Theater design has received renewed attention on Broadway lately. Rather than acoustics or aesthetics, however, ladies’ restrooms have become the latest architectural concern.
Last week, the New York Times reported a bathroom crisis on Broadway. The record-breaking numbers of attendees this season have also resulted in record-breaking lines for women’s bathrooms. The wait times are so long that they often exceed the length of intermission.
Currently the bathroom system at these venues is extremely inefficient. Theater bathrooms need to focus on the concept of “potty parity.”
Potty parity demands equity in gender-divided bathroom facilities. Instead of desiring an equal number of toilets or urinals in each bathroom, advocates of potty parity aim to determine the number of fixtures needed to make bathroom access approximately equivalent.
As Kathryn Anthony, professor of architecture at the University of Illinois, and architect Megan Dufresne note, not only does menstruation increase the frequency of female bathroom needs, but women naturally take almost twice as long as men in the bathroom. According to Playbill writer Robert Viagas, Broadway performances tend to attract more women than men in the first place.
The bathroom problem seems current, given the rise of bathroom politics last year, but in reality, the issue is nothing new. A 1996 article in the New York Times Magazine described the “bathroom liberationists” — feminists with full bladders who were ready to storm the men’s room — on Broadway.
John Tierney, the article’s author, memorably compared the women’s bathroom queue to “an audition for extras in Les Misérables,” by noting “these are the vengeful faces that nobles saw on their way to the guillotine — except that the danger is all too real.”
It would seem the speedier line for the men’s room freed up some time not only to report on the issue but to construct metaphors linking bathroom feminists with both Broadway and the French Revolution.
A 2001 New York Times piece provided an update on the bathroom progress: female architect Francesca Russo was in the process of giving several Broadway theaters and their bathrooms a makeover, yet, as last week’s report shows, such a makeover has yet to happen in many theaters on Broadway.
Gender-neutral bathrooms would seem the obvious solution to this issue of potty parity, and they would dually benefit people who identify as transgender or non-binary. However, architectural constraints limit the practicality of solely gender-neutral facilities because the increased privacy typical of these bathrooms also increases the amount of space they occupy.
A complete conversion to gender-neutral bathrooms would be less efficient than traditional bathroom design in maximizing the total number of toilets, as they require more space.
As a result, it’s time to turn some of theater’s creativity energies to the bathrooms. After all, the song “It’s a privilege to pee” from the bathroom-inspired musical “Urinetown” has become all too real on Broadway, even off the stage.
jsbourkl@umail.iu.edu
