the week of july 13-17, 2020
this is a wooooorld premiere
Welcome to (the very first) Nothing for the Group, the newsletter where one dramaturg rounds up one week in theatre news, reviews, and takes.
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dispatch from last week
You may have already heard about these two things, but I didn’t have a newsletter last week and they’re worthy of your time and attention:
We See You W.A.T., a broad coalition of BIPOC theatre-makers dedicated to addressing the scope and pervasiveness of anti-Blackness, racism, and white supremacy in the American theatre, released a 29-page living document of their wide-ranging demands for change. I encourage you to take the time to read this incredible feat of labor, which addresses hiring and curatorial practices, workplace conditions, budgeting and compensation, and cultural competency across every sector of the industry: artistic and executive leadership, production, literary, marketing, development, boards and donors, academic and professional training programs, press, unions, and Broadway and commercial producers.
If you’re looking for additional context, J.R. Pierce wrote an excellent feature for American Theatre on the movement’s origins and expectations. The collective doesn’t have a designated spokesperson, but he interviewed multiple signatories of the original statement about their lived experience of structural racism, and their hopes and unapologetic demands for an anti-racist theatrical ecosystem after the pandemic.
The Kilroys released The 2020 List. This year’s list “honors and holds space for new plays which were cancelled, postponed, or closed early due to COVID-19, and were written by women, trans, and non-binary writers.”
Claire Kiechel, whose play Sophia was scheduled to premiere at the Alley Theatre this fall (and who wrote an A+ episode of Watchmen, which I finally binged two weeks ago and highly recommend), said it best:
Honestly reading #TheKilroys List makes me SO ANGRY. Not so much for my own canceled play but for the sheer number of amazing plays with amazing collaborators now lost to the void. Some will be postponed, others will never see the light of day. But hey, we still get Our Town! 👿The Kilroys honor cancelled or postponed new play productions by women, trans and non-binary writers in the American Theatre. #TheKilroys #TheList2020 https://t.co/zd46CTPkK3
The Kilroys @TheKilroys13
this week in institutional debacles: PlayPenn
Get ready, because this is a mess: The Philadelphia new play conference PlayPenn canceled their 2020 season in the wake of multiple allegations of institutional racism and sexual misconduct.
A petition calling for the firing of Artistic Director Paul Meshejian reached 750 signatures and details PlayPenn’s exploitation of Black artists in recent promotional materials:
“Earlier this summer, PlayPenn announced their season of new plays including one Black playwright. This announcement was quickly followed up with a multi-page spread featuring Black artists from previous seasons. When questioned publicly about this race-baiting during a local arts leadership meeting, Paul refused to acknowledge Black identity or offer any sort of acknowledgment beyond not having personally approved the photos.”
In a public Facebook post, 2019 conference playwright Dave Harris recounted his experience of colorblind casting for his play Incendiary. Even if you haven’t read the play, it’s easy to see how this is a bad idea — but if you have read Incendiary, you really understand why this approach is a full-on nightmare:
“I gave detailed feedback about how the staff's ask for "colorblind casting" was outmoded and impractical for work by artists of color. They retorted that we needed to objectively focus on the language and not the race of the actor. They put us in a position where we were listening to non-Black actors say and dance around saying the N word in our scripts. they told us this was in the name of supporting our work. It harmed our work.
(Actually here's the exact wording if you want to understand the level of fuckery: "It can be useful for you to put aside thoughts of appropriateness in terms of gender, age, type, etc. Believe it or not, we have found great value in hearing a play read, simply, by people who care, regardless of their acting abilities and/or appropriateness for the role – and that includes race, gender, sexuality or any other matter of personal identity.")”
In a public Facebook post, Amrita Ramanan, the director of literary development and dramaturgy at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, shared her experience as a review panelist and how PlayPenn leadership manipulated the blind submission policy and ignored the expertise and advice of the artists of color on the panel:
Though the submissions were blind, Paul and Michele selectively announced the identity of some playwrights during the panel discussion. I remember finding this problematic based on what I was told about PlayPenn’s process and spoke to it, but felt I was ignored. I realized that the identity was only announced when it worked to Paul’s benefit - mostly to uplift a writer Paul and Michele had already earmarked to include in the conference.
I also remember during that panel discussion that I and the other two self-identified people of color on the panel all lobbied strongly against Paul and Michele including a play in the conference that we felt was problematic in content. We did not feel heard in the moment and had to unpack the experience at the airport while waiting for our flights. I later found out the play was programmed without any follow-up with us.
