OFF BOOK.

This year saw the launch of The Women in Theatre Lab, an organisation with aim to support and amplify the presence of female playwrights. Partnering with Jermyn Street Theatre, Her Story Productions and The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, the project is inspired by similar projects in America and Australia.

With discussions happening around the presence of women in leadership positions in some of London’s most prestigious venues, there is a distinct social discussion around the presence, or rather lack of, women in the creative side of the theatre industry.

But are women really underrepresented?

This project has evaluated a selection of shows that played in the West End in 2023, to find out how many women there were in lead creative roles.

To differentiate between longer-standing shows and new work, distinctions were made between shows that were present in the year 2023, as well as specific new openings. Due to a lack of distinction in the roles, assistant and associates were counted in the same data, regardless of individual listings.

Writing

For 39 different musicals playing across the West End in 2023, there were 10 instances where women were present in the book writing teams.

In 50% of these instances, women were in collaborative teams also involving men, meaning there were only 5 solo female book writers. For shows that opened specifically in 2023, there were only 2 female book writers.

In the music writing department, only 5 teams involved women. The project uncovered only 2 women with independent music credits one of whom is the late Tina Turner for Tina: The Musical. There was one female music writer listed independently for a show opening in 2023.

For lyrics, there were only 3 teams containing women. One of these involves an ‘additional lyrics’ credit for a production which opened 23 years ago.

The other two credits are both 2023 openers; both of these productions had collaborative lyric writing teams. No women appeared with independent credits for lyric writing.  

In playwriting, there were 6 female writers present amongst 50 different shows. 60% of these writers were present in shows opening in 2023 specifically, with only one instance of a writer being in a collaborative team. The overall percentage of female writers in the west end for this year was 10%, making men 8.1x more likely to be a credited West End playwright than women. 

Across the board, there was one identifiable non-binary writer.

Directing

Overall, only 20% of directors in the West End this year were women. 

On the occasion there was a listed associate or assistant director, 71% of these roles were undertaken by women, making women 3.5x more likely to be in assistant roles than be listed as primary creatives. 90% of the women listed as associates were secondary to male lead creatives.

For shows opening specifically in the year 2023, the number of female directors rises to 34%. 83% of associates in this instance were women, and 93% of these women were associates specifically to male lead creatives. 

Movement and Choreography

On the whole, movement and choreography had a much more even gender split across the board.

Over half (57%) of movement directors and choreographers were women. Similarly, 56% of associates were women, with less than half (42%) of these women being associates to male creatives.

For shows that opened this year, 84% of primary creatives were women. Of the very limited numbers of associates, 33% were women, only one of whom was associate to a male lead creative.

Fight Direction

This year in fight direction, 57% of creatives were women. There was a distinct lack of any associate creatives listed. 

For shows opening in 2023, the listing are similar with 58% of shows being fight directed by female teams. 

Notably, this presence of women was due to the presence of the female-led dramatic violence company RC Annie.

Intimacy Direction

During this research, there was a distinctive lack of listed intimacy creatives, notably in shows where content would assume the presence of a co-ordinator in the rehearsal room. This may be due to an overall lack of presence, or that these individuals are being disregarded in creative listings.

Of the discoverable information, 80% of intimacy directors and co-ordinators were women, as were 100% of associates. 

The singular instance of a listed male intimacy director was for Brokeback Mountain, a production with specified queer male intimacy.

For shows opening in 2023, the statistics remained nearly identical.

Set Design

For ease of research, set and costume design were split into two categories. Creatives who worked across different departments were counted independently in each category.

In set design this year, 40% of designers were women, with a similar percentage of associates (38%).

For shows opening in 2023, this number increases slightly to 44%, with the number of associates increasing by the same amount to 42%

Costume Design

58% of costume design credits this year were women, with female associates sitting at 72%. Less than half of these associates and assistants (37.5%) were secondary to specifically male primary creatives.

For 2023 openings, the primary creatives number increases slightly to 62% with the associate statistic remaining the same.

Across this research, costume is the only design department where women were present in more than half of the selected listings.

Lighting Design 

Across the year, only 17% of lighting designers in the West End were women. Men were 5.7x more likely to undertake this role than women.

The lighting category was only secondary to directing in the presence of associates, with a large quantity of creatives working with an assistant or associate. 15% of these associates were women, and 100% of the time these women were associates to male lead creatives. 

The number of women in lighting designers decreases to 13% for shows opening in 2023, with associate numbers dropping to 10%. Despite this, every female associate on a show opening this year remained associate to a male primary creative.

Sound Design

Across the year, 10% of sound designers were women. Although associates and assistants were few and far between, only 4% of those present were women, and 100% of the time their lead creatives were men.

The 9 female-led sound designs counted were created by a specific selection of 5 different designers. One of these designs was a transfer from the National Theatre.

For shows opening in 2023, the number of associates increases slightly to 13%. 9% of associates were women, with 100% of their lead creatives remaining male.

Video and Projection Design

Where video or projection design was present, only 10% of these creatives were women. This number drops to 7% for shows that opened specifically in 2023. One of the present female leads undertook work which opened in 2006, 16 years ago.

In this category, regardless of opening time, there were no women acting as associate designers. 

Magic, Illusions and Special Effects

Although the lines on job roles (namely the lack of distinction around those listed as associates who are primary creatives, and vice versa) are blurred, there was no evidence within the assessed productions to suggest there have been any women working in magic, illusions, or special effects during this period.

2023, in summary

On the whole, there was a trend of female associates or assistants acting with male lead creatives.

Women were more likely to be associates and assistants when there was already a leading trend of female creatives, but often became assistants to men specifically.

Female creatives were most prominent in movement-based roles (movement, choreography, fight and intimacy), as well as costume design.

Sound, video, and lighting have the lowest numbers of women in primary roles altogether, with each percentage sitting below 20%.

There is a trend of male creatives often appearing in the West End more than once, with female creatives having distinctly fewer credits.

All data in this article is from 86 randomly selected productions, and works primarily on the information listed on official production websites. Where these sites are either non-existent or no longer live, supportive information was collected from trustworthy theatrical publications, typically in the form of press releases and reviews.