempt from equal opportunity because individual male or female artistic director’s aesthetic taste or personal and professional relationships necessitate it. MPAB and other state and federally subsidized companies are supported by the society for whom theatre is made. It is therefore reasonable to demand at least one third of all theatre company board and key creative appointments are female.

Women are not a sub-set of men. And, despite being listed as a ‘special category’ in arts funding, women are neither a homogenous nor a minority group. Men and women must together re-imagine an ethos and structure that welcomes the creative authority, artistry and potential of women, in all their diversity. Enough is enough. History has shown that a breeze is never enough to affect change. It is time for a wind machine, even if hiring one means re-jigging the budget and turning it on forces things to shift in unquantifiable ways.

2010-12-01T22:18:00.006+11:00

Australian Women Directors Alliance ‘Creating Change’ Forum.

The ‘Creating Change’ Forum was held at the Arts Centre over the two days of 10th and 11th September, 2010. It was convened by Melanie Beddie, Lucy Freeman, Petra Kalive and Jane Woollard and was sponsored by the Office for the Status of Women and the Arts Centre. The Forum was attended by over 100 delegates from around Australia. 97% of these delegates were female theatre directors and theatre makers working professionally as well as in areas of teaching and research and administration. The AWDA ‘Creating Change’ Forum presented a model for thinking about social change in a dynamic and energetic way. Women directors claimed their legacy, their role as leaders in the theatre profession, and their commitment to supporting one another as we work towards greater diversity in our profession.

The key issues that brought about the need for the Forum are: The ongoing question about the visibility of women theatre directors; The desire to acknowledge and celebrate the existing body of work of women directors and the energy and vision of the diverse artists gathered at the forum; To facilitate a discussion to craft a series of future actions and allow an opportunity to envisage new theatres for the 21st century

Delegates were invited to reflect on the following statements and questions and to note their responses on the flip chart stands positioned around the room.

1:What am I here for?

2: What makes my heart sing?

3: In relation to my practice, what do I regret?

The forum began with a panel entitled 'How does it happen?' chaired by Lucy Freeman. This panel was pitched to practitioners in their first decade of practice. The meetings of AWDA which occurred throughout 2010 had made us aware that these practitioners often have questions about how to approach MPAB companies. Panellists were John Paul Fischbach: Executive Director Auspicious Arts Incubator, Maryanne Lynch: Dramaturge in Residence,

Malthouse Theatre; Vanessa Pigrum, Artistic Director, Full Tilt and the Arts Centre Program Manager, Creative Development; Aidan Fennessey, Associate Director, Melbourne Theatre Company.

The focus of the panel was to give an insight into how work is chosen and programmed in Melbourne’s Major Performing Arts Companies. Panelists were invited to share their thoughts and observations about making a pitch to their particular organisation.

The Forum continued with a gracious and hearty welcome from Judith Isherwood, CEO of the Arts Centre. A number of delegates later spoke about how important it was to be invited into the Arts Centre and be given support by them.

The second panel of the evening was 'Three Director’s Visions', chaired by Melanie Beddie. The panelists were Kate Cherry, Artistic Director of Black Swan Theatre Company; Tanya Gerstle, Artistic Director of Optic Nerve and Anne-Louise Sarks, Co-Artistic Director of Hayloft.

Panelists were invited to reflect upon their artistic practice from its beginnings to the present moment. This session brought together three very different visions and aesthetics from directors who work in a variety of settings - the mainstream, the experimental and the independent. Each of them articulated very adroitly their own vision and method within the context of the current theatre environment. This panel was very inspirational and set the tone for the Forum as a positive expression of the work of women theatre directors, their capacity to persevere, to speak articulately about their work, and to lead.

The first evening of the forum was rounded off with drinks and food. This informal gathering was an opportunity for delegates to network and share news and ideas for ongoing communication and support.

]The second day of the forum began early with a panel entitled 'Body of Work', chaired by Professor Peta Tait. Panelists Kim Durban, Maude Davey and Donna Jackson spoke about their own ongoing practice and the people who had inspired them. They each spoke with humour and passion about the assumptions they had made early on in their practice and the realisations they have arrived at now in their third or fourth decade of work. The importance of this panel was to make real the existing history of women’s theatre work in Australia. Ours is an industry which often focuses on the present and is too often forgetful of past achievements. This is doubly true for women artists and this panel was a timely and exciting reminder of the experience, skill and talent we already have in our working artists.

After a short break we continued with the fourth panel entitled 'Creating Change.' This panel was chaired by Jane Woollard and brought together women from theatre and non-theatre backgrounds who are all leaders in the own fields and whose passion is creating change. This panel was designed to allow the delegates to reflect on their own industry/community from new perspectives. Panelists Sarah Houseman, Executive Officer for the Victorian Association for Environmental Education (VAEE), Elizabeth Bennett, a barrister, and Kristy Edmunds Artistic Director of the New York Armoury, explored the notion of change and how it takes place, why we resist it, and how we might think differently about change How can movements for change, social diversity and community connectedness transform our industry and our working lives? These women’s thoughts and observations provoked exciting responses from the audience and very productive dialogues began.

The afternoon of the second day was devoted to the question 'Where to now? Building a practical vision.'

This session was facilitated by Rob Ryan. Rob met with eight group leaders, Marcia Ferguson, Liz Jones, Gorkem Aragalou, Penelope Bartlau, Jude Anderson, Naomi Edwards, Yvonne Virsik and Adena Jacobs, and outlined the process for the afternoon session. Each group leader sat at a table and delegates joined them. Each delegate was asked to consider “What are the changes we would like to see which will improve our working lives beyond the Forum?” Each delegate was asked to write down 8-10 ideas for a practical vision. The groups then selected the best 3 ideas from around the table which were then ‘published’ on flip charts for the consideration of all delegates. Then a shortlist of the best ten ideas to build a practical vision for change for women theatre directors was generated. Small groups further explored one each of the six most popular ideas. We investigated each idea with the following questions:

What are the component parts of this goal?

What actions are needed?

What do we do now to enable this idea?

Actions: Who will do what and when?

To lobby for the establishment of medium sized theatre companies in Australia.

A lobby group to establish a medium sized company which has long term funding. Models discussed included: 3 independent companies to have the support of a manager and a publicist for 1-3 years; adopting an artistic directorship model that provides programming experience; finding partnerships or forming alliances with a 150seat theatre (the size of Napier Street) or ‘flexible space’.

Developing a resource hub.

The need for a hub was identified to provide independent theatre makers administrative and production support to allow more energy for the creation of artistic work. The hub would have an orientation to independent theatre, with a focus on support for women as part of the mandate. The idea of a venture capital model was discussed in terms of the gaps that exist in marketing, the role of the creative producer/entrepreneur and material resources (such as rehearsal and performance space.) Ideally the Hub would be

part of a virtual network.

7 Shows by 7 Women Directors in Major Festivals in 4 years.

To develop a rough set of ‘rules’ to begin and then in 2 ½ years, identified 7 pieces of outstanding work. Individual women create and fund their own work, with ‘Fresh Directions’ lobbying for State Arts Festivals to look at the projects. The group agreed to meet again in a fortnight to flesh out the idea.

NB: This group has been active since the Forum, with one sub committee meeting and another meeting scheduled for late November.

Mentorships and training across a career.

Develop pathways to mentorship and fields of practice. TNV was suggested as a place for centralization and consolidation of opportunities. Possibility of approaching The Athenaeum Club and The Australian Council and Arts

Vic for support. The need to lobby major arts funding to change the structure of mentorship was identified.

A Directors Network.

Workshops and professional development and spaces suitable for development of work. The need for a website to profile directors and list employment opportunities. Regular meetings, lobbying issues, developing a social networking model and utilizing the Internet more

effectively. NB: At the most recent AWDA meeting it was decided that AWDA will continue as a lobbying and networking organization and that AWDA meetings and one-off events could be convened in response to need.

Conclusion

The Forum concluded with a challenge from the four convenors for delegates and AWDA membership to take up the task of lobbying and driving actions for change. The convenors expressed their desire for others to take on a leadership role within the Alliance. The Forum tackled many subjects in a limited time frame. In hindsight, perhaps we attempted to cover too much ground. The task of identifying areas of practical change and further work for professional lobbying, sub-committees and leadership development was difficult to achieve in the last session on Saturday afternoon.

However, the response to the Forum was overwhelmingly positive. Many delegates spoke of feeling uplifted, empowered and described how they had discovered a new energy for their work. This can be attributed to the feeling of solidarity in the room – that delegates benefited from hearing other women directors speak about their practice, and that being in a room with other women directors made them feel supported. One delegate said she felt good about her work for the first time in a very long time. This could be attributed to the sense of failure many women directors might feel as they struggle to break into MPAB structures. Is it because I am not good enough? Not sexy enough? Not skilled enough? To feel affirmed in our practice was empowering and positive.

The acknowledgement of difference and diversity of practice, method and aesthetic was also a positive aspect of the exchange. Delegates were affirmed in their own unique practice, however, there was no intention to discover a female aesthetic working in contrast to the male norm. Our gender is not a problem in our art making, rather the professional challenges we face are

related to professional development, employment opportunities and accountability to equal opportunity legislation in funded organisations.

The challenge for us all is to find new ways of working in a challenging profession, to propose new models rather than replicating the old, and to respectfully attend to the demise of old ways of thinking about leadership and art making. We are committed to being ready with strong arms and hearts to midwife the birth of energised, diverse and subversive theatres for the 21st

century.

‘Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’

Mary Oliver

FRINGE FESTIVAL

2010-09-15T23:00:00.000+10:00

Wonderful work happening at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Check out the posts below for more information on some work to go and check out....

LAST CHANCE TO REGISTER FOR CREATING CHANGE FORUM

2010-08-26T16:43:00.005+10:00

Friday 10th September 4:30-8.30 and Saturday 11th September 9.30-6.30 @ the Arts Centre.

Registration fee: $40 covers Fri/Sat and includes opening night event, lunch & tea/coffee (Fri only $20 / Sat only $30)

The AWDA Creative Change Forum is shaping up to be a dynamic and inspiring event for our industry.

The focus of the event will be a celebration of the practice of women theatre makers and the possibilities for change and transformation in the theatre industry as we move towards greater diversity and inclusion in our companies and in our work.

Concepts and questions the forum will address include:
What is frightening about the notion of equal opportunity?
How do we challenge major companies to think about diversity in positive and energizing ways ?
Why do existing structures which currently control resources fear to grant women artistic and financial leadership?
Do women make different kind of leaders to men?
How will the inclusion of a broader range of artistic perspectives contribute to the dynamism of our cultural life?

These issues will be explored positively through panel discussion and break out groups. Leaders in other sectors of the community will speak about change, diversity and inclusive structures of work in their own area of practice. Women directors will reflect on their past and ongoing practice and the development of their aesthetic as artistic leaders. The forum will conclude with a facilitated series of discussions about the issues that delegates would like to address. Recommendations for future actions will come out of this discussion.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER or email directors.alliance@gmail.com for more information

PHILANTHROPIC GIFTS & TAX

2010-08-25T18:01:00.002+10:00

The arts guide to philanthropic gifts and tax:
http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/philanthropy/tax_guide

The guide was developed by Artsupport Australia in response to the ongoing requests from artists and arts organisations for information associated with receiving tax deductible gifts.

