As a lifelong devoted reader, it is thrilling to write the words, “a book changed my life.” Which is what Kristen van Ginhoven says about reading “Half the Sky” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. She was so taken by the book that she created an organization to do something meaningful for impoverished women. “I knew when I put the book down that I had to use theatre as philanthropy,” she says.
Kristoff’s and WuDunn’s premise is that the fundamental moral issue of our times is gender parity. Its absence is comparable to slavery in the 19th century. They warn us not to be fooled by pay equity because there is still sexual inequality and in many parts of the world, sexual slavery.
But you don’t have to travel to see the effects of sexual inequality. Van Ginhoven points out that in 2012, 20 plays were produced in the four major theatre companies here in the Berkshires. Four of those plays were by women, comparable to the national norm of 20 percent. These figures illustrate the clear imbalance between the sexes when it comes to playwriting.
Van Ginhoven continues her pitch about the lack of sexual parity when she cites a study of a play submitted by “Max Smith” and the same one submitted by “Maxine Smith.” “Max” got his play accepted far more easily than “Maxine,” demonstrating that there remains a deep-seated social bias against women in the arts and all too many other areas.
Van Ginhoven’s response to her realization that women are still second-class citizens was to create WAM, a theatrical company she founded in 2009. She produces plays and then donates a portion of its proceeds to organizations around the world that benefit women and girls. Thus far, van Ginhoven has been able to donate more than $20,000 to eight local nonprofit organizations that help women.
Van Ginhoven was a professional actor for ten years in her native Canada. “But when I hit 30, I realized that I didn’t want to be a starving artist in my 40s, so I got a degree in teaching.” And off she went to teach in Brussels, where she lived for four years teaching acting to middle- and high-school students at an international school.
She came to the Berkshires as a Canadian citizen when her husband got a job at Union College teaching computer science. But “I was a mid-30’s well-educated, middle-class white woman who could not work because I didn’t have a green card. And that was really depressing because here I was surrounded by all this culture.”
Taking matters into her own hands, she created WAM and started producing plays by and about women. Her first production was in April 2010, and she has continued producing plays three or four times a year every year since. If you haven’t seen a WAM production, you can go to the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge this weekend to see “Special,” a remarkable one-person play created and performed by actress and playwright Rachel Siegel, based on personal experience and interviews with mothers of children with special needs, “Special” follows the journey of a woman after she discovers she is pregnant with a child with Down syndrome. The play is directed by Jayne Atkinson.
Van Ginhoven chooses organizations that will receive donations from WAM in two ways. “We try to do a little for our community, and a little bit for the world.” The goal is to select organizations where donations will make a difference to a person’s life…and then hope that their donation will have a short-term and long-term impact. “We can’t write checks for $50,000, but we can for $5,000.” Thus, she needs to find organizations where her donation can have an impact.
When asked how she chooses her plays, she replies with laughter. But she has several answers. She looks for plays that tell women’s stories, but she also wants to produce plays that have had success elsewhere but have not been done here. And when possible, she tries to do plays written by women. Like many other directors, she keeps abreast of what other theatres are producing. Colleagues send her plays. And she always looks for emerging playwrights.
Van Ginhoven tries to cast locally as much as possible. So she auditions first here in the Berkshires, and will then go to Boston or New York to fill the remaining roles. But she is a firm believer in the importance of local casting. “Luckily, our local actors are so talented.”
On Saturday, February 6, 400 people filled the Colonial Theatre for “Facing Our Truth,” which WAM co-produced with Multicultural BRIDGE and Yamuna Sirker, comprising six short plays about race in America, using Trayvon Martin’s senseless death as the unifying theme. “The whole idea of the event was to create a diverse audience,” she says, delighted with the size and ethnic makeup of the audience. Now she wonders how to make that type of audience diversity a norm. “It will take a great deal of personal outreach from people who are engaged in social justice.”
The size of WAM’s audience that night was proof to van Ginhoven that WAM is now at a place were arts and activism meet, both literally and philosophically. “I often say to people that although we work very hard, we really believe our great success is because it happens in the Berkshires. The people who live here are very engaged in what we are working on.”
Her positive outlook is summed up in her final comment: “The greatest opportunity for WAM is that so many people don’t know we exist.” Now that’s optimism!