It is also important to note that while people of color were part of the in-person panel, none of them were Black.
A playwright and former education director for PlayPenn, Sarah Mantell, said it’s an “open secret” that Victor Keen would act inappropriately with female staff.
In July 2014 she sent an email to Meshejian, writing “The problem with Victor has escalated to the point where I think we need to rethink our approach to him. I’m aware of him groping at least four of our artists and, even more upsettingly, one of our interns tonight.”
Mantell says she was harassed by Keen herself. She approached PlayPenn management with her complaint, separate from the aforementioned email, but was “dismissed.”
PlayPenn released a predictably insufficient public statement on Facebook acknowledging their failures, but offered no specific apologies or leadership resignations. (PlayPenn also severed ties with Keen and returned his latest financial gift, but cited his “conviviality and generosity” as part of the reason why his predatory behavior was allowed to slide for so long. A mess!!) There’s a lot to criticize in the statement — and folks went to town in the comments — but I’m going to focus on this paragraph:
“While the percentage of playwrights of color in any individual year’s Conference has ranged from 16% to 50% over the past several years, and while the percentage of people of color participating in the 2020 Conference comes in at more than 65%, we understand that we could do better at putting in place various practices that would lead to a more equitable participation rate.”
First of all, admitting you’ve monumentally failed artists of color as a white-led institution — and then trying to slip in a self-congratulatory acknowledgment of your past diversity stats is definitely not the move. But it’s the stated goal of “a more equitable participation rate” that encapsulates PlayPenn’s entire problem. This isn’t about participation — it’s about empowerment. It’s not enough to merely hire BIPOC artists; institutions and artistic leaders need to actually listen to them, trust in their vision and experience, and take swift decisive action in response to reported harm. New play development processes can be crucibles of extreme vulnerability. Artists deserve a safe environment for risk and discovery tailored to their individual needs — not some one-size-fits-all racist mode of collaboration where they’re expected to bare their souls while simultaneously dodging oppressive landmines from the theater’s white leadership.
WHYY reports that the board has retained a law firm to “aggressively investigate” the various allegations, but let’s be real, theatre board investigations exist to legally protect the institution, not to seek out the truth for victims. The artists and former staffers do not need to be re-traumatized, and to quote playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger, who has been digitally organizing and sharing resources as this unfolded, an investigation is “an obscene waste of funds that could go to other artistic programs and artists in our community.” PlayPenn leadership should be fired and the organization’s funding should be reallocated to a new BIPOC-led play development conference that reflects the values and needs of the Philadelphia theatre community.
virtual/online/socially distanced theatre
Edinburgh Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world, will offer online artistic programming in August. The digital initiatives include curated variety shows, crowdfunding campaigns for artists and venues, a short video platform, and an online forum for panels, showcases, workshops, and networking events.
The Donmar Warehouse will temporarily re-open this August for Blindness, an immersive sound installation exploring the panic caused by an epidemic. Simon Stephens wrote the hour-long adaptation of Portuguese author José Saramago’s novel. The work will feature the voice of Juliet Stevenson and run four times a day, with mandated mask-wearing and socially distanced seating for audiences.
Pass the Mic, a virtual theatre festival amplifying Black voices, streamed live on YouTube/Facebook on July 16th. Writers included Malika Oyetimein, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Carolyn Ratteray, Larry Powell, and Daryl Watson.
On July 18th at 8PM EST, Play-PerView will air a one-night-only Zoom reading of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning featuring the original Playwrights Horizons cast. The free tickets are sold out, but last time I checked some $5 and $15 tickets were still available.
Studio Theatre’s second Psalm Salon will take place on July 23rd at 5 PM. Emceed by DC-based director, educator, and theater-maker Psalmayene 24, this is an online gathering space to highlight the work of Black creatives and local businesses, featuring live music by DJ Nick tha 1da. This week’s guests are actor Justin Weaks, Galvanize DC founders J.J. Johnson and Jefferson A. Russell, and Jjana Valentiner, executive producer of the Making Space to Breathe/Gathering to Grieve vigil.
