
In marriage, owning land, voting, reproductive rights and working, women have fought the fight for gender equity for a long time.
“The 50/50 Shakespeare Project: Rethinking the Workplace of Shakespeare” explains how a consulting firm works to enable women to close the gender gap.
Vanessa Morosco, executive director of the American Shakespeare Center, and writer, adapter and performer, Peter Simon Hilton, spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library in May as part of the museum’s Speaker Series.
Morosco has performed in more than 25 productions at ASC, directed shows and become a nationally-recognized expert in ethics and drama-based training. She holds a master’s in ethics from Yale and has worked with leaders around the world in different industries to build ethical creative cultures.
Hilton’s plays have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. He has designed more than 250 drama-based training programs and performed in more than 40 productions of Shakespeare‘s works. Hilton, who holds a degree in classics from University College in London, is a former U.S. board member of the Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
Twenty years ago, investment bank Morgan Stanley settled a class action lawsuit regarding a claim that its equity department had prevented more than 300 women employees from promotions and bonuses, and had rewarded employees who were men and lesser performing. The $54 million lawsuit concluded with the courts mandating that the bank implement diversity training in its equity department. Morosco and Hilton’s consultancy firm was hired to train more than 7,000 brokers and support staff around the world for Morgan Stanley.
A few years ago, the theater world faced a similar situation regarding gender inequity of business practices. While other industries had considered gender inequality as illegal and unethical for 20 years, professional theater would prefer to claim that less stage roles were available for women than work to include women as performers.
“However, one small but potent sector held out citing authenticity, tradition, a need for reverence, a passion to ensure a legacy for our generation and generations to come,” Morosco said. “And, that was and is, the workplace of producing Shakespeare‘s plays.”
Morosco and Hilton co-founded the 50/50 Shakespeare Project to advance gender equity in the production of Shakespeare‘s plays. Other alternatives to gender inclusion exist. The 50/50 Shakespeare Project is a just new approach to advance gender equity. Efforts have led to productions of “Hamlet” with women in the lead role.
Perhaps ironically, William Shakespeare wrote his plays between 1592 and 1616, the year he died, knowing that his female characters would be portrayed by adolescent boys on stage.
“So, when we layer on top of that layer, we run the risk of misleading audiences from the playwright’s intention and unnecessarily confusing already deliciously complex and thought-through theatrical settings,” Hilton said.
The 50/50 Shakespeare Project provides an alternative approach.
Morosco said that Washington & Lee University recently commissioned “Hamlet 50/50,” a 90-minute version of Shakespeare‘s play that provided increased access for students.
Morosco and Hilton explained their methodology to an audience at WWPL with an example of “Hamlet,” a play with only two female characters: Gertrude and Ophelia. According to Hilton, only 8.5 percent of dialogue in the play are spoken by a woman.
“But, ‘Hamlet 50/50‘ had 44 percent of the text spoken by a female character, which, although it’s not strictly 50/50, does feel in the context of performance sufficient to balance out the narrative voice,” Hilton said.
Shakespeare‘s best play for providing gender equality is 39 percent as a female narrative voice in “As You Like It.”
Morosco and Hilton consider numbers when they suggest which characters in a production can be re-gendered with authenticity, when text can be reallocated to a woman’s voice or when an arc of a story can be streamlined to accentuate a woman’s voice. Hilton explained another example with “Hamlet,” the first scene of which is the male space of a battlefield. The couple took inspiration from a castle in Denmark that Hilton visited as a child, which has underground passageways. What if the first scene of “Hamlet” were staged in the passageways where women worked?
With the first scene comprised of women, the first line “Who’s there?” is spoken by a female servant of the castle.
“‘Bernardo” becomes “Susanna,” [who is named] after Shakespeare‘s daughter, and 50/50 is off to the races. The feedback from young women in the audience and GenZers of all gender identities was overwhelmingly that they felt introduced or included in the story of this male prince right up to the get go,” Hilton said.
But the narrative remains Shakespeare‘s “Hamlet.” The couple challenged themselves to maintain all of Shakespeare‘s original dialogue but allocated for the voices of women, and what resulted was its own poetry.
Except for “Rosalind” in “As You Like It,” a woman had never spoken the final words of a Shakespeare play, until “50/50” brought “Lady Horatio,” a female alternative to Hamlet‘s childhood friend “Horatio.” She speaks nearly 300 lines, including the final: “Such a sight as this becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.”
Actress Becca Ballinger had performed Shakespeare‘s works for more than 10 years and never had the honor of speaking the final words before. She confessed to a feeling of insecurity for finally having an opportunity to do so.
In their research, Morosco and Hilton found that the responsibility of communication was more often a one-man show in Shakespeare‘s works with male characters initiating conversation and male actors having the majority of dialogue. Continuing with the example of “Hamlet,” dialogue remained the same but some lines were allocated to female characters.
According to Morosco, the impact of gender equity resonated off stage among cast and crew. “Hamlet 50/50” costume designer Olivia Bovenzi Blitz was inspired to create costumes with gender equity in mind.
“I began to think not just about the symbolism of clothing and what it conveys about a person, but also about the practicality of clothing and how if affects embodiment and movement for both female and male actors,” Blitz said.
A 2024 Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum concluded that at the current rate of progress, the gender gap will not close in North America for 95 years.
The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum is at 230 E. Frederick Street in downtown Staunton. The Speaker Series will return in September 2025.
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