With this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival fast approaching (8-23 September), all eyes are on one woman: Ruth McGowan. Behind every fabulous performance and wacky script on the bill, is McGowan backing the idea wholeheartedly. This her first year as Festival Director of the Fringe, taking over from a list including Wolfgang Hoffman and Kris Nelson. The past few years has seen an emergence of powerful female leaders given the space and responsibility to lead an industry to the best of their ability. A TCD alum, on the eve of McGowan’s premier Fringe, her aim is for “our festival to be a place for artists where anything is possible. As a result of that goal, the Fringe team often take on impossible tasks. I am grateful to work with such highly skilled experts, who are also brilliant problem solvers and true allies of artists.” McGowan is part of a wonderful list of influential women in Dublin at the moment, a posse including Selina Cartmell, Melissa Sihra, and the #WakingTheFeminists movement.

2015’s #WakingTheFeminists movement is undoubtedly a cornerstone of Dublin theatre’s road to equality. Catalysed by the Abbey Theatre’s male-centric 1916 Centenary programme, in which nine out of ten plays were written by men, the movement saw protests from frustrated women and men in the Arts industry (as well as businessmen, politicians, and figures of our society) searching for an equal voice for an equal Ireland. The grassroots campaign went on to win the distinguished Lilly Award for its digital presence, but more importantly pried open the eyes of a country and industry to its unequal ways. The effects were immediate: the Abbey’s Guidelines for Gender Equality were published nine months later, and other Dublin institutes seemed to more obviously promote their female workers and artists.

More recently, last month Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Josepha Madigan launched a new strategy for gender equality in Irish theatre. Ten theatre organisations, including the Abbey, The Gate, Dublin Theatre Festival and Rough Magic have publicly committed themselves to implementing a fifty-fifty gender balance within five years. While it is exciting to see the government promoting the Arts after over a decade of funding cutbacks, policies are only hear-say until they become actions. The proposed means include unconscious bias training for all theatre production staff, and gender blind casting. #WakingTheFeminists is undoubtedly to thank for this vocal, public promise to a more equal workplace.

Looking at the emerging spectrum of powerful women in our contemporary theatre we could not hesitate to mention the current Artistic Director of The Gate Theatre, Selina Cartmell. She is the first female artistic director in the Gate Theatre since its foundation in 1928; the precursor artistic directors were Michael MacLiammoir, Hilton Edwards, and infamously Michael Colgan. Selina Cartmell is a great influence for other women who have been conquering leading positions following on from the #Wakingthefeminists movement which has been supporting women and empowering their voices not only in Dublin theatre but in life.

One of Cartmell’s academic achievements is her degree in Drama and History of Art from Trinity College Dublin and the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Cartmell was a freelance director, artistic director of Siren Productions since 2004, and she had directed three shows for the Gate before taking on the role of Artistic Director.

“The Red Shoes” is a great performance example under not only the artistic direction of Selina Cartmell, but it was mainly created by a female artistic team— choreographer Liz Roche and set and costume designer Monica Frawley. The potential 2017-2018 performances season opened an incredible platform for female directors, playwright and designers. Cartmell is also embracing classic and contemporary works under some equitable points of view – which is pivotal for the contemporary culture, the education of equality in the Arts for the future, and acknowledgement of women artists in history. Hence, it is right to confirm that Selina Cartmell is an inspiring woman in theatre who is changing the traditional theatre structure and encouraging more women artists to not only have a voice in the artistic world but also to lead and create its new forms.

Furthermore, it is not just women in high-powered leadership roles influencing the shows we see. Women are making their own way into the artistic world, they are making their voices heard, sharing their own perspectives on life and changing theatre history, all from backstage. Catherine Royle shared a bit of her own experiences of being a woman in the theatre industry with us. Catherine is the Producer for Funny Women in Ireland, she briefly performed in small theatre productions during college but now dedicates her time to working with up and coming women in comedy.

Catherine says: “Producing shows for women in comedy has been a really interesting experience. I started this journey expecting some backlash but I’ve received very little of it. I think that women on the stage is a really powerful thing and people are becoming more and more excited to see women in a variety of roles. I think it’s empowering for women to both be involved and see other women performing. I genuinely believe it’s valuable for everyone to see women branch out of stereotypical roles and take on more challenging opportunities. Between comedy and theatre there are so many growing opportunities for this and although women do experience backlash, I think the most important thing is to create a safe space for women to express themselves.”

In a different field, Melissa Sihra is Assistant Professor of Drama at Trinity College Dublin,an acclaimed Dramaturg and above all is a great example of women theatre makers in the academic field. Her main researches include the matters of Feminism, Women in Theatre and Performance, gender studies, and the Irish Theatre— with an exceptional interest in the work of Marina Carr and Lady Gregory. She is also editor of WOMEN IN IRISH DRAMA: A CENTURY OF AUTHORSHIP AND REPRESENTATION (Palgrave Macmillan 2007), a collection of over 250 women playwrights. Professor Sihra attempts to underscore the importance of role of women in theatre, specially women playwrights whose voices and works were shoved into the void of oblivion for decades. She lectures the module Women in Theatre which was not going to be offered to 2018 students due to the low number of takers, but Drama Students signed a petition requiring the return of the module. More optimistically, there will also be a wider inclusion of female writers for other modules in the institution, it is understandable that there were much more male writers and artists considering the circumstances in which women lived in yet the inclusion and acknowledgment of more women artists in the current education would encourage and empower future women artists.

So, it is clear that there is absolutely no shortage of talented and eager women pushing themselves and their ideas in our industry, and Ruth McGowan is but one of them. She says: “Our industry is full of brilliant thought-leaders and inspiring makers. This month as festival preparations hit their peak, I have to shout out the team of extraordinary women I work with at Fringe year round – Shannon Lacek, Kate O’ Leary, Ewa Senger and Aisling O’ Brien. You will not find more determination and heart in any room in the country than you do in our office.” It would do well to remember and acknowledge these women, onstage and backstage, working to deliver our society with theatre worth screaming about.

This article previously featured in our print edition, available now across campus and in select locations across Dublin.