Is it weird to promote the work of the organization that laid me off? Probably, but these are weird times and I adore these artists. Psalm and I worked together on Studio’s production of Pass Over; he is a visionary director who leads with his tremendous heart and relentless curiosity and I’d listen to him in conversation with anything or anyone. There are few actors who can effortlessly toggle between comedy and drama, and Justin Weaks has the range: I sobbed at Omari’s hospital waiting room monologue during every run of Pipeline, and watching him try to clamber through a window in BLKS at Woolly Mammoth is one of the most hilarious, skilled acts of physical comedy I have seen in nine years of DC theatre-going.
my favorite season? awards.
The 2020 Obie Awards streamed live on YouTube on Tuesday. I always love the lawless nature of the Obies: there are no traditional categories, allowing the judges to make up their own and properly honor a season’s idiosyncratic merits.
You can see the list of winners here, but what you really want to do is read the full written citations, which are perfectly penned valentines to each recipient.
reopening watch: 2021 season updates
SHOT: Ari Roth, the AD of Mosaic Theatre — who said last month in the Washington Post that Mosaic would start in-person performances in August 2020 (lol ok) — announced in an email that, on second thought, the theatre hopes to resume live producing in early 2021.
SHOT: Arena Stage hopes to reopen on January 22, 2021 with a five play in-person season. The proposed slate includes Eduardo Machado’s Celia and Fidel, Lydia R. Diamond’s Toni Stone, August Wilson’s Seven Guitars, and two musicals: American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words, by Charles Randolph-Wright and Marcus Hummon, and Britta Johnson’s Life After.
SHOT: The Court Theatre in Chicago plans to resume performances in February 2021. The season will consist of three in-person productions — Owen McCafferty’s Titanic (Scenes From the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry, 1912), Othello, and August Wilson’s Two Trains Running — that will also be available to stream digitally to accommodate patrons who are hesitant to return to the theater.
SHOT: Playwrights Horizons announced a four play 2021 season, but wisely did not include tentative dates, because time is meaningless. The season includes Aleshea Harris’s What to Send Up When It Goes Down, Sylvia Khoury’s Selling Kabul, Sanaz Toossi’s Wish You Were Here, and Dave Harris’s Tambo & Bones, which was also announced at Center Theatre Group. Playwrights Horizons has also commissioned eleven writers for its scripted fiction podcast Soundstage.
ULTRA BLEAK CHASER: Bethesda-based marketing research firm Shugoll Research released follow-up survey results from 743 DC-area theatergoers, three months after initially polling them about their intent to return to theatres after they reopen. The results are comically grim:
Only 16% of respondents said they would consider returning to newly reopened theatres, down from 25 percent in April.
75% plan to wait a few months before returning, up from 49 percent in April.
The earliest date most theatregoers said they’d be comfortable returning is May or June 2021.
the (everyone is losing their) jobs report
Shakespeare Theatre Company laid off one-third of its full-time staff and slashed its annual budget by 44%. STC still has no proposed re-opening date, but will eventually resume in-person performances with the return of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, directed by Whitney White, which closed prematurely in March due to COVID-19.
The Chicago theatre community is “hemorrhaging jobs”. Steppenwolf laid off prominent artistic staff members, and two-thirds of their full staff is affected by furloughs or layoffs.
The Steppenwolf senior leadership team is also taking pay cuts and I wish all organizations issuing press releases about their staffing bloodbaths would be explicit about the percentage of executive salary reductions. A 10% pay cut on an annual salary of 250K is not the same sacrifice as long-term furloughing your staff carpenter who is making 42K a year.
While every other theatre in the country is gutting their artistic staff, Portland Center Stage is somehow hiring a literary manager? You love to see it. The job announcement comes two weeks after director and associate producer Chip Miller’s promotion to Associate Artistic Director.
things I read & found compelling this week
Helen Shaw’s insightful and informative theatre history lesson on the depiction of cops in the American dramatic canon, and the industry’s decades-long reluctance to grappling with policing onstage
Aeneas Sagar Hemphill on how past models of radical artistic mobilization and organizing can be a revolutionary blueprint for today’s theater workers
That’s all for this week! I’m still workshopping the ideal tone/content/formatting of this project, so we’ll figure it out together. (I would love to hear from you, even if you want to cancel me!)
If you know someone who’d like these curated ramblings in their inbox, forward it their way. Please excuse any typos or weird sentences — I Am My Own Wife/Copy Editor and I’m also an unemployed dirtbag spending most of the day agonizing over the prose in my cover letters.
Thank you so much for this, Lauren!! Brilliant.
This was very popcorn-chewing worthy content.