Please circulate to others you think may find this useful, and let us know your comments!

Best regards,
Ivana

Ivana Jirasek
Projects coordinator, Artsupport Australia
Australia Council for the Arts
Tel: +61 2 9215 9315
Mob: 0403 702 422
Fax: +61 9215 9062
i.jirasek@australiacouncil.gov.au

Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards

2010-08-22T23:29:00.001+10:00

Nominations are now open for the 2010 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards.
We welcome nominations for the following awards:

- Individual Award $40,000
- Group Award $70,000
- Facilitator's Prize $15,000

The Awards were created in 1984 to commemorate the life and cultural interests of Sidney Myer, and are primarily intended to enhance the status of the performing arts and artists in Australia. The Awards recognise past achievement, and consideration is also given to the potential of an individual or group to continue their contribution to Australian society through the performing arts.

We encourage you to submit a nomination, or nominations, for the three Awards. Please feel free to distribute information about the Awards to your networks.

A nomination form can be downloaded at .

Further information on previous winners can be found at .

Nominations close Friday 12 November 2010. Winners will be announced in early 2011.

Please don't hesitate to phone if you have any questions about the Awards or nomination process.

Best regards,

Debra
---
Debra Morgan
Program Manager
The Myer Foundation
Sidney Myer Fund
Level 18, 8 Exhibition Street
Melbourne, Australia, 3000

T: 61.3.9207 3042
F: 61.3.9207 3070
E: debra@myerfoundation.org.au
W: www.myerfoundation.org.au

LEADERSHIP FORUM: CREATING CHANGE

2010-08-02T17:29:00.002+10:00

The Australian Women Directors Alliance Leadership Forum: Creating Change will be held in Melbourne on the evening of

Friday September 10 and all day Saturday September 11

The Australian Women Directors Alliance has been active since mid last year, raising public awareness for women theatre directors.

This event will be a positive and energetic conference that looks at new models of practice and alternate structures and methods of work.

We will be having speakers from all over Australia to come join us - keep posted for details on who they are!

This Forum on Creating Change is designed to be a one and half day event, for female directors and anyone interested in inspiring change in the arts.

Places in the forum are, however, limited as the focus will be on interactive discussion. Application to attend is through an expression of interest process.

Regional funding is available via RAV quick response grants.

Please fill in the expression of interest below.

All written submissions and the results of the day will collated and distributed to participants and contributors after the Forum. If you are unable to attend the forum but would like to receive this documentation, please indicate your interest on the form.

CLICK HERE TO FILL IN EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

APHIDS' OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUNG AND EMERGING ARTISTS

2010-08-02T17:28:00.001+10:00

APPLICATIONS CLOSE SOON FOR APHIDS' EXCITING RESIDENCY OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUNG AND EMERGING ARTISTS WORKING WITH THE MOVING IMAGE.

Applications for this residency in Castlemaine are now open. This is a quick response residency round. Applications due 5pm, 4 August, 2010

Aphids (based in Melbourne), Punctum (based in Castlemaine) and Castlemaine State Festival are joining forces to assist 2 young and emerging Australian artists working with the moving image (video/ animation / film/ machinima/ expanded cinema and more) to undertake unique professional and creative development hosted by Punctum at its Incubator space.

REMOTE SENSE will see a period of invention and intervention within Castlemaine’s metallurgic landscape, and conversation with the local film community, with potential outcomes generated through the mentorship potentially leading to exhibition and screenings as part of the Castlemaine State Festival.

Mentoring and Residency Dates:
The mentorship period falls between September 30 – November 20, 2010

For more details about the mentors, host, eligibility and how to apply, visit http://www.facebook.com/l/bd393vZjxtYnZYQPeCqnzVGnSwA;www.aphids.net

Incubator Residency | Vitalstatistix | South Australia

2010-06-08T15:45:00.000+10:00

Applications are now open for the 2011 Incubator residency program at Vitalstatistix.
Submissions are invited from directors, devisors, performers, designers, new media artists, playwrights and creative teams to develop new performance, installation or hybrid arts work. Based at Waterside, Port Adelaide, Vitals’ large and flexible space, Incubator residencies provide a highly sought after opportunity for creative development in a supportive producing environment.

INCUBATOR residents have opportunities to feature in Vitals’ future programming and in 2011 they will be hosting two residencies over the year.
Applications are welcome from artists across Australia.

A copy of the application form & guidelines are available on the Vitalstatistix website - www.vitalstatistix.com.au

APPLICATIONS ARE DUE 31 AUGUST, 2010.

UpRiver | Incbator Residency for development of New Australian Performance Work

2010-05-31T10:29:00.003+10:00

Riverland Youth Theatre (RYT) has a wonderful gift of space in our venue to share with artists in South Australia and from interstate. The recently upgraded Renmark Institute is a comfortable and versatile rehearsal and performance space.

A new partnership with Australian Landscape Trust has given RYT access to a range of accommodation options at Calperum Station, a 250,000 hectare former leasehold sheep property with frontage on the River Murray and, further north, an expanse of mallee country. The Riverland offers an inspiring environment conducive for creative dreams to take shape.

UpRiver provides groups of artists with in-kind accommodation and workshop space towards the development of new performance works. Residencies of one to four weeks will be open to young, emerging and experienced independent artists across all art-forms.

Through this residential program RYT will bring creative teams of writers, actors, directors, designers, dancers and other performing artists to the Riverland during the creative development stages of arts projects. In receipt visiting artists will be asked to share their skills with young people and the community in a gift-back workshop arrangement.

Please contact RYT’s Artistic Director Julie Waddington for more information and application forms.
ryt.org.au
P 08 8586 3437
F 08 8586 3475
E julie@ryt.org.au
PO Box 100 Renmark 5341
54 Ral Ral Ave

Art Start Grants | Australia Council | Fertiliser for Budding Artists

2010-05-20T22:57:00.003+10:00

ArtStart Grants
www.stonnington.vic.gov.au
Australia Council for the Arts- Information Session

FERTILISER FOR BUDDING ARTISTS AND MORE
Tuesday 25 May 2010, 6-8pm
Old Council Chambers,
Trades Hall, Carlton

FREE

Come find out if ArtStart is for you.
ArtStart is a new grant initiative helping budding artists move from studying their atform to earning an income from it.

This info session is a great chance for you to:
· hear from successful ArtStart recipients about how they are using ArtStart to fertilise their careers.
· ask questions and find out what activities ArtStart could fund.
· find out other ways the Australia Council can support you and your art.

Old Council Chambers
Level 1, Trades Hall
Corner Lygon & Victoria Streets, Carlton VIC 3053
(entry off Lygon Street)

RSVP: Melissa Habjan, ArtStart Administration Officer,
on 02 9215 9162 or at m.habjan@australiacouncil.gov.au

2010 ArtStart Grant information
Closing date: 4 October 2010
Applications available online from 23 August 2010

www.artstartgrant.com.au

Arts Funding Forum | Arts Victoria e news | May 2010

2010-05-20T22:53:00.003+10:00

We are pleased to invite you to an upcoming arts funding forum hosted by the Australia Council for the Arts in partnership with Arts Victoria. The forum will provide an overview of the ways that Arts Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts can support your organisation or your work.

Invitation

Arts Funding Forum

Date: Friday 28 May 2010
Time: 3-5pm
Venue: National Gallery of Victoria - Clemenger BBDO Auditorium, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne.

Please RSVP by Tuesday 25th

Please feel free to pass this invitation on to your networks. RSVPs are essential. Please register via www.australiacouncil.gov.au/forums

MEDIA RELEASE - Melbourne Workers Theatre | May 4 2010

2010-05-08T08:27:00.004+10:00

Melbourne Workers Theatre takes on new direction and a new board
After 23 years of making socially relevant theatre, the Melbourne Workers Theatre has re-imagined its commitment to providing compelling and thought-provoking work.
The new season will herald in a new vision, a new board, a new creative producer and new works.

“We will continue our loyalty to producing fearless theatre through the new direction of documentary theatre, addressing up-to-the-minute topics of our times,” said the Workers’ Theatre new Creative Producer, Gorkem Acaroglu.

Ms Acaroglu has already forged a solid reputation in the style of socially relevant documentary theatre in both Sydney and Melbourne with works such as her acclaimed “The Habib Show”.
About her new role at the helm, she said,“ The Melbourne Workers Theatre continues its long tradition of employing female directors in artistic leadership roles and spearheading diversity of perspectives on the Australian stage”.

The new board brings together a wealth of experience and expertise in a range of fields, reflecting the company’s fresh direction. At the AGM on the 19th April the following new members were appointed:

Sue Nattrass AO has a distinguished career as one of Australia's most experienced and high profile arts managers including roles as the Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Adelaide Arts Festival.

Lidia Bufalino is the Strategic Programs Director of Ernst and Young and specialises in strategic marketing.

David Vadiveloo is a documentary filmmaker and human rights lawyer. Mr Vadiveloo has received the Australian Human Rights Award for Individual Community Achievement for his work with Indigenous youth.

Professor Ghassan Hage is the Future Generation Professor of Anthropology and Social Theory at the University of Melbourne. Prof. Hage was awarded the NSW Premier’s literary prize and award (Community Relations) for the book Against Paranoid Nationalism.

Lena Cirillo appointed as the new Chair has lead the culture of focussed, productive and creative arts organisations over the past fifteen years including Polyglot Theatre, the Lygon Street Festa and Arts Project Australia. Ms Cirillo is currently working for Make-A-Wish in Fundraising and Development. “As the new Chair, I am passionate about leading such a diverse and committed new board. The depth and breadth of our collective experience and ideas is a wonderful asset to the Workers’ Theatre. We look forward to working with our Creative Producer Gorkem Acaroglu; who we know will deliver a very exciting season of fearless documentary theatre never seen before.” said Ms Cirillo.

For more information contact info@melbourneworkerstheatre.com or 9326 6667

Interview with playwright Amelia Roper

2010-05-03T10:13:00.008+10:00

"Moving up to a broader stage" by Robin Usher, The Age, Wednesday 28th April, 2010

Roper's focus is on cross-racial casting and making Australian plays more relevant, but there is a passing reference to male directors and it is certainly an interesting article.

Sustainable Time

2010-04-27T16:43:00.001+10:00

How time is managed is a key factor in the implementation of structural change. The term 'sustainability' need not only refer to energy consumption. It may also refer to professional work practice.

The MPAB companies and other peak bodies in the performing arts sector have been slow to question or even wonder about the shape of a career in Australian theatre - how this fluctuates over a week, a month or years. Meanwhile, the rest of the community is engaged with ideas about leading a balanced life, allowing time for family, community volunteering and other activities that lie outside the work sphere.

The chasm between the small-medium sector and the MPAB will never be breached as long as there are two modes of time/work management in place. Artists in the small-medium sector are accustomed to holding down part time jobs in the education sector for example, as it is impossible to sustain oneself financially through project work. Yet when we are given the opportunity to work within the MPAB sector, we are expected to be available for long working hours, to the exclusion of other commitments and activities, for the sake of an eight- week contract. The full-time leadership roles of associate director or artistic director are predicated on this model of 'giving over' to work, a 19thc belief in the intrinsic value of hard work. If one questions the value of working an 80-100 hour week, one risks being considered (oh horror!) a 'hobbyist'.

