Who Is Represented? Who Is Doing the Representing?

There's been a succession of posts in the theatrosphere lately addressing issues of whose work is getting done on stage, and this will almost certainly lead (or in any rate should lead) to who is represented on stage, and how.  I'm very interested in reading all of your thoughts on this subject, dear reader, because I have quite a few thoughts, and some of them conflict with each other... so here is, shall we say, a data dump from my brain:

(1) On one hand, the numbers don't lie, and they're shameful. 80% of plays in not-for-profit theaters in New York are by white men, even though they only make up 14% of the population.  A shameful number of plays are by women, are about women or pass the Bechdel Test. From an acting perspective, the opportunities for actors of color to play roles that aren't either in Shakespeare plays or race-specific in the script seem to vanish more and more.  And then of course, there is the bizarre phenomenon of having on the one hand more roles for South Asian and Middle Eastern actors and on the other having some of those roles filled by actors who aren't South Asian or Middle Eastern because they can "pass" for Arab, Indian etc. These are all big biiiig problems. 

(2) I'd be very interested to see what happens when you crunch the numbers to include regional theaters as well, because New York is not the be-all-and-the-end-all of theatrical experience.  I know it would still be bad, don't get be wrong, but I wonder if it would get worse or get better? Because three of the living playwrights that I think of as getting a lot of productions in America are Rebeck, Ruhl and Nottage, three women, one of color. 

(3) It is worth saying the content of the plays should matter as much as the identity of who is writing them.  I've seen plenty of plays by women containing female characters so cartoonishly and hatefully drawn that it could've easily come from the pen of early career Mamet or any period Neil LaBute. The Wire was written almost exclusively by white men, but contains some of the most balanced, human and deeply flawed characters of color I've ever seen. 

(4) Also, and this is not offered as an excuse at all, I think these problems reflect larger problems in America.   We don't have a lot of Senators who are women, and even fewer who are of color. We still have plenty of all-white sitcoms etc. and so forth.

(5) This also brings be back to Richard Ford's The Race Card, and I wonder, once again, whether we are simply seeing the Slowest Moving Artform react to the realities around us.  In The Race Card, Ford discusses at length the failures of the present day Civil Rights movement.  One of these failures (to his mind) is the anti-integrationist bent that this has taken, particularly on college campuses.  There are now all-black student organizations on many campuses, all-black dormitories etc. and so forth. This new "ethnic nationalism" is (to Ford) basically us going through the looking glass and effectively reinstituting segregation. There are problems with his reasoning here, including that he completely leaves out Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), most likely because HBCUs have actually been historically enormously successful at opening the doors of the Middle Class to African Americans. I think you see some of this reflected in the Wilson-Brustein debates (if you're wondering, I disagree with both men in their positions), with Wilson essentially saying that integrationist casting practices were a failure and what was needed was a healthy dose of ethnic nationalism-- more plays written and directed by African Ameicans, more African American theaters, more catering to African American audiences.

My background is pretty heartily integrationist, I come from a multi-racial family, I attended the first integrated school in the Washington, DC area, etc. etc. and so forth, so my sympathies rather naturally lie back on the integrationist, nontraditional casting side.  However, I do agree with Wilson that that's not enough, and there need to be more theater companies run by people of color, more plays by people of color, more directed by people of color and more with roles written for people of color.  I just don't see the two as mutually exclusive, and it seems to me that what we have today is largely the worst of both worlds.  Nontraditional Casting (I hate the term, but it is the term of art) is largely dead outside of the classics and theaters will only hire actors of color if the role requires it.  Black directors frequently can only get work directing plays by Black writers. And we still don't have a lot of theaters run by people of color. I have no idea what to do about this, although in my own directing and casting choices, i do deliberately follow an integrationist impulse whenever possible and appropriate.

