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Anti-Racist Theatre

As political activist and author Angela Davis said, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.” Content in this section is about moving our field away from harmful white supremacist power structures and ways of working, and into a just and equitable future. Start with essays on anti-racist stage management practices, combatting white supremacy culture in training programs and intimacy direction, and supporting parent-artists through an anti-racist lens.

The Latest

A Conversation on Anti-Racism
Video
A Conversation on Anti-Racism
An Evening to Discuss Findings, Resources, and Questions that Arose from the Research of the Student Anti-Racism Committee
Thursday 18 May 2023
New York City
Community Engagement, Anti-Oppression, and Digital Space
Essay
Community Engagement, Anti-Oppression, and Digital Space
by Nikki Shaffeeullah
27 March 2023
Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen
Podcast
Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen
by Yura Sapi, Tierra Allen
8 March 2023
Segal theatre center logo.
A Conversation on Anti-Racism
Video

A Conversation on Anti-Racism

An Evening to Discuss Findings, Resources, and Questions that Arose from the Research of the Student Anti-Racism Committee

Thursday 18 May 2023
New York City

Join us for an evening with the PhD students from the theatre department and others at the GC CUNY to share, reflect, and discuss findings, resources, and questions that arose in three years of research during the time of COVID for the student anti-racism committee. Topics will include theory and pedagogy, history and practices, plays, anti-racism trainings, CUNY resources, and outside organizations and resources.

A performer sits at a desk and draws while a screen to the right broadcasts a video of the drawing.
Community Engagement, Anti-Oppression, and Digital Space
Essay

Community Engagement, Anti-Oppression, and Digital Space

27 March 2023

Artist, facilitator, and cultural innovator Nikki Shaffeeullah kicks off this series by sharing her journey to creating Undercurrent Creations, a Toronto-based arts organization, and Parallel Tracks, a gathering of BIPOC artists that offers training in visioning, producing, and facilitating community arts projects.

best practices in new play development poster.
Best Practices in New Play Development
Video

Best Practices in New Play Development

A Panel Discussion with Particular Focus on Anti-Racist and Anti-Oppression Practices

Friday 10 March 2023
Bloomington, Indiana

Best Practices in New Play Development is a panel discussion around this theme with Martine Green-Rogers (DePaul University), Celise Kalke (Synchronicity Theatre), and Bradley Michalakis (Alley Theatre), with particular focus on anti-racist and anti-oppression practices. It is part of IU Theatre and Dance’s At First Sight Festival of New Plays. This event will feature live captioning and ASL interpretation.

Building Our Own Tables Season 3 teaser image with guest headshot.
Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen
Podcast

Transform Yourself with Tierra Allen

8 March 2023

This week, Yura Sapi is join by Tierra Allen who shares about creating The Real Work, a podcast about theatre culture and transformative justice that is co-produced with We Rise Production. This episode’s topics include learning from non-humans, sharing poems and songs, and being the change.

Building Our Own Tables Season 3 teaser image with guest headshot.
Imagining with Victor Vazquez
Podcast

Imagining with Victor Vazquez

8 February 2023

Victor Vazquez joins Yura Sapi to share his experience creating X Casting, a casting company that spans theatre and film in the United States and worldwide through a shared purpose of collective liberation and anti-racism. This episode’s topics include thinking about our role in the political landscape, globalism, and a curiosity for generous solutions.

Building Our Own Tables Season 3 teaser image.
Fill Your Cup with Abundance Zaddy
Podcast

Fill Your Cup with Abundance Zaddy

18 January 2023

Abundance Zaddy joins Yura Sapi to talk about creating Cause Reign, an oral history project that connects Black people—with a focus on Black trans and queer folks—to their histories through dreamwork, the practice of remembering, recording, and activating the healing potential of dreams. Topics in this episode include prioritizing love and sweetness, transcending time, and asking for consent.

Building Our Own Tables Season 3 teaser image.
Welcome to Season Three with Yura Sapi
Podcast

Welcome to Season Three with Yura Sapi

11 January 2023

How exciting is it to transform our future and be the future ancestors we dream for? Yura Sapi opens the space with a gratitude ritual and shares about what’s to come on the new season of the Building Our Tables podcast. Topics for this season include evolutionary times, the four elements, and sounds of nature.