The management of the resource of time has consequences for women directors who are also parents. When one is a parent, one has responsibility not only for one's own timetable, but also the timetable of a child, which may not intersect with a 9-6pm-and-beyond working day. Of course women are not always the primary carers of their children, but they often are, and the reasons for this are cultural, emotional, structural and need to be addressed by MPAB companies if they intend to redress the gender imbalance in key creative roles. If we choose to have children, attend their school working bees, or volunteer in local environment groups, surely that makes us more resilient, connected practitioners, in touch with the world and her dreams? What kind of artists do we become when we grind away our time in rarefied 19thc arts sweatshops?

The time is ripe to make room in the MPAB world for the skills and varied experienced of many different kinds of practitioners, not only for the mono-focused, ‘unencumbered,’ driven white male.

A solution to fit the problem

2010-04-27T12:08:00.002+10:00

In any change, the solution is the same size as the problem. For example, as we become more aware of global warming and diminishing oil reserves, we may convince ourselves that changing light bulbs, recycling and driving smaller cars is enough to solve the problem. This puts us in a state called 'cognitive dissonance', where we are half awake, believing we have been given the answer, yet knowing it is not really a solution for the problem.

The rush to solve the problem of inequality of opportunity for women directors in the Australian theatre workplace has lead to a flurry of events and initiatives in the past five months: the 'Where are the Women' forum held at Belvoir Street in late 2009 might be seen as one of these knee-jerk solutions. Despite the fact that this event was hosted by Belvoir Street, there has been no real desire for systemic change within this company. A transparent process for the selection of the new Associate Director at Belvoir Street is one way that this example of 'cognitive dissonance' could have been addressed. However, Belvoir Street has chosen a new Associate Director without an open process that could have provided the opportunity for female directors to apply for this position. Like changing the light bulbs, or driving an electric car, hosting forums and announcing initiatives for women directors within a particular age bracket does not address the underlying systemic problem.

If the MPAB companies truly wish to find a solution that is the same size as the problem, then the federal Equal Opportunity legislation may be a good place to start. Accountability, transparency and a willingness to engage with change and to consider new structures are the ways in which the MPAB companies might build a bridge between their own practice and the small to medium sector. If there is courage and energy for change, then we could create an industry where inclusion, resilience and social relevance are the pillars that support an excellent national theatre.

Jane Woollard

Artistic Director

Here Theatre

Some Observatons

2009-12-16T13:45:00.003+11:00

by Melanie Beddie, Jane Woollard and Lucy Freeman | Wednesday December 16 2009 |

Regarding the need fo Equal Opportunity in Theatre Companies which are funded through the Australia Council ‘s Major Performing Arts Board (MPAB) .

The benefits of successful Equal Opportunity within the workplace are well documented and proven (see for instance the most recent submission from the Human Rights Commission to the Rudd Government). Women directors are neither a minority group nor should they to be considered as constantly “emerging”. We cannot solve this problem whilst we continue to marginalise and trivialise the work of women theatre artists.

In our opinion a MPAB company which is unable to source, employ and collaborate with women in key creative roles in not functioning in a healthy and productive way. Nor are it’s current employees being given the opportunity to work with as wide a pool as possible of artists nor develop artistic relationships across the broadest range of practice .

MPAB companies have a narrow perception about what an artistic leader is, and as such the majority of work in these companies is shared amongst a small pool of directors who have experience working within a narrow band of similar venues with similar budgets. Work on large-scale productions in the CCD sector, in fringe or unconventional venues, in touring productions or in the education sector, needs to be seen as professionally relevant to MPAB company expectations.

The mechanism for how directors get their initial ‘break’ in the MPAB companies needs to become clearer. Once working within these companies, young directors can receive MPAB development funding to increase and strengthen their careers toward positions of greater responsibility. At present the beneficiaries of this in-house training model are overwhelmingly men between the age of 20-30. Thus it is possible to survey the Australian theatre landscape and ask the question ‘Where are the women?’ because they are invisible and not recipients of career guidance or promotion, what the Artistic Director of Malthouse Theatre has called ‘big opportunities.’

We believe women must be considered core business of any company and not relegated to special and occasional funding programs. This ‘add-on’ version of equality has been tried before and has not changed the culture of the companies into which the women were placed. Rather it has meant that as soon as the funding program ceased so did the inclusion of women.

The MPAB companies’ lack of accountability to EO legislation has created a ‘bottleneck’ in career pathways for women directors. The situation in the small to medium sector is entirely different .Subsidised by State and Federal project funding it has stringent criteria regarding EO and cultural diversity which all applicants must address in their proposals.

When a company begins to commit its core funding and programming to female creatives it will take the issue seriously enough to effect permanent change.

Equal Opportunity policies which are thrust upon unwilling organisations have been shown to be ineffective. Instead a willingness to engage with change and an enthusiasm for the opportunities for learning and expansion which arise from a more diverse workplace are the key to success in this area.

Equal Opportunity implementation here and overseas tells us that the proven road to success is twofold. There must firstly be consultation with all stakeholders in the area .Secondly an essential element towards creating change in an organisation is that the genuine desire for a transformation must come from the highest level of management and in this case this would refer to Boards, General Managers and Artistic Directors.

So now some Proposals:

Due to their extensive research and personal experience female directors (and other creatives) are a vital resource when developing policies regarding the placement, development and mentoring of women within larger organisations and as such it would be to the advantage of the companies to consult these artists.

We propose each company appoint an EO officer and that staff and the Board are given training in the area of EO and diversity

We propose that each MPAB company needs to develop its own unique Strategic Plan which reflects the specific interests and conditions of that company.

The Strategic Plan should set real and achievable targets for the coming year, three years and eight years etc.This provides a series of benchmarks by which that company and stakeholders can then measure its progress. We believe that any additional funding should be attached to demonstrated and long term Strategic Plans and the success of these programmes measured and assessed.

Companies need to be required to report to their own Boards and also to MPAB about the continuing success of their EO Policy

The Australia Council and MPAB need to take an active and ongoing role in supporting and monitoring EO in funded companies. We ask that the Australia Council create programs that assist companies to reach and then maintain their EO targets.

Most importantly in addition to developing a Strategic Plan towards the development and advancement of women within the organisation, the companies need to interrogate the existing company structure and culture and to assess whether these are working well for the encouragement of women into the organisation . It may be necessary to instigate corporate change in order to lead to more equal employment of both women and men within these MPAB companies.

Where are the Men?

2009-12-13T23:16:00.012+11:00

by A.G. Bierce | The New Era | Sunday 13th December 2009

The Australia Council and Arts Victoria have announced two initiatives to assist male directors in the development of their careers. Australia Council spokesman Jonathan Squirrel said today that the Minister, Katherine Willingham, has been concerned for some time about the lack of opportunities for male directors in Major Performing Arts Board companies. “The question has to be asked: ‘Where are the Men?’ said Squirrel. “We had no idea that there was a problem until the Australian Men Directors Alliance brought it to our attention.”

However, Randall Smith, of the AMDA, said that the matter had been raised at least three times in the past 25 years. “There was the ‘Men in Theatre’ report commissioned by the OZCO in 1982, and none of the recommendations from that report have been put in place. A group of male directors wrote a letter to the MTC board asking them to address the gender imbalance in their programming in 1996 and 2003. The Board wrote back stating that they had no obligation to acknowledge EO legislation. I don’t know how they can sleep at night. I have been a respected practitioner for almost 25 years and I am sick of seeing young women directors getting all these fabulous opportunities within the MPAB companies while my career remains at a standstill.”

When asked to respond, Peter Terry, General Manager of the Melbourne Theatre Company said: “The MTC is not in the habit of employing directors at entry level into the industry. Unfortunately the work of these male directors has not come to our attention as we hire on merit alone. To work at the MTC a director must have directed at a comparable venue such as Belvoir Street, one of the larger theatres at Malthouse or the Etihad Stadium.”

Anthony Fullerton, secretary of AMDA laughs at this suggestion. “We remain at ‘entry level’ because we can’t get a foot in the door at any of these venues. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.”

Peter Terry believes the new funding scheme will help men directors in the development of their careers. “The MTC does not have extra funding to support and develop the careers of men. We only have enough resources to do the 12 productions we are committed to each year. We are delighted that Arts Victoria and the Australia Council will provide us with additional funds for a men’s mentoring scheme.” Artistic Director of the MTC Guinevere Jones declared: “I reserve my right to hire on artistic merit – quotas lead to mediocrity – as artistic director I have to go on merit and excellence rather than some 1970s idea of fairness.”

Geoffrey Roberts, spokesman for Arts Victoria, says the new mentoring program – ‘MenCan2’ - will be an exciting opportunity for men directors to develop their professional skills, with a focus on collaborative processes, the effective use of modest resources and communication. “The MenCan2 program will be a step on the way to redressing the imbalance. Of course men make good directors, they just haven’t had the opportunities to develop the skills required for work within these companies. Perhaps women are more confident in their proposals and are more adept at pitching something that they know the MPAB companies will go for. It is our hope that ‘MenCan2’ will equip emerging men directors with the skills to go on and possibly even work in the MPAB arena,” said Roberts.

The Australia Council has created ‘MENtoring’, which also offers development funding for young men directors. The MenCan2 and MENtoring programs will support placements within each MPAB theatre company. The mentee must be in the first five years of their practise after graduating from WAPA, VCA or NIDA. “Arts Victoria and OZCO are funding these exciting new initiatives with a combined amount of $47 500,” said Squirrel. “The mentees will attend rehearsals of productions within the companies, across a range of styles and scale of work. The experience will build and strengthen their practise, so that they better understand how these companies function, and are more confident in making an approach.”

Anthony Fullerton is sceptical about the new program. “How much?$47 500? That won’t go far amongst nine mentees. They have probably spent double that on ‘branding’ these two schemes. And what will the mentees be doing? Watching rehearsal? I don’t think I would learn anything from watching Guinevere at work. And it doesn’t actually provide any opportunities for mid-career men directors. We’ve already been written off.”

Peter Terry defends the new program. “There is a second tier of funding already being discussed at MPA board level. If the company feels their mentee is worth developing further, then a trip to the Royal Court to observe rehearsal methods will be offered. We are determined to get this right.”

Justine Gregory, Artistic Director of Malthouse, was unavailable for comment.

EO Policy change at MTC: AWDA's letter to the VC & the VC's reply

2009-12-13T15:19:00.005+11:00

As you may know, the Melbourne Theatre Company has recently been asked, by the University of Melbourne, to appoint an Equal Opportunity Officer and Equal Opportunity Committee. They have also agreed that in future, all Associate Director positions will be advertised.

Prior to this change (and can we be so brazen as to say, a precursor to it?), Australian Women Directors Alliance wrote to the University of Melbourne's Vice-Chancellor, Glyn Davis, outlining concerns that as a department of the University of Melbourne, the Melbourne Theatre Company was failing to follow the Equal Opportunity Policy as required by the university.

Below is that letter and Mr Davis' response.

14th October 2009

Glyn Davis
Vice Chancellor
The Office of the Vice-Chancellor
The University of Melbourne
Victoria 3010

Dear Sir,

We write on behalf of the members of AWDA, a group of theatre practitioners incorporating sixty or more female directors and theatre makers. We range from emerging artists, in their first five years of practice, through to experienced and highly regarded directors in their third and fourth decade of practice. The alliance grew out of the Australia Council’s Australian Theatre Forum in March 2009 and our purpose is to offer professional development and networking opportunities for female theatre practitioners and to work in areas of advocacy for our members.

