Know Your Neighbors: Gina Handy Minyard

Gina Handy Minyard is challenging the gender parity issue here in Dayton.

As founding artistic director of the Magnolia Theatre Company, she's focused on producing shows in the Dayton area with strong female leads and crew.

Years ago, Minyard noticed the disparity between women acting in lead roles and directing their own shows. Instead of rolling with it, she did something about it and created a theater company of her own that works to close that gap here in Dayton.

Here's what she had to say about her road toward becoming founding artistic director of Magnolia Theatre Company:

How did you decide starting your own theater company was something you wanted to pursue?
Minyard: I am a professional actor, and I have been for about 23 years. I have a BFA in Musical Theatre and as I've been performing over the years, I had been noticing that I don't work with a lot of women on the creative side — that being people who design the set, manage or the lights, sound or even direct shows. Usually the people who direct shows, they were primarily men.

A couple of years ago I was living in a community where they were announcing some seasons and all of the seasons were very male heavy, as far as who was the lead in the show or who wrote the show. I just thought that was so interesting how skewed it was. I started doing some research and realizing that the gender parity problem in the arts and the percentages of women to men were really staggering — the amount of women who have directed the, amount of women who have won Tony's the amount of women who are getting recognition for their work in the arts. I just felt like instead of complaining about the problem, I would address it. Magnolia Theatre Company was what I came up with — a female-driven theater company. I think the idea itself is not unique or unusual, but maybe the way I am going about it is — and the fact that I want to be 100 percent women on the creative side, whether it's directing the show, building sets, designing sets, lights, costumes and props — then on the artistic side — the things that we are going to be producing and performing. I wanted to have a strong female character or a strong female lead. I won't do anything that has a male lead. I think when I say things like that people think 'oh she'll never do anything that is written by a man or she'll never have a play that features men. That's not true. My goal is to always produce something that has a strong female character and then give preference to women on the creative side.

What do you do every day as the founding artistic director of Magnolia Theatre Company?
Minyard: Artistic Director is really about the overall artistic vision of the company — how we are going to achieve our art and what we are going to do to make that happen. Since I am a small company, and we are just starting up, I am really doing a lot of aspects of the company, but as we continue to grow, the artistic director and the managing director will both handle the financial side — right now I am handling both, with the assistance of the Victoria Theatre Association and the ImPACt Program.

Do you receive any pushback from people about gender preference?
Minyard: I haven't yet. I don't know if that will be something that I encounter in the future. I hope not. I hope that people will realize that this is a really important thing.

I started the company in Bethlehem Pennsylvania before I moved to Dayton. That was in 2012. We did one show there — we did "Five Women Wearing the Pink Dress" by Alan Ball — he is the head writer of "True Blood" on HBO and he is an amazing writer and playwright.  He wrote about five amazing women. I am not afraid to produce that, but I want my message to be clear that I want a strong female lead. I had someone ask me 'if I were to come to one of your shows, would I want to bring my girlfriend or my husband?' I said 'Both.' This is theater that is driven by women but acceptable to anyone.

What inspires you?
Minyard: Other women inspire me. I get really excited about seeing new and creative things women are doing when they are overcoming different obstacles or any kind of adversity. I love when women are creating new things. I love seeing and hearing and reading about new plays. One thing that particularly excited me was the women's theater festival in D.C. that just happened over the past few weeks. What they did collectively as a community was gather all of the theater organizations in D.C. and agreed to produce a female-driven play, written by a female playwright in the month of October and November. You could see tons of performances all over D.C. that specifically had female driven stories and had a female playwright as the writer. That was super inspiring to see that happening.

How do you see Magnolia Theatre Company growing?
Minyard: I think there are a lot of ways we can grow, and I want to make sure that we grow in the right ways because I want us to be successful. With non-profits, there's always this immediacy where people tell you, 'Well, you're not going to make any money; you are always going to be on the brink of closing." So, I wanted to be smart in what we do and as we continue to grow and transition in to our own non-profit company. I want to be able to be a strong voice for women in the Dayton community and also utilize the Dayton talent. I think there are several ways that we can do that.