Gender and Improv

By LYNDSEY MUGFORD '19

I’m a sucker for improv. So, my freshmen year, I found myself eagerly awaiting the famous improv night, where seniors taking the improv half course put on a show for the Milton community. I got there an hour early, waited in line, and forced my way through the stampede to earn my spot in the second row, dead center, where I waited and waited until finally, in a dramatic crescendo of stage lights and dance music, a group of 20 or so seniors rushed the stage, hooting and hollering while the crowd went nuts. Everyone was cheering and screaming, but I turned to my friend and asked, genuinely puzzled, “Where are all the girls?”

It’s no secret that the improv class is, to say the least, a bit of a boys club. Since my freshman year, I’ve come to expect a show dominated by male students with a few brave ladies thrown into the mix, and that dynamic has remained consistent; for example, this year’s class of 10 people featured only 2 girls. Improv night’s brand as a male-dominated space is, frankly, synonymous with the attitudes of the larger comedic world. Despite recent efforts to increase the number of comedic, female-driven movies, the fact still remains: comedy is a man’s game. According to Wikipedia, while SNL has a very gender inclusive cast, all four of its head writers are male, and only 7 out of 34 writers in the staff are female. Forbes Magazine’s list of the ten highest paid comedians features exactly one woman (Amy Schumer). If you want to do a fun experiment, try typing “standup” into your Netflix search bar. Out of the top 50 results, 7 will feature women, 2 will include multiple genders, and the remaining 41 results will feature solely men.

If we think this culture does not affect Milton, we’re fooling ourselves. According to the Milton Academy website, in the past four years we have had 11 comedic productions in which 82 roles have gone to boys and 69 have gone to girls. These numbers especially come into focus when you realize that these male dominant statistics do not exist in other forms of production at Milton. In the same timeframe of student performed comedic productions, dramatic productions gave boys 33 roles and girls 77, and shows that can’t easily be categorized as solely comedic or dramatic (like Hairspray or the Class IV Follies) gave boys 40 roles and girls 71 (students who do not identify as either male or female were not included in these counts).

In examining these numbers, we see a dramatic demographic shift between comedic productions and other genres. Additionally, the counts listed above include all roles, leads and ensemble, without differentiating between speaking and non speaking roles, and therefore don’t even allow us to see the entire picture. Take, for example, Spamalot—technically, the comedic production featured 11 women and 15 men. However, according to StageAgent.com, there is only one female speaking part, the Lady of the Lake, in the entire show—King Arthur, Patsy, the knights, and all other roles are male. Our theater department has defined, gendered spaces: boys gravitate towards comedy while girls take center stage in dramas and, in comedies, fail to uphold their traditional representation.

When I think back to improv night my freshman year, I start to realize why all of this matters. I had loved improv since I was a kid and had gone to that show hoping for a role model, but, after I sat in front of that predominantly male class, I couldn’t help but walk away wondering if maybe this wasn’t for me. In failing to provide our girls with adequate comedic role models, we are telling them that in comedy they are the exception, not the rule. This mentality is damaging and encourages girls to opt out of comedic spaces. Similarly, in presenting predominately female dramatic productions we discourage boys from seeing themselves in that sphere as well. Representation matters.

I’m really grateful—I’ve been lucky enough to have people in my life constantly encouraging me to do what I love. However, I honestly believe our community can be better. These conventions aren’t set in stone—they’re flexible, and they’re changing. This year’s Wicked Sketchy cast, for example, featured 8 girls and 4 guys, a first for the show. While this is a promising sign of a changing status-quo, a female-dominated comedic setting is, ultimately, little better than the current situation. I am hopeful that we can move towards an environment where no student, regardless of gender, feels discouraged from participating in a genre of theater, whether it be girls and comedy or boys and drama. A gender-diverse comedic community, both in Milton and beyond, will create richer, deeper, and, frankly, funnier material for all of us to enjoy.