The Sol Project Marks 10 Years With SolFest 2026

AMERICAN THEATRE: The Sol Project, the Obie award-winning theatre initiative dedicated to producing and elevating Latine voices, has announced SolFest 2026, its annual festival celebrating Latine writers and artists with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT) and North Star Projects. This year’s festival marks the Sol Project’s 10th anniversary and SolFest’s 9th year. This season’s SolFest will run Sept. 27-Oct. 4 throughout Manhattan, with readings of new work presented at PRTT in midtown Manhattan.

Elliot Page Will Introduce All-Trans Production of AS YOU LIKE IT in London

www.broadwayworld.com: A new production of Shakespeare's As You Like It will be performed in London this summer, featuring an entirely trans and non-binary cast. The production is presented by Trans What You Will Theatre and will run 22–24 July 2026 at The Space Theatre.

Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists presents…

Broad Street Review: Philly Asian Futures, a new multidisciplinary theater project from Philly Asian Performing Artists (PAPA), got its start through listening to local elders. Now, directors Joseph Ahmed, Caitlin Alvarez, and Bi Jean Ngo welcome visitors to a series of choose-your-own-adventure performance installations at Asian Arts Initiative (running October 22-26, 2025). Audiences will move through a selection of nine performances that the artists call a "living museum," including theater, spoken word, dance, music, and tea ceremony.

Caesars Palace Times Square and Wendell Pierce Partner To Support New York's Historic Theatres Of Color

www.broadwayworld.com: Caesars Palace Times Square has partnered with actor and producer Wendell Pierce on a $10 million investment to launch and sustain the New York Coalition of Legacy Theatres of Color Fund, a 501(c)3, to support theaters and ensembles focused on telling the stories of New York's communities of color while combatting the longstanding funding inequities they face.

Design with an Equity Lens

Technicians for Change: We have before us an opportunity for drastic and sustainable change. The pandemic and calls for racial justice have ignited fieldwide revolution and hopefully serious reformation. Theatremakers are being presented with a chance to reimagine the way our art form is made, both within and without the systems that are supposed to support the people and the work.

Lloyd Webber: Theatreland must ‘stop wringing its hands and pay for drama diversity’

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.

Honoring 101 Black Stage Managers | Stage Managers’ Association

Stage Directions: During this pause in our working lives, The Stage Managers’ Association has focused its energies on creating initiatives to better serve the entire theater community. The Stage Managers’ Association (SMA) is pleased to announce that they are partnering with the Black Theatre Caucus to raise the visibility and knowledge into the community of excellent Black Stage Managers.

Making Black Lives, Not Just Black Deaths, Matter Onstage

The New York Times: As far as theater is concerned, the pandemic has been a paradox, shrinking life down to lockdown bubbles and simultaneously expanding horizons. When you can stream plays from Europe as easily as from Brooklyn, the world seems more interconnected than in the past — tied together by bonds of humanity.

#WeSeeYou antiracist accountability report includes 11 DMV theaters

DC Metro Theater Arts: An accountability report released by the We See You, White American Theater collective (WSYWAT) points to more than 100 theater institutions nationwide that have responded to the group’s BIPOC Demands for White American Theater in the past seven months. Included are 11 theaters from the DMV.

Local 665 President Tuia'ana Scanlan's Road to IATSE and Talks the Importance of Representation On and Off Screen

IATSE Cares: In the quiet town of Orange, California, Tuia’ana Scanlan was a creative zealous college student majoring in Theatre at Chapman University. As his final undergraduate year approached, Scanlan says he began pondering on his job placement after college. While still in college, Scanlan worked at the theatre shop on campus and says his friend Craig Brown, a faculty member and mentor, asked him if he had ever thought about considering a career as a stagehand.

Theatrical unions unveil diversity, equity and inclusion agenda

Broadway News: Theatrical union leaders put forward a legislative agenda Thursday aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion within the arts industry. In a joint press conference with affiliated members of the Department for Professional Employees, the unions highlighted priorities including strengthening collective bargaining and copyright laws, increasing federal arts funding to help diversify talent pipelines and awarding federal tax incentives to productions or entities that participate in diverse hiring.

