Breaking a 400-year-old Glass Ceiling

The Guardian reports that after 400 years a female playwright will finally have a work staged at what is now Shakespeare's Globe theatre.

The play is Bedlam by Nell Leyshon, and is a fictional portrait of the Bethlem – the London hospital for the insane – set during the mid-18th century gin epidemic.

Leyshon said it was a "great privilege" to be the first woman to have a play staged at the Globe. "It's a challenge and I'm quite aware of the fact," she said. "I have to be honest, it fed my writing; I thought I can't write a flabby play. I wanted to prove that women can do conflict, that they can write big structures, big stories because I've heard it too many times that women aren't as good at that."

Blackburn Prize Nominees

BroadwayWorld.com reported yesterday that the short-list for the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has been announced.

This international award is given each year to a woman who has written an outstanding new work for the English-speaking theatre.

The ten nominees are:

• The Aliens by Annie Baker (U.S.)
• The Language Archive by Julia Cho (U.S.)
• This by Melissa James Gibson (U.S.)
• it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now. by Lucy Kirkwood (U.K.)
• The Shipment by Young Jean Lee (U.S.)
• The Nature of Love by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (U.K.)
• East of Berlin by Hannah Moscovitch (Canada)
• The Swallowing Dark by Lizzie Nunnery (U.K.)
• Enron by Lucy Prebble (U.K.)
• Strandline by Abbie Spallen (Ireland)

The 2010 Blackburn Prize will be marked with a ceremony in New York in early March, honouring all finalists. The winner will be awarded $20,000, and will also receive a signed and numbered print by renowned artist Willem De Kooning, created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. A Special Commendation of $5,000 may be given at the discretion of the judges, and each of the other finalists receives $1,000.

Little Gem Wins Award

At the weekend the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award, the highest honour at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was awarded to Little Gem written by Elaine Murphy and directed by Paul Meade, produced by Gúna Nua Theatre Company and the Civic Theatre, with support from Culture Ireland.

Carol Tambor and members of her Foundation, along with The Scotsman's arts writers Joyce Macmillian, Jackie McGlone and Mark Fisher, chose the winning production.

Carol Tambor said: "Little Gem is a little gem. It has exciting language and exciting acting, and the moment I sat down I was totally involved. I loved the family in the play, and the special relationship between the three generations of women felt really authentic."

Eugene Downes, CEO of Culture Ireland, commented: "For a new Irish play to win the most prestigious award at the world's largest arts festival is an extraordinary achievement for Elaine Murphy, for Gúna Nua and the outstanding cast of actors. It's striking evidence of Ireland's world-class success in the arts. This award opens the door to New York and Culture Ireland looks forward to working closely with the Carol Tambor Foundation to promote Little Gem.'

The Carol Tambor Theatrical Foundation was established to bring excellent dramatic work to the New York audience by funding a New York run. The mission to support artists in their desire to be seen and produced is carried out with no financial or commercial involvement in their future success.

More Women Directors on Broadway

The New York Times reports that it's been a good year for women directing Broadway and Off-Broadway shows, a fact that should not be remarkable, but remains noteworthy because it's been a rarity - thus far:

As it turns out, bias against female playwrights has also received attention recently because of a new study that found there is discrimination against women who are writing for the theater. Last week at a meeting about the research, participants discussed how bias in one part of the business can ripple throughout the industry, affecting directors and others.

Still, Ms. MacKinnon and Ms. Sardelli said they feel fortunate to be directing when the industry is opening up to more women. "I think the generation above me really had it harder," Ms. MacKinnon said. "That's when there was the one girl in the room."

She added, though: "It seems to me that there are number of men who aren't that much older than me whose names you see over and over again. There are not that many women who have that kind of relationships with producers. How do you break into that tiny Rolodex?"

Theatre Live! for Older Women

The Stage reports that of the six plays that have been written for the new live theatre series for Sky Arts, called Theatre Live!, three of them feature an all-women cast, and many of the roles call for older actresses.