The cover of a book called The Wildcard Workbook: A Practical Guide for Jokering Forum Theatre. It is purple and yellow.
The Wildcard Workbook: Why Forum Theatre and Why Now?
Essay

The Wildcard Workbook: Why Forum Theatre and Why Now?

15 November 2022

Theatremakers Sulu LeoNimm, Liz Morgan, and Katy Rubin discuss the process of co-authoring The Wildcard Workbook, a guide designed to help others in the field delve into Theatre of the Oppressed practices and devised theatre processes.

event poster for reflecting forward session two: Art, Race & Dialogue.
Animating Democracy Session Two
Video

Animating Democracy Session Two

Art, Race, and Dialogue

Thursday 13 October 2022
United States

Art2Action and Animating Democracy presented Art, Race, and Dialogue, the second event in the series Animating Democracy: REFLECTING FORWARD, livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 13 October 2022 at 1 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).

Two actors staring lovingly into each other's eyes.
Erasure is Not an Option: Intimacy Advocacy Through a Transgender Lens
Essay

Erasure is Not an Option: Intimacy Advocacy Through a Transgender Lens

A Conversation with Raja Benz

30 August 2022

Ann James sits down with intimacy choreographer Raja Benz to discuss her experience implementing cultures of consent in rehearsal rooms, cultivating a localized approach to intimacy work, and centering trans perspectives in theatrical processes.

Balancing Power Through Intimacy in the Rehearsal Space
Essay

Balancing Power Through Intimacy in the Rehearsal Space

26 August 2022

Ann James chats with Rocio Mendez about her work as an intimacy director, connections between intimacy choreography and fight direction, and getting excited about theatre’s fieldwide trend toward including intimacy specialists in production teams.

sculpture floating above a theatrical stage.
Intimacy and Equity: A Balancing Act
Essay

Intimacy and Equity: A Balancing Act

23 August 2022

Ann James introduces the Rebuilding for the Future: A Convergence of Thought Leaders in Intimacy Practice series with this call for intimacy professionals to build a foundation of equity in the industry by interrogating available mentorship and training structures. This essay begins that work by highlighting the need for a diverse pool of training ideologies and methods; and the interview-based series that follows takes up that need by highlighting the perspectives of eight practitioners who navigate the intimacy industry in a variety of ways.

Daughters of Lorraine Podcast teaser.
Writing Detroit: Dominique Morisseau’s Practice of the Possible
Podcast

Writing Detroit: Dominique Morisseau’s Practice of the Possible

10 August 2022

Jordan Ealey and Leticia Ridley interview award-winning and acclaimed playwright Dominique Morisseau about her recent Broadway productions of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations and Skeleton Crew; the future of Detroit theatre and performance; and reckoning with American history. Ealey and Ridley discuss Morisseau’s practice of reparative creativity and the ability for theatre to serve as a rehearsal for true change.

Daughter of Lorraine teaser image
When and Where We Enter: Black Feminist Theatre
Podcast

When and Where We Enter: Black Feminist Theatre

20 July 2022

In this episode, Leticia and Jordan finally explain what they mean when they say Black feminism, especially in theatre and performance. They engage Lisa M. Anderson’s tenets of Black feminist drama, alongside other contemporary scholars and artists expansion of Black feminist theatre. They discuss Black feminist theory, black feminist practice in creative work, and black feminist theatre theory.

Full cast sit together for a picture.
Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner
Essay

Seeing Double: Double Consciousness as a Black Theatre Practitioner

14 July 2022

Ekemini Ekpo applies W.E.B. Dubois’ concept of “double consciousness” to the experience of performing Blackness for a predominantly white audience that may or may not be interested in disturbing the primacy of their own lived experience.

