Where Are the Women? A Hard Look at the Theatre World's Backslide on Gender Equity

by Chris Peterson

For a few brief, shining moments, it almost felt like progress.

A few years ago, the theatre industry was making noise. Real noise. About equity. Boards were holding listening sessions. Artistic directors were releasing statements. Companies were diversifying their seasons. And many of us dared to believe that maybe, finally, things were going to change for women in theatre. That a reckoning had led to a reimagining. That the gate was cracked open.

But the 2025–26 season announcements have brought a cruel gust of wind, slamming that gate shut again. And hard.

Let’s start with Playwrights Horizons, a company long admired for its forward-thinking seasons. This year? One woman writer. And she’s sharing a slot.

Williamstown Theatre Festival? Not one single woman playwright. Not one.

Roundabout and Manhattan Theatre Club aren’t faring much better, offering up seasons that read like a time capsule from 1997. A female playwright hasn’t won the Tony for Best Play since 2009 when Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage.

And no, this isn’t about cancel culture or woke quotas. This is about visibility. Access. Fairness. And frankly, narrative health. Because when women, and especially women of color, are consistently underrepresented, what we lose isn’t just opportunity. We lose stories. We lose voice. We lose breadth. And we lose truth.

Let me be clear. This isn’t a pipeline issue. According to The Count, women have been writing plays in record numbers for years. It’s just that they’re being produced less frequently, given fewer resources, and relegated to black box labs and limited runs while their male counterparts bask in the glow of marquee revivals and multi-stage commissions.

We’ve seen this before. The 2011 to 2014 study revealed just 22% of American productions were written by women. And only 3.8% by women of color. That was a decade ago. Why are we still fighting the same fight?

Meanwhile, in the UK, the numbers aren’t much better. The National Theatre staged only 38% of plays by women in 2013. The Women’s Prize for Playwriting was revived recently not in celebration, but in response, offering a record breaking £20,000 prize because women were being shut out of major venues once again.

And don’t get me started on trans and nonbinary playwrights. Unless you’re lucky enough to be in the orbit of Breaking the Binary Theatre or supported by groups like New Georges or Imago Théâtre, your chances of seeing your work fully staged by a major U.S. company are slim to none. These organizations are doing the work. The rest of the field? Not so much.

Here’s the thing. Representation isn’t just about who gets a seat at the table. It’s about who built the table, who gets to speak over dinner, and who’s asked to clear the dishes.

We have movements like The Kilroys’ List, The Lilly Awards, and a growing number of playwright-led initiatives putting incredible, diverse work right under the noses of these institutions. And still, the same guys keep getting the call.

This isn’t about tearing down the work of men. It’s about asking why, after all the promises, pledges, and performative panels, we’re still here. Still begging. Still invisible. Still sitting in the house, looking at a program full of men, watching plays about men, written by men, directed by men, about men in existential crisis over their fathers and their mistresses and their mid-century trauma.

It’s tired.

It’s time to do better. Not with more panels. Not with more empty pledges. But with programming. With funding. With risk. Because the real risk isn’t producing a bold new voice. The real risk is becoming irrelevant.

And right now? A whole lot of theatre companies are writing themselves into obsolescence. One male heavy season at a time.