At least one of the writers, the debut playwright Kate Mosse, said she was inspired to focus her play on a group of women over 50, after reading about the current campaign to highlight the lack of opportunities for older female performers.

"I have noticed a lot of pieces in the paper about people saying older women don't get cast, and then lots of people coming back saying, 'We really would if people were writing stuff for older women that isn't just somebody's granny or whatever'," she said. "I realised when I came to thinking about the play that it is a really good point. You can't cast older women if people are not writing for them. So I decided to deliberately write for women in their late fifties."

She added: "I thought this is my chance to write a piece actively for older women, who are not there as somebody's grandmother or because they have Alzheimer's. They are just women who are older."

Gender Conference in UK

The Stage reports that the Sphinx Theatre Company in London is hosting a conference entitled "Vamps, Vixens and Feminists - The Elephant in the Room" to debate issues around the employment and representation of women in theatre, film and television.

It's funded by the Arts Council England, and is being organised in collaboration with industry bodies, including Equity and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain.

Sue Parrish, artistic director of Sphinx, said the introduction of the Gender Equality Duty in 2007 - which states that public bodies must take steps to pro-actively promote equality between women and men - had presented an “opportunity to raise these issues and be heard”.

She said two years since the directive came into force, ACE was still in the process of implementing the Gender Equality Duty, and added: "The event seemed like a wonderful opportunity for professionals from different parts of the industry to get together and really discuss what is going on and what might be done."

The conference will feature contributors such as playwright Tanika Gupta and Katherine Rake - the chief executive of gender equality campaigning body the Fawcett Society.

Parrish said that she had deliberately avoided inviting political figures, including Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Trevor Phillips, because she did not want to hear "a lot of empty rhetoric from politicians who are having to make a fairly bland statement".

The conference will be made up of a number of panels, including one that will address cultural and historical female stereotypes, led by Manchester University professor Vivien Gardner. Other panels will focus on writers, with contributions from Writers’ Guild president David Edgar and screenwriter Tracy Brabin, and actresses, led by Kate Buffery, who has been at the forefront of an Equity campaign to address the inequalities faced by older female performers.

The conference will take place in the Olivier Theatre at the National on Tuesday, June 16 from 10am until 1.30pm. Places are free and can be booked by emailing info@sphinxtheatre.co.uk or by calling 020 7401 9994 by Friday June 5.

Moss 2009 Blackburn Winner

The Stage reports that playwright Chloe Moss has won this year's Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, which recognises women from around the world who have written works of "outstanding quality" for the English-speaking theatre.

Moss was presented with a prize of $20,000 for her play This Wide Night, which focuses on two women trying to start their lives again after being released from prison.

It was commissioned by Clean Break and first performed at the Soho Theatre in London.

Moss beat competition from nine other finalists - comprising one Indian writer, four US writers and a further four British playwrights - to win the award, which was presented by Sigourney Weaver at a ceremony in London last night.

Lucinda Coxon, who penned Happy Now?, which premiered at the National Theatre, received a special commendation award of $5,000 for her work.

Stage Survey Women's Roles

The Stage has created an online survey querying people's perception of the quality of roles available to women and minorities in television and theatre drama.

It only takes a moment to fill in, so please take part.

2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Finalists

The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has announced the ten finalists for its 2009 playwriting awards, which are given annually to recognise women from around the world who have written works of outstanding quality for the English-speaking theatre. This year over 100 international plays were submitted for consideration.

The finalists are:

Anupama Chandrasekhar for Free Outgoing (India)
Anupama is a runner-up for the London Evening Standard's Charles Wintour Prize 2008 for the Most Promising Playwright for Free Outgoing. The play was also short-listed for the Peter Wolff-John Whiting Award in the UK.

Lucinda Coxon for Happy Now? (England)
Lucinda has worked at the Bush Theatre, Soho Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, and the National Theatre in London. Happy Now? won the Writer's Guild of Great Britain 2008 Best Play Award.

