A leading UK theatre organisation has pledged to balance the number of male and female actors that appear in self-generated or in-house productions.
Sheffield Theatres said it hoped to achieve its target “within the year”.
Artistic director Daniel Evans said his pledge was “not just about numbers, but also about the scope and range of parts female actors get to play”.
Other UK theatres have also pledged to do what they can to address gender inequality in the theatre industry.
They include the Almeida, Tricycle and Young Vic in London, Chichester Festival Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.
The commitment made by Sheffield Theatres – which operates the Crucible and Lyceum venues and a third studio theatre – follows its involvement in a six-month programme run by a London-based lobbying group.
Lucy Kerbel, director of Tonic Theatre, said she was “optimistic” its Advance programme – which brought together the heads of 11 theatres and theatre companies – would “lead to real and sustained change”.
Erica Whyman, the RSC’s deputy artistic director, said there was “an urgent need to understand why there are still gender imbalances in the theatre” and that she had been “very pleased” to take part in Tonic Theatre’s initiative.
“We have found it enlightening and provocative to work together with the other theatres to really ask genuinely useful questions and be encouraged to act on the answer,” she added.
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Source:: BBC Entertainment
