A Colored Conundrum

HowlRound: If it is true that conflict is at the heart of drama then the 2014 Theatre Communications Group (TCG) Crossing Borders conference in San Diego, California had its share, as is often the case when any group attempts to tackle the issues revolving around identity and ethnicity in a public forum. The drama in this case began when TCG conducted an experiment to see what would happen if they created a space for affinity groups to divide themselves based on how attendees self-identify in four areas: gender, ability, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity. However, the self-identifying process did not create the kind of clarity within each affinity group that was intended—some white people attended a race/ethnicity affinity group.