Mission & History

Conceived in 2017, The BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle is a visionary initiative created to bridge the career gaps for women in the American theater.

A study by Wellesley Centers for Women, commissioned by American Conservatory Theater Artistic, revealed that women hold only 17% of artistic leadership positions in the American regional theater, and that the dearth of female theater leaders is not due to a lack of candidates but rather to a clearly observed glass ceiling preventing women from assuming the artistic helm of professional theaters.

The BOLD Circle — established by the Helen Gurley Brown Foundation in the spirit of longtime Cosmopolitan magazine editor Helen Gurley Brown and renowned filmmaker David Brown and led by Northern Stage Producing Artistic Director Carol Dunne — creates a network of women artistic directors in professional theaters across the United States and empowers them to address the issues preventing women from advancing in theater leadership.

The BOLD Circle offers major support of artistic initiatives focused on women artists and creates a formal mentorship program to train and prepare future women artistic directors to lead, to create, to innovate, and to enhance the place of theater in the American culture.

Since its inception in 2017, the BOLD Circle has seen tremendous success with 14 directors and associates reaching major leadership positions across the arts industries, including at the Goodman Theatre, the Alliance Theater, Playwrights’ Center, the McCarter Theater, the Jungle Theater, One Nation/OneProject, on the Broadway production of A Strange Loop, the New York Times, and the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.