An enormous amount of ink is being spilled over “Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theater,” a paper by a Princeton undergraduate which purports to show, among other things, that female artistic directors of theater companies are more likely to discriminate against women playwrights than their male counterparts.
The paper, by Emily Glassberg Sands, concludes–as was already widely believed–that women playwrights get the short end of the stick in America. But is that really what the numbers crunched in “Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender” demonstrate? I took a close and unhurried look at Sands’ facts, figures, and analysis, and my “Sightings” column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal tells what I found there. Pick up a copy of Saturday’s paper and see what I have to say.
UPDATE: Read the whole thing here.
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
