Location: The Strand Theater
This new event seemed the perfect one for us to shine a light on for Women in Business Month. Not only was WAM Theatre founded by a woman, but all the organization’s performances benefit women and girls, and now, they are rolling out the Berkshire Leadership Summit to focus on overcoming the gender imbalance in a leadership position at non-profits.
WAM Theatre will pilot the Berkshire Leadership Summit, an event for women aspiring to or to strengthen their leadership positions in non-profit theatre in both the artistic and management tracks. This event will take place on October 28th and 29th at the Elayne P. Bernstein Center for the Performing Arts at Shakespeare & Company.
This Summit will provide a deep dive into nuts and bolts sessions in four areas that female theater professionals identified as main barriers to the next step in leadership. This Summit continues the work of shifting consciousness and perception around women and leadership in the non-profit theatre world.
The Summit has three central aims: providing participants with an experience that grows their network of allies, enriching vocabulary that supports the current industry while advocating for their future as women leaders, and expanding concrete skills to apply on their path to leadership.
Of the 163 women theater professionals who applied to be presenters at this, 75 were accepted, hailing from 22 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces. We can’t wait for theater professionals from British Columbia to Brooklyn to come together in Lenox for this two-day event.
“When I stood up at a microphone at American Conservatory Theater’s Women’s Leadership Conference in August 2016 and said WAM Theatre would host a summit as a next step in the national conversation around gender parity in the theatre, never, ever did I think it would result in this sort of response,” explained Kristen van Ginhoven. “The desire for this sort of event is very clear.”
“Getting this sort of response confirms that we were embarking on something timely and critical in discussions of equity and inclusion in the field,” said Shafer Mazow, a lead developer and organizer of the Women’s Leadership Project and convening that inspired the Berkshire Leadership Summit. “Women of all backgrounds, experiences, and identities struggle to break the glass ceiling in theatre, and the diversity of applicants proves we are articulating and addressing a need for that glass ceiling to be shattered for everyone.”
Attendees such as Emika Abe of Atlanta, Georgia, have long felt the uneven ground of gender parity in theater and are eager to support other participants in leveling this playing field. “It can be difficult to envision myself in a formal leadership position when there isn’t an abundant pool of leaders who look like me from which to gather inspiration,” she explains. “This creates a barrier to really owning that we deserve a seat at the table.”
Canadian attendee Heather Cant echoes this sentiment, “the importance of equality should never need explaining; when all voices are welcome and heard with equal merit, all the world will truly be a stage.”
We think this an important event for the Berkshires and are excited to learn more.
A special thank you to our Women in Business month sponsor: Smith Green & Gold