Monday 25 August 2014

Women of theatre unite!

We love the LA FPI (LA Female Playwrights' Initiative), who work to ensure that women playwrights are fairly represented on local stages and beyond. They do good counting on the number of plays produced by women, connect female playwrights and try to raise awareness. And they've created this logo which they want theatre companies who are working for gender parity to use as a badge of honour and a signal of change. Of course when we heard about them, we wanted a badge. And now we have one! We're really thrilled. (Even though Cardiff is not, strictly speaking, the Greater Los Angeles area...!)

Another amazing women playwrights' organisation we've connected with is The Kilroys. Also based in LA, they are "done talking about gender parity and are ready to act". Among their actions is The List, a list of plays by women, made to give producers brilliant ideas about plays they can put on. To make the list, they got nominations of 300 plays by women, and whittled them down to the 46 most-recommended plays.

Over here, we've had great support from 17percent, who campaign and produce plays by women.

And we were really pleased to connect with Wendy Richardson of Springboard Arts who is making a documentary about Joan Littlewood. When she heard what we were up to, she said (and we blush to repeat it): "WONDERFUL! You are amazing! What you're doing is making Joan's work right NOW!...Joan's spirit lives in you all!"

And there have been so many lovely messages and tweets from individual women playwrights too, that we're really feeling part of a community of women theatremakers. Thank you all...it means a lot.

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