The DePaulia

Issue date: 7/23/10 Section: News

Rachel Walshe

The DePaulia's Angie Rutkowski sits down with Rachel Walshe, a Theatre School alumna, as she discusses the Edes Foundation Prize and inequalities women face in theater.



The DePaulia: Who were you competing against?

Rachel Walshe: All I know is the application protocol. The Edes Foundation Prize alternates each year between artists from the Theatre School and the School of Music. Artists are interviewed from each department such as performance, dramaturgy, design, etc., and then five candidates are nominated and submit their applications to the committee. From a big pool of those who apply, they choose three finalists. Then choose one who has the potential to make the most of the award.

TD: What were the eligibility requirements?

RW: Either undergraduate and graduate students who will graduate from DePaul in 2010. The requirements made a big deal about mentor in Theatre School.

TD: What consisted of the award?

RW: It's big. It's great. A $30,000 cash prize. It's like receiving a salary for a year for those with freelancing gigs between teaching and directing and producing. It's like an advance because then you are not taking work because it pays well. I would love to do work for the theatre school which pays well but compared to others it wouldn't advance my professional career.

TD: I read that you are committing a year to addressing "the current inequities experienced by women theatre artists." What motivated you to want to address "the current inequities experienced by women theatre artists?" And what are "the current inequities experienced by women theatre artists?"

RW: Few things, on a personal note, as a female, I feel, sometimes I am expected to be attracted to do women plays- certain stereotypes about hormones, love, fertility. There is a content bias for women artists [directors] to create work that is that. I find that frustrating.

TD: How has the role of women in theatre evolved? Is it a male dominated field?

RW: According to the New York State Council on the Arts Theatre Program, progress with regard to women's participation in the theatre has been both inconsistent and slow. Latest figures indicate that advancement has stalled or even deteriorated from the late 1960's until the present. The report issued in the late 1970's,"Action for Women in Theatre," the total number of professional women playwrights and directors hired by regional and Off-Broadway theatres over a seven year period from 1969 to 1975 was 7 percent. In 1999, women wrote only 8 percent of all plays and only 1 percent of musicals.

Nineteen years later, in the 1994-95 season, playwright representation was at 17% and directors at 19% for Off Broadway and regional theatres.

This current season of 2001-02 as listed in American Theatre magazine actually shows a decline, with directors at 16% and playwright representation at 17%, back at the 1994-95 percentages, according to New York Times Princeton Economist Julia Jordan on the survey which reveals a decline. The study analyzes factors and exposes that plays by women are considered less serious, more playful and decorative, softer in content and tone. Masculine plays are associated with violence. Plays with violence have a higher propensity for being produced. I think we and everybody makes associations with men things and women things; women things falsely. Men things are also associated with entertaining but in that container of masculine plays holds scary, violent, dark.

According to Marcia Mormon, a Pulitzer playwright, women playwrights are perceived to choose "soft" subjects that aren't interesting to audiences. For women writers, soft is perceived as playful and decorative and insignificant, not worthy of our time. Plays by men are expected to be better- more violent, more tragic.

TD: With that said, how can the status of women in theatre evolve?

RW: I was really mad. I think we can do better. Change can come from not regional theatre doing women's plays but smaller theatre budgets which have more flexibility for plays written by women in order to defy stereotypes. I plan to commit my year for awareness- plays for women by women in terms of content and directing.

TD: Is there a specific play or theatre that has a positive and negative portrayal of women in particular?

RW: I don't think its right to point fingers. Commit to resources-its if fine people come. Art can be entertaining and if it's just entertaining then great. It has to do with the conscious dominated by men and not about the piece of art work; dominance of work presented in theatre.

By having American theatre represent only half of canon eliminates half of people. A theatre that is missing the work of women is missing half the story, half the canon.

TD: And right now, you are working at the Perishable Theatre in Rhode Island as the Visiting Artistic Director. What kind of work does that entail?

RW: Theatres choose a season months in advance in the Fall. There are two objectives: provides employment opportunities for women playwrights, directors etc. Thousands of women work at Perishable. I tried to choose plays that defy the traditional stereotypes to be a woman.

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