Identity-Conscious Casting

HowlRound Theatre Commons: In 2014, Lavina Jadhwani, a text-based director and adaptor in Chicago, wrote a piece for HowlRound about color-conscious casting after directing a production of Duchess of Malfi. In the years since, Lavina has shifted to using the term “identity-conscious casting,” because she believes identity contains multitudes and race is just one part of that. In this conversation, Lavina sits down with Victor Vazquez, founder and casting director of X Casting NYC, to chat about the realities of casting in theatre, moving beyond the concepts of color-blind and color-conscious casting, and more.

The Black Designer Database Is Connecting Black-Owned Brands With TV and Movie Costumes Designers

InStyle: Sex and the City made Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo household names, and, everyone knows what "an AlaÏa" is — and that the couturier is a "totally important designer" — thanks to Clueless. Even when a brand isn't name-dropped so bluntly, the impact of a pop-culture appearance can be a major launchpad for success.

Continuing her father's legacy with Common Ground Theatre, one of the longest-running Black theater companies in the U.S.

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Francine DeWitt-Haynes can’t be sure, but she suspects that her father was inspired to co-create what is now known as Common Ground Theatre after attending a play as a student at Columbia University in New York City. When the late Rufus DeWitt moved his family from Mobile, Ala., to San Diego, there wasn’t an organized theater company for Black San Diegans, so he and a friend started the Southeast Community Theatre in 1963, which changed its name to Common Ground Theatre in 2003.

Anti-Racism and the Institution

HowlRound Theatre Commons: This past summer you may have noticed one very clear intention mobilize across the New York and American regional theatre communities: to signal justice. In rapid succession, statements of varying lengths committing to institutional solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement have populated our inboxes and social spaces from arts organizations across the country. But what will become of this? Why now, and what next?

Spotlight on Black Broadway Producers: Richard Gay

Playbill: Two words: Soul Train. They instantaneously conjure joyful images of music, dance, and Black culture. Richard Gay plans to deliver on that brand—a brand he’s been managing for years—when he brings Soul Train to the Broadway stage as a lead producer.

Spotlight on Black Broadway Producers: Irene Gandy

Playbill: “Producer” is a term that can mean many things. Typically, a lead producer is not only a primary investor or moneyraiser but the creative lead on the show. They put together the creative team for a production, often pairing writers with composer-lyricists or composer-lyricist teams and directors. Most importantly, a lead producer controls the message—how to market and advertise, final approvals on anything to do with the show. Producers at a lower level have varying degrees of creative input and varying degrees of financial commitment, depending on the show. The current demand for more Black (and Indigenous and POC) producers is a rallying cry for inclusion at every level.

Spotlight on Black Broadway Producers: Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones-Harvey

Playbill: Amber Iman, one of the founding members of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, noted during one of three June re-education sessions “Broadway for Black Lives Matter Again” that while some show casts are more inclusive than those of productions past, “it starts from the top.” If you want more Black artists onstage and backstage, you need Black directors, designers, choreographers, and casting directors. If you want more Black directors, designers, choreographers, and casting directors, you need Black producers.

R.A.W: Shirley Prendergast

Blog | Women in Lighting: With the very recent #blacklivesmatter that took by storm worldwide on the inequality and biased attitude to a certain group of people on the basis of colour, opened up many discussions on inclusivity in workplaces within the design industry as well. To bring the much-needed change, it is important to raise awareness and to acknowledge the fact that diversity in workplaces is the only way to flourish. In this regard, sharing the notable work of 1st African-American lighting designer, Shirley Prendergast.

Theater will have to be less racist to survive: A Q&A with Soyica Colbert

DC Metro Theater Arts: Although Shakespeare Theatre Company’s acclaimed The Amen Corner had to shut down in March before its run was done, the production proved fortuitous for STC’s future: It brought Director Whitney White and Dramaturg Soyica Colbert into a working relationship that led in August to Artistic Director Simon Godwin’s announcement that White and Colbert would be associate directors of the company.