Dear Music Director: Thank you for standing up for me

Dear Female Musical Director of My Ensemble at Major Comedy Institution,

I wanted you to know how much it meant to me when we were doing a show with a white, male director who told our gender balanced cast that the show content was "too female heavy" simply because the women in the cast completed our writing assignments every week, and we had strong, feminist perspectives in our work. He would never have said that a show was too "male heavy" because male and white is the default for comedy. The sad part was, he's a really cool dude whose improv and work I admire, and I was SHOCKED to see his microaggression in some of his comments and attitude about our show. He told us the show was turning "too female heavy" during a note session after one of our material testing shows. The women of our cast showed up every week with multiple sketches ready. Week after week, the men in our cast showed up not completing the assignments, and waltzed in with half baked ideas and lack of material. And somehow -- we got punished for working hard- and they were rewarded for not pulling their weight. And in a way, the director divided us by saying "guys, you really need to step up because the ladies are taking over the show." As if it was a bad thing. Instead of saying - "Guys, the women are doing the work, and so your stuff will not be in the show because you don't do the work, and that's not how the real world works". Instead, the director went out of his way to spend extra time with the men OUTSIDE OF REHEARSAL - helping and guiding them to write a piece. We were punished after a great show -- after testing some of our material to great response -- by being told that the guys needed to step up because the show currently had too much of a female voice.

You stood up for us. You said what I wanted to say. I didn't say it because I was told that if I disagree with the men in power then I would be "difficult to work with". I wanted to thank you for being my hero that night. I want to thank you for saying "Well, it's 2014 and women's voices are no longer a specialty slot." For calling out his sexist remark. Thank you as the rehearsals and show went forward, for calling out the men when they didn't work as hard. I'm sure it wasn't easy to speak the truth we were all thinking. But thank you for being the voice I felt I wasn't allowed to have.

The show still ended up being split and those who didn't do the work were rewarded. But, I was just happy to know that I had someone in my corner who was willing to stand up for what was right. Thank you for being.

With Love,

A fan of yours

#dearteacher #musicalcomedy #femaleheavy #misogyny #comedy #sexism