The piece on women artistic directors that appears in today's Guardian was born in a casual conversation about Rachel Kavanaugh, artistic director of Birmingham Rep. I heard that in her first season she programmed three main stage productions either written or adapted by women. In the previous decade there had only been 10 such plays.
Was the landscape of British theatre finally changing? Are women facilitating work by women? What would happen if a woman ran the National Theatre?
My interest deepened when I recalled a survey about women's status in British theatre published in 1984 by the Conference of Women Theatre Directors and Administrators. Its results made depressing reading. Only 12 per cent of artistic directors in British theatre were women.
I recall the meetings and initiatives inspired by that survey's findings, the attempts to change the gender balance and the heady optimism of the setting up of The Women's Playhouse Trust. It seemed that anything was possible, and as a female theatre critic working in a largely male profession I felt that change was in the air.
How wrong I was. For every one step forward there were two steps back and the funding cuts of the mid and late 1980s halted progress. Last year, 22 years on from that original survey, Sphinx Theatre Company commissioned a similar survey and discovered only 19 per cent of artistic directors were female. Compared with the rest of the world theatre had been very slow to change, I thought.
Yet change was happening. Liverpool, Newcastle and Birmingham - all major buildings in major cities - are now run by women; the Gate and Soho have continued their tradition of women artistic directors with new female appointees and the Bush - one of London's major new writing theatres - has just appointed Josie Rourke. There are other women out there who don't appear in the feature - most notably Vicky Featherstone who runs the National Theatre of Scotland, Bridget Lamour at Watford Palace, Theresa Heskins at the New Vic in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Joanna Read who has been combining motherhood and artistic ambition at Salisbury, but which she will shortly leave.
There is now such a critical mass of women in charge of buildings that a chain reaction must occur. After all women make up half the population and why shouldn't theatre reflect that? And if more women ran buildings would that also enable more women writers and freelance directors?
I was struck when talking to the women interviewed how few felt they had encountered glass ceilings . Some commented on the generosity of male colleagues in helping them on their way. But many of the women, particularly the younger ones, were strongly aware that they owed a debt to the pioneering women who came before them. So if you are a female writer, director or administrator I'd like to know about your experiences of being female and working in British theatre.
Will having more women on top help right the gender balance in the industry? Or is Lisa Goldman right when she suggests that it is not gender but class where there is the greatest under-representation in British theatre?