Ann Marie Healy for What Once We Felt (U.S.)
Ann Marie is a five-time finalist for Actors Theater of Louisville's Heideman Short Play Award and a finalist for The Perishable Theater's International Women's Playwriting Festival. She is a member of MCC's Playwrights Coalition.

Michele Lowe for Inana (U.S.)
Inana recently premiered at the Denver Center Theatre. Her play String of Pearls received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play. Her work appears in New Playwrights/The Best Plays of 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006), The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2005 (Smith & Knaus, 2006) and Monologues for Women by Women (Heinemann, 2004).

Elizabeth Meriwether for Oliver! (U.S.)
Elizabeth is a recipient of the Newsday Oppenheimer Award for her play Heddatron. She is currently working on commissions from the Yale Repertory Theatre, Ars Nova, and Manhattan Theatre Club.

Chloe Moss for This Wide Night (England)
Chloe is a previous Blackburn Prize Finalist for her play, How Love is Spelt. A graduate of the Royal Court young writers programme, she has been a writer-in-residence at the Bush Theatre and Paines Plough and also writes for television.

Lynn Nottage for Ruined (U.S.)
Lynn has been honoured with a MacArthur Foundation 'Genius Grant' Award, the 2004 PEN/Laura Pels award for Literary Excellence, two ATT Onstage Awards, a Heideman Award, and numerous best play awards, including the OBIE. She is a previous Blackburn Prize Finalist for her play Mud, River, Stone. Ruined is currently running at the Manhattan Theatre Club.

Kaite O'Reilly for The Almond and the Seahorse (Wales)
Kaite has won various awards for her work, including the Peggy Ramsay Award for YARD (Bush Theatre, London), Manchester Evening News Best New Play of 2004 for Perfect (Contact Theatre Dir. John McGrath) and Theatre-Wales Best Play of 2003 for peeling (Graeae Theatre, dir. Jenny Sealey).

Amy Rosenthal for On The Rocks (England)
Amy has been a playwright-in-residence at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre and was a resident writer at the Royal National Studio. Her play, Henna Night, received a Sunday Times Drama Award.

Esther Wilson for Ten Tiny Toes (England).
Esther is best known as lead writer on the hard-hitting docu-drama Unprotected, which premiered at the Liverpool Everyman in March 2006. It raised the national debate on proposed safety zones in city centres for street sex workers and went on to win the Amnesty International Award for Freedom of Speech at the Edinburgh Festival that summer.

The 2009 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize awards will be marked with a ceremony in London on February 25th. Star of stage and screen and Blackburn Prize Judge, Sigourney Weaver, will present the awards. The winner will be awarded $20,000, and will also receive a signed and numbered print by renowned artist Willem de Kooning, created especially for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. A Special Commendation of $5,000 may be given at the discretion of the judges, and each of the additional finalists receives $1,000.

2010 PROJECT

All members of the Guild are invited to attend The Year of Women in Theatre: a catalytic project that aims to unite the theatre industry in a permanent redress of gender-balance in the onstage artform.

The 2010 PROJECT Development Meetings will take place in two locations:

• The Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild, at Art House, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin, on Wednesday, the 18th of February, 2009 at 11am.
• The Lyric Theatre (offices), at 88A Stranmillis Road, Belfast, BT9 5AD, on Thursday, the 19th of Feburary 2009 at 2pm.

The Twenty-Ten Group – a pro-active, non-producing organisation - is promoting the 2010 PROJECT. It aims to make contact with every artistic director, associate and freelance director, producer, programmer, playwright, publisher, agent, casting director and other industry professionals across Ireland to inspire a concerted, creative response to this challenge.

The industry needs to redress the imbalance of the employment of women actors, directors and writers, and to create full and fair representations of women and womanhood in society.

If you wish to attend the Dublin Project Development Meetings please RSVP at info @ script.ie.

Otherwise email (twentytengroup @ ymail.com) Helen Alexander, the 2010 PROJECT Director, or phone her on: +44-20-8543-4085 / +44-7876-128-418