A creative and critical investigation into women in theatre

这个研究项目的想法源于我在2018-2019年与英国领先的女性戏剧公司Sphinx Theatre Company和剑桥大学进行的一个为期一年的女性戏剧混合方法研究项目。这项研究的定量和定性结果发表在2020年2月的《卫报》上。这项研究揭示了女性在剧院中持续存在的不平等，最近被《卫报》强调为引领并导致了艺术组织的变革，《卫报》称：“今年早些时候，剧作家詹妮弗·塔克特和狮身人面像戏剧公司进行的研究表明，与8年前相比，剧院的性别差距已经扩大。当时《卫报》对这一问题进行了深入研究。一些组织已经采取了具体的策略来解决这一差距2(Weigand，2020)。英格兰艺术委员会也称这项研究“非常重要”，并利用这项研究为政策变化提供信息。目前，英国政府正在利用这项研究为他们在大流行后重建ARTS的计划提供信息。作为一名获奖作家，我在英国、澳大利亚和美国拥有背景，在那里我获得了包括英国主要戏剧编剧奖之一的Old Vic New Voices Theatre 503奖在内的主要奖项，同时在耶鲁大学完成了我的戏剧写作硕士学位，并曾在Old Vic Theatre、Theatre 503和伯明翰剧场等地演出，本研究项目旨在通过为我调查我以前从未研究过的新领域，即戏剧创作如何被女性剧作家和其他戏剧工作者用来帮助促进性别平等，来建立我的定性和定量研究基础。在最近对澳大利亚的研究中，我发现有必要进行这项调查，学者拉利与米勒(2012)、米勒(2014)、海斯(2018)以及海宁和海姆(2019)等人强调了舞台，特别是主舞台传统上是男性空间的问题，并提出了关于有必要进一步调查女性剧作家如何帮助重新定义这个地方的问题，例如，强调男性故事往往被视为规范/普遍，而与女性主人公的故事往往被视为女性利基。在英国，伦敦皇家宫廷剧院(Royal Court Theatre)的艺术总监维姬·费瑟斯通也问过，像《李尔王》或《推销员之死》(Aston，2017；Hutchison，2015)等作品的女性版本在哪里。我目前也是狮身人面像剧院的文学总监，在那里我与15家领先的剧院合作，并由英国艺术委员会资助，设计了英国第一个针对女性剧作家的新写作项目，英国艺术委员会也强调了这个问题。此外，对疫情的许多研究也发现，疫情后性别不平等可能会加剧，这使得这项研究更加迫切。例如，Adams-Prassl等人。(2020)发现受教育程度较低的工人和妇女是受疫情影响最严重的两个群体，需要采取紧急行动。在其他研究中，联合国妇女署也得出了类似的结论。因此，我的论文将试图通过探索循环剧的可能性来解决戏剧中性别不平等的紧迫问题，过去它是如何被用来表达未被听到或被低估的声音的，以及女性剧作家如何利用它来表达被忽视或被低估的女性声音，并帮助促进性别平等。

The idea for this research project has developed out of a year-long mixed methods research project into women in theatre I conducted with Sphinx Theatre Company, the UK's leading women's theatre company, and the University of Cambridge from 2018 - 2019. The quantitative and qualitative findings from this study were published in February 2020 in The Guardian newspaper1. The study revealed continuing inequality for women in theatre and has been recently highlighted by The Guardian newspaper as leading the way and leading to arts organisation changes, with The Guardian stating: "Earlier this year, research conducted by the playwright Jennifer Tuckett and the Sphinx theatre company suggested theatre's gender gap had grown in key areas compared with eight years ago, when the Guardian conducted an in-depth study of the issue. Specific strategies have been adopted by some organisations to address the disparity" 2 (Weigand, 2020). The Arts Council of England also called this research "hugely important" and has used this research to inform policy changes. At present, the UK government is using this research to inform their plans to rebuild the arts post pandemic. As an award winning writer with a background in the UK, Australia and America, where I have won major awards including one of the UK's leading playwriting awards, the Old Vic New Voices Theatre 503 Award, whilst completing my Masters in Playwriting at Yale, and had productions at the Old Vic Theatre, Theatre 503 and Birmingham Repertory Theatre amongst others, this research project seeks to build on my qualitative and quantitative research by investigating the new area for me, which I have never researched before, of how playwriting can be used to help with gender equality by female playwrights and others in theatre. During recent research in Australia, I found the need for this investigation indicated by academics Lally with Miller (2012), Miller (2014), Hayes (2018) and Haining and Heim (2019), amongst others, who have highlighted issues of the stage, and particularly the mainstage, being traditionally a male space and raised questions about the need for further investigation into how female playwrights can help reconceptualise this place, for example highlighting that the male story is often seen as the norm/universal whilst a story with a female protagonist is often seen as women's niche. In the UK, Vicky Featherstone, the Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre in London, one of the world's leading new writing theatres, has also asked where are the female versions of work like King Lear or Death of a Salesman (Aston, 2017; Hutchison, 2015). I am also currently the Literary Director of Sphinx Theatre where I have designed the UK's first new writing programme for female playwrights in partnership with 15 leading theatres and funded by Arts Council England, which has also highlighted this issue.Moreover, much research on the pandemic has also found gender inequality is likely to increase post-pandemic, making this research even more urgent to undertake. For example, Adams-Prassl et al. (2020) have found that less educated workers and women are the two hardest hit groups by the pandemic and that urgent action needs to be taken. Similar conclusions have been reached by UN Women amongst other studies.My thesis will thus attempt to address the urgent issue of gender inequality in theatre via exploration of the possibilities of the cycle play, how it has been used in the past to give voice to unheard or under-represented voices, and how it could be used by female playwrights to give voice to underheard or under-represented female voices and help contribute to gender equality.