Cast & Crew

Kate O’Sullivan - Performer/Producer

Found somewhere at the junction of academia and entertainment, Kate is a performer with a background in science, education and improvised theatre. With a passion for storytelling and bringing education opportunities to a range of audiences, she takes edu-tainment to the floor for both children and adults alike.

With a performance history across Australia, Kate's return to Perth has been marked by critically aclaimed performances in Émilie La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight (a theatrical take on an historical woman in STEM with Anatomical Heart Productions) and more recently in her award nominated performance as Nurse Ratched in the Australian Adaptation of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. No stranger to the mic, Kate created “All The Best Roles Are Written For Men” as a debut show that blends her science mind with her love of all things musical theatre and feminist.

Josh Veitch - Lighting Designer/Operator

Joshua graduated from WAAPA’s lighting design course in 2011. Since then, he has gone on to work at Perth’s Crown Theatre, Melbourne’s Her Majesty Theatre and Princess Theatre. Production highlights include working as Lighting Designer for The Birthday Party (Rechabites Hall), Lighting Designer for Titus Andronicus (Cry Havoc), and Followspot Operator for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (HPTP). Recently, Josh has returned to Perth and taken a break from the theatre industry to focus on his family and to study Architecture at Curtin University.

Tara Dowler - Technical Operator

Promotional photos were taken by Jordan from Perfectly Picturesque Photography

The Show

  • It began with a conversation about show choices in community theatres in Perth, and by the end of the conversation the idea for this show was born. A topic rarely discussed openly but often bemoaned behind closed doors, at a time when the arts are suffering more than ever - this show brings all of those conversations to the fore, and then covers them in glitter and show magic.

  • A lot of time was taken to ensure all the claims in this show are accurate, and represent the views of the mainstream theatre community. Kate spent many hours in conversation with performers and productions teams across Australia about their experiences, and why they saw the industry being in the state that it is. Then the data was compared to studies and articles from around the world over the last couple of decades, to pull the crux of the issues to the fore.

    All this data then formed the basis of the show - looking at the issue from all sides and all perspectives - from the birth of the shows to the audience in the seats watching them. You can explore the data in more detail below - should this issue capture your brain as much as it’s captured ours.

  • All of the songs chosen for this show tell part of the story. From modern to classic shows, they speak to the way the industry is for many people.

    ♫ This Is The Moment - Jekyll & Hyde

    ♫ There’s No Business Like Show Business - Annie Get Your Gun

    ♫ Diva’s Lament - Spamalot

    ♫ All I Care About - Chicago

    ♫ Right Hand Man - Something Rotten

    ♫ I Want To Be A Producer - The Producers

    ♫ Words Fail - Dear Evan Hansen

“There are so many women who are ready to go. There are so many artists of colour who are ready to go. And we need to see that racial diversity and that gender diversity reflected in our critical establishment. This is not a pipeline issue. It is a failure of imagination by a field whose job it is to imagine the way the world should be.”

— Rachel Chavkin, 2019 —

The Data

  • Multiple callouts were put across different social media platforms to hear the perspectives from directors, producers and artists alike about their experiences in the audition room. Who did they see auditioning, how did they feel about the roles available, how did the audition room make them feel at the end of the day. And what did they think would make for a better environment in terms of seeing more diverse productions.

    I would like to thank all of the people who shared their perspectives, especially those who alloweed their comments to be quoted within the show - you are seen, you are heard, and your perspectives are valid. And to those whose stories I didn’t capture here - I look forward to hearing them one day (or in the bar afterwards).

  • Kate collated a list of all the shows that were eligible for nomination for the Independent Theatre Association’s Finley Awards and then sorted through all the shows to establish the number of male and male coded roles vs female and female coded roles.

    The data excludes all “ensembles/chorus” roles in musicals, as well as any shows where the script was not publically available (in case scripts had been adapted based on auditions). Pantomimes were also specifically excluded due to the flexibility of some roles within them making it difficult to determine the intended casting gender of the role.

    The resultant data indicated that:

    • Musical Theatre: 57% male roles, 42% female roles

    • Plays: 57% male roles, 42% female roles.

    • When two shows were removed that had only female characters in them, the statistics moved to 60.5% male, 39.5% female.

    This data set is available on request - Kate will need to clean it up a bit to anonymise some elements but is happy to share it with interested parties for appropriate use. She’s also intending to grow the data set in the future.

    • Casini, A., et al. (2021). Gender Equality & Diversity in European Theatres. ETC Publications. Link

    • Nancy, C. (2019, June 9). ‘Hadestown’ Director Rachel Chavkin: Diversity ‘Is Not a Pipeline Issue’. New York Times. Link

    • European Theatre Convention. (2021). ‘Six Men for Every Four Women’: Gender Inequalities in Theatre Programming Revealed in New Cross-Europe Study. Link

    • Giorgetti, S. (2020). The art of letters - another missive for Dowden. British Theatre Guide. Link

    • Howard, J. (2019, April 13). How Australian theatre rebalanced its gender disparity. ABC Arts. Link

    • Lauzen, M.M. (2022). It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World, Even in a Pandemic Year: Portrayals of Female Characters in the Top U.S. Films of 2021. Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film. Link

    • New York Women in Film & Television. (2022). It’s a Man’s (Celluloid) World, Even in a Pandemic Year: Dr. Martha M. Lauzen Releases New 2021 Report. Link

    • Sphinx Theatre, University Women in the Arts & December Group. (2020). Women in Theatre Forum Report Part one - Developing strategies to improve gender equality in theatre. Women in Theatre Forum. Link