We have recently tried to engage in an open and genuine conversation with the Melbourne Theatre Company over what we see as a crisis in career opportunities for female theatre directors at that company. We wrote a letter to the Board (see attached) in which we did a number of things:

-We provided the Board with some statistics about declining opportunities for women over the last five years at the MTC

-We queried the success of their implementation of the University of Melbourne’s Equal Opportunity Policy

-We offered to begin a dialogue with the company in helping to address the problem of the lack of women employed in the company in key creative positions.

-We asked the MTC to take positive steps and adopt a leadership role given its position as a successful State Theatre Company

-We acknowledged the opportunities, which do already exist for women in the MTC Education Department and asked that these positions be considered as part of a pathway towards directing jobs with greater responsibility.

-We sought to understand how key creative positions are allocated in the company. Whether these positions are advertised for instance.

We feel that the response of the MTC Board (see attached) has been less than satisfactory as they have not chosen to engage with the issues we raised. We are also taken aback by the Board request for a list of our membership and hope that this was not intended as an act of intimidation.

The response from the Board does not seem aligned with contemporary attitudes towards equal opportunity in the workplace, although we note that your Equal Opportunity Policy offers;

"Cover for all training programs for staff with management responsibility, principles of equal opportunity and means towards its achievement”.

Additionally, the letter from the Board acknowledges that there has been no change in company policy since 2003, when this issue was last raised with them. Indeed the issue was also raised in 1993.

In their letter they define the method, if not the criteria by which employment is offered to directors. They believe that appointment of a directorial position should be merit based, decided by senior MTC personnel after viewing the work of potential directors. However they also acknowledge that gender equity for female directors is a problem occurring throughout several strata of the theatre industry, and in particular on these very stages that the work of directors is judged. We too are aware of this conundrum and hence our request to the MTC to put in place the ‘positive steps’ promised by their Equal Opportunity Policy.

We do not believe that the failure of equal opportunity in other medium-sized companies provides the MTC with an excuse to avoid employing women. Indeed it should suggest to the MTC that it can no longer rely on these other companies to train their main stage directors. Instead we suggest it may be more productive for the MTC to instigate structural changes that allow the company to have greater control over developing the kinds of directors it seeks.

We are in the main very disappointed that the Board of the MTC do not see themselves as being leaders of change in this area or having any role in promoting a culture that is inclusive of women.

We are now asking you to engage with us in a serious and respectful dialogue about how to proceed in making the MTC a genuine equal opportunity employer. We have also requested the assistance of the Australia Council, Arts Victoria and the Office of Women’s Affairs in this matter.

We would ask you to please acknowledge the receipt of this letter and also let us know a likely timeline for your considered response.

We look forward to understanding how you intend to proceed in this matter and also how we can assist you in understanding the issue from our perspective.

Yours sincerely

Melanie Beddie and Lucy Freeman

And one month later, a response:

17th November 2009

Dear Ms Beddie and Ms Freeman,

Apologies for the delay in providing this substantive reply, a result of time required to consult with various parties and secure an appropriate outcome. As you know, the University is very committed to equity and diversity in its workplace, and has established a Staff Equity and Diversity Framework 2008-2012 which is intended to guide the Equity and Diversity Plans of our faculties, divisions and departments.

Following receipt of your letter, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (University Affairs) Prof Warren Bebbington has met with the General Manager of the MTC, Anne Tonks, and as a result I am pleased to report that, at its next meeting, the Board of MTC will be asked to appoint an Equal Opportunity Officer and an Equal Opportunity Committee to take leadership of these issues at MTC. This Officer and the Committee will be charged with developing a plan for enhancing equal opportunity policies and practices aligned with the Company’s overall strategic plan. The University's Equal Opportunity Unit will arrange for the necessary staff training so that the Equity and Diversity Framework and its expectations are widely understood at MTC.

I can also report on some positive strategies to be put in place by the Board in the immediate future. The positions for Associate Directors, in the past filled without advertising, will henceforth be advertised and recruited through processes that meet best practice standards and comply with the University’s equal opportunity policies and with anti-discrimination legislation. The Company will also make an application to the Australia Council for a Young and Emerging Artists Grant to provide opportunities in 2010 to specifically develop young and emerging women Directors.

I am assured that the Company's request for a list of your members was not intended as an “act of intimidation,” but rather one intended simply to better inform the Company of women Directors available for work, in case there are those not known to them. However, I do understand the sensitivity of this issue. There may be better ways of informing MTC of women Directors who are available for engagement.

As you will have seen from our Framework (available on the university website), our goals for women's participation in employment for 2010-2012 are very broadly framed. However, I do hope the steps set out here assist in addressing your concerns.

Regards,

Glyn Davis

Women act up over directionless careers

2009-12-09T15:36:00.002+11:00

The Australian | December 4, 2009

WHEN artistic director Neil Armfield revealed that his 2010 season for Company B Belvoir included only one female director, he generated an outcry, and a topic for this Sunday's Philip Parsons Lecture.

The Sydney theatre group is devoting its annual industry forum to a discussion about the absence of women in key creative roles in Australian theatre. It has pulled together a panel of women, none of whom is in a key decision-making position.

The Company B situation is echoed at the Melbourne Theatre Company, where Kate Cherry is the only woman directing a show, and only then because it's a buy-in from West Australia's Black Swan, of which she is artistic director.

The Sydney Theatre Company and Griffin have also overlooked women, though to a lesser degree.

Now Company B is attempting to own the debate by asking "Where Are The Women?". [READ MORE]

An Open Letter to Company B from Caleb Lewis

2009-11-27T13:43:00.004+11:00

Published on November 24, 2009 - Augusta Supple's Blog

This afternoon I received an open letter to Company B from Caleb Lewis, one of the Shortlisted writers for the 2009 Phillip Parson’s Award, who has decided to withdraw from the competition.

I have posted the letter below.

I believe that this must have been a difficult letter to write and to send, as Lewis is, as many are, a living breathing playwright whom I am sure, wishes to be programmed on one of Sydney’s illustrious stages. The tenuous balance between the politcs of theatre and the programming of art is something I think all artists are mindful of. In fact, it is hard to feel that programming is fair and transparent when programming comes down to personal taste.
What I admire most about this debate is how the intergrity of an artist is truly measured in the risks she/he takes in voicing what she believes and what she/he knows in her heart is the right thing to do.

Is that not what so many plays through out history ask us to remember?

To thine own self be true….

And how often is it that we bite our tongues, we close our eyes, we turn our backs only later to say “I let that go, when I should have and could have said that I really believe…” As with anyone who has weighed in on the debate (annonymously or otherwise) the fear of being blacklisted is ever present.

To view the whole letter and blog click on this link: http://augustasupple.com/?p=764#more-764

MTC no "Boys' Club" according to Ann Tonks

2009-11-25T17:36:00.004+11:00

The Age, Letters, 21/11/09

Melbourne Theatre Company is not a “boys’ club”. And I should know. I’ve been the general manager of the company for the past 15 years and proudly call myself a feminist.

This is a company that has produced 50 per cent of the female artistic directors appointed to run state theatre companies for the past 10 years; where the artistic and general management of the company is 64 per cent female; where half the permanent staff are women; where female board membership is four times higher than the Australian ASX 200 average.

There had been an attempt to paint the role of women managers in the performing arts as passive supporters of male artists at the expense of other women. I’ve spent my working life exploring and creating opportunities for women including initiating an all-women radio program (still running 25-years later) and training women in leadership in the Asia-Pacific region and in Australia. If Melbourne Theatre Company was a “boys’ club” I wouldn’t be working there.

Ann Tonks, Pascoe Vale South

The Age, Letters, 25/11/09

In response to Anne Tonks (Letters, 21/11), the claim that the Melbourne Theatre Company has nurtured the careers of 50 per cent of female artistic directors of state theatre companies in Australia in the past 10 years amounts to the support of a pitiful total of two or three women. This seems a cynical use of statistics to support an untenable argument. Therefore, I accept her resignation from the MTC on the grounds that it is a “boys’ club”.

Patricia Cornelius, Melbourne Workers Theatre, North Melbourne

Belvoir asks, "Where are the women?"

2009-11-25T17:22:00.003+11:00

Philip Parsons Memorial Lecture: Where are the Women?

There has been much discussion recently about the lack of women in key creative roles in theatre and much speculation around why this is the case. Are enough female creative voices being nurtured? Do audiences notice? What could and should be done to rectify the gender imbalance in the creative landscape? ... [ READ MORE ]

Also read Jane Woollard's personal response to the question below.

Where are the women?

2009-11-25T10:58:00.009+11:00

A personal response to the question posed by Belvoir Street Theatre.

An account of one Victorian female director's career trajectory and her observations about Australian Theatre.

by Jane B Woollard

‘He may be the country's most passionate and ambitious stage director. A self-described "obsessive theatre-maker", he says he values "art and the need for it.”’

‘His nerves are understandable. At twenty four he is the youngest director to open a main-stage production for Company B since Neil Armfield became artistic director of the company's precursor, the Nimrod Theatre, thirty years ago. He shrugs off the suggestion he could be a directorship candidate when Armfield leaves at the end of next year, but given his achievements it is not that far-fetched.’

‘He has had a meteoric career/A most impressive trajectory/He has blazed like a comet across the sky/He is an enfant terrible/a boy wonder/a wunderkind/a very impressive young man/in youthful middle age/with an energy younger than his years.’

The phallic and ejaculatory hyperbole we read about male theatre directors in the Australian press is intensely wearying. The arts journalists trip over their undies to write this stuff, hoping one day they may get to interview Kosky and his clever glasses. One reads breathless descriptions of male genius and wonders how one can transcend one’s own dull femaleness. To be a theatre director who is middle aged and female is to wear a suit made of albatrosses. In reviews the language about our work differs from that accorded to men. If our work is mentioned by the critic at all. At best we get ‘detailed’ ‘well-observed’ and (my detested favourite) ‘quirky.’ At worst female directors are hauled over the critical coals for getting in the way of an otherwise grand play – heaven forbid that the female director should leave her stylistic mark on the work. Surely we are there to be handmaidens of the script? Not, like our male counterparts, ‘auteurs’, ‘wunderkinds’ and ‘enfant terribles?’

I stood in a backyard in Queenscliff in 1986 and watched Halleys Comet make its progress across the sky. Midway through finishing my three year directing diploma at VCA, and filled with bright hopes for my future as a theatre director, I was humbly anticipating my impressive career as a theatre maker and practitioner. The 1980s were a brave new world, or perhaps being 24 years old made it seem so. There were no impediments to my vision and drive as a female artist, the glass ceiling had been dissolved, and the young men I was training with enjoyed working alongside women.

The comet was not as I expected. It was bright and slow, its movement undetectable to the naked eye. It inched across the edge of our sky in slow increments. It was a veil of light being pulled slowly across the black sky, like the trail your hand leaves when you wipe it across a rainy window pane. The Bayeux tapestry came to my mind. ‘Isti mirant stella,’ I whispered to myself. ‘There is the hairy star.’

‘I shall enter the firmament of Australian theatre in just such a way,’ I thought to myself. ‘I shall brightly lead the way, I shall make striking flowers of light in the thespian heavens.’

