All Change Please: A Practical Guide to Achieving Gender Equality in Theatre

By Lucy Kerbel

'Lucy Kerbel's work has become increasingly pivotal in helping the entire industry raise its game... this illuminating book answers the cynic, informs the impartial, converts the supporter into an activist and equips them all; not in a rallying cry of anger-fuelled idealism, but in a calm, pragmatic and clear-eyed way.' Rufus Norris, Director of the National Theatre, from his Foreword
Theatre needs to change. Everywhere – in its boardrooms, on its stages, throughout its repertoires – it could be so much more successful at reflecting the gender balance of the world it seeks to represent.
This is a book about why change matters, its benefits – artistic, commercial, ethical and social – and how, with everyone's help, we can actually achieve it. From small shifts, such as how you run your meetings, or what's on the shelves of your school library, to rethinking concepts as huge as the art we inherit, how we attribute excellence, and the constraints we unwittingly pass on to the next generation, there are things we can all do to bring about change.
In this book, you'll find provocations to help you consider your current practices and their effects, challenge unconscious biases and identify opportunities for change, plus strategies and tools to help you decide where best to focus your efforts, to convince others why change matters, and to achieve meaningful, lasting success.
Eye-opening, empowering and inspiring, All Change Please is a book for anyone who loves theatre. Whether you make it, teach it, watch it or study it, everyone has their own unique part to play in helping refresh, reshape and re-imagine the industry as truly diverse, equal and inclusive.
'We are the industry. If things will shift it is down to us, all of us, to make that happen. We all need to reflect on how we work, how we think, and how we make choices. That's what will drive the greatest change.'
Since 2011, Lucy Kerbel and her organisation Tonic Theatre have been working with companies and individuals across the theatre industry to support them in achieving greater gender equality in their work and workforces. Her first book, 100 Great Plays for Women, is also published by Nick Hern Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Feb 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781780018607

Lucy Kerbel

Lucy Kerbel is the director of Tonic Theatre, and an award-winning theatre director. Having begun her career as Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio and English Touring Theatre, Lucy went on to direct a range of classics, new writing and work for younger audiences in theatres such as the Bush, Polka Theatre, Royal Court and Soho Theatre. She is a winner of the Old Vic New Voices Award and the Young Angels Theatremakers Award. Lucy has worked extensively in theatre education and is Learning Associate at the National Theatre.

Book preview

1About

Change

What is it, and how can we achieve it?

About Change

Let’s begin by talking about plastic bags, bicycles, and eating lunch at your desk.

The change that you (yes, you) can make and do make

It may be, that having read my introduction to this book, you were left feeling ‘Okay, that’s all very well-intentioned but, to come back down to earth, how the hell could I realistically change things?’ Perhaps you feel utterly disempowered in regards to your position in theatre or your ability to impact on what feels like the immoveable monolith of inequalities. Alternatively, you might be someone who is in a position of seniority or influence in theatre – you’re absolutely the kind of person who should be driving change – and yet, when you look at your already overwhelming ‘to do’ list, may find yourself thinking: ‘But how the hell am I going to find time to sort out gender equality on top of everything else I have to do?!’

In response to both of these quite understandable concerns I would say that you are never without agency, nor does creating change automatically have to add to your workload, but often simply entails doing things you’re doing already, but in a slightly different way. To take this idea down to a really simplistic level: all of us have a choice over what we choose to watch – what we spend our money on buying tickets for and how we dedicate the time we allocate to watching theatre. We all have the power to vote with our feet and to channel our energies selectively – actively to seek out, engage in, and support work by and about women, as well as that by and about men. Granted, that may feel like a small amount of influence or altered behaviour, but if enough people do it, it sends a powerful message about the type of work audience members want to see to the theatres commissioning, selecting and producing it.

In addition, everybody, whether they are aware of it or not, automatically plays a role in determining the nature of the culture around them. By way of illustration, years ago I did an admin role in a theatre within a team of about six or seven people. At some point, probably because she was going through a busy patch, one member of the department stopped going out for lunch or spending it in the green room. Instead she’d eat a sandwich at her desk and keep working in the meantime. Without any discussion about it, gradually over the next few weeks, the rest of us in the department began regularly eating our lunch at our desks too. The person who’d done it first wasn’t our boss, nor was she more senior than most people in that department and she never looked disapprovingly at anyone who wasn’t eating their lunch at their desk. In fact, she probably hadn’t clocked her actions were something the rest of us were even paying attention to. But very subtly her behaviour affected ours. There was a shift in the culture that she drove by changing her behaviour. By deciding that she was going to start eating her lunch at her desk, something happened to the rest of us and we began to do that