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International Women's Day 2023: Celebrating Female Creatives

08 Mar 2023
This International Women’s Day, Eden Court’s Chief Executive Rebecca Holt celebrates the cultural work of the female creatives bringing outstanding productions to our stages and screens, whilst reflecting on an enduring inequality in the arts.

In 2023 the UK’s biggest theatre awards, the Oliviers, and the UK’s biggest film awards, the BAFTAs, each had only one woman nominated in the Best Director categories. The 2023 Oscars has none. This is not a blip – a woman has only won the Best Director award five times in the 45 years of the Oliviers and three times in the BAFTAs’ 76 years – although in both cases two of those wins have come since 2020, so perhaps there is hope that the tide is turning.

Even so, we have work to do as a sector to ensure women’s voices and stories are given equal prominence – and I acknowledge the key role Eden Court can play in that. Whilst our upcoming Spring Summer programme is full of brilliant shows, work led by female creatives is still in the minority.

One of the missions of International Women’s Day 2023 is to celebrate the work of female creatives, so I want to highlight some brilliant work from women that will be on our stages and screens in the coming months. The more we give prominence to and support female-led work, the more we will emphasise that stories about 51% of the population are not, as still sometimes seems to be considered the case, niche.

  • Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of) in March features an all-female cast and is written and directed by Isobel McArthur, who also co-writes and directs National Theatre of Scotland’s Kidnappedin April.
  • The Stamping Ground, Eden Court’s new musical, co-produced with female producing duo Raw Material and written by local writer Morna Young, will be on our stages in May.
  • National Theatre of Scotland’s Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning features an all-women and non-binary cast, as well as being written by Morna Pearson and directed by Sally Cookson. This will be with us in September.
  • In our OneTouch Theatre we have Stornoway, Quebec in April from female-led Theatre Gu Leòr, as well as comedy from Susie McCabe in April and Josie Long in September.
  • In our cinemas in March we have Blue Jean directed by Georgia Oakley, Saint Omer by Alice Diop, Cocaine Bear by Elizabeth Banks, Electric Malady by Marie Liden (and we’ve also screened Sarah Polley’s Women Talking).

Finally, on International Women’s Day, I want to take a moment to acknowledge all the women who make Eden Court what it is. Our board is 55% female, our staff team 68% female and the Senior Leadership Team 70% female, meaning we have women influencing decision-making within every part of the organisation. I’m proud to work somewhere where that is the case and where the many men who also make up Eden Court’s fantastic team champion this equality through their actions on a daily basis.

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International Women’s Day (IWD) is marked annually on March 8. IWD is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. Find out more.