TDPS will participate in the Big Ten Theatre Chairs' initiative

To read article in UMD Right Now, titled "UMD Joins Big Ten Conference Playwriting Initiative", click here.

It isn’t often that a university’s athletics program can benefit its performing arts departments, but the University of Maryland’s shift to the Big Ten Conference is doing just that.

The problem to be solved is that theatre faculty across the country find it extremely challenging to find plays for their students to produce that have the qualities to make them valuable teaching tools.  The plays that serve as the best teaching aids should include at least six lead parts, most of them female and ample roles that can be played credibly by 18 – 25 year olds.  In addition, theatre faculty are alarmed at the gender inequity of US playwrights; there are twice as many male playwrights as female ones and the men tend to be more prolific, turning out more plays.

The solution is a new trend that began with a group of theatre department chairs from the Big Ten Athletic Conference universities, who formed a group known as the Big Ten Theatre Chairs.  They are focused on creating a stronger pool of plays that will be appropriate and powerful teaching instruments for their theatre students.  The group is also committed to supporting greater gender diversity in playwriting, and has banned together to commission women playwrights to write as many as five new plays to overcome these obstacles.

To read article in UMD Right Now, titled "UMD Joins Big Ten Conference Playwriting Initiative", click here.

Story by Missy Mctamney