At an informal gathering in 2013, a group of women, including playwrights and TV writers, began to discuss the difficulty of getting their work produced in an entertainment landscape still overwhelmingly dominated by white male writers. This conversation led them to found The Kilroys, “a collective of playwrights, directors and producers in LA and NYC who are done talking about gender parity and are taking action.”[1] Taking their name from a graffiti tag used by American soldiers in WWII, “Kilroy was here,”[2] they set about changing the landscape and making their presence known.

The result of their collaboration is The List, an annual collection of unproduced, new plays by women, trans, and non-binary authors. Working from the premise that artistic directors and decision makers are often unaware of quality pieces by women and unsure where to find them, The Kilroys decided to raise the collective awareness by curating a list of plays and encouraging playwrights to make those works accessible via the New Play Exchange.

Incidentally, the perception that most plays produced in America were being written by men was confirmed by a survey called The Count 1.0, conducted in 2015 by the Lilly Awards and the Dramatists Guild. They found that 79.7% of plays produced in America were written by men. This number dropped to 70.8% in the second version of the survey[3] in 2017. Race was an even bigger factor in what plays were produced, with 89.8% of produced playwrights in 2015 being white, a number that dropped only slightly to 84.9% in 2017.

In 2014, the first year of The List, The Kilroys sent emails to 250 industry professionals in search of nominations. Of those, 127 responded and, in the end, 45 plays — representing the top 5.6% of those nominated — were chosen for The List. Since then, as many as 300 industry professionals participate in the nominating process each year, and anywhere from 5-9% of plays nominated end up being included in The List. In their books The Kilroys List Volume 1 and The Kilroys List Volume 2, the group showcases a selection of monologues and scenes from various nominated plays between 2014 and 2017.

The Kilroys‘ goal is to increase the visibility of women, trans, and non-binary playwrights, thereby increasing the number of plays produced by folks other than men and elevating the status of female playwrights. They have been at the forefront of championing gender parity in theater, and are a fitting first entry in our celebration of Women’s History Month.

[1] https://thekilroys.org/current-members/

[2] For a description of the legends, see: http://www.kilroywashere.org/001-Pages/01-0KilroyLegends.html

[3] https://www.dramatistsguild.com/advocacy/the-count