A Panel Discussion on Gender Relations in Theatre

“Our assessment following four years of a women’s quota at the Theatertreffen also documents a theatrical landscape in upheaval where artistic stances are becoming increasingly differentiated, intersectional perspectives are being accorded more weight, and women protagonists’ self-confidence is growing. But even so, structural discrimination against women dies hard— be it in the form of sexist comments, blatant misogyny, mansplaining, or open boycotts,”¹ write Sabine Leucht, Petra Paterno, and Katrin Ullmann in their 2023 book Status Quote. Theater im Umbruch: Regisseurinnen im Gespräch [Status Quota. Theatre in Upheaval: Women Stage Directors in Conversation].

In the hierarchical and patriarchal system that is the theatre business, the aspect of gender relations and ratios is present in all areas of work but of widely varying character and distributions: the higher up on the hierarchical ladder positions are and the more power, influence, artistic freedom, and salary are in play, the fewer women can be found there. It’s thus that theatre is among those realms where one encounters a “glass ceiling” that, once broken through, can be quickly followed by the “glass cliff”—a term born of that phenomenon where women only attain leadership positions or are granted access to more power when the risk of failing is particularly great and there is little left to lose.

All reason enough, in the context of this year’s International Women’s Day, to speak about power and gender relations in theatre at the mdw. Moderator Alexandra Althoff, department head at the Max Reinhardt Seminar, presided over a conversation between Bettina Hering (a dramaturge, director, and former head of drama at the Salzburg Festival), Petra Paterno (co-editor of Status Quote and an advisor on the dramatic arts at the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport), and Julia Wissert (artistic director of Schauspiel Dortmund and one of the individuals behind the development of the “Anti-Racism Clause” that features in some theatre contracts). With a focus on the leadership perspective and the conditions surrounding efforts towards institutional change with a critical eye to power, they spoke about matters ranging from the paths traced by their own biographies to strategies for greater gender justice, measures to prevent the abuse of power, and the tools they’d like to pass on to the next generation of theatre professionals. The quota policy that was instituted in 2020 to govern the selection of directorial stances for the theatre festival Berliner Theatertreffen represents one example of an effective accompanying measure, ascertained Paterno at the outset of the discussion, that also featured centrally in the career development of the invited directors.

The more you attempt to open up institutions, the more complex the conversations about power become since it’s naturally always about who’s moving in which position with which body.

Julia Wissert, artistic director of Schauspiel Dortmund

Julia Wissert, with an eye to the inner workings of organisations, argued that those in leadership positions should assume responsibility for facilitating and establishing working practices critical of power and sensitive to diversity in theatre that aim to advance change. In doing so, the point would be to cultivate structural conditions within a given institution in which the greatest possible number of maximally different individuals and perspectives are capable of working together with one another in the best possible manner and to simultaneously be a place where programming would take diversity into account while outstanding art is produced. A working practice critical of discrimination therefore entails that artistic and aesthetic endeavours always run in parallel with the dismantling of hierarchical structures characterised by power and fear—which requires time, resources, and expertise.

What knowledge is needed to this end? What is important to learn and unlearn? What tools are there that students, as future theatre professionals, need and can already learn and practice as part of their training? Alongside the necessity of building up a broad network and working together while providing mutual support collegially and in solidarity even when perspectives differ, Bettina Hering brought up two further important factors: knowledge of the relevant historicity and the importance of being able to communicate. It is both central and beneficial to one’s own positioning, after all, to take a look at the history of theatre and at the development of one’s own discipline in order to know where one comes from professionally. And it is just as fundamental to have a sufficient range of spaces as well as regular structured opportunities to communicate with each other—about potential fears, misgivings, dissonances, competition, desires, etc.

These multifarious realms of exchange, networking, shared critical reflection, and both safer spaces and empowerment opportunities for persons who are marginalised are a central aspect of critical diversity work in theatre—and not only there but at places of artistic training, as well.