Screenshot of a zoom meeting.
From Awareness to Action: Facilitating Change in the American Theatre
Essay

From Awareness to Action: Facilitating Change in the American Theatre

13 June 2022

Lauren E. Turner, producing artistic director of No Dream Deferred, sits down with Amelia Parenteau to discuss their recent experiences in anti-racist facilitation work through No Dream Deferred’s service, Equity and Justice for Institutional Change.

event poster for the conversation Developing and Sharing a Values-Centric Accountability Plan.
Developing and Sharing a Values-Centric Accountability Plan
Video

Developing and Sharing a Values-Centric Accountability Plan

Representatives from theaters engaged in anti-racism work share their experiences of creating an actionable plan

Monday 4 April 2022
United States

The Playwrights Realm presented the panel Developing and Sharing a Values-Centric Accountability Plan, livestreaming on the commons-based peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Monday 4 April 2022 at 1 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 21:00 BST (London, UTC +1).

Two people wearing costumes and holding signs that say "Bush" and "World".
Creating Puppet Solidarities
Essay

Creating Puppet Solidarities

24 January 2022

Sarah Plummer kicks off the puppet series by introducing the series contributors and exploring the way their work highlights puppetry’s capacity to form solidarities among humans and nonhumans.

Several people dancing together in a room.
Thinking Through Racism: Nigerian Theatre’s Response
Essay

Thinking Through Racism: Nigerian Theatre’s Response

11 January 2022

Eseovwe Emakunu sits down with theatre practitioner Israel Wekpe to discuss how he and other Nigerian theatre artists use theatre to address racism and discrimination.

A man in a suit and glasses standing and smiling behind two figures.
You Want Me to Balance What?
Essay

You Want Me to Balance What?

Why the Argument That Fiscal Sustainability is More Important Than Investing in Racial Justice Needs to Go Away

16 December 2021

Ryan Ferrebee discusses the disadvantages of theatres attempting to balance fiscal responsibility with anti-racism work from his perspective as a white fundraising professional.

Imagining a New Federal Theatre Project with Corinna Schulenberg and Dr. Elizabeth A. Osborne
Podcast

Imagining a New Federal Theatre Project with Corinna Schulenberg and Dr. Elizabeth A. Osborne

24 November 2021

As a part of the New Deal, the Federal Theatre Project of the 1930s funded theatre in the United States at an unprecedented level, providing paid work for trained theatremakers and low-cost performances to audiences all around the country. Corinna Schulenberg and Dr. Elizabeth A. Osborne discuss the history of the Federal Theatre Project and its potential to act as a model for a New Federal Theatre Project formed in conjunction with racial justice, climate justice, and Land Back movements.

pink event poster with black power fist graphics.
Anti-racist Strategies in Dramaturgy
Video

Anti-racist Strategies in Dramaturgy

A Robust Discussion of Some of the Most Pressing Issues in Theatre’s Move Towards a Decolonized Model

Saturday 20 November 2021
London, United Kingdom

Dramaturgs' Network presented a panel on Anti-racist Strategies in Dramaturgy livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Saturday 20 November 2021 at 9 a.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 12 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5) / 17:00 GMT (London, UTC +0).

Reappraising the Legacy of Ernie McClintock with Dr. Ibby Cizmar
Podcast

Reappraising the Legacy of Ernie McClintock with Dr. Ibby Cizmar

6 October 2021

Dr. Ibby Cizmar joins the Theatre History Podcast to share her research on Ernie McClintock, who worked to develop a system of training and performance that could serve the specific needs of African American actors in the mid-twentieth century. A significant influence in the Black Arts Movement, McClintock’s methods continue to influence institutions and theatremakers today.

banner for event on anti-racist theatre.
Panel: What Does Anti-racist Producing Look Like?
Video

Panel: What Does Anti-racist Producing Look Like?

A Cohort of Theatre Professionals Discuss the Many Ways They’re Embracing a Values-centric Approach to Putting on a Show.

Thursday 23 September 2021
New York City

What does anti-racism look like when applied to the theatre’s core activity — producing plays? In this panel, a cohort of theatre professionals discuss the many ways they’re embracing a values-centric approach to putting on a show, from first rehearsal all the way to closing night. Livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday 23 September 2021 at 1 p.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 3 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 4 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 21:00 BST (London, UTC +1).

A magical black female figure breaking open a door.
Can I Come? Envisioning the Future of Inclusion on Broadway and Beyond
Essay

Can I Come? Envisioning the Future of Inclusion on Broadway and Beyond

13 September 2021

Regina Victor paints a picture of a future for the theatre industry with cultural strategy at the center.