Hi, and welcome!
At a guess, you are reading this blog post because you’ve heard about the women and non-binary musical theatre bookwriter Wikithon I’m co-organising, and want to know why I’m doing it.
Great question! My husband asked me exactly the same thing, adding “and why are you doing it on a Monday so I have to leave work early to pick up the kids from gymnastics?”
I’m doing it because REPRESENTATION MATTERS.
Women and non-binary musical theatre writers and composers are under-represented on UK stages, as shown in 2022 research by Kate Marlais, Sarah Middleton and Meg McGrady, supported by Mercury Musical Developments.
Of the 500 productions analysed in their study, women and non-binary creatives made up only 26% of writers across all UK main-stage productions, and only 9% of West End composers (data geeks can find out more on MMD’s website and in this article for The Stage).
All four of us are busy creating, writing and collaborating on our own shows, and uplifting other creatives while we do it, to help shift these stats to a more balanced place. Ultimately, we’re all aiming for increased representation by increasing the number of credits for women and non-binary creatives on UK main stage productions.
But in the meantime, there’s plenty of ways to highlight and celebrate women and non-binary bookwriters in musical theatre right now.
Wikipedia is still one of the main places that people go for independent, reliable information – and it’s a place where anyone with the right skills can contribute biographies of notable people, without any industry gatekeeping.
By creating and updating the pages of women and non-binary musical theatre bookwriters, we’re making them visible to everyone on the world’s free encyclopaedia. We’re also learning skills for the future, so we can continue to work on this project beyond the Wikithon day itself.
So that explains why we’re doing it, but not why I’m the one who started organising it.
The Wikithon idea came from a moment of outrage on Wikipedia. I was browsing an article about a show that someone had mentioned to me, about theoretical mathematics, of course. I clicked on the name of the female bookwriter, and discovered that the link didn’t take me to a page about her. It redirected me to her husband’s page. Yes. Her. Husband’s. Page.
A little more poking around online (on the Dramatists Guild website this time) revealed that she’s an award-winning author and librettist, with 6 musicals under her belt plus five novels, play commissions and plenty more creative work out there in the world. Most of those achievements are entirely independent of her musical theatre composing partner, who also happens to be her husband.
Rather than just wallowing in outrage, I decided to parlay my nerd credentials into a Wikithon, and put this bookwriter at the top of the list of pages to create. I hit up the most excellent person that is Liam Wyatt, aka Wittylama, of Wikimedia Foundation. He connected me with even more brilliant Wikimedians who are prepared to volunteer their time to train a dozen enthusiastic musical theatre bookwriters in the ways of creating and editing Wikipedia articles.
With Liam’s help, the stat-wielding dream-team of Sarah, Meg, Kate and I have been putting together a list of notable musical theatre creatives who either don’t have a Wikipedia page, or have one that needs some serious updating. This will be the list we’re going to tackle first on January 12th.
The word “notable” is an interesting one, and we know it can be interpreted in quite a number of different ways. Even Wikipedia’s own definition leaves it rather open: “Has written musical theatre of some sort (e.g., musicals, operas) that was performed in a notable theatre that had a reasonable run, as such things are judged in their particular situation, context, and time.”
For full disclosure, our shortlist of “notable” creatives have all reached 2 out of 3 of the following criteria:
- 2+ week run in 200+ seat venue.
- Significant award nomination or win eg. Olivier Awards, Black British Theatre Awards.
- Show reviewed in The Stage or national newspaper.
So that’s why we’re doing it, and how we’re doing it – but why do it on the same day as my kids’ gymnastics class?
There’s two great reasons. One is that our Wikithon afternoon is happening just before the next MMD Musical Theatre Open Mic Night, so we can all go from increasing representation online, to increasing representation in person at The Other Palace that evening. MMD are brilliant, by the way, and if you create musical theatre in any capacity at all, you should definitely join them.
Also, January is the 25th anniversary month of Wikipedia, and our Wikithon ties in with their focus on under-represented people and their “Women In Red” project that is gradually reducing systemic bias in gender representation across the whole Wikipedia movement.
There’s still a few questions I’ve left unanswered.
Like… Is this a new niche hobby? Is it open access activism? Or is it a novel and extremely tempting form of procrastination?
It’s all of these things.
It’s also a place where bookwriting nerds can come together with their laptops around a big table with free donuts and beverages to do something about the things that are enraging us.
Which is where we’re all at our happiest anyway, aren’t we?
Here’s the details, in case you didn’t come to this blog from the MMD / MTN members newsletter (which, I shall say it again, you really should be!)
- Monday 12th January.
- 1pm-5pm at MMD/MTN Offices in Victoria.
- Bring your own laptop and charger.
- Free hot drinks and donuts!
Email me at hello@helenarney.com to register your interest by 31st December 2025! Limited to 12 places, first come first served with priority given to MMD members.