“It’s a privilege to pee,” sings a heartless public toilet administrator.
She’s a character in the Tony-winning musical “Urinetown,” but she might as well be addressing women in Toronto theatre audiences. When the intermission lights go up, the race for the washroom begins.
On a recent evening at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre, an usher stationed in the women’s washroom between two rows of stalls acted as a traffic cop, scanning for open doors.
“Second stall, down there,” she said, pointing. “One more over here.”
Still, within five minutes, a queue stretched across the crowded theatre lobby. A large sign, like those wielded by crossing guards, read “End of the Women’s Washroom Line, Here,” to prevent accidental merging from patrons buying souvenirs and popcorn. Unsurprisingly, the sign had no twin at the men’s room.
Further south at the Royal Alex, women waited patiently for one of only eight stalls, with the basement’s combined entrance and exit creating a further roadblock.
“This is probably our best bet,” said one patron, two-thirds of the way back. She gestured at a nearby male statue, his eternal gaze surveying the growing line. “They don’t have a bust of me there. So.”
This story plays out every night at Toronto theatres. The long line for the ladies’ room is a running joke, but for the women who make up two-thirds of the modern theatre audience, it’s a clear case of being marginalized through architecture. On Reddit, women have taken to sharing strategies for when to leave before the curtain drops so they have a better shot of scoring a stall. During intermission, women wait an average of 34 times longer than men in the washroom line, exposing a persistent problem the industry is finally struggling to fix.
“Theatre is not a cheap hobby,” says theatre lover Kristin Crawford, who sees at least two shows a month. “Missing something because you’re in the bathroom is not cool.” A recent Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts study pegs the city’s average ticket price at $79.81 — a lot to pour down the washroom drain.
The bladder-clenching extra 30 seconds
The reason for the issue is simple: historical theatre venues were designed and built by men, for men. The Royal Alex, for example, was completed in 1907, 11 years before the first women were granted the right to vote. When women were largely excluded from public life, they were also excluded from public restrooms. By the time women were allowed to admit to bodily needs, the damage was done.
“Women have been marginalized through the architecture of public spaces,” says Yulia Shtern, a set and costume designer. While many theatres were being built, she said, it was considered fair “to allocate the exact same square footage for men’s bathrooms and women’s bathrooms, without considering the use of those facilities.”
Having an equal amount of space may sound “equal,” but it’s more brute force equality than considered equity. Even with the same amount of space, a men’s washroom can squeeze in 20 to 30 per cent more usable facilities (toilets and urinals) than the women’s washroom can. A 2017 Ghent University report showed that women require 50 per cent more toilets than men just to keep the lines even.
Women also take longer in the washroom: an average of 90 seconds to men’s 60. Some of the reasons for the extra time are obvious: women have to navigate more clothing while in a stall; they sit down to pee; they may reapply lipstick. Menstruation and pregnancy can also slow down the washroom experience. Researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology also found that women use washrooms 1.3 times more than men on average, because they’re often tasked with assisting elderly companions or children. And, according to a study from the Journal of Environmental Health, women are also more likely than men to wash their hands.
It all adds up to an extra 30 seconds that cause a major backlog at pressure points like an intermission, yielding an average wait of 6 minutes and 19 seconds to only 11 seconds for men, a bladder-clenching 34 times longer in line.
Theatre regular Tonya Konkine said that if she scores a larger stall, she and a friend double up to keep things moving. One applies lipstick, while the other pees. “It’s awkward, but (it) saves time, not only for us.”
The worst offenders — and a way forward
Ontario’s updated Building Code requires an approximately 2:1 ratio of women to men stalls for theatres. But even where new laws exist, they often only apply to new builds or renovations. Certain theatres, mostly in older buildings, are consistently cited as the worst offenders, with newer constructions like Koerner Hall leading the charge for parity.
At the CAA Ed Mirvish theatre, which was built in 1920, theatre lover Jane Gorman said, “I’ve stood there the entire intermission and there were still many ahead of me when the bell rang to return to the theatre. I’ve actually gone into the men’s out of desperation.” (Crawford recommends running to the mezzanine for the shortest queue.)
By contrast, the Four Seasons Center for the Arts, which opened in 2006, has three times more women’s restrooms than men’s, said Shtern.
Many theatres are attempting to address the problem by creating “all gender” washrooms, often with floor-to-ceiling coverage of stalls to preserve users’ privacy. At Second City’s new space on York Street, neutral signs simply indicate the type of facilities on offer.
Buddies In Bad Times, North America’s oldest queer theatre company, undertook an expansive remodel in 2019 featuring new stalls — and a shiny gold glitter floor — to address both lineup inequality and gender diversity. “Culture architecture always becomes a manifestation of values and priorities, and the current washrooms that we have are no different,” says ted witzel, the artistic director of Buddies. “The washroom space at Buddies was renovated to be gender affirming.”
Theatre Passe Muraille recently converted to gender-neutral washrooms by combining its separate toilet areas, adding more cubicles, floor-to-ceiling stall doors and a communal handwashing space.
“You can put up a stall instead of a wall,” says Marjorie Chan, the theatre’s artistic director, who said accessibility grants from the city helped fund the renovation. “We (received) feedback as we were switching over, that people (weren’t sure) if they felt comfortable… That was really important to us, that people could go into that washroom and feel secure in their own stall.”
Konkine said she wasn’t sure if she wants to line up with her sons or her friends’ husbands. “If I see it, I cannot unsee it,” she says.
Crawford said her only issue with gender-neutral bathrooms is the inevitable back-and-forth over the toilet seat being left up or down.
Front of the line
A 2021 study from the Rotman School of Management recommends offering both men’s and women’s facilities, but shifting some of the men’s stalls to unisex, which the researchers observed lowered wait times for everyone, including men.
Konkine suggested that longer intermissions might help theatres that can’t remodel. “I want to be able to have a drink, talk to my friends, and we end up being in a line the entire intermission. That’s the experience.”
Regardless of the solutions — longer intermissions, more space for women, or more stalls for all — one thing remains clear: the long lines aren’t working, and any stress in the theatre should be about what’s going to happen in Act Two, not whether you’ll make it to the loo.
