BOSTON — The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, an irreverent Harvard theater troupe that has not cast women since it began staging productions in 1844, announced on Thursday that, for the very first time, it would encourage women to audition this year.

“The Hasty Pudding Theatricals is proud to announce that going forward, casting will be open to performers of all genders,” the group’s producers, Hannah Needle and Annie McCreery, said in an email.

The producers did not immediately specify a reason for the shift, but it comes amid several years of debate over the fate of the university’s single-gender organizations, and amid a wider cultural reckoning over sexual harassment and the treatment of women in the workplace, including in Hollywood.

The announcement, which was first reported on Thursday by The Harvard Crimson, came as the group presented the actress Mila Kunis, who has been a vocal critic of gender discrimination in the workplace, with its annual Woman of the Year award, an event during which the honoree is regaled with a parade and then roasted.