Involving the industry’s major stakeholders, Equity In Theatre (EIT) is a new and inclusive initiative designed to help redress gender inequities in the theatre industry. Although women form the vast majority of theatre school graduates, support workers, amateur practitioners, and audience members, when it comes to key creative roles in the sector (e.g. AD, director, and playwright), their numbers diminish substantially, dropping below the 35% marker. With funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Trillium Foundation, EIT will work for change: fostering dialogue, generating greater awareness of and exposure to Canadian women practitioners, and developing community actions to help rectify industry imbalances. This will be achieved via a multifaceted and multi-partnered response involving the national community as a whole. To learn more about the EIT project, click here, “like” us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.

The Equity in Theatre website (www.eit.playwrightsguild.ca) will be up and running by April 2015. It will serve as an informational hub, and it will also house a myriad of items, such as a calendar of events, an equity tool kit, a resources listing, and more, including a database of women theatre practitioners (that way, when ADs and producers say they don’t know of any women playwrights or directors, there’s a website they can visit to get to know some). If you identify as a woman theatre practitioner, make sure that you are included in EIT’s database of Canadian women theatre artists, which will provide a resource for the larger community. To do so, click here: https://playwrightsguildcanada.wufoo.com/forms/z11j6i4t1p0ogz7/

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Rebecca Burton (rebecca@playwrightsguild.ca) or Jennie Egerdie (admin@playwrightsguild.ca) at PGC by email or phone (#416-703-0201).

On Sunday, March 8, 2015 help celebrate International Women’s Day by hacking the internet! Increase women’s visibility in the arts by adding pages and sites on women in Canadian theatre to online Wiki pages. You can participate from the comfort of your own home, or attend one of the host locations set-up across the country. For more information, and to register for this event, visit the EIT Hackathon website: https://equityhack.wordpress.com