I actually found the forum tokenistic – Company B – you aren’t off the hook just because you held a forum, ok!?

And in one way it’s sad. Armfield was the GREAT director who has been brought down by his own foolishness. At the Belvoir xmas party he listed all the women who had worked at the theatre… 90 per cent were admin.

I don’t think he gets it. I really don’t.

i had a thought on this merit idea. it seems to be a euphamism for commercial decision making. in other words- ‘bankability’

Do we place any less value on the downstairs shows because they are less commercially driven? i would argue that we (should, at least) place more value there. In which case some of our most valuable theatre in recent years has been programmed by women.

just a thought

Furthermore, the truth of the matter is – is that no one knows what an audience wants- not even the audience- programmers only program on what they know and what they personally want to see in their theatre. Audiences want the best of what’s on offer- and the easiest way to decide what is “best” is to have a hugely diverse programme-

And how do programmers know what an audience wants? How could someone possibly know that an audience wants Shakespeare in December and Tommy Murphy in August? What sort of crystal ball do the mainstage programmers have? The plain truth is- that every theatre programmer who wasn’t there yesterday is shirking their responsibility to have a reasonable dialogue with their industry. And everytime they chose NOT to foster new or local work/ artists their laziness damages the whole industry.

Interesting point you make about ‘taste’; how individual and idiosyncratic it is, and–in this context–how easily it masquerades as ‘merit’. When it comes to commissioning and programming I think taste also gets tangled up with ‘what audiences want’, the political zeitgeist, fashion, who’s hot, what’s going on overseas–and probably a hundred other things.

Let’s hope that Belvoir (and those other companies–you know who you are) take yesterday’s panel as the start of a much-needed dialogue, and don’t feel they’ve now given women writers and directors their 15-minutes centrestage.

Enough said.

I believe that Caleb Lewis made some important comments about process and merit and that they should not be lost in this debate. I agree that he should be respected for withdrawing from the award, a decision I am convinced he would have not taken likely and one that was a courageous move pronouncing his own principles over his own success. I would encourage him though to take up on the commission perhaps without the award, as I think a writer that has been chosen for a commission must jump because sadly they are even rarer and further between as never before.

The forum was a wonderful entree into further discussion which I hope we will continue to engage in. I believe that the scrutiny of how ‘merit’ is decided, what processes are in place to ensure gate keepers are informed thinkers, how theatre is significantly behind other professions (even within the arts), and how indeed Australian theatre is well behind other first world countries in its representation of women artists, is well worthy of greater investigation. Perhaps there could be some processes put in place to examine current practice.

Thank you to the terrific panel (Marion Potts you are both brave and wise) and to Belvoir. Great to see so many women there, especially those with history and power to offer us all – and so many supportive men. I look forward to further healthy discussion within the entire industry, both in NSW and elsewhere.