Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Susan Booth, artistic director of Atlanta’s the Alliance Theatre, talks about how we are currently living in what is referred to as “the carnival” and shares ideas of how artistic organizations ought to react during this time.

Jack Reuler, artistic director of Minneapolis’s Mixed Blood Theatre, reflects on how the pandemic might just be the great equalizer in the American theatre and how it’s time for theatre to move from being something nice to being something necessary.

Earlier this year, Mark Valdez, hungering for public discourse around the future of the American theatre field, prompted three arts leaders with the question, “What is our purpose now?” This piece kicks off the series of responses.

Dr. Ayshia E. Stephenson revisits the 2016 Signature Theatre production of The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, which she believes stands as a testament to why Black theatre matters and is essential to resisting white supremacy.

Sophia Skiles talks about the momentum of unprecedented acclaim and agency for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) theatremakers this spring, which quickly transformed into an inverse rise of AAPI-directed bigotry and bias for the global pandemic.

Ali-Reza Mirsajadi talks about struggles for Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) artists in the American theatre community and details some of the changes that are happening for inclusivity and equity.

Carla Della Gatta offers strategies and considerations for theatremakers who are looking to create bilingual or semi-bilingual renditions of the canonized classics.

Michelle Souza looks at how costume designers and educators can dismantle the status quo of Western-focused, chronological teaching of historical garments and move toward a pedagogy that acknowledges and honors diversity, intersectionality, and globalism.

Madeline Sayet argues that promoting Shakespeare as the best writer of all time is a dangerous and white supremacist viewpoint, and she believes it’s time to interrogate the Bard’s placecent as the pinnacle of theatrical achievement.

Holly Derr interviews Lavina Jadhwani about the document she created called Dismantling Anti-Black Linguistic Racism in Theatre, which offers several examples of potentially anti-Black language, such as Ethiopian, master, and minstrel; their use in Shakespeare; why they might be problematic; and possible substitutions.

As artists and companies re-examine the failures of their infrastructures and unconscious biases, Emily C. A. Snyder argues that the lessons learned and challenges faced so far within the field of intimacy direction may be of particular value.

Debbie Patterson talks about the barriers faced by artists with disabilities and how creative teams can “crip” the work—embracing the disruptions created by disability to open up previously unimagined possibilities.

While global protests have amplified calls for defunding the police, Chelsea Whitaker shares thoughts on how theatre needs to end its own policing of Blackness as well.