wtf nyt?
"Forget the ingenues: Several women over 40 have appeared on Broadway this season." That was the headline for a Times theatre article. Is this news? Seriously...It just puts women over 40 in a box; an "old" box. Like it's surprising women over forty are stlll getting jobs in theater. I read this and just said, "What?" Here's the article.
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Women? Get old? And then still have lives? Oh.. my gawd.
It's sad that that's news to people.
As a training theater professional, I can tell you it is a surprise, a very pleasant surprise. There is a culture in drama that hides women from the public eye after they turn 40. The rejection of that is a new, wonderful notion, and that is what the article is celebrating.
You have to acknowledge a problem before you can fix it.
Well, actually, it IS news. Even now, I'm pretty sure, overwhelmingly older women's acting/theatre opportunities are much more sparse than older men's primarily because they've "lost their looks." And a bit of evidence to the contrary is indeed, well, good news.
Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to see garbage articles coming out of the theatre/dance sections, seeing as how these have been on the chopping block at newspapers across the country this past year. The last I heard (though this was probably a year or at least many months ago), the _Village Voice_ was cutting its dance coverage entirely, throwing their long-time brilliant dance writer Deborah Jowitt under the bus.
... Yes, I checked, and she was indeed "let go" in March '08. Here's an overview of the total regress in dance coverage at the _Voice_ - and it's probably pretty safe to generalize to theatre coverage, though theatre performance still remains more popular and more heavily attended than dance:
"From some time in the '70s til 1994, the Voice had a page and a half for dance coverage: Jowitt contributed 1600 words, or a full page, week after week, plus occasional features. ...
By 2008, dance coverage in the Voice had been reduced to less than a half-page, comprising capsule reviews by a number of freelance contributors and a longer review (less than 450 words) by Jowitt.
In late March 2008, after 40 years as a dance critic for the Village Voice, Jowitt was "let go" from her position as chief dance critic - though encouraged to continue to contribute as a freelance writer" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Jowitt ).
True it is news. I suppose I should have said "It's said that it has to be news" or something like that.
Yah. I'm with you. It's sad. The slow pace of our "progress" to get women valued for more than their looks is sad.
A while back my friend bought me a bunch of issues of Ms Magazine from 1973 and while it was absolutely awesome getting to read it, it was also depressing the number of things that they were so optimistic about that... still haven't changed.
Frankly, the way youth is emphasized, this IS news. And happy news I might add.
I remember seeing several plays last Fall in London and being pleasantly surprised to see more women of experience on the stage, and then being slightly depressed that I was so surprised.
I also don't object to this article. If you actually read the whole thing, it has a lot of decent commentary about the prevalent ageism and sexism in the acting industry, as well as the comparison of theater to television/film.
Oh and the actual title is "Forget the Ingénues; Cue the Grown-Ups".