Design’s Diversity Problem

AFTER LIGHTING DESIGNER PORSCHE McGovern gave birth to her daughter Lucy, her phone stopped ringing. She’d known for a long time that there weren’t many women in her chosen profession, and she was starting to see why. When she called some of her theatre contacts to ask why they weren’t hiring her anymore, many said they assumed that motherhood had made her unavailable.

McGovern has worked as a lighting designer at many prestigious institutions, including the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company, and People’s Light, and was assistant lighting designer on Broadway’s Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. The idea that she would be incapable of doing her job because she had a baby was jarring for her. And she found that even when she did return to work, the environment most designers work in is not ideal for new moms.

“Breastfeeding in theatres was always an adventure,” McGovern recalls. “I was literally pumping at the tech table and making cues or doing assistant work. It made people around me uncomfortable.”

This discomfort planted a seed in her mind: that there must be others in a similar boat, and not just new moms. So McGovern decided