Twenty-three years later, my working life as a theatre director has indeed been like the progress of that distant comet, in ways I didn’t understand in 1986. My career has had a less predictable trajectory. The work trails behind me, a varied tail of light and shadow, a slow traversing of struggle and joy. But the work has been powered by the pulsing core of energy – artistic vision, knowledge, practise and skill. And by the wonderful collaborators who have made the work with me. There has been a steady flow of theatre-making, in the independent theatre, funded and unfunded, in the education sector and in community, working in the field of cultural development, transforming true tales into theatre, giving voice to those who stand on the fringes of the community, or bringing to light forgotten words from the past.

In past years the debate about access and equal representation for female directors in Australian theatre has flared and died, flared and dimmed. I have stood by, not signing letters, not joining the groups, believing with each year that the low representation of women in these roles is an aberration, an oversight that will be rectified the next year. Surely?

But it is an inescapable fact that the statistics for female directors are getting worse. The recent release of the seasons for MTC, Belvoir Street, Malthouse Theatre and Griffin Theatre have shown it to be worse than ever, with no women directors employed in any of the 2010 seasons curated by these companies. In response to criticism and questions asked in the print media and theatre blogs, Belvoir Street Theatre in Sydney is hosting a ‘Where are the Women?’ forum on 6 December in conjunction with the Phillip Parsons Young Playwright Award.

Why does all of this matter? We have in Australia legislation called the Equal Opportunity in the Workplace Act which became law in 1986. This legislation explicitly states that organisations must adhere to the principle of Equal Opportunity in employment. But the principle of Equal Opportunity rarely applies in the theatre industry. For example, the Melbourne Theatre Company, as a department of Melbourne University, is obliged to adopt this position as an Equal Opportunity employer. However, the few ongoing roles for directors that women could apply for are never advertised. In recent years the plum job of Artistic Associate at MTC has become vacant twice. On both occasions it has not been advertised and has been offered to and taken up by men. One discovers that so-and-so is now in the role, and one thinks ‘I would have liked to apply for that.’ But the opportunity never presents itself.

The MTC Board and its Artistic Director defend their right to hire on merit alone, and at their discretion. There seems to be an attitude that they should not have to be accountable to such dull and pedestrian principles as Equal Opportunity, and that to open the doors to artists other than white middle class men would create a culture of mediocrity. Funded by public monies, Major Performing Arts Board Companies have no obligation to comply with EO legislation or to account for their progress or work in regard to it. Indeed, the MTC Board has scoffed at the idea of quotas, affirmative action, and has indicated they resent being asked why it is that they rarely employ women in these key creative roles. The funding bodies who are charged to fund the major companies take a hands off approach and blithely let them go on their way, even though the said companies contravene the funding organisations’ own EO guidelines. Theatre critic Alison Croggon wrote recently that we would not want to return to a quota system. I don’t remember such a system ever being in place. And surely equality is a principle we hold dear in our society. In this debate there has been an assumption that equal opportunity equates with mediocrity. A somewhat cocky belief that if you open the door to a variety of people, namely women and people of different cultural backgrounds, then there will be a dumbing down of the work, a dilution of skill and artistic excellence.

The MTC Board declared in its recent letter to the Australian Women Directors Alliance that female directors are not employed by the company unless they have demonstrated success on the mainstream stage, working for companies that make work for audiences of 15000 – 30000, such as Belvoir Street and Malthouse Theatre. Unfortunately neither of these companies have programmed work directed by women in 2010, so it appears we female theatre directors are trapped in a vicious nineteenth century circle. Whenever I direct a project, I approach it with the full strength of my vision, skill and artistic integrity. Directing requires the same degree of artistic excellence when making work for a small audience or a stadium audience. Of course with greater financial investment the stakes go up. But one is supported through this process by the financial and administrative staff of the larger companies, by an experienced production team, and by one’s own experience managing budgets. Whether a production budget is large or small the same principles apply.

What underlies these feeble arguments about ‘mainstream,’ ‘main stage’ and handsome budgets, is a nasty sexist assumption about women and leadership. An assumption that women are too empathetic, and therefore cannot make tough decisions, can’t manage a budget, and don’t make strong directors because empathy equals weakness and indecisiveness. An empathetic heart is a strong heart. To be kind (if people wish to believe this is the sole province of women) does not preclude having nerves of steel and a canny eye.

‘Where are the women?’

I hear again the forlorn cry from Belvoir Street Theatre and I must answer it.

We are in our 30s or 40s and approaching the peak of our practice. Many of us have children, and so the fulltime jobs of Artistic Director or Associate Director are, it has to be said, difficult. Men with families perhaps make a different set of choices, perpetuating certain cherished myths about artists being ‘driven’ and that the process of making theatre is a superhuman task, above and beyond normal energy and familial commitments. Their unquestioning commitment to the unsustainable habit of overworking compromises us all. Women tend not to want 80 hour a week jobs that take them away from their children. Networking in theatre foyers over a stubby of boutique beer is not so easy for some of us. The structure of succession in Australian theatre relies on being seen, being social, and being in the right places. Female directors with families struggle to build these informal professional relationships.

In Australian theatre we are enamoured with the young, with the male, with fragmentation and society’s diseases. As a theatre maker, if you do not make work that reflects these obsessions, then you are invisible. So when Belvoir Street Theatre poses a fatuous ‘after the horse has bolted’ question like ‘Where are all the Women?’ my response is to say – ‘Fuck you! We have been here all along, making fabulous varied work that is not dressed in fishnets, whiteface, sad puppets, rear projection screens, costly perspex, 10 000 litres of water and ear-splitting sound scores. That stuff is only unexamined fashion after all – not craft, not ‘zeitgeist.’ Perhaps our Major Performing Arts Board Companies could make a consistent and focussed commitment to getting out and seeing the work of more practitioners, instead of waiting to be dazzled by the next bright young boy genius. (‘He reminds me of myself at that age.’)

The Malthouse Theatre’s mission statement declares as one of its truisms ‘Theatre is inherently and profoundly sexual.’ What the? This, more than anything else, is evidence that the smart young-ish blokes have had their hands on it for too long and I am beside myself with rage, lost opportunities and despair - that all my training and experience and vision counts for naught. Ironically, this makes me mad as an Xray Specs song.

‘Oh Bondage up yours / Oh bondage no more!' (times two)

‘Where are the women?’

Right here, working at the coalface of theatre – in education, in community, in little theatres and workplaces. We have been making a range of work that is not necessarily particular to being female, it is varied in genre and from, and it is made of different material to the garish stuff that is fashionable in Australia at the moment.

No one is speaking out for the sisters except the sisters. Our brothers in art are quite happy with their fortune. They do not wonder why we are not standing beside them, taking roles of artistic authority and leadership. They do not ask themselves why it is women who are administering, publicising, and managing men’s work. Nor do they ask ‘How did I get this big opportunity without having to go through a formal application process, in a fair competition with a variety of other directors?’

It is clear that male directors and Artistic Directors are quite content and thrilled with themselves, their genius heads held aloft and smiling, as they saunter across the glass ceiling, never once looking down to see us peering up their trouser legs. They are too absorbed in their important work of artistic leadership, and ensuring that qualified, kind- hearted clever women do not get their hands on the means of production, the resources for story telling and therefore a voice in well-resourced theatre making in Australia.

Highly inflammable

waiting to explode

neurotic tensions

risen overflowed

(Inflammable Material/ Warrior in Woolworths, Xray Specs, 1979)

Old Fashioned Sexism

2009-11-23T21:36:00.004+11:00

3RRR SmartArts, 19/11/09

Presenter: Richard Watts

Interview with Michael Kantor

RW: It’s a strong season, the Season One of 2010, but the glaring absence – is the lack of women directors. There’s been a lot of discussion about this in the Australian theatre sector over the last few months. Not one woman director in this season..

MK: Not in this first season. In the second season – that is actually balanced quite well in fact – quite in the opposite way.

We’re very aware that it is harder for women to make headway inside major companies, and we haven’t been great at it – I’m the first to admit that.

When I came into the position my predecessor had really tried to make significant differences in that respect by having kind of grids and having kind of ‘We’re going to have 50% of female writers and 50% female directors and we’re going to have 50% indigenous and 50%’ and everything was 50%.

But the problem was that it had actually kind of limited the kind of range of work that was taking place. So I chose not to have quotas. And I think that’s right not to have quotas but we have to remain vigilant at all times and sometimes and I think it’s not just us. I think every company has kind of ….allowed a situation to develop - and it’s not a good situation – in which it is harder for women directors. And there’s no reason, there is no inherent reason why a female director can’t direct on a big stage, or that they want to do different kind of work – I just don’t believe in that. I just think it is kind of a little bit of … hard, hard sort of time for us to all.. think hard about how we’re going to make those kind of opportunities in the future. 'Cause I think it’s real, I think the issues are real.

RW: How do you think those opportunities can be created? Mentorship schemes for emerging women directors have been identified as one...

MK: Yeah. absolutely. I think it’s about opportunity. I think about ‘How did I get to direct plays?’ I was just granted fabulous opportunities very early on in my career. That is kind of - that mentoring role. I’m not sure about schemes and scholarships – all great stuff. And bursaries, we do bursaries down at Malthouse and we do try and favour, you know …sections of the industry that are not getting a leg up and so there have been a lot of female bursaries given, but ultimately I think it’s choices made by programming – whether it’s programming by committee or by artistic directors - that make sure the that opportunity is big and large because lots of small opportunities can be good but you’ve really got to be given the leg up for big opportunities, I suppose.

I think that we also - we’ve had just recently Jenny Kemp and um..Rose Myers direct for us…We have had lots of great directors. And right now up in the Tower the piece is actually directed by, principally by Halcyon..that’s sorry I’m referring to..um..

RW: Africa

MK: Africa, which is running now. So I don’t feel that bad. I don’t think our record’s disastrous, but it could be better. And I think it could be better from us, from the MTC, from STC, from Belvoir – from all the companies.

RW: It’ll be a situation I’ll be looking with interest in the coming months and years to see – because it will have to be a long term change.

MK: Yeah. I think so.

RW: We hope that it happens.

MK: I think it should happen. I mean, I do wonder whether it’s a bit of old fashioned sexism, really and I might be part of it. But – and it’s really good that it’s come up as an issue. I think it’s fabulous that articles are being written and people are being pushed on it. 'Cause that’s how change happens, really.

RW: Very much so.

MTC forced to comply with Equal Oppotunity Policy

2009-11-19T11:13:00.016+11:00

Theatre company ends 'boys' club'

by Robin Usher | The Age | Thursday 19th November, 2009

AUSTRALIA'S oldest state theatre organisation, the Melbourne Theatre Company, has been forced to reverse its position over the limited number of women it employs in creative roles, especially directing, after criticism that it had created a boys' club environment.

The company's parent organisation, Melbourne University, intervened to insist that its practices complied with the university's equal opportunity policies and anti-discrimination legislation. An MTC board meeting tomorrow is expected to appoint both an equal opportunity officer and an EO committee to ensure the company's practices fit in with the university's staff equity policies.

This follows complaints about ''an overwhelming downturn'' in opportunities for women directors at the company in recent years by a convenor with the Australian women directors' alliance, Melanie Beddie.