(6) It is also worth noting that Identity Politics is a reality.  If you want to chafe against it, fine, but smart producers and artists are using it well.  This brings me back to two ideas.  The first was Jim Nicola's assertion at a post-show panel for How Theatre Failed America that culture ain't monolothic anymore-- and that that's a good thing.  Culture is fragmented now, and as hard as it is for a theater to be all things to all people, it's even harder for an individual work of theatre to appeal to lots of different groups at once.  The second idea comes from Donna Walker-Kuhne and her book Invitation to the Party, you can't expect an audience to come see a work that doesn't appeal to them.  

And then I think of the Signature.   Let's look at their history page for a moment, shall we? Of their fifteen seasons dealing with one particular playwright or organization, the majority of them are white men.  And then after the August Wilson season, what do we get? We get Chuck Mee, a white guy for sure, but one who follows the integrationist impulse heavily in his plays and instructs you to do the same in directing them, and then the Negro Ensemble company and then we get the announcement that the next two seasons are Suzan-Lori Parks and Tony Kushner.  So by the time 2010 rolls around three out of the last five seasons at Signature will have been devoted to playwrights of color, including several works by women.  There are plenty of explanations for all of this, but I can't help but think that some of it comes from discovery of a different/new audience to appeal to with the combination of the August Wilson season and the new $20.00 price point for tickets.  In other words, occasionally market forces can pressure people in good directions.

Comments

[RLewis]

I’m glad to see that you’ve taken a sec’ from your hyperventiPalin’ to make another important theater point. I agree that we in the theater are not as good at diversity as we’d like to accuse other career fields of not being… or something like that. I also believe that it will be up to those offended to be the change they seek. Men just aren’t hardwired to acquiesce or even share well – please beat them senseless when necessary.

But I wonder whether there are any numbers’ breakdowns on the amount of applicants for these production opportunities in question to answer: if 500 male and 100 female playwrights applied, should there ideally be 50 plays of each that ultimately get produced? It is hard for me to understand and use the “12.6% of women” figure, if I don’t know what the relative overall pool numbers are. And the same question stands with regard to minorities.

Also, I know some straight men feel women playwright’s pain when they wonder why that gay dude’s play gets produced, and the answer comes back, well, he hangs out on weekends with the gay dude that runs the company; but I guess we just lump straight males and gay males into one undiscriminating pot.

I'm just saying that I think we need more numbers, more broken down, to get the best understanding.

[Mark]

There are no playwright "applicants" for Broadway and off-Broadway productions. Plays are chosen by artistic directors and producers not from a pile of aspirants, but from the body of work of every playwright they are familiar with.

I bring this up not only to point out that there is no such thing as "applicant statistics" in this case -- nor is there any anecdotal evidence whatsoever for the inference that most playwrights aspiring the high-level productions would be men -- but also to note, in general, that cold submissions are a fool's errand.

[Joshua James]

A lot of my work is, I guess, "multi-cultural" . . . THE MEN'S ROOM deals with homophobia and homosexuality, even though I'm straight (and I've written a lot of other stuff) . . . much of my other work has many people of other cultures featured, not just their background but their stories, something of no small interest to me.

I think I've told this story before, but I'll share again.

One of my first agent's read my play TALLBOY WALKIN', which has five characters, two of which are black.

He told me that it was a great play but there's no market for it because "black people don't go to the theatre." He said the reason there were so many gay plays is because "gay people go to the theatre".

Privately I thought there were more "gay plays" because there were a lot of gay agents, including the one standing in front of me at that moment (he was gay) and I didn't know of a single straight black theatre lit agent.

Plus, Tallboy is not what I would call a "black play", it's about a lot of things and two of the characters are black.

Anyway, I parted ways with that agent.

The thing is, that I realized, is that no one does YOUR play because it is great or unique or YOUR play. They (and by THEY, I mean the ADs, or producers or whomever it is that choses) chose a play or playwright based on what the PLAY does for them.

If the play shows off their skills as a director, they'll pick it.

