I Enjoy Being a Girl?
By Andrew Hertz
There has been a consistent dearth of women on the production end of musical theater since its earliest roots. Of course, female actors have always been utilized and written for, but much of the canon strikingly lacks women in its production roster. There are only a handful of women writers (Mary Rodgers, Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman, Lynn Ahrens, and Jeanine Tesori, to name some of the few), however, the prevalence of women in musical theater, is still not up to par (although the talent is).
The Washington Post featured an interesting article last month on the “rarest role in musicals, the female director.” Last evening’s Tony Awards were chockfull of male winners in categories where a male or female could have won. Yasmina Reza won the Tony for Best New Play for God of Carnage, but otherwise, men swept the Tony Awards for best direction, choreography, etc., both for straight plays and musicals. As a field that has always been accepting of groups that are marginalized, women have still not found equality (save actors), even in the musical theater world.