She said the university's vice-chancellor, Professor Glyn Davis, had responded with written assurances that MTC practices would change, including the advertising of positions such as associate directors, which previously had been appointed unilaterally by the company's artistic director, Simon Phillips... [READ MORE]

'Mid-Career practitioners' residency opportunity at VU

2009-10-29T13:56:00.000+11:00

Passing on ....

Mid-career theatre, dance and performance artists invited to apply

Residency artists get:
* On-going access to studio and theatre space
* Support from other resident solo artists and industry mentors
* Group studio sessions and immersive experiences
* A mid-year immersion experience that can include international workshops or period of development in a country of your choice with travel grant support from VU International (up to $4,000)

The residency provides a professional development framework to investigate your performance making process- usually with respect to creating a solo work.

First round applications must be received via email by Friday 27 November 2009

Web info here or email: perform@vu.edu.au

John Bailey explores the macho mainstage

2009-10-18T11:39:00.012+11:00

A Dramatic Imbalance
by John Bailey | The Age | 18th October, 2009

The theatre world prides itself on its open-mindedness, but when it comes to the gender divide, it seems Australia's flagship companies are still way behind.

IN TERMS of blokiness, the theatre industry is rarely thought of in the same terms as the rugger-bugger world of sport, the macho model of corporate business or the old-boys' networks of academia. But recent weeks have seen those charges laid against the top figures of our peak performing arts bodies.

Last month, Sydney's Belvoir St Theatre announced its 2010 season. As each production was announced, its creators were invited to take to the stage. But as the numbers mounted something became glaringly obvious - amid the sea of what one Crikey tipster called ''male lookalike writers and directors'', only one woman was featured. On an ironic note, that director was Lee Lewis, who caused a storm several years ago when she called the theatre community to task for systematically ignoring non-white actors.

It wasn't long before the fury spread. The Melbourne Theatre Company's 2010 launch showed a similar skew, with one female director employed for the 12-show season. The Sydney Theatre Company offered another 12 shows: only three female directors... [Read More]

Australian debate reaches UK: Cultural desert for female directors

2009-10-15T16:54:00.013+11:00

Australian theatre should get real
by Chris Wilkinson | Guardian.co.uk | 14th October, 2009

Bloggers in Australia are cross about how few plays are being directed by women and debating whether naturalism is dead

G'day! And welcome to a Noises Off Australia special. Two major rows have blown up for Aussie theatre bloggers of late, and so this week I'm digging down under to find out what has got everyone so upset.

The first issue concerns the newly announced seasons from Sydney's Company B Belvoir and Melbourne's MTC. Between them, the companies will producing a total of 17 shows next year, of which only two (one from each theatre) will be directed by women. On hearing the news, Sydney-based playwright Joanna Erskine said her "heart sank" and "blood seemed to boil" at the apparent discrimination. She is not the only one who is angry. The blog of the Australian Women Directors Alliance says its chair, Lucy Freeman, has written to MTC to say: "If we could see signs that there were professional development pathways or schemes put in place to make entry of women directors into the fold a little easier then we might imagine that the situation will be better in five to 10 years. But the situation hasn't got any better, in fact it's got worse." [READ MORE]

Breaking down the boy’s club

2009-10-08T15:09:00.000+11:00

By Richard Watts ArtsHub | Wednesday, October 07, 2009

(read the whole thing HERE)

Accusations about a perceived ‘boy’s club’ mentality among Australia’s mainstage theatre companies have been made across a range of media in recent weeks.
Blogs have been ablaze with debate about the issue, and mainstream newspapers such as The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald have also weighed into the discussion.
Much of the debate has centered on the lack of opportunities for women directors, and to a lesser extent the opportunities for women playwrights; and both the Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC) and Sydney’s Company B Belvoir have been singled out for criticism, following the recent unveiling of their respective programs for 2010.

Of the seven mainstage productions at Company B next year, only one – That Face, by UK playwright Polly Stenham – is being directed by a woman, Lee Lewis.

In response to Company B’s program, Sydney playwright Joanna Erskine wrote on her blog [http://www.joannaerskine.com/cluster/?p=368]: “As I listened to the remainder of the 2010 line up announcements, however, my heart sank and my blood seemed to boil. For in the following 6 mainstage productions and 3 add-ons, there was no mention of female directors or playwrights … I struggle to understand how such a prominent and successful and LOVED company such as Company B Belvoir, has openly produced such a female-less season. I don’t mean actors, I mean females in integral creative roles – as playwright and director.”

In Melbourne, similar reactions met the unveiling of the 2010 MTC program, which features 12 productions, of which only one is directed by a woman: Hannie Rayson’s The Swimming Club, directed by Kate Cherry.

Lucy Freeman is the Chair of the Australian Women Directors’ Alliance, which recently wrote to the MTC to express concerns about the company’s lack of support for female directors. She says she is concerned that the situation at the MTC shows no signs of improvement.

“If we could see signs that there were professional development pathways or schemes put in place to make entry of women directors into the fold a little easier then we might imagine that the situation will be better in five to ten years. But the situation hasn’t got any better, in fact it’s got worse,” she tells ArtsHub.

“And the other concern is a more cultural one. I worry about what happens to the cultural product when the authoritative figures, the creative decision makers, are all coming from one sector of the community in what is otherwise an obviously two gendered and quite multicultural environment in Melbourne and Victoria; that perhaps our state company isn’t, in its creative leadership position, necessarily representative of the society that makes up the audience.” (CONTINUED)

Read the whole thing HERE

A letter from Melbourne Workers Theatre

2009-10-05T16:35:00.005+11:00

This is the full and original version of a letter written by the current ensemble of Melbourne Workers Theatre. A much shorter version appeared in last Saturday's copy of The Age. (Please note: this letter was written prior to the receipt of Derek Young's reply to Ms. Beddie, following a considerable amount of lapsed time from when the original letter was sent, with no reply received.)

Over the past fortnight Australian main-stage theatre companies have been unveiling their 2010 seasons to a barrage of complaints and criticism about the lack of opportunities for women in key creative roles, especially directing.

Last week the Melbourne Theatre Company followed suit by announcing that out of 12 productions only one is to be directed by a woman. A recent article in your paper cites a letter sent by director Melanie Beddie on behalf of the Australian Women Directors’ Alliance to the MTC questioning their commitment to their equal opportunity policies. We understand there has been no reply. Derek Young, the MTC’s chair, said that the company does not feel it should be held responsible for gender equality; rather that it is an issue for the entire theatrical industry. He pointed out that Beddie had made a similar complaint in 2003 and that nothing had changed.

We, the current ensemble of the Melbourne Workers Theatre, wish to offer our thanks and support to Melanie Beddie and the Directors’ Alliance for bringing this issue to light. We would like to say to the MTC that to admit that nothing has changed since 2003 is to admit that the company is stagnant and out of touch with what is happening in theatre beyond its doors.

The Women Directors’ Alliance comprises 60 members: a significant proportion of those members, Beddie included, have spent decades directing excellent, profound and mostly under-funded theatre in Melbourne and beyond. Our industry relies on these women’s efforts as mentors for cultivating writers, performers, designers and technicians, but in turn they are not rewarded with professional work that is commensurate with their experience and skills. If artistic director Simon Philips is suggesting that the MTC’s gender inequality is the result of a lack of experienced Victorian female directors then we would like to ask him: are you blind, or scared, or both? There is no shortage of female talent in Victoria, simply a lack of opportunity.

We understand that budgetary constraints limit the number of external directors that can be employed by the company. But, when the proportion of directors is always overwhelmingly male we are interested in finding out what your recruitment criteria are that so many experienced women continue to be overlooked. That said, if the cost of external directors is causing gender equality to remain grossly unbalanced then it would seem logical to include women in your salaried creative staff.

If the MTC is the flagship theatre company of this state then it, more than any other company, has a responsibility to set an example and act fairly when it comes to gender equality. To relinquish that responsibility and make excuses as to the current state of discrimination implies that the MTC does not hold this issue to be important and therefore does not intend to act to promote change. The Melbourne Workers Theatre would like to entreat all theatre-goers to take a stand and boycott main-stage plays that are directed by men until the imbalance is addressed. Theatre is nothing without an audience and an audience is almost nothing without women.

Dana Miltins, Maude Davey, Georgina Naidu, David Adamson, Jada Alberts, and Greg Ulfan.

Melbourne Theatre Company Responds to AWDA

2009-10-04T21:39:00.044+11:00

Below is Melbourne Theatre Company's response to the letter sent by the Australian Women Directors Alliance on the 7th of August, 2009. To read our letter first, click HERE.

29 September, 2009

Dear Ms Beddie,

Thank you for your letter of 7 August 2009 concerning the employment of women directors by Melbourne Theatre Company, which was discussed at some length at our August board meeting. We were particularly interested to hear about the Australian Women Directors Alliance. ls it possible for you to send a list of your members to MTC? The Company generally obtains information about directors from seeing shows or recommendations from agents but may miss out on knowing about directors particularly if they don't have agents.

As you know, MTC presents 10-12 mainstage plays each year of which 1 or 2 are usually buy-ins from other companies. As Artistic Director, Simon Phillips usually directs 3 shows; our main Associate Director will also direct 3 shows; and in recent times, our Associate Director with a particular interest in literary development will direct 1 to 2 shows. This means that there is usually only an opportunity for 1 or 2 external directors to work with the Company on mainstage shows each year.

Through the Associate Director positions, we provide the opportunity for experienced directors to do more work but more importantly, we provide a training environment for them to learn about how a complex multi-million dollar industry works. Since 1995, MTC has employed 6 Associate Directors. Two of them were women who then moved on to become Artistic Directors of major theatre companies.

The Company's approach to the employment of creative personnel in its main season hasn't changed since the letter written to the MEAA to which you referred. The two main criteria are that the person engaged has an extensive artistic track-record; and that they have a passion and aptitude for the project at hand. ln other words, at MTC we employ seasoned creatives who have been working long enough for their artistic strengths to be clearly identifiable. Our position regarding employment of creatives is clear: it must be 'the best person for the job', man or woman. lt is the decision of the Company's Artistic Directorate who that person might be.

Of course, there may be bias at this level. lf it is accepted by the industry that there are equal numbers of men and women directors, of equal professional standing and equal suitability to a Company like MTC; and if, over time, there is a marked gender bias in their employment, then discrimination, conscious or structural may have been detected. A quick look at employment aggregates doesn't necessarily reveal bias but rather could show the reality of suitable personnel available in a particular area such as direction.

A number of activities in which MTC currently engages have a development aspect to them - most notably the Education and Literary Development programs - and we do try to provide opportunities for directors who haven't worked with the Company before. Not all directors are interested in Education work and not all directors are suited to it. However, for your information, the directors of Exploration Education shows over the last 5 years have been;

Year Female Male
2005....3.......0
2006....3.......0
2007....3.......0
2008....2.......1
2009....2.......1

On the development front, in 2009 we have a project with 6 young and emerging artists, 3 writers and 3 directors - of which 3 are women and 3 are men.

MTC is a company that wants to achieve gender balance but as we said in 2OO4 and the comment still stands, gender equity is a problem that starts long before people are employed as directors on our main stage shows or as Associate Directors. Gender equity is a still a problem shared across a range of institutions in the theatre industry. From initial training at colleges like NlDA, VCAM and WAPPA; through first jobs with fringe or non-mainstream companies; to eventually work with state theatres, each link in the employment chain is vital to the development of the skilled professional creative. Each link plays a part in addressing the issue of gender equity. It is unreasonable to expect one level of the industry to compensate for the shortcomings of another.

