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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 January 2009
Despite widespread interest in the subject, there has been no previous attempt to collect comprehensive information concerning the history and present working conditions of feminist theatre companies in Britain: and so, with the exception of a very few assessments of particular companies, all too often what passes for critical analysis has had to depend on partial or merely anecdotal evidence. As part of her research for her book, Contemporary Feminist Theatres, forthcoming from Routledge in March, Lizbeth Goodman sent out between 1987 and 1990 a detailed questionnaire to 223 companies and organizations identified as having relevant concerns – whether in terms of company membership, production methods, policy aims, or targeted audience. With a response from 98 of these in hand, she assembled a detailed data-base from which the following article derives – describing the methods and aims of the survey itself, the nature of the response, and the needs in specific areas it revealed, both for the companies themselves and for the future assessment of their work. Lizbeth Goodman, currently a Lecturer in Literature for the Open University, has previously compiled a sequence of ‘Feminist Theatre Interviews’ for NTQ, and most recently contributed an overview of the state of contemporary Bulgarian theatre to NTQ32 (November 1992).
1. See Rea, Charlotte, ‘Women's Theatre Groups’, The Drama Review, XVII, No. 2 (06 1972)Google Scholar; Leavitt, Dinah Luise, Feminist Theatre Croups (Jefferson, N.C.: MacFarland, 1980)Google Scholar; Chinoy, Helen Krich and Jenkins, Linda, eds., Women in American Theatre (New York: Crown, 1981Google Scholar; second ed., New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987).
2. For example, ‘Devising as Writing: British Women Theatre Writers and Educators Demand Contractual Status’, The Drama Review, XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer 1990), p. 17–18. The full transcript appears in MTD: Journal of the Performance Arts, Nos. 3 and 4 (Winter 1990 and Summer 1991). The short report summarizes discussion at a Theatre Writers' Union Workshop on the subject of the woman writer's role in devised writing and theatre in education, chaired by Julie Wilkinson. The panel consisted of six women: Lizbeth Goodman, Francis Jessup, Judith Johnson, Kathleen McCreery, Julie Wilkinson, and Amanda Wray.
3. In addition to published sources, a number of individuals were also contacted about important feminist/socialist groups which are no longer in operation – Michelene Wandor for background on various disbanded companies of the 1970s; Anne Engel, Maggie Wilkinson, and Julie Holledge for Mrs. Worthington's Daughters and the Women's Street Theatre Group; Nancy Diuguid for Changing Woman Theatre Company; Elizabeth MacLennan (c/o John McGrath) for 7:84 England; Sue Todd for the National Theatre of Brent; and Genista Mclntosh for the RSC Women's Group.
4. The complete listings run to over 100 pages. These have now been published in full, as ‘British Feminist Theatre: Survey and Analysis’, in Feminist Praxis, Nos. 39–40 (1992). Questionnaire responses and contact addresses for all companies surveyed are included.
5. Dillie Keane, letter in response to the Feminist Theatre Survey, 26 Feb. 1990. In response to Question 3, Keane wrote: ‘Difficult question. We had a transsexual in the group. Now there are some very strong feminists who argue that a transsexual is merely another instance of men trying to dominate or infiltrate the female sex. I don't agree. To me, the woman that I worked with – i.e., Adele – is as much of a woman as am I. But it makes it difficult to say whether we were indeed feminists in the strictest sense of the word’.
6. Note that many groups use several different methods.
7. TWU Newsletter, Feb. 1989, p. 5.
8. See Baumol, William J. and Bowen, William G., ‘Audiences: Some Fact-Sheet Data’, Sociology of Literature and Drama, ed. Elizabeth, and Burns, Tom (London: Penguin, 1973)Google Scholar: a comparative study of American and British audience trends, primarily concerned with questions of audience composition by economic strata (class), age, and occupation, which uses only two surveys, both based at the National Theatre, as its entire data base on ‘British Theatre’. See also Barbican Centre: Research into Audience Potential (London: Industrial Market Research, 1980), which provides economic breakdowns of potential audiences for the subsidized theatre based at Barbican Centre; and Myerscough, John et al. , The Economic Importance of the Arts in Britain (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1988)Google Scholar: this is a comprehensive account of the statistics and economic conditions which make the arts a suitable candidate for treatment as a corporate industry.
9. Caroline Gardiner, The City University Audience Survey for SWET, 1985–86. The survey is available in two forms at present: the long version published by SWET, and the more concise version incorporated into Gardiner's PhD thesis, The West End Theatre Audience 1981–1986, Dept. of Arts Policy and Management, City University, unpublished. At present, Gardiner is working on an update of the audience survey, and is considering doing a survey specifically focused on women in the theatre.
10. All points cited from Gardiner, op. cit., Chapter 3, Section 2, p. 141–6.
11. Gardiner, op. cit., p. xii (point 15).
12. Gardiner, Caroline, paper for ‘Theatre Under Threat’ conference, St. John's College, Cambridge, 20 10 1990Google Scholar.
13. Itzin, Catherine describes this play and its critical reception, both during the run and four years later, when a controversy arose regarding its suitability as educational material for distribution in schools, in Stages in the Revolution (London: Methuen, 1980), p. 228–30Google Scholar.
14. Telephone interview with Jenny Clarke, WTG Administrator, 24 July 1990.
15. WTG policy statement, from the company files.
16. Ibid., and telephone interview with Jenny Clarke, 24 July 1990, confirmed Oct. 1990.
17. From Monstrous Regiment company brochure, 1985.
18. These responses are incorporated into the full published version of the Survey, in Feminist Praxis, op. cit. (note 4).
19. A complete history of Gay Sweatshop and discussion of recent plays appears in Osment, Philip, ed., Gay Sweatshop: Four Plays and a Company (London: Methuen, 1989)Google Scholar.
20. Ibid., and telephone interview with Suad ElAmin, 24 July 1990. The following quotation is also from this interview.
21. Letter from Tash Fairbanks, 6 June 1989. Subsequent information was appended to replies to postal interview questions from Tash Fairbanks and Jane Boston, 12 Aug. 1990.
22. Ibid.
23. Monstrous Regiment, from an unpublished interview with Clive Barker, 1985.
24. Judith Zivanovic, in her study of American feminist theatre collectives, also found that ‘Occasionally the theatre has a leader and some groups have included men among the founders; however, the majority of collaborative theatres have been founded by groups of three to seven women’. See ‘The Rhetorical and Political Foundations of Women's Collaborative Theatre’, Themes in Drama, 11: Women in Theatre, ed. Redmond, James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 218Google Scholar, n. 15.
