Culture | The Guardian: Andrew Lloyd Webber is calling for wealthy individuals from the worlds of theatre, film and television to support the training of young actors from the poorest backgrounds through a far greater investment in scholarships.
His plea comes on the eve of a report to be launched on Monday by his philanthropic foundation that will lay bare the lack of diversity in drama schools and how this loss inevitably leads to a disproportionate number of white actors being given lead stage and screen roles.
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I’m glad diversity is continually brought up in the theatre world. Theatre has historically been run by the privileged: the white and the rich. The article emphasized that even doing a little something is better than doing nothing. “If [the film industry] can pledge £30,000 for three years to support three scholars, it’s three scholars more who are going to come out the other end and be part of that richness of the film industry.” I agree, but hope that we can do more each year, until the scholarships provided are sizable and affect many actors and actresses.
I looked into the American Theatre Wing website, which has a page on the Andrew Lloyd Webber initiative. It is funded by an “influential 1.3 million dollar three-year grant.” It provides grants for classroom resources, training scholarships and 4-year university scholarships. It seems to have helped many young “training scholars.” I’m glad to have heard about this initiative and how many actors and actresses it has helped already!
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