DATE=May 2, 2002

TYPE=Dateline

NUMBER=7-36255

TITLE=Broadway's Season of the Woman

BYLINE=Emily Hoffman

TELEPHONE=260-1623 (Editor)

DATELINE=New York

EDITOR=Faith Lapidus

CONTENT=

HOST: The nominations for Broadway's highest awards the Tonys will be announced on Monday, May 6th. No fewer than four of the potential seven nominees for the Best Play award have been written by women. Also, the success of several one-woman shows, and the increase in women producers are making this year Broadway's Season of the Woman. Emily Hoffman has more on this Dateline report.

SOUND: CUT 1, MUSIC UNDER DIALOGUE FROM TOPDOG/UNDERDOG FADING UNDER V.O.

EH: Topdog/Underdog is one of the top plays on Broadway. Whether or not Suzan-Lori Parks wins a Tony Award for the comic drama about two down and out African American brothers, she has already made history. Just three weeks ago, she became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama. New York Times Cultural Critic Margo Jefferson thinks it's a major event:

TAPE: CUT 2 - JEFFERSON

"It definitely is. When did a black woman last open a play on Broadway? Maybe not since Lorraine Hansberry…alright you've had Ntozake Shange…Suzan-Lori she also won the Pulitzer the week she landed on Broadway."

EH: But she feels that Ms Park's Pulitzer is only one of the season's landmarks.

TAPE: CUT 3 JEFFERSON

"That four women playwrights would be on Broadway…that's significant these things never just happen. They have to be worked up to…If you have four women playwrights, this means something else has been going on, in the regional theatres or Off Broadway or producers and directors have to preserve and protect these works. They have to stand behind these playwrights."

EH: Playwright Suzan-Lori Parks credits off-Broadway's Public Theatre for standing behind her.

TAPE: CUT 4 PARKS

"I've had the fortune to have been…in 1994… I was included in the family of the Public Theatre and that's where I've premiered most of my plays. Most of my experience has been with the Public. Being a woman, or an African-American woman was never an issue that stood in the way of me and a production. Nor did it make it easier for me to get a production."

EH: It's hard for Suzan-Lori Parks to think about whether or not her play could've made it to Broadway before now, but she does see the audience as primed for her work:

TAPE: CUT 5 PARKS

"But what I sense in the audience every night is a great need for this play…for a play that is a basic play…one set and two characters going at it for two hours…a meat and potatoes with an interesting garnish…people need that kind of play now. This culture needs good theatre and I don't think that is a change. Women have always written good and the best comes to Broadway and because of new opportunities, they're getting the opportunities…it's very exciting."

EH: Many of those opportunities are coming from women producers. And this season more and more women are taking on that role a big change from the David Merrick days of the 1950s and 60s, when few women had that kind of power on Broadway. Still, Carole Shorenstein Hays says the legendary theatre producer remains an inspiration.

TAPE: CUT 6 SHOENSTEIN HAYS

"That was a great producer. That was a strong individual with a vision and I think that's the distillation you want and that's the heart you want."

EH: Ms. Shorenstein Hays is not only the lead producer of TopDog/Underdog, she is also part of the producing team of three other current Broadway plays Edward Albee's The Goat or Who is Sylvia, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and last year's Tony Award winner for Best Play, Proof. In choosing plays to produce, she looks for something or other, and says she found it in Topdog/Underdog.

TAPE: CUT 7 SHOENSTEIN HAYS

"Maybe it could be said that because I'm a woman and that women lead from the heart and with this piece in particular and every piece I've done, I do think they are works of art. I think producing on Broadway is an art. It is sacred. It is our national art forum and my job is to present art and when art and commerce merge, it's called show business and that's what I believe is the most important job to be done."

EH: New York Times critic Margo Jefferson agrees.

TAPE: CUT 8 JEFFERSON

"It absolutely comes down to money as well as an intelligent vision. It is terrific that we have women producers. We need them. However, all women producers on Broadway are not the ones that are necessarily producing the plays you're talking about. Again, it is great that women producers are responsible for bringing important men to Broadway…what really matters is that producers and directors and institutions with taste and guts back artists and they have to back them not just when they get to Broadway."

EH: Insiders say Ms. Parks' strongest competition for the Tony will come from Mary Zimmerman with her reimagining of the ancient Greek classic, Ovid's Metamorphoses. That, Heather McDonald's An Almost Holy Picture, and Michele Lowe's The Smell of the Kill, albeit a long shot, may round out the nominations for Best Play.

Women are expected to make a strong showing in yet another category, one that is newly created this year, called Special Theatrical Event. These are productions that are considered neither plays nor musicals. Both Bea Arthur and Elaine Strich, with one-woman shows about their lives and careers, qualify. Theater critic Margo Jefferson says it's about time these kinds of shows are back.

TAPE: CUT 9 JEFFERSON

"The Broadway story of a woman's life really hit the consciousness as a powerful and glamorous form really started when Lena Horne had her show. Then, it seemed as though a number of women were doing this, but it seemed that they were doing it mostly off-Broadway. Elaine Strich started Off-Broadway, at the Public Theatre, in fact. She has been a great Broadway performer for years now and she plays even better in a big house and she's in her 70s and there she is in black tights and a white shirt."

EH: Whether or not any or all of these performers, producers and playwrights receive a Tony nomination on Monday or walk off with an award in June, it's clear they've all contributed to making this Broadway theatre season one where women have made their mark.

SOUND: ACTUALITY FROM ELAINE STRICH SHOW

"Ladies and Gentlemen…Miss Elaine Strich!"

MUSIC: THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

SOUND: ELAINE STRICH

"There's good news and there's bad news. I have got a sensational acceptance speech for a Tony. The bad news: I've had it for forty-five years! (APPLAUSE FADES, MUSIC)

EH: I'm Emily Hoffman in New York.

MUSIC: LIFE UPON THE WICKED STAGE, CDP 21471, BAND 7, FROM SHOW BOAT TO 11: