Is art feminine? Sexism in the industry.

I often think of the art world as a girls’ game. If you’ve ever been in am dram there always seems to be a plethora of female participants and only a few males to counter them. People often say the arts is where you should go if you’re a single straight guy.

However, the fact that there are more females in the industry often has a negative impact on our gender. The competition is much higher for female roles.

Whilst this is especially prevalent in performance role where the number of participants per gender is specifically outlined, it is not absent in the behind the scenes artistic roles.

Writing from experience is an inevitable part of the creative process. Therefore, the industry is not crowded by too many of the same type of writer. Therefore, there is still competition to be the younger writer on the scene, the international writer or indeed the female writer.

With the unfortunate trend of anti-feminists there are waves of people complaining about too many angst ridden females whining about inequality in the work they produce. This is undermining the work of many great female creators.

A writer may be discussing an issue that people find uncomfortable but that is ongoing in the industry today. This voice needs to be heard because it is still being stifled. But the fact that it is being stifled means that it is not adequately being elevated in the creative or commercial world.

It seems that the fact that there are many more women in the arts industry is not aiding us into having a fair and supportive work environment. It in fact seems that we may have to work harder to reach the same level as the less crowded field of males.

How can we counter this? If every work was anonymous and judged only on talent maybe the current field of writers would look different. And maybe it wouldn’t.

As women we must challenge ourselves to diversify our work to say what needs saying in a language that will engage with those who need to hear it.

It may not be fair and it shouldn’t be only our responsibility but if we do not fight for it ourselves we will not get it. The fact that the industry is filled with women means that we can influence its direction.

We may have to be sneaky, but nothing is more powerful than a women once scorned.

The constant search for an audience. How do you reach people?

We can write all we want. What’s harder is finding people who’ll listen.

Even if you’re successful in getting your work to production it means nothing if you cannot fill the seats.

Critics can, and will, give their two cents but it is the audience which ultimately decides the success or failure or a show.

The West End is a marketplace. Even established theatre makers such as Andrew Lloyd Webber can have productions dropped after just a few weeks (Stephen Ward) if the audience become disenchanted with them.

If you’ve ever been down the mile at the Edinburgh fringe festival then you’ll know that theatre can be a hard sell. You have competition and they are willing to fight for the audience.

To be fruitful in this business, and a business is what it is, you must cater to your audience. Should this be done at the expense of your creative vision? This is a hard question. The answer, ultimately, is that it must be balance. If your creative impulse is inherently unsellable then it’s fruitless.

Even if your creativity is being fed you have no career without a creation you can sell.

In the writing process it is useful to have readings. Listen to the feedback you get from them. If people lose interest or don’t enjoy parts of your piece address this. Don’t be stubborn at the expense of your audience. They will not forgive you for it.

The only way to truly let a create vision dominate the business is to not make art your business. But fulfilling your passion around another 9 to 5 is also not ideal or realistically achievable.

You must constantly ask yourself they question ‘why?’ Once you decide why you are doing what your area you will be able to make the decision for yourself.

Does selling a creation destroy it? Perhaps. Can a creation flourish without an audience? Absolutely not.

The writing process. Does it take a lifetime?

It took me five years to write my first play, and three weeks to write my second.

Sometimes a piece requires such careful consideration on how best to express itself. Other time it is just the urgency to emote that opens and closes the process in days.

Usually, neither is more effective than the other. They are different means to the same end.

One work should not overcome your life. If it doesn’t make sense to you at this point leave it, move on, and maybe one day it will.

David Hare said that ‘we are all trying to achieve the impossible which is to write a good play about something we care very deeply about’.

If we believe in the magnum opus, a defining work of a career, it would make every piece up to it just a stepping stone. There is also no assurance that we’d ever achieve it. However, stepping stones are necessary if we don’t want to drown.

The idea of a swan song also suggests that creativity has an end point. Collectively perhaps everything we create is part of one greater narrative.

However much variety we think we’ve written, if we stood all our work up next to each other at the end I think we’d all find that common thread. The one eternal, unanswered question. I hope that at this point we’d find the answer. But life offers no guarantees.

Writers call themselves artists. It is a career which defines a person. There is no 9-5. It is something that has to be done any hour of the day and for a lifetime.

Many people will write from a young age and their writing will grow up with them. Works can stand as markers of who you were and what you believed at certain points in your lifetime.

Once we have started creators will be so forever. It will be a life filled with anguish and satisfaction. But as we all know we wouldn’t do it unless we had too.

Saying it better. Which generation writes best?

A few years ago new writing was very zeitgeist. Everyone was doing it. Now, however, faith is being put back into the canonical writers of the 20^th century.

With the return to the west end of plays such as Another Country and Skyline, revivals are pushing out new writing. When I met playwright of Another Country, Julian Mitchell, he told me that becoming a playwright was like learn to write again, that playwriting is a continuing education. So do we become better writers the older we get?

If age does bring wisdom and understanding which creates better and truer work then young writer wouldn’t stand a chance. However, if all writing is its authors view on the world, older writers would become stale and repetitive with age once they’d made their point clear. It all depends which side of the debate you fall: is creativity a skill like any other that can be honed or is there an innate spontaneity of creation which is unquantifiable and unteachable.

I am bias. I want to be able to say that young writing is the way forward. But what I have to say is that maybe age isn’t important. After all, my favourite play was written when its author was 70.

Taking the slogan of my favourite theatre (Theatre 503) what matters is making ground breaking theatre. What we say is what is important. It is likely that the young and old say and see things very differently and this is a gift. It is the variety which makes the industry interesting. We need both the new and the tradition. When it comes to the marketplace it’s about talent not age.

For a writer (as for everyone) to become old they must first have been young. Young playwriting must be encouraged if this art is to have a future. The style which is currently thought of as reckless and new will become the old tradition for the next generation.

I cannot speak for the old, I can only speak for the young and more accurately only for myself. Therefore, my conclusion will always be bias and I’m sure in 40 years my conclusion will be very different.

But today I’ll leave you with my current evaluation: the old may be able to say things better but maybe the young have something better to say.