League Of Professional Theatre Women

The League of Professional Theatre Women is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to promote visibility and increase opportunities for women in the Professional Theatre. In 1980, despite the fact that women were instrumental in establishing the regional theatre movement, there were very few artistic directors at the major regional theatres. Nor were many women functioning in non-performing artistic capacities in the Broadway theatre. No woman had ever won a Tony for directing. The idea for the League was hatched at an American Theatre Association conference in San Diego in 1981 by a group of women aware of this situation and concerned particularly with the dearth of women playwrights and directors in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. Incorporated in 1986, the League now boasts a membership of over 400 women representing a diversity of theatre professionals in both the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. League members are actors, administrators, agents, arrangers, casting directors, choreographers, company managers, composers, critics, designers, directors, dramaturgs, educators, general managers, historians, journalists, librettists, lyricists, press agents, producers, stage managers, and theatre technicians.