Gwydion Suilebhan, Olivia Haller, and theatreWashington

“Even during the two years in which Washington, DC held the Women’s Voices Theatre Festival — 2015-16 and 2017-18 — the city was far from achieving gender parity among playwrights.”

RESEARCH PROJECT: DC Theater Demographics: The 2019-2020 Season

RESEARCH PARTNERS: Gwydion Suilebhan and Olivia Haller

COVERAGE: 2019-2020

Ours is a multi-year, ongoing analysis of the Washington, DC theater ecosystem. We analyze the plays selected for production and the race, ethnicity, gender, and geography of the playwrights who write them and the directors who work on them. For the last two years, our study has been supported by theatre Washington, DC's theater service organization.

FINDINGS: Even during the two years in which Washington, DC held the Women's Voices Theatre Festival -- 2015-16 and 2017-18 -- the city was far from achieving gender parity among playwrights. Generally, we have seen a (too-slow) move toward increasing parity and representation in Washington, DC theater. We are, however, still far from that goal. In recent years, DC has actually achieved gender parity in one very modest area: among directors of plays at the non-Equity level.