Performing Arts

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Honoring Stonewall’s Legacy; NYC Mayor Race Shows Benefits of Ranked-Choice Voting for Women

A compilation about women’s representation in politics, sports and entertainment, judicial offices and the private sector—with a little gardening mixed in!

This week:
— New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is expected to qualify for public matching funds this week after a late surge in campaign donations, thanks to a surprising boost from a rival.
—progress made towards gender parity in international elections
—In South Korea’s June presidential election, young women played a pivotal role in electing Lee Jae-myung, leading one reporter to call it “the anti-anti-feminist election.”
—June is Pride Month, marking the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, a turning point in queer activism in the United States.

… and more.

‘We Need a Gentle Anger’: The Triangle’s Raging Grannies are Protesting Injustice through Music

Founded in Canada in the 1980s, the Raging Grannies have gaggles around North America—and plenty to sing about. 

Even in a crowd of thousands, they’re instantly recognizable by sight and sound: silver-haired women wearing colorful aprons and floppy hats, brandishing cardboard signs and sheafs of lyrics, singing acerbic protest songs set to cheerful nursery tunes.

Theater in the Time of Trump: Feminist Storytelling Against the Backdrop of Authoritarianism

The Trump administration’s assault on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts continues, with another tranche of staff fired last Friday—employees in its government relations, marketing and social media departments. A prevailing question remains: What does the future of national public theater hold? Will the show(s) go on?

News of the latest job cuts overlapped with the one-year anniversary of opening night of the Broadway show Suffs. Its anniversary got me thinking about the vital role of feminist storytelling against the backdrop of authoritarianism. We know that in a robust democracy, live performance is not merely “nice to have” or an outlet for escape. The ideas to which we are exposed in the theater mean exponentially more: They are a measurement of our collective pulse, a gauge of our collective potential and a glimpse into how much farther forward we might propel (or fall).

With all that in mind, I headed off to Broadway to check out the shows I suspected might smack of such sensibility. With Tony nominations just one week away, here are recommendations for the hottest shows for which pro-democracy viewers can root.

Why Weren’t Women Allowed to Act in Shakespeare’s Plays?

Numerous English theatergoers considered seeing women on the public stage for the first time a pivotal moment.

The role of Desdemona, the devoted, loving wife murdered by her husband in Othello, wasn’t performed by a woman until 1660—about six decades after Shakespeare wrote the play. This is because when Shakespeare was writing for the early modern stage, young men and boys performed all the women’s parts.

Women’s History Month Is a Time for Optimism

Dispatches from Week 2 of Women’s History Month:

It’s Week 2 of Women’s History Month, and just knowing the federal government might well ban those three words in sequence—along with “gender,” “female,” “feminism” and about 250 others—you can bet I’m feeling extra rebellious as I write this column.

I am back from celebrating International Women’s Day (March 8) at South by Southwest. Among the festival keynotes, Chelsea Clinton urged that optimism is fundamentally a moral and political choice. Remaining optimistic, she remarked, is like “saying we do not have to accept the status quo. … We do accept that we may not be able to do everything all at once, but we can always do something.”

Women’s History Month is a solemn reminder that our reaction—and our commitment to action—also requires that we hold tight to the optimism our foremothers possessed.

An American Requiem: Beyoncé’s Country Statement at the Grammys

With all the upheaval, just two weeks in, that has accompanied the second term of the current presidential administration, the 67th annual Grammy Awards show came and went Sunday night like a welcome distraction. Even calling the event a “distraction” misses the serious work of art and its purpose in troubled times: to mobilize the masses, reaffirm our values and spread joy and light amid the darkness.

The big night, however, went to pop star Beyoncé, who not only made history as the first Black woman to win Best Country Album, but finally earned Album of the Year for her politically salient album Cowboy Carter, after previously losing in the category. The album, which opened with a “requiem” for America and closed on a prayer that “we’ll be the ones to purify our fathers’ sins,” calls on all of us to witness this nation’s history and its present, to reckon with its “sins” of exclusion and discrimination and demand that we purify it toward the democratic promise it has always held out for all of us and not just a select few determined to set us back on a backward course.

Feminist Musicals ‘Teeth’ and ‘Suffs’ Steel Us for the Next Four Years

As feminist resistance faces a critical crossroads, Suffs and Teeth present two diverging paths: marching forward or tearing it all down.

It is the feminist movement’s challenge moving into a time that will most certainly require vigilance and resistance to consider how to reconcile these two paths forward. Will we keep marching? Or will we lick our teeth? 

One More Award Due to ‘Baby Reindeer’: Best Filming of a Rape Scene

Much ink has been spilled on the extraordinary series Baby Reindeer, especially its refusal to be reductive in depicting complex and charged sexually subjects and the groundbreaking nature of its portrayal of male-on-male sexual assault and its consequences. What gets overlooked: Baby Reindeer is a vivid, visceral lesson in how to film a rape scene.

The filming of episode four—the construction, the point of view, the relentless focus, the utter absence of sensationalism and exploitation—can serve as a valuable lesson in how to film a rape scene: steering difficult scenes away from the abuser’s point of view, placing them in a space that allows the audience to understand, defend and respect the survivor.

Feminist Wins and Firsts at the 2025 Golden Globes

This special edition of Ms.‘ “Keeping Score” highlights the feminist wins and milestones at the 2025 Golden Globes. From Nikki Glaser’s sharp, solo-hosted monologue that tackled sexism in Hollywood, to historic wins by women like Demi Moore, Karla Sofía Gascón and Fernanda Torres, the event marked a notable shift in celebrating diverse and older female talent. With awards for films like Emilia Pérez and Wicked, the night underscored progress in recognizing women’s contributions across genres.