The theatre industry’s problem is real and exacerbated by the downsizing of the small-to-medium sized theatre sector that has traditionally provided most of the employment opportunities for emerging creatives of all kinds. lt is neither fair nor reasonable to expect a state theatre to take up the functions of an alternative, non mainstream company because this sector is in government-induced crisis.

MTC is proactive in the area of gender equity in programs which have a development aspect to them. However, its core business is main stage work. Directors have to have the skill to create a work that will sell 15,OOO to 30,OOO tickets and there are currently only a handful of such directors in Australia. The final line in the University of Melbourne's Equal Opportunity Policy that was quoted in the letter to the MEAA applies: The policy is designed to support the principle that staff are selected or promoted according to merit.

Merit in terms of the quality of direction required by MTC is not to be found through an advertising and interview process. lt is to found through viewing productions. To this end, senior MTC artistic staff attend shows in small and large venues, in capital cities and regional venues. ln order to take on the responsibility of directing a main stage show at MTC, a director will need to have demonstrated advanced skill on the stages of Griffin or Belvoir or La Boite or Malthouse. Without that experience, it's very difficult to determine whether they have the skills that we need.

Should any of your members' work be represented in these, or similar venues, please keep our casting department informed and we'll make sure we get along to see it.

Yours sincerely,
Derek Young
MTC Board Chairperson

Someone else's words

2009-10-03T15:34:00.003+10:00

On Alison Croggon's blog, Theatre Notes, a commenter titled simply, "Eileen" has put a very particular (and I believe, important) line of discourse regarding this issue, much (not all, but much) of which I agree with - to the extent that I felt it pertinent to re-post here. I don't think that this is a dilution of the issue at hand, so much as an important take on it, and one that must be read, quoted, articulated, and even disagreed with clearly because, of course, as artists, our politics are never only about the power/equity dichotomy, but also practice, aesthetic, and how we must live.

Eileen said...
One thing strikes me in all of this: increasing the presence of women playwrights and directors in flagship companies doesn’t guarantee a blossoming of feminist discourse in the work, nor the development of feminist performance languages . At best it increases the chances of such. It seems to me this is a good fight but a very limited one. If the debate doesn’t include questions of representation and aesthetics in the work itself it runs the risk of being a campaign about supporting the careers of a small group of women with the promise that this will pay off for all women and that is a very familiar but false promise.

The totalising effects of global capitalism have delivered a defeat for feminism in general (even liberal feminism of the “we have a female deputy prime minister” variety has made only marginal gains), not least because it’s been appropriated by it. It seems to me this is why theatre at the level under scrutiny appears to have shored up its strength as a male bastion and women are still relegated to handmaidens and managers (where we get to really show our mettle) and, as makers, to the occasional theatre version of the “chick-flick”. Exceptions? yes I know they exist.

If I was to try to articulate one possible way forward it would be to the laboratory. Explorations of language, semiotics, acting approaches, spatial relations, design and so on organized around what we know of the nature of women’s oppression in late and seemingly totalising capitalism. And to use the tools of the most developed feminist theoretical discourses around. Some women theatre artists are doing this. The women whose work is regularly critiqued on these pages who are innovators in seeking a synthesis of theatre practice and feminist discourse-Caryl Churchill and Ariane Mnouchkine are two obvious examples-didn’t begin their projects in a vacuum or because they adhered to some essentialist category of “woman”, or because they wanted to be employed by Sydney Theatre Co. It’s pertinent that the social processes involved in their work challenge those reflected in mainstage theatre, attempting to make a break with patriarchal power relations inherent in the General manager/Director/Writer paradigm and the”great man” ideology that goes with it. Feminist artists haven’t gravitated towards collaborative theatre practice because they’re inherently soft and mushy but because of a belief that their liberation is bound to discovering horizontal and pluralist social relations in the making of their art. And the results are often big and speccy. Whether the processes used can be incorporated into mainstage institutions is another question-theoretically it’s not impossible, but it would seem there’s a mammoth struggle ahead.

Big topic, said enough.

More in The Age.

2009-10-03T12:27:00.001+10:00

Theatre company is failing women directors

ROBIN USHER

October 2, 2009

Melanie Beddie has highlighted the dearth of opportunities at the Melbourne Theatre Company for women directors.

This success is due to the genius of the MTC's artistic director, Simon Phillips, in putting together programs that appeal to the broadest range of theatregoers. His associates over the past decade have included two notable women, Robyn Nevin and Kate Cherry, who both still occasionally work with the company....

find the rest here

Alison Croggon's Comments on the issue

2009-10-03T10:24:00.004+10:00

Meanwhile, the big talk is women in theatre. After the Belvoir PR disaster, and Neil Armfield's patently inadequate defence, Melanie Beddie has moved the debate south by complaining to the MTC about their lack of the XX chromosone. Blogs and commentaries are catching fire up and down this wide brown land.

What do I think? A lot of things, actually. I have never stepped back from calling myself a feminist, but I hate that thinking feminist ends up imprisoning me in my gender. And I think it's quite right to regard the fact that women are so poorly represented in powerful mainstream artistic positions as a scandal. And I'm also thinking about the essentialist problem (women, being communicative mammals, make a certain kind of collaborative theatre, that is itself marginalised) and the quota problem (it is a step forward for women to be counted on the mainstream stages, even if in aesthetic/ideological terms they do as much for women in general as Margaret Thatcher did for miners).

The rest can be read here http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com/2009/10/sex-and-stuff.html

Houston we have a problem...

2009-10-02T22:11:00.005+10:00

I think we ought to be very careful about making statements about gender discrimination as a broad-based issue. My work history, plus participation on Green Room panels tells me that women are very well represented in education/fringe/small theatre sector. The big FAT glaring GAP is at the top - AD's & directors of significant/flagship companies. Funding bodies have to some extent been complicit in this too.

Whilst I've been on the GRA panels precious few women have directed company shows, let alone been nominated for their work. Marion Potts and Gayle Edwards come to mind most recently. Red Stitch doesn't employ a lot of women directors either - yet on average still more than MTC & Malthouse. But Belvoir, Malthouse, STC, etc all have pretty similar & dismal track records when it comes to women directors.

Neil Armfield's & MTC's recent responses to media questions/enquiries lack integrity, maturity and logic. It wouldn't take much to pick apart these absurd, evasive and patronising responses line by line. Maybe we should actually do that? I think it's best to focus on the Top of the Pyramid (up near the glass ceiling) because that's also where many (not all) women want to work but just cannot get an opportunity/chance. It's also where the companies expose themselves in idiotic ways; akas 'well...ummm... when you direct a mainstage show let us know and we'll come & see it & if we think it's good enough we may offer you a mainstage show'. I think that's a Monty Pythonesque absurdity and we ought to point that out very loudly. The MTC's education-line also holds no water; many extraordinary women artists have worked in this area for years with no breakthroughs (or only minor ones) to the main stage level. These spurious 'look over there' distraction tactics should be met by us for the nonsense they are.

The salient point here is that there is no career path/trajectory for women (emerging or otherwise). What is also evident is that young and precocious male directors often make the huge leap from 'wunderkind' of the moment, to director, to AD fairly easily, with work experience laid on by male and female mentors alike. Show me a woman or two (apart from Kate Cherry) who has been given that opportunity and who is still working and/or in a position of artistic leadership. Most women who do well in theatre mainly do so as administrators, teachers or bureaucrats. To my knowledge Robyn Nevin did not mentor a single woman director and Cate Blanchett shows no signs of doing so either. Arts conversations in relation to gender equality and racial diversity are regularly silenced by the spectre of 'excellence' as if excellence and the former were somehow mutually exclusive. I think it would be useful to put forward a model, such as Melanie's and to request a response from MTC, STC, Malthouse, etc. Melanie's notion of a career ladder where a woman director is taken on board as an assistant director in year one, directs a show in a smaller main stage venue in year two and is finally given the chance to direct a large work in year three - makes sense, as well as suggesting responsible planning and excellent mentorship practice.

Katerina

The Age: Theatre company is failing women directors

2009-10-02T13:06:00.000+10:00

by ROBIN USHER October 2, 2009 - 11:54AM

IT CAN be argued the Melbourne Theatre Company is the most successful state company in the country. This is not due to its size — its 2008 revenue of $10 million was well below the $25 million recorded by the Sydney Theatre Company. But the MTC's subscribers number 19,600, which is more than 2500 above the much bigger STC.

This success is due to the genius of the MTC's artistic director, Simon Phillips, in putting together programs that appeal to the broadest range of theatregoers. His associates over the past decade have included two notable women, Robyn Nevin and Kate Cherry, who both still occasionally work with the company.

Nevin went on to run the Sydney Theatre Company until two years ago, while Cherry is director of Perth's Black Swan company. This only makes it all the more puzzling that the MTC is putting its head in the sand when it comes to recent criticisms about the low number of jobs given to women directors in recent years — two out of 12 this year, slumping to only one in 2010.
Despite the damage such criticism does to its image, it seems the MTC is not interested in taking a leadership role on such a crucial issue. Melanie Beddie, a convener with the Australian Women Directors Alliance, wrote a letter to the MTC board criticising the few opportunities for Victorian women theatre directors in recent years... (continued)

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.

The Age: Women's theatre group slams MTC as a 'boys' club

2009-09-30T10:25:00.003+10:00

Women's theatre group slams MTC as 'boys' club

Robin Usher September 30, 2009

THE Melbourne Theatre Company has been accused of operating as a boys' club because of the lack of opportunities for women in creative roles, especially directing.

A convener with the Australian women directors' alliance, Melanie Beddie, wrote to the company in August complaining of ''an overwhelming downturn'' in opportunities for Victorian women theatre directors in recent years.

She said this was in defiance of the equal opportunity policy of the company's parent organisation, Melbourne University.

READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE HERE

The Age

2009-09-30T10:02:00.002+10:00

Today there is an article in the the Age about these very issues. you can view it on the web or buy a paper for the full colour version!

I wonder whether you will feel as I do that the MTC has responded very poorly to our very reasonable and mature requests for engagement on these issues.

Apparently it is not their responsibility nor is it within their budget to make a difference. Actually I feel this must be in clear contradiction with their Equal Opportunity Policy. Anyone know some smart lawyers?

So you can see the sort of dismissive arrogance we are up against.

I feel that to be silent now is to be complicit with these attitudes. I wonder how people maintain their self respect working in these environments. These sorts of attitudes ultimately brutalise people and make their artistic work into mere toil.

Please think carefully about how you wish to respond to this sort of exclusion. Let me know here what you think we should do next?

Katherine Lyall-Watson's post

2009-09-29T23:23:00.002+10:00

Katherine Lyall-Watson's recent blog post on gender equity in theatre.

Letter to the MTC

2009-09-29T09:46:00.005+10:00

Below is a copy of the letter sent from the Australian Women Directors Alliance to the Melbourne Theatre Company on the 7th August, 2009. As it has now been almost two months, and we have received no response or acknowledgment of the letter, we felt posting it here might be of more use. This letter was written by Melanie Beddie, co-convener of the AWDA, prior to the release of MTC's 2010 season. As the 2010 season is as bad, if not worse than previous years, the issues raised in this letter are of even greater concern today than they were in August.

