Attached is the speech I gave at Arena Stage’s From Scarcity to Abundance, New Play Institute Convening. \u00a0My panel was called: Massive Thoughts from Four Big Thinkers and included: Lydia Diamond, Kirk Lynn, Marc Masterson & Meiyin Wang.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written my thoughts down \u2013 and since I\u2019m a writer and owe a discomforting number of people in this room plays, it seems appropriate that I do indeed, show that on occasion, I write.<\/p>\n
This has been one of the most well prepared panels I\u2019ve had the pleasure of being on.\u00a0 Thank you Deborah\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 We had a wonderful conversation about those things which we value and worry about and are inspired by around the future of new work.\u00a0 And I said several things, some of them passably well articulated, some brilliantly muddled through, among them the things you have or will hear from my co-panelists, thoughts about new models of management, sustainability, conversation about where is the conversation about aesthetics, talk of self-production, and diversity (when I speak of it today, mostly I\u2019m thinking racially, though generational, aesthetic and class concerns<\/p>\n
So I was identified as the person who would introduce the theme of diversity and share Big Big Massive Big Thoughts.\u00a0 I think partially because its sort of a given that the Black girl should address that which we have been exhaustively addressing long before the twenty years I\u2019ve been a part of the professional theatre world. It would be weird maybe if I didn\u2019t.\u00a0 Also I have little sense of self-preservation and much practice alienating both those who hire me and most likely those who I presume to identify with and champion, who see me working again and again with institutions and people I regularly take to task in public.<\/p>\n
I think always of August Wilson\u2019s \u201cThe Ground on Which I Stand\u201d\u2026 I think of the many theatres I\u2019ve been blessed to have been produced by \u2013 big ones with grand budgets and thoughtful, smart, passionate artists, and smaller ones with not so grand budgets and thoughtful, smart passionate artists.\u00a0 I note that usually the smaller ones have had the most generationally and racially diverse audiences and have been nimble enough to produce my most \u201ccontroversial\u201d work. And I note that the majority of African American Theatres fall into this category.\u00a0 August would not approve \u2013 it feels not like progress.<\/p>\n
And I wonder if the word Diversity is not killing us all a little bit.\u00a0 It just feels slippery.\u00a0\u00a0 It feels a bit like screaming into the wind.\u00a0 \u00a0It feels over-used and undervalued.\u00a0 I wonder if the conversation is not as much about diversity, our philosophical commitment to diversity, but rather the doling out of resources, the making good on promises to funders and artists about an institutional commitment to diversity\u2026racial, cultural, aesthetic.<\/p>\n
When I go to the theatre, let\u2019s even say to see a \u201cBlack Play\u201d (and we will speak to this a lot this weekend, I am sure, about what that means.) So, when I go to an American play written by a Black person inhabited by mostly Black actors\u2026. And I\u2019m in a town that is reasonably diverse\u2026where at the bus stop or the drug store, or high-end restaurants, I see lots and lots of people who look like me\u2026 but the demographic in the theatre is startlingly not the same, I am concerned.<\/p>\n
I wonder how the traditional subscription systems in Lort theatres make room for audience expansion?\u00a0 I wish for us to acknowledge a certain elitism, and address how that figure into our floundering around audience diversification, funding of culturally specific, non-white theatres and selections of plays produced.<\/p>\n
I have a complicated relationship with this notion of theatres producing the hot person of color.\u00a0 And, I do see it as a problem that should be addressed.\u00a0\u00a0 I also notice that theatres produce the hot playwright of any color and those of us with melanin stand out, as yes, we are vying most often for one slot\u2026. But certainly the phenomenon is not limited to us.<\/p>\n
I see my students, my young, brilliant students at Boston University, I see young artists (like really young) having a completely different paradigm around race.\u00a0 Out of this will come great work.\u00a0 The phenomenon, this strange lack of race affiliation and a kind of, \u201ckumbianess,\u201d threatens me, as it shakes my overly articulated notions of race and class and who and how we are disenfranchised, celebrated, marginalized\u2026.\u00a0 And I feel great encouragement, for the making of new art, w\/ all the tweeting and the texting and facebooking, there\u2019s a way that the work will land, and I\u2019m excited.\u00a0\u00a0 I think,\u00a0 I see also, in the younger artists, still a desire for social justice and equality in artistic expression and resources\u2026 and that too heartens me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attached is the speech I gave at Arena Stage’s From Scarcity to Abundance, New Play Institute Convening. \u00a0My panel was called: Massive Thoughts from Four Big Thinkers and included: Lydia Diamond, Kirk Lynn, Marc Masterson & Meiyin Wang. *** I\u2019ve written my thoughts down \u2013 and since I\u2019m a writer and owe a discomforting number […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1762,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2226],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/plan2010\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}