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Playwright Hannah Moscovitch on finding success in a male-dominated industry

Playwright Hannah Moscovitch recently debuted her latest work, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes. She says sexism remains in the theatre industry.

'Season after season will go by that only have plays by men in them, and that's been more or less the norm'

Hannah Moscovitch is an internationally acclaimed playwright who splits her time between Toronto and Halifax. (Alejandro Santiago)

It says a lot about an industry when most of the women who've ever worked in it are still alive, says acclaimed Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch.

"You can't name a dead female playwright," Moscovitch told CBC's Information Morning. "Our canon is all male."

That's changing thanks to playwrights like Moscovitch, who splits her time between Toronto and Halifax. But sexism remains in the industry, she said.

"Season after season will go by that only have plays by men in them, and that's been more or less the norm," she said. 

Moscovitch's Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story has played all over the world, and she was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award in the drama category in 2019 for What a Young Wife Ought to Know. She was a finalist in the same category in 2009 for East of Berlin.

Her latest play, Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes, opened at Toronto's Tarragon Theatre earlier this month.

Listen to Moscovitch's full interview on Information Morning below.

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With files from CBC's Information Morning