On Thursday, January 28, Equity’s Equal Employment Opportunity Committee (EEOC) hosted “Escalating Diversity & Inclusion: Meet the Producers,” a conversation with a panel of producers to discuss efforts to ensure parity in the industry.
Barbara Roberts, Equity principal councilor and EEOC vice chair for the western region, emceed the event. She introduced the panelists: Rob Melrose, artistic director of the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas; Margo Hall, artistic director of Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco; David Ivers, artistic director of South Coast Repertory Theater in Orange County; Caitlin Lowans, artistic director of Theatreworks in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Evren Odcikin, associate artistic director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon; Leslie Ishii, artistic director of Perseverance Theatre in Alaska; and Pam MacKinnon, artistic director of American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
After each panelist spoke a bit about their background and journey in the theatre industry, Roberts asked the group about their work to implement change at their organizations, and how those changes affected hiring practices and season selections.
Odcikin spoke about “moving towards honoring the full, holistic humanity of the people who are in our spaces. This includes not pigeonholing people from marginalized backgrounds into only making art about their minority experience, how hiring a diverse cast and ensuring they feel safe in their working environment are separate issues to face.
“Now that I have this position,” he wondered, “How can I engage in those conversations with our staff, with our board with our audience, with our artists specifically, about their interests, their passions and what they can bring?”
Ivers spoke about the struggle of diversifying his staff during the pandemic, when most of his former team has been laid off. South Coast Rep is using the time to strategize, working with consultants to change the culture and practices of the organization.
“You must always advocate, or you are complicit,” she said. "There's no neutral. You’re complicit if you're not actively contradicting.”
Ishii addressed a question from the audience about the tension between reaching out to diverse communities as audiences, vs. as theatre artists. She spoke about her work alongside the local Tlingit community, not only producing a play by an Alaskan native playwright, but even redesigning the lobby to feature designs by indigenous artists. She spoke about changing structure not only through protesting white supremacy, but actively building relationships, creating initiatives like Black Alaskan Art Matters to give marginalized communities a space to speak for themselves and create art independently.
“You must always advocate, or you are complicit,” she said. "There's no neutral. You’re complicit if you're not actively contradicting.”
Roberts asked MacKinnon about bringing audiences along with them as they make progress towards racial equity.
“It's all about disruption,” said MacKinnon, who explained that “stereotypical” theatre-going audiences expected heavily policed spaces. Her company has done everything from drop balloons in the lobby to share a program outlining expectations to make others feel welcome.
“It's an ongoing process. And it feels like part of my job is to communicate that this theatre is in flux, this theatre is changing, and get ready, go along the ride. And if you ultimately can't, if it breaks you, then that's fine. But know that you're part of it.”
Hall expressed frustration at not being able to speak more at events like this panel, and as a Black woman, feeling like her experiences are the subject of the initiatives of others.
“I try to sit here and think about its 2021,” she said. “And we're still trying to figure out how to give funding to people to teach them how to be fair. When that funding needs to go to underrepresented communities, and theatres that are doing the work for their own communities."
“It feels like part of my job is to communicate that this theatre is in flux, this theatre is changing, and get ready, go along the ride.”
Hall spoke about her own work creating theatre from within a marginalized community, as opposed to alongside it.
“What I’m doing is... creating a space so my Black and brown people can come home. And they can be in a space where they're not censored. I mean, this is not a moment in time, this is a movement. This is a movement to change... I'm going to have the space ready, so that they can come to me and come home and not deal with all the nonsense.”
Melrose spoke about moving from San Francisco to Texas and trying to bring conversations about diversity to his new community. He spoke about the advent of movements like Black Lives Matter and We See You, White American Theater, and learning recently from those.
“All the movements that have started the summer that has really helped people understand, ‘Oh, I better be a part of this. I better listen to this,” he said.
“I know I need to keep changing, learning and growing and building out my analysis about the historical, what it means to heal from trauma and historical trauma, and going forward not to create any new injury.”
To conclude, Roberts asked panelists about the future of diversity and inclusion work at their organizations.
Hall spoke about wanting to further explore diversity within the Black community, including LGTBQ+ people and members of the disabled community. She also further emphasized the importance of funding: “If I am not well funded, then I can't compete with another predominantly white organization with the same amount of seats in their theatre as I have, because I can't pay my artists like they do."
Lowans spoke about how COVID taught them how adaptable theatre can be in a time of crisis.
“If we claim that we cannot pivot to speak to racial injustice, and to speak to anti-Blackness, we are being selective, because we have the ability to pivot,” they said. “White leaders need to hold other white leaders accountable so that leaders of color are not wasting their time with that extra level of accountability, because we all have so much work to do.”
Ishii spoke more about the importance of decolonization, including embracing indigenous languages in the theatre.
“I know I need to keep changing, learning and growing and building out my analysis about the historical, what it means to heal from trauma and historical trauma, and going forward not to create any new injury,” she said.
Melrose concluded with explaining how his theatre managed to hire its acting company as fulltime employees during COVID:
“That's something I just think every LORT theatre needs to ask: ‘How are you?’ How are you taking care of your actors? They're the center of the theatre."
Members can access the full recording and transcript of this panel in the member portal.
