Monday, February 22, 2016
Is Your Theatre Only “Diverse and Inclusive” Twice a Year?
HowlRound: I am not known for throwing around “the race card.” But every now and then, it’s thrown on me, especially in the arts. And, when I took a position in building new audiences, but only for the black plays, things really hit home. After this experience, I would like to help devise the best practices in new audience development, and suggest beginning with genuine community engagement. But it took working this job I describe below, to get me here.
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3 comments:
I agree with Taylor. I think a part of the problem she is discussing comes from the fact that people often want diversity for diversity’s sake. They want more people of color in the audience, and so they think they can take a direct route to that. But, to me what is more important is using theater as a platform to tell diverse stories. If diversity is seen as a way to fill a quota, it won’t come off as genuine. In the end, I think if people focus on making their theater better by having a wider range of productions by a wider range of authors from different backgrounds, and a combination of non-serious plays as well as plays that discuss a range of important issues, diversity will follow because the content of the theater will be showing that the theater genuinely cares about telling diverse stories. And, regardless of the diversity of the audience, the theater will be better for it because they will have a more interesting range of productions. Diversity shouldn’t exist as a checkbox or a bragging right. Diversity is important because it is a sign of good theater, and because how we tell stories and whose stories we tell has an effect on how people perceive/ treat others and interact with the world around them.
I hope that soon diversity will fade into the background of theatrical discussions. However, in the now I feel we are at a point where we should work to involve as many different types of people on stage at one point. Theatre should be about what you bring to the table, not about your skin color.
I agree with this article that we need to represent what we see on stage, however, I feel representing "America" is too limiting. Working to tell stories that focus on the HUMAN condition are the stories that are important. Telling stories that everyone despite their background can relate to is the way to encourage diversity, without shoving it in people's faces. Diversity should not focus on one demographic at a specific point in the year. It should be an obvious part of a theater's mission. To encourage community, in every sense of the word.
The theater I used to work at did this exact thing, instead of engaging with the community as a whole, which was already very diverse, they had a targeted play for the black community during Black History month. That was it. But this isn’t just about small community theaters being unable to engage with their audiences in a real and organic way instead of just seeing them as “target audiences” and “diversity numbers” and “ticket sales.” There is currently a bright, harsh light being shone on the ugly diversity problem we have in the entertainment industry as a whole. This author hits the nail right on the head when they said, “I would suggest we return to making art about the human condition, about human experiences, and simply strive to move human beings.” If we just make theater for humans, that will include people of color, queer people, people with disabilities, etc. It will include everyone. We can have plays where starring people of color where their race is not the focus of their character. We can have female directors, and stories of trans characters played by actual trans people. It is time that increasing diversity in theater stopped meaning temporally targeting certain demographics and started meaning a real and genuine movement towards making shows just for people and welcoming everyone into the theater, no matter what their labels.
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