If it brings the right type of political heat and publicity, they'll pick it (I mean, Daisey's profile went up after he had a glass of water dumped on him . . . not that he wasn't having shows done before, but after that, a lot of folks were talking about him, and he doesn't really WRITE plays, that I understand, he creates bullet points and then talks) . . . folks pick plays for what it can offer THEM, not because it's the greatest thing they've ever read or even because an audience may enjoy it . . . I don't even know that it matters, some of the time, about the audience. Seriously, I've met some people that don't even care about doing a work that will pack them in, they're more interested in what "name" the brand is, etc or it will show off their director skills or there's a perfect part in it for them, etc.

Obviously not everyone is like this, but I think there's a more than we think. A lot more.

Just my opinion.

[Kerry Reid]

I already got all logorrheic (sp?) on this subject over at Mr. Freeman's joint, but I just had a couple other points to make. One is to reinforce that lack of representation is NOT the fault of the underrepresented groups. However, when I talk about improving networking opportunities, etc., I do so out of the hope that it puts a personal face on the artist, allows for those one-to-one interactions where people can get a better handle on each other's tastes, temperaments, ideas, etc., and that such an environment may lead to healthier working relationships and dialogue, rather than feeling impotent and frustrated that nothing ever changes. I may be completely wrong on this, of course.

However, I also recognize that the ability to schmooze is not one that all artists have in equal measure, or at all, and that it's also discriminatory to artists who don't particularly like making the social rounds, or talking at length about their work in conversation, to put the onus on them for getting their name out there in a social context (as opposed to the old submit-submit-submit-scripts-scripts-scripts pattern). What would be great is if all of us could sort of "adopt" a few writers and artists that we feel are underrepresented and start talking up their work to other people and each other.

Maybe a thread on "Who's writing plays in your town that you want other people elsewhere to know about?" would be a start. I dunno.

Just wanted to make it clear, again, that I am not, by a long shot, saying "Well, if women and minorities wanna get produced, they've got to hustle more!" Because I know it really, really isn't that simple and I don't mean to insult anyone who has been on the hustings trying to get their work produced and is feeling down about it.

[RVCBard]

What would be great is if all of us could sort of "adopt" a few writers and artists that we feel are underrepresented and start talking up their work to other people and each other.

What's stopping you from starting now? I'm right here.

[RVCBard]

sorry for the lack of formatting.

[Kerry Reid]

Here are a few women playwrights I know and like in Chicago:

Tanya Saracho
Marisa Wegrzyn
Mia McCullough
Emily Schwartz
Nambi E. Kelley
Lydia Diamond (not really in Chicago anymore -- but started out here. Now in Boston)

Those are just a start top of my head. Anybody wants more, I can easily provide a few thumbnail ideas of what I like about them.

[Ken]

The theater world increasingly seems to be a series of cliques. Depending on what area of theater you're interested in working in (commercial Broadway, Off and 0ff-off, regional, etc.), you've got to convince the cool kids that you're worthy. And that means, as Joshua said it above, your play has to fulfill THEIR needs. It doesn't have to be great, it just has to have a use. Not that anything I've written is necessarily "great," but from the wonderfully complimentary rejection letters that I've received over the years, I get the idea that they have liked a lot of things about my work, but ultimately it didn't fit in with what they think they should be doing (whether that means it wasn't hip or cool enough, or wouldn't show off their particular talents enough, I don't know). A guy can only receive so many rejection letters that use the words "compelling", "well-crafted", "gripping", "great characters", etc., without realizing that quality has little to do with whether someone picks your play. So, it's no wonder that female writers, and writers of color are underrepresented. However, that may change when it becomes hip to do their work, but then it might change back again just as suddenly when the winds of theatrical fashion shift, and the prevailing theater clique grows bored.

[RLewis]

"...the prevailing theater clique..." i'm soooo confused. I don't have a problem with strawmen or strawwomen, but, specifically, who are these people? And just what are they prevailing over?

[Ken]

I'm not saying there is an organized cabal, and I don't want my post to just seem like my own private sour grapes, but whoever is choosing what plays any particular institution produces should be open to some kind of questioning about why they choose what they choose.