A Stage of Our Own: Women Devising Theatre in Aotearoa New Zealand

Women have been at the forefront of devised theatre since it became a prevalent method of making in New Zealand in the 1970s, and yet they are underrepresented in our history and discourse. Scholars across the globe have written about the connection between women and devised theatre. In 2016, Syssoyeva and Proudfit went so far as to say that “The history of modern theatre is a history of collaborative methods and the history of collaborative methods is a women’s history” (5). However, almost no literature exists in New Zealand about women in devised theatre. This thesis begins that research by making some of the history of women devising in New Zealand more visible and asks how this new knowledge could affect the current experience of women in devised theatre.

This study originates from my own devising experiences as a woman theatre practitioner and investigates the perceived tension between our undocumented history and the problematic experiences of women in devising today. The autoethnographic methodological approach of this research included interviews with thirteen individual women who were selected as significant devising practitioners and an online questionnaire exploring gender in devised theatre that collected over 100 anonymous responses. This led to six months of practice as research where myself and four other women devised a series of showings that focused on process not product. Using an intersectional feminist approach, we explored gendered behaviour in a devising process and investigated possible solutions to some of the difficulties that we, the interviewees and the questionnaire respondents had experienced. Overall, the thesis demonstrates that the lack of knowledge about our own devising theatre history, and the scarcity of documentation in our industry means that it is difficult for practitioners to learn from one another, to progress the conversation, and to create devised theatre spaces that are free from oppression.