Another day, another horror story for women in the theater world. Last week it was the Actors’ Equity study that found acting and stage management jobs are still being dominated by white men. Before that, it was announced that the Broadway runs of Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat” and Paula Vogel’s “Indecent” would be ending. And now new research from Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW), released in partnership with American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.), has concluded that a glass ceiling exists for female execs working for nonprofit, or residential, theaters.

Since 2013, the Women’s Leadership in Residential Theaters research study has conducted in-depth interviews with theater executives, collected about 1,300 surveys, and reviewed public info such as theater archives and websites. The goal of the research was to find out why women are so underrepresented as leaders in residential theaters — according to study co-author Ineke Ceder, the number of women leaders in nonprofit theater has “hovered around 25 percent for decades.”

The “Next In Line” phenomenon is one of the top conclusions. “There is a glass ceiling operating for women and people of color,” the study details. “They can achieve ‘Next In Line’ positions, but cannot reach Artistic and Executive Director positions as frequently as white men.” Throughout a significant portion of their careers, female and non-white execs are able to ascend the ranks but end up plateauing at the “Next In Line” phase. They get pretty close, but are ultimately barred from the top positions.

According to the research, this glass ceiling has been installed because women — and non-white women especially — aren’t trusted to get the job done. “Board search committees are less frequently willing to trust that women have what it takes to run arts organizations,” the research concludes. And, as the old adage goes, if women want a leadership position, they’ll have to make it themselves: “Women become leaders if they found their own theaters, but women are not often selected to a leadership position by a committee,” the findings read.

“Collaborating with the Wellesley Centers for Women on this landmark study about gender equity has been incredibly eye-opening, and while the results are depressing in terms of gender disparity at this moment, I feel confident that the findings are going to help our field immeasurably as we try to help women and people of color move into leadership positions in the American theater,” explained Carey Perloff, Artistic Director of A.C.T.

The Women’s Leadership in Residential Theaters study’s main findings are below. You can read the full report, written by Ceder and Sumru Erkut, here.

• There is a glass ceiling operating for women and people of color; they can achieve “Next In Line” positions, but cannot reach Artistic and Executive Director positions as frequently as white men.
• Hidden behind a gender- and race-neutral job description is an expectation, grounded in a stereotype, of what a theater leader needs to look like: white and male, because white and male leaders have been the long-standing majority of those in top positions.
• The reason there are so few women heading LORT theaters is not a question of merit; rather it is a question of trust: board search committees are less frequently willing to trust that women have what it takes to run arts organizations.
• Theaters with large budgets trust the potential of men and select them to oversee a larger budget than they have done before, but not women with similar small-budget experiences.
• Women become leaders if they found their own theaters, but women are not often selected to a leadership position by a committee. The experience of having founded a theater, however, is currently only an asset for men who are hired in LORT theaters and not for women.
• The only advantage women have in being hired over male candidates is when a woman is already employed in the theater with a leadership opening because the woman’s work is familiar to the members of the selection committee, and therefore has become a more trusted leadership candidate.
• Extensive travel and long, irregular hours can be barriers against caregivers (who are mostly women) which can, in turn, lead to biases affecting the hiring or promotion process.
• Career progression in theater typically comes from an apprenticeship model. However, mentors are in short supply, especially for women and people of color.
• There are very few opportunities for leadership and the few positions that do exist have a very slow turnover.