"Dear Mr Young and Members of the MTC Board,

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY POLICY

I write on behalf of the Australian Women Directors Alliance. We are a group of theatre practitioners incorporating sixty or more female directors and theatre makers. We range from emerging artists, in their first five years of practice, through to experienced and highly regarded directors who are in their third and fourth decade of practice. The purpose of the Alliance is to offer professional development and networking opportunities for female theatre practitioners and to work in areas of advocacy for our members.

We have a number of concerns about what we believe is an ineffectiveness of the University of Melbourne’s Equal Opportunity Policy as applied by the Melbourne Theatre Company.

You may or may not be aware that there is considerable discontent with what is perceived to be a lack of opportunity for women in key creative roles within the Melbourne Theatre Company. We note that women (and also culturally diverse theatre practitioners) are rarely offered work as directors at the MTC (see attached table). At the 2009 Green Room Association Awards ceremony there was a comment published in the programme about the imbalance of gender equity on the main stages of Melbourne companies and also several less formal comments made from the stage during the evening. None of these public comments reflected well upon the MTC .

For your information we attach a table giving a breakdown of the employment of female theatre directors on the MTC main stage over the last few years. The statistical data indicates that there has been an overwhelming downturn in opportunities for Victorian women theatre directors in recent years.

While we are encouraged by many of the principles articulated in the Melbourne University EO Policy such as a commitment to providing “programs in education and employment which redress, where appropriate, the effects of past discriminatory practices within the community” we also note that the University states it “has a responsibility to take positive steps to overcome inequality of opportunity”. We applaud the Policy, but, in relation to the Melbourne Theatre Company, we wish to question both its past effectiveness and current application. We are aware that our concerns have been taken up with the Board on at least two other occasions. In 1993 a letter was sent to you by the Australian Women Directors Association calling for more support for female directors and then in 2003 a letter was sent from MEAA requesting some open discussion about this issue. We feel that it is now more than timely to revisit the questions raised by our colleagues.

In particular we see few pathways for the many practising Victorian female directors to work at the MTC. Of the two women listed as directors in the 2009 MTC program, one is Cate Blanchett, Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company directing a co-production by her own company. The other is Marion Potts, also a Sydney-based artist. This means that of the twelve opportunities for directors at the MTC in 2009 only two are women and both are from interstate. Both these directors have received considerable and progressive professional development through their own state theatre companies (and other funded companies) over a period of many years. We would like to see similar opportunities available to women working in Melbourne and would be happy to discuss ways in which such professional development might occur. There do appear to be opportunities for female directors to work in your Education Department but as these women seldom go on to work on the main stages of MTC it is difficult to view these education positions as a part of a continuous pathway into the company.

We feel that the statistics we have provided you with are far from encouraging and that in order for your EO Policy to be judged effective there would need to be a discernible and positive change in the statistics from year to year. There would also need to be a series of programs and opportunities in place within the Melbourne Theatre Company to offer “positive steps” for both entry level and more senior women. We acknowledge that Anne Browning will be directing a show in the Lawler Studio later in the year which we see as an important but small step towards redressing the balance.

In relation to these questions of employment and opportunity we are particularly interested in understanding how key creative positions (permanent and contract) are allocated in the company. For instance whether it is policy that these jobs are advertised and suitable applicants interviewed. The recruitment and selection processes within a company are usually seen as key indicators of how well Equal Opportunity is working within a company and we would be keen to increase our understanding of the procedures in place.

Our research into equal opportunity issues both here and overseas shows that effective equal opportunity occurs in organizations when two things happen. Firstly, the drive for change towards a more equitable workplace needs to come from the top, hence this letter to you. Secondly, the organisation benefits from undertaking extensive consultation with all stakeholders (be they current or potential employees) in order to develop a strategic plan which outlines goals, timelines and key performance indicators for increasing the representation of women and culturally diverse practitioners in creative positions within the company.

The intention of this letter is to create a genuine and open dialogue with the Board and the Company about the issues which arise from the statistics we have put before you. Our hope is that a meeting can be arranged between your representative and representatives from our association to further address the matters raised in this letter."

The letter also included the following statistics:

MTC 2005, Shows 15
Male Playwrights 11, Female Playwrights 4
Male Directors 11, Female Directors 4

MTC 2006, Shows 11
Male Playwrights 7, Female Playwrights 4
Male Directors 10, Female Directors 1

MTC 2007, Shows 12
Male Playwrights 10, Female Playwrights 2
Male Directors 11, Female Directors 1

MTC 2008, Shows 12
Male Playwrights 10, Female Playwrights 2
Male Directors 10, Female Directors 2*

MTC 2009, Shows 12
Male Playwrights 7, Female Playwrights 5
Male Directors 10, Female Directors 2*

*All four from interstate/ o'seas

(Stats from Lucy Freeman @ La Trobe)

We Are Here

2009-09-28T13:03:00.001+10:00

Thank you, Nicholas Pickard, for your clear sighted questions about the lack of women directing for our main stage companies. Believe me, we women directors exist. It would be an insult to the many capable and experienced directors I know to suggest they are not there or that they don’t have main stage skills. But there are obviously problems with the way the selection of cultural product is managed in Australia’s professional companies. Culture is universal, both high and low in its concerns, free to everyone as an interest, and essential to the health of all. Women make up half of society. Men are born of women and often choose to live with women and create daughters as well as sons. Therefore women are not a sub-group to them, and should no longer be characterised this way. If book stores stocked their shelves the way that many companies choose to stock their culture, they would go broke. Women can see their own lives reflected in the creation and composition of books, movies, music, dance and circus, and the visual arts. Are Australian theatre companies really serving their audiences?
Theatre is for audiences, and women are the majority of single ticket buyers in many countries. Please note that the word ‘audience’ is generic and has no genetic code. So where are the women? Elizabeth Schafer has theorised that women directors have been critically marginalised. Many directors, including myself, don’t want their gender to be the issue. To quote Nancy Meckler of Shared Experience “I just want to be chosen because I am good.” But it is the notion of being chosen that is the problem. It is impossible to have a career path as a successful director in Australia. Like many directors I have followed the good energy of alternative directing opportunities, and currently turned away from the mainstream companies because I can’t get ‘chosen’, despite working for and succeeding at MTC, Playbox, QTC and The State Theatre Company of SA. This is also despite many letters, pitches and visits to such companies in recent times. I have rejection letters ranging from charming to churlish. At this year’s Australian Theatre Forum, it was implied and acknowledged that there may be an issue with the leadership patterns of some of Australia’s companies, and I agree. I have no axe to grind regarding the individual’s right to choose repertoire and select the individuals they prefer to employ. But I believe that publicly funded companies have a duty to get real about succession plans and to consciously reflect Australia’s cultural diversity in leadership models and in artistic planning. Due to the influence of an implied global mono-culture, which is shaped essentially by celebrity marketing, it seems as if the companies believe they now have the freedom and the right to programme largely pre-tested overseas works and share a handful of ‘talented directors’ who bring with them the whiff of America and Europe. I have no patience with this. It looks like the Australian cultural awakening of the late 1950s and early 1960s never happened. The co-pro has killed any notion of cultural complexity. It is time for transparency of theatrical opportunity. The exclusion of women’s input to this degree wouldn’t be tolerated in any other industry.

Meanwhile, up at Company B...

2009-09-24T15:22:00.001+10:00

Nicholas Pickard (Sydney Arts Journo) has just published this piece on the poor representation of key women creatives in Company B's 2010 lineup.

Victorian Women Theatre Directors at the MTC

2009-09-23T17:39:00.003+10:00

To direct at the MTC is not every directors dream. It is no the only place to direct theatre in Victoria. However, it is our state's flagship theatre company and one of the few fully professional, tax payer supported entities so I feel the POSSIBILITY of being appointed SHOULD exist for Victorian based women theatre directors. Lasts nights MTC program launch again illustrates that just becasue the opportunity SHOULD exist does not mean it DOES.

In 2006 of 11 MTC productions, 1 was directed by a woman (Kate Cherry). In 2007 of 12 MTC productions, 1 was directed by a woman (Kate Cherry). In 2008 of 12 MTC productions 2 were directed by women- NSW based Gale Edwards and a UK import Marie Aitken. In 2009 of 12 MTC productions 2 were directed by women - both NSW based - Cate Blanchett and Marion Potts. Now in 2010, there is again one female appointment, Kate Cherry. In five years have there really not been Victorian based female directors worthy of a gig?

If there are Victorian women of excellence capable of directing theatre (which I wholeheartedly believe there are)- why are they not getting the work? And conversely, if one wished to argue that there are none capable of directing on the main stage, then that itself begs the question WHY? Where are the opportunities? Where are the professional development pathways? Where is the evidence that Victorian women are not capable? Is the current MTC equal opportunity policy effective? And so it seems that we women who are already time poor running independent theatre companies, raising families, educating ourselves, educating others, developing new works, producing semi-professional and co-op productions and lodging countless time consuming creative development and presentation funding applications must add to our 'to do' list changing an overarching patriachal mentality that is ever present in our industry.

The AWDA will not be the first group of women to attempt to affect change. But wouldn't it be nice if we were the last? I am absolutely appalled that in the 21st century when women in all was of life are managing big budgets and assuming positions of authority, that in theatre we are still in a position where we have to argue/convince/lobby to insist that we are not only capable but entitled to basic equal opportunity rights. An almost equal percentage of tax payers are female, a higher proportion of MTC audience members are female, plays written by women being produced at the MTC is on the rise. The available roles for female performers at the MTC looks pretty good this year (you know if you are not a female of diverse cultural heritage) ... so why is there not a rise in the appointments of women directors? Is it because a director is seen to asume a leadership role and hold a position of creative authority? Is so, shame. Shame on all concerned.

Equal Opportunity

2009-09-23T11:31:00.003+10:00

Dear Fellow Directors,

what a sorry state of affairs that we are again spending our precious time trying to win a battle that was legally won for us decades ago. Equal Opportunity Law should have prevented this current situation where only one woman is employed to direct a mainstage show at both MTC and Belvoir in 2010.(Haven't looked yet at the other seasons -maybe someone else could dare to do this) What a shame too that my very constructive and inviting letter to the Board of the MTC was ignored.

You know I begin to wonder how anyone with any principles ( male or female ) can bring themselves to work for and support major companies who continue to exersise such discrimination across race and gender.Do we no longer have any pride or principles in the arts? I thought we were FOR humanity not mere self -interest.

So what do you all think. Where to now?

Melanie Beddie

Australian Women Directors Alliance - Welcome!

2009-09-22T23:38:00.007+10:00

The Australian Women Directors Alliance is a non-profit coalition of professional women directors and theatre makers. The alliance is run by a voluntary and elected committee. The purpose of the AWDA is to provide a community of peers for mutual support and to further the art, professional development and visibility of women directors in the theatre industry. The AWDA was formed in 2009 as an outcome of focus group discussion arising at the 2009 Australian Theatre Forum (ATF).

The Australian Women Directors Alliance is an organisation committed to:
•Increasing new opportunities for women theatre directors
•Developing and enhancing relationships between Victorian Women Theatre Makers
•Providing support and advocacy for emerging and established theatre makers