“Women go to the theatre and men are brought there” (theatre adage)
It’s long been known that women go to the theatre more often than men. Michael Colgan, artistic director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, said in 2001:
“I did coin that phrase ‘Women go to the theatre, men are brought’, but I think that essentially if you look at the plays that do well they are often about a woman’s plight.”
Wikipedia: Michael Colgan (director)
Michael Colgan is a film and television producer and is also the Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin.
Life and work
Born in Dublin in 1950, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, where, as a student, he became chairman of Trinity Players. In 1983, he became Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre and prior to this, he was a director at the Abbey Theatre, manager of the Irish Theatre Company and Artistic Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Google Books
Theatre Worlds in Motion:
Structures, Politics and Developments in the Countries of Western Europe
Edited by H. Van Maanen and S.E. Wilmer
Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA: Rodopi
1998
Pg. 613:
Women go to the theatre more often than men.
Google Books
Theatre Talk:
Voices of Irish Theatre Practitioners
Edited by Lilian Chambers
Dublin: Carysfort Press
2001
Pg. 80:
JEANANNE CROWLEY: Are you saying that because it’s mostly women who buy tickets for the theatre? Are you talking about the audience or women-in-theatre?
MICHAEL COLGAN: I’m certainly thinking that there is an extraordinary imbalance in terms of women directors and writers, but I don’t think there’s an imbalance in the audience. I did coin that phrase “Women go to the theatre, men are brought”, but I think that essentially if you look at the plays that do well they are often about a woman’s plight.
Independent.ie
Hammer Time: theatre legend with a keen nose for business
Michael Colgan has guided the Gate from financial ruin to record profits - but in the arts world the name of the game is often funding. He tells Donal Lynch about art, commerce and the bottom line
Donal Lynch
Published 27/07/2014
(...)
Unsurprisingly, Colgan has a down-to-earth perspicacity about his audience.
“If you’re in a business for 30 years you don’t just see trends you see mega-trends. I’ve been a producer through seven or eight World Cups. And usually it’s a great time because of the adage that women go to the theatre and men are brought there. But now more women watch the World Cup because of the players have become superstars and so on.”