Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Come Back to the Theatre? First, We Need to Talk
AMERICAN THEATRE: It’s hard to deny that there have been changes to the theatre field over the last 18 months. As a fall of in-person programming is already upon us, many theatres have already made efforts to make positive: moving away from 10 out of 12 technical rehearsals, diversifying their staffs, hiring theatremakers of color to help lead them forward, or instituting new equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. Many of these changes have come in response to demands from movements like We See You, White American Theater, the activism of local theatre communities, and industry trade groups.
But even at theatres that have made gestures in the direction of change—which isn’t all of them, by any stretch—questions linger.
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This article touches on so many of the things I have been thinking about since everything started to reopen. I have felt this way about CMU Drama, as so many of the promises of support and change that were made have not been kept in the new year. I had a sickening feeling that the ‘changes’ that theatrical organizations pledged to make in order to foster a positive work environment for artists of color were not actually sought after by the orgs at all. The optics of these pledges were far more important to the orgs than the actual change itself, and in many cases I feel that higher ups who initially WANTED to make the change saw how much work it would be and bailed. As the article says, there are so many conversations to have, logistics to work out, and values that need to be aligned and clearly committed to. It is so disappointing that theatres are not ‘walking the walk’ when COVID provided a unique opportunity to completely restructure with enough time to get settled.
I feel like the pandemic gave the theater industry a break which allowed it to take a step back and in the truest sense, see the areas where it was failing its employees and the society in a way. And in some sense that did happen: traditionally white theater institutions have come out accepting their part in the lack of diversity. But that is not the end all be all of this. As the article says, there are so many things, so many questions that need to be thought of and worked for. We cannot get back to the way that the theater industry was 18 months ago. We need to strive to be a better version of an industry that we all are so passionate about. And I think that the change will come from the core of the employees, more than the high up decision workers because at the end of the day, it it the employees that deal with the brunt of poorly formed initiatives and not so much the higher ups.
This article brings to light the very real concern of performative activism in the theater industry. The arts historically brag about being a progressive industry while subjugating artists of color and subjecting workers to unlivable conditions on set. This is often because the arts is an industry so many people join out of pure love for what they do, and it allows the industry to take advantage of the most vulnerable people in it. I believe that a year-long shutdown has allowed people to take a step back and see exactly what they were working for, and encouraged them to ask for more. Theatres have been responsive to these asks in some cases, but that was in a hypothetical landscape, a promise made by a theater that wasn’t creating. Now that the goal is to bring people and art back into these spaces, these promises could slip through the cracks.
I have to agree with this article and all the comments made above. The one good thing about Covid is that it forced all the machines that ran perpetually on human labor and mental energy, to stop. We were allowed to breathe as a society and see how we had been living in a constant state of making this deadline so we can get ready for the next project. We all woke up and started to made demands of the places we worked from and purchased from. And we have learned who among those companies are fully vested in making changes happen, and those who are merely performative in their change. We needed to start these conversations and to start making these changes. But that cannot be the end, we need to continue having these conversations and moving forward. Like it was said in the article, artists need to start forcing some of these conversations when they take jobs. Yes there is the risk that you won’t get the job for asking questions, but they need to be asked. Besides, the companies that won’t answer those questions are the same ones who would do anything not to have negative press.
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