www.chicagobusiness.com: Chicago is a third white, a third black and a third Hispanic, more or less. So why doesn't its theater industry—widely recognized as being in the national vanguard—reflect that diversity? An October survey by union Actors Equity revealed that white actors are cast far more often and make far more money than actors of color. Leadership at the city's biggest theaters—Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Second City, Drury Lane, Marriott, Paramount, Steppenwolf, Goodman, Broadway in Chicago and Northlight—is predominantly white and male.
2 comments:
Overall this article seems great. Yes to more diversity; No to just tokenism. The author brings up some really good points, but in reality the suggestions in the article, while valid, seem like they are really just screaming into a void. I wonder who her intended audience is? There are so many articles out there encouraging all four of these suggestions. The author of this article particularly seems to highlight different good examples of increasing diversity but in some examples she just seems to be perpetrating tokenism. For instance her example of color- conscious casting where the playwright insisted diversity, the author then highlighted one person of color the theatre had cast. Though the intentions were not malignant she seems to just be encouraging the tokenism present in this situation. The last suggestion seems to differ from the rest in which it shows clear structural boundaries that could be changed to encourage more diversity by making membership more accessible.
Though I completely agree with the opening paragraph and a half of this article, I think the article takes a somewhat naive position. I agree that we need a more diverse industry but it makes complete sense with the industry being dominated by white people. The article makes it a surprise but statistically, children from racial minority groups don’t get the same exposure to the arts that white children do due to the lack of funding in public schools. I agree that it should be a representation of the real world Chicago demographics but the four fixes miss one key important issue and that's an education in our public schools. A lot of people get into the arts through extra-circulars and public schools with enough funding to have arts' programs. I think this is a key fix that goes only with funding but is more specific than just funding. I think focusing just on the theatre’s is too small as a solution and we need to focus on solutions that are much larger. I think there needed to be a statement in this article about how all these fixes minus the Joseph Jefferson awards’ solution can be nationalized. These fixes are pretty universal and can help a lot of different places diversity issues.
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