Love's Labors Lost: diversity in theatre - what you can do right now

January 18, 2011

diversity in theatre - what you can do right now

I was originally going to comment in response to 99's post at Parabasis ("What We Need"), but I saw that I had a lot more to say.

To be very honest, I'm tired of having this fucking conversation. I've been saying the same damn thing for months! I'm tired of saying the same shit all the time! I don't make these points for my health. I'm telling you what I see so you can fucking change it because I don't necessarily have the clout or the resources to do that myself. So let me spell it out for everyone so we're all on the same page. You ready? Here we go . . .

The solution to the overwhelming Whiteness and maleness of NYC theatre is to get space and money and audiences to writers, directors and producers who are not White men.

That's it. Yes, it's that simple. There is no lack of desire or talent, only a lack of vision and resolve. We think and act too much in "Yeah, but . . . " instead of "Yes! And . . . "

We go . . .

"Yeah, I hear they wrote something great, but I never worked with them before."
"Yeah, I think this needs to happen, but I don't know if there's anything I can do."
"Yeah, I want to help, but it's so hard."

Yet we never go . . .

"Yes, this is exactly the kind of stuff we need to do more of, and I'm going to tell people that."
"Yes, my project could use someone like you, and I'm going to find a way to get you involved."
"Yes, I know someone who wants to put on something just like that, and I'm going to put you in touch with them."

We want the problem to get fixed, but we don't want to change the way we do things. We want the problem to get fixed, but we want to rely on the same methods and paradigms that exclude, exploit, and underserve us. So is it any wonder that we spin our wheels every few months (especially around this time of year), pat ourselves on the back for being appropriately liberal because we feel so bad about what's happening (and we raise awareness - never forget that!), while never challenging ourselves to do better or holding ourselves accountable for our (lack of?) efforts.

So here are some things you (yes, you, the reader) can do right now, right this second, to make things better. These are just things I was thinking about off the top of my head. They're just my opinions. Take what you can use. Leave the rest.

1. Stop pretending to be so goddamn helpless.

If you're reading this blog right now, you have a voice. That means you have power. Use it. I'm not saying to write a Pulitzer-winning article or make a submission to the New York Times. It can be simple and brief. Especially if you're not buying a ticket (or rather, not paying for a ticket). Show that you think it's important enough to talk about.

2. Show up and take it one step further.

Not hanging a sign outside the theatre saying "No Negroes Allowed" or making audience members use separate water fountains is not the same as reaching out to and developing new Black playwrights. You have to do more than not be in the way. You have to invite us to the party and tell everyone about the party. Blackboard Play Reading Series is very good about this. When they put on a reading of your stuff, it's not just your people who's going to know about it. It's going to be their people too.

3. Act like an advocate, not a networker.

If you meet someone, and they say, "I'm a playwright," the very first thing you should say is, "Tell me about your most recent piece." The next thing out of your mouth should be, "Would you give me your contact information?"

After that, come up with 3 people who'd be interested in this person's work. Just 3 people. You can include yourself, so that narrows it down to two. Your next job is to get the playwright you met in dialogue with these people. I don't mean forwarding their e-mail and saying, "Y'all talk. Bye now."

No, no, no, no, no. Bad! No biscuit! You say something more like, "I met Blah, this playwright who's working on Somesuchorother. This sounds like it'll be a great fit for Whateverthefuckyouaredoing. I thought you two should talk about possibly working together, as well as finding a home for Somesuchorother."

4. Come up with your own ideas to add to this list and tell people about them.

Like right here, right now.

2 comments:

sburbank1/19/2011 9:06 AM
Hell and yes.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Leigh Hile1/19/2011 10:17 AM
Wow, number three is also amazing advice for playwrights/directors/producers and theater people in general. I've always felt a little slimy "networking" and this is why... nobody wants a networker; nobody wants somebody who's looking for something, we all want somebody who can GET us something. This is the attitude to have! Fantastic, fantastic advice. Thanks.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Words, Words, Words

. . . a lot of it [fostering rather than smothering students' playwriting] has to do with finding a way to construct a dialogue about ongoing work that empowers the writer. A lot of it has to do with making sure there's a diversity of voices around you. A lot of it has to do with thinking of the writing program as a brain trust for writers, not as some infantilization in which the dramaturg gets the power. And basically trying to find a place where everyone's aesthetic in the room grows larger rather than smaller. There are many ways to do that. It's really not a hard thing to do.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Here is what seems to me an elementary truth that must precede any other: namely, that the theater, an independent and autonomous art, must, in order to revive or simply to live, realize what differentiates it from text, pure speech, literature, and all other fixed and written means.
--Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/15/1931

I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all I need for an act of theatre to be engaged.
--Peter Brook, The Empty Space

My work is characterized by one thing above all --- invention. In theatre we imagine the world, we do not record it, we are not documentary makers. I hold all social realism and journalistic theatre in contempt. It is a sordid habit. And the social realists have the impertinence to pretend they are 'telling the truth…'
--Howard Barker, interview

Women and writers of color are still seen as threats because, in essence, when a woman or writer of color is defining a play world, there's another definition of what our society is, and that's very threatening.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

Through this experience [working on " . . . and last week it was a mountain"] I learned the importance of the life and the dynamics under the words, and began to see the power of working from the silent space within - the emotions, the images, the experience and the feelings - rather than relying on the words.
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

How does it happen that . . . the Occidental theater does not see theater under any other aspect than as a theater of dialogue?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

All conventions are imaginable, but they depend on the absence of rigid forms.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

I never 'say' anything in my work. I invent a world. Let others decide what is being 'said'. Nor do I claim to tell the truth or enlighten people. We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets. That is also its politics, if it has any politics at all. And modern democracies hate secrets, they want everything transparent. Obviously the critics collaborate in this desire to expose everything to the light of day, they are the police force, after all.
--Howard Barker, interview

I think that form is content . . . I've always been more interested . . . in the formal devices and the structure rather than in the subject matter . . . I really am a follower of Viktor Shklovsky, who said that in some ways the subject matter doesn't even matter. It's whether or not we see the subject matter anew that matters.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

I am well aware that the language of gestures and postures, dance and music, is less capable of analyzing a character, revealing a man's thoughts, or elucidating states of consciousness clearly and precisely, than is verbal language, but who ever said the theater was created to analyze a character, to resolve conflicts of love and duty, to wrestle with all the problems of a typical and psychological nature that monopolize our contemporary stage?
--Antonin Artaud, Theater and Its Double

The mediocre artist prefers not to take risks, which is why he is conventional.
--Peter Brook, The Open Door

"Transcendence became my life theme. I wanted to be lifted beyond everyday circumstances and everyday reality."
--Sande Shurin, Transformational Acting: A Step Beyond

I actually think of writing for the stage as not writing . . . It's about structuring, about gaps between the language that are really filled in by the collaborators and the process. It's all about indirection rather than a direct statement . . . It's like a three-dimensional chess game in a way. If I say this, will the director go in this direction? If I say this, will the actor respond? And one of the delights of the process is actually not having your intention fulfilled, but finding out at times that other people's interpretation or intention is actually more interesting than you originally thought of.
--Paula Vogel, interview with Ann Linden in The Playwright's Muse

The person who has an idea of what this language is will be able to understand us. We write only for him. --Antonin Artaud, letter, 9/28/1932