Dear White American Theater,
We come together as a community of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
(BIPOC) theatermakers, in the legacy of August Wilson’s “The Ground on Which I Stand,” to let you know exactly what ground we stand on in the wake of our nation’s civic unrest.
We see you. We have always seen you. We have watched you pretend not to see us.
We have watched you un-challenge your white privilege, inviting us to traffic in the very racism and patriarchy that festers in our bodies, while we protest against it on your stages. We see you.
We have watched you program play after play, written, directed, cast, choreographed, designed, acted, dramaturged, and produced by your rosters of white theatermakers for white audiences, while relegating a token, if any, slot for a BIPOC play. We see you.
We have watched you amplify our voices when we are heralded by the press, but refuse to defend our aesthetic when we are not, allowing our livelihoods to be destroyed by a monolithic and racist critical culture. We see you.
We have watched you inadequately compare us to each other, allowing the failure of entire productions to be attributed to decisions you forced upon us for the comfort of your theater’s white patrons. Meanwhile, you continue to deprioritize the broadening of your audiences by building NO relationship with our communities. We see you.
We have watched you harm your BIPOC staff members, asking us to do your emotional labor by writing your Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion statements. When we demanded you live up to your own creeds, you cowered behind old racist laments of feeling threatened, and then discarded us along with the values you claim to uphold. We see you.
We have watched you discredit the contributions of BIPOC theatres, only to co-opt and annex our work, our scholars, our talent, and our funding. We see you.
We have watched you turn a blind eye as unions refuse to confront their racism and integrate their ranks, muting the authenticity of our culture and only reserving space for us to shine out front on your stages but never behind them. We see you.
We have watched you dangle opportunities like carrots before emerging BIPOC artists, using the power of development, production, and awards to quiet us into obedience at the expense of our art and integrity. We see you.
We have watched you use our BIPOC faces on your brochures, asking us to politely shuffle at your galas, talkbacks, panels, board meetings, and donor dinners, in rooms full of white faces, without being willing to defend the sanctity of our bodies beyond the stages you make us jump through hoops to be considered for. We see you.
We have watched you hustle for local, federal, foundation and private funding on our backs, only to redirect the funds into general operating accounts to cover your deficits from years of fiscal mismanagement. We see you.
We have watched you hire the first BIPOC artists in executive leadership, only to undermine our innovations and vision of creating equitable institutions, by suffocating our efforts with your fear, inadequacy, and mediocrity. We see you.
We have watched you attend one “undoing racism workshop,” espousing to funders you are doing the work, without any changes to your programming or leadership. You’ve been unwilling to even say the words “anti-racism” to your boards out of fear of them divesting from your institutions, prioritizing their privilege over our safety. We see you.
We have watched you promote anti-Blackness again and again. We see you.
We have watched you say things like, “I may be white, but I’m a woman.” Or, “I may be white, but I’m gay.” As if oppression isn’t multi-layered. We see you.
We have watched you exploit us, shame us, diminish us, and exclude us. We see you.
We have always seen you. And now you will see us. We stand on this ground as BIPOC theatermakers, multi-generational, at varied stages in our careers, but fiercely in love with the Theater. Too much to continue it under abuse. We will wrap the least privileged among us in protection, and fearlessly share our many truths. About theatres, executive leaders, critics, casting directors, agents, unions, commercial producers, universities, and training programs. You are all a part of this house of cards built on white fragility and supremacy. And this is a house that will not stand.
This ends TODAY.
We are about to introduce you… to yourself.
Signed,
From top (among the initial 341 “Dear White American Theater” statement signatories): Cynthia Erivo in 2015 in the original Broadway production of Marsha Norman, Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray’s The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker, photograph by Jemal Countess; Condola Rashad in the 2018 revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, photograph by Caitlin Ochs; Lilias White, photograph by Kevin Mazur; Suzan-Lori Parks, photograph by Melodie Jeng; Lynn Nottage, photograph by Jesse Dittmar; Sanaa Lathan in the title role of the Second Stage Theatre’s 2011 production of Nottage’s By the Way, Meet Vera Stark; Anika Noni Rose in the 2018 revival of Oscar Hammerstein II’s Carmen Jones, music by Georges Bizet; Viola Davis in the 2010 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s Fences. Text courtesy and © The Ground We Stand On.
