Female Leadership in Theatre and Academia
Faculty member Dina Janis, who is also artistic director of the Dorset Theatre Festival, spoke with The Interval about the opportunities and challenges faced by female leadership in theatre and academia.
Read the full article on The Interval here. From the interview:
The Interval: Does that mean you’ve been able to take experiences you’ve had in one arena and apply them to the other?
Dina Janis: Yeah. And there are some wonderful colleagues and alumni from Bennington: Jonathan Marc Sherman, Tina Howe, Melissa Ross, Peter Dinklage. It has a really fabulous drama department. Bennington very much honors the individual and the individual’s voice, but it’s also all about community and collaboration, which, of course, takes a lot of real engagement. For me, the skills I learned at Bennington, honestly, became a lot of my own management style [running Dorset Theatre Festival]. It’s a collaborative environment, and that kind of model is something that theatres need to look at, because even when women get put into certain positions or are allowed in or find their way in, they’re still dealing with this hierarchical system that I think could use some shifting in paradigm.
Read and write. Read a lot. Learn how to write really well. Learn how to express your ideas.
Dina Janis, faculty member and artistic director of Dorset Theatre Festival