Playbill: Broadway's upcoming Alicia Keys musical Hell's Kitchen has created a Fellowship Program that will place fellows from historically overlooked communities to work with the production's direction, choreography, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, sound design, projection design, and company management, executive producing, and public relations departments. The initiative hopes to strengthen the Broadway employment pipeline while making it more equitable.
2 comments:
This seems like a really great way to provide more opportunities for underrepresented people in the entertainment industry, particularly because it focuses on behind the scenes jobs. I feel that most outreach programs that we hear about are for performers or directors, so it’s really cool to see a program that includes all the usual suspects like lighting and costumes but also (even) lesser seen departments like executive producing, public relations, and company management. I think it’s things like this that make our industry so unique, and show that the people who are a part of it are so not for money but because they have a genuine love and care for the field. Unfortunately, there are still barriers in place from the past, and as the industry works to tear them down we have to consider each and every one. I hope the program is successful and that there are more programs like this one in the future.
This fellowship program sounds like a really awesome way to support a lot of talented people into being able to acquire Broadway employment. Since the lack of representation, especially in all of the various backstage production departments is such a major issue, it’s really great when major productions like Hell’s Kitchen work on ways to combat that historical lack of representation. I also think that it is great that such a big name like Alicia Keys is discussing the fellowship program and the general struggle of the lack of representation herself. It’s a really great way to raise a lot of awareness about the program to people who might be interested in applying, and also, it might get someone who does not know much about representation issues in Broadway and theatre to become more aware of that matter. I hope that more productions create similar fellowships and also use their respective celebrity connections to endorse those programs.
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