The Harper's Bazaar women in theatre power list 2009 makes slightly bizarre reading. The strangest thing is the inclusion of Gillian Anderson (who, when I last checked, was a US citizen) as an honorary Brit, which suggests that the compilers were rather scraping the barrel of their knowledge about British theatre. Still, alongside the star names such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren, it's good to see women such as Kneehigh's Emma Rice, Punchdrunk's Maxine Doyle, actor and director Kathryn Hunter, lighting designer Paule Constable, designer Miriam Buether, and playwright Bola Agbaje all getting the recognition they certainly deserve. Since the piece appears to be sponsored by jeweller Tiffany, I very much hope that they all got an outsize rock to take home.
But I very much doubt that any of them would say they had real power to make things happen in theatre. Along with actors such as Rachel Weisz (an upcoming Blanche DuBois at the Donmar, but otherwise not on stage since 2001, so hardly indispensable), Summer Strallen and Michelle Dockery, many of the women listed will know that they will only be considered as good as their last show; their future employment and projects are in the gift of others, however much they try to forge their own destinies.
Actors such as Mirren, Dench and Fiona Shaw may be at a stage in their careers where they are able to pick and choose their projects, but out of the entire list of 20 only two — producers Sonia Friedman and Sally Greene — have real power to make things happen. I can think of a number of other women who could also stake a claim to a place on this list: West End theatre owner and producer Nica Burns, Arts Admin producer Judith Knight who has nurtured several generations of experimental artists, and Kate McGrath and Louise Blackwell of Fuel. All of them are supporting the future. While we're nitpicking, why no place for the South Bank's Jude Kelly – one of the few women in theatre to run an empire? Or the National Theatre of Scotland's Vicky Featherstone?
We can all make our own lists of the women we think should be on the list but aren't (disagreeing with other people's lists is half the fun), but while it is nice to see women's achievements in theatre celebrated, the whole idea of a power list is pretty cockeyed because women really don't hold the power in theatre, any more than those who come from ethnic backgrounds.
While women may make up 52% of the population and buy more theatre tickets than men, we do not get half the jobs at the highest level whether as artistic directors (where around only 25 per cent are women), writers, and – come to think of it – as critics. Only last year Margaret Hodge spoke out about the lack of women in the higher echelons of the arts, suggesting that the arts had fallen behind other industries in representing women in the senior workforce. Just last month actor Harriet Walter called upon writers to create more realistic roles for older female performers, pointing out "that we don't die off when we are 30".
Mirren, one of the actors on Harper's Bazaar's list, has spoken out about the sexism she encountered in her early career and the need to do more for the status of women in the arts. Demos has published research pointing to the under-representation of women on arts boards.
Yes, things are changing (more and more women are becoming executive directors of theatres), but progress is slow, and in mistaking visibility for real power, the Harper's Bazaar list is mere wishful thinking that fogs the fact that there is still a long way to go.
