a few of my favorite directors -- who happen to be women

I found this NYT article really interesting, and also, enervating. Click here for article.


My friend Evan Cabnet and I were talking the other day and the conversation came around to longevity in the career of a director (stage or screen)... and how necessary 'sticking around' really is in this field-- if the hope is to ever achieve some modicum of success and financial security. In theater youth is perceived as more of a liability -- unlike film-- where if you're not actually young you better at least look, talk, and walk young. But even more important than that, it seems, is the ability to keep creating consistently good work, for years, or possibly even decades, before anyone takes notice. This of course results in a rather homogeneous group-- people who can AFFORD to lose money year after year, and similarly, put their work first-- before family, before their relationships, before the weddings of their closest friends.
Many of us driven kids are happy to dedicate fifty, sixty or seventy hours a week to our work-- especially when we love the work, but this can't go on forever. Especially for those of us who may want to-- one day-- raise a family. That one day isn't infinitely far away-- there's a limit for women. Evan suggested that perhaps that is *one* of the reasons there are so many successful gay male directors. Not only do they not have the biological clock pressuring them from within-- they don't even have it under their same roof. It was an interesting idea I hadn't thought about much before. And it makes sense.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite directors-- who all, just happen to be, women.

Liz LeCompte
Emma Rice
Miranda July
Ariane Mnouchkine
Annie-B Parson
Carolyn Cantor
Kathryn Bigelow