In The Final Hours Of World Theatre Day... Less Engagement, More Marriage

Namaste good people,

PART I

On Thursday night, in the shadow of a clock that crept ever closer towards midnight, I sat in bed and heard the final strains of Happy Birthday bleed into the sweet serenade of World Theatre Day.  As the theatre has become one of the primary pulses in my life, it has been powerful for these two days of significance to me to slowly melt into one another.  Contemplating the sunset of one year of living and the dawn of another, I simultaneously pondered the concentric cycle of another year of living in the theatre.  How has theatre mattered to me in the last year?  Or perhaps more importantly, as a personal meditation, how have I mattered to it?  And what, if anything, can I give of myself in the year that beckons to make theatre matter more to others?  This piece is my simple reflection for WTD 2015.  It is about two things: (1)  The searing paucity of young people from culturally diverse groups in the theatre, (2) Changing that.

The words “audience engagement” have been swirling around us in recent years like an interminable cyclone.  We constantly ask ourselves “How do we engage our audiences?  How do we get more people to the theatre?  How do we get those who do come to keep coming back?”  A forum on Toronto theatre and audiences held a few months ago ended with the posing of a question to which I gave my personal response in a post on Facebook (I attempted to link to that here but the url did not work; if you are my FB friend, I've pasted that response into the first comment field underneath this post) Then, last Thursday, I had an experience that took the concept of “audience engagement” out of the realm of forums and committees and brought it as close to home for me as it has ever been.  It hit me hard.  For the first time in my career as a director/producer – and with a cavernous and broken heart – I cancelled show dates.  

I cancelled them because the level of racial diversity in the cast we were assembling was – to me – unacceptable.

The show itself is not cancelled but its original dates – early May of this year – are.  It has been postponed until the Fall or Winter.  The show, Emotional Creature, is a beautiful piece performed by teenaged girls that explores the reality of being an adolescent female on different parts of the globe.   We presented the Canadian Premiere last year and the diversity of the cast of thirteen was beautiful.  I believed, evidently ignorantly, that coming by that same diversity again would be effortless.  I was mistaken, and it was one of the most eye-opening and painful moments of my career thus far.  Last year, a large percentage of our cast – of all cultural backgrounds – had been students from arts high schools or involved in arts-focused programs. As school commitments made many such students unavailable this Spring, and several of the girls in the wonderfully diverse AMY Project also had overlapping rehearsals, there was suddenly a scarcity of girls of colour expressing interest.  A few of the young women who had originally been offered spots in the ensemble withdrew, citing conflicts. Days before our scheduled first rehearsal I found myself with a cast that was 90% Caucasian – a cast in which there were no girls from community-focused arts initiatives, no girls from arts programs in economically-challenged neighbourhoods, and only one from what could be considered a marginalized cultural group.  I have no issue at all working with predominantly white or all-white casts. To have gone forth with this particular show though would not only have comprised the very soul and integrity of the piece, but it would have undermined the process for the ensemble -- the power of which lies in its diversity as meant to be experienced.

I was shaken up by it.  What was going on?  Surely, arts high schools and AMY weren’t the only sources on which one could depend to find theatrically-engaged young women of colour?  How could that be, when I knew that it wasn’t true?  I had seen similar youth engage wholeheartedly at different times – in multiple workshops I had led over the years and in the work of incredible organizations, including one of our show’s sponsors who is in partnership with several such organizations.  Right now, I am an Artist Educator with the Toronto District School Board's marvellous tdsbCreates program, which engages kids from every corner of the city in inspired Drama, Dance and Spoken Word exploration in collaboration with professional artists. (Look it up.)  The audition post had gone out to SO many groups that worked with the range of youth I was seeking.  Why is it that these young people were so interested in and capable of engaging in certain settings, but seemed to be less willing to explore the theatrical realm in others?  Why had several of them seemed so excited when initially informed of the project, but then not participated when given the opportunity?

I couldn’t sleep.  I simply could not believe that we were in this position in the world’s most multicultural city. I felt like a failure -- blindsided by what was clearly my own naivete.  My career in this industry had begun with grassroots, community-engaged, activist theatre.  In my role as Producer of V-Day Toronto I’d produced 22 events with racially diverse participants and directed a dozen shows with mixed casts, all comprised of members of the community at large including many who were non-actors.  What was so different between the people I was trying to engage now and the people I was trying to engage then?

It slowly dawned on me – those had been grown women.  These were teenaged girls.  The difference between the two is, as we know, enormous.  Although my focus for this particular show was female participants, it was certainly true that the difference between boys and grown men was just as vast.  They bring to the table different degrees of maturity, formation of self-identity, autonomy in decision-making, peer influence, social consciousness, and life experience.  I began to wonder if our approach to engaging with youth as an industry – those who do not specialize in young audiences -- took these things into account.  If not, then the question that came to mind is whether we were truly involved in a relationship with youth at all.  As I turned this over in my brain, I repeatedly returned to the Disappearing Act forum and many of the comments that had been made about building our audiences.  Several people had valuable things to say.  What left my mouth hanging open, though, was that at NO point was there ANY serious talk about TYA and its importance to this discussion.  There were a few comments made about kids being bussed to see plays, all of which were rather dismissive in tone.  I shook my head.  Sadly, this was not the first time.  I have had the work I do with young people spoken of by my peers as if it is doing penance.  I’ve been saddened, and frankly confused, by the repeated lack of regard for theatre for young audiences shown by some members of the theatre community, including people I respect considerably.  It confounds me.

My work with Children's Peace Theatre for the past 8 years has made me acutely aware of the brilliance and depth of analytical thought possible by children.  I have had the good fortune to be a Resident Artist Educator at Young People’s Theatre twice, and to direct and co-direct productions there that were seen by thousands of students during their runs. I can say with a great deal of conviction that “kids being bussed in to see a play” is not an insignificant part of the audience engagement equation, nor is touring shows to schools.  If we wish to sustain, build and diversify our industry, both of these things are a HUGE part of the equation.  They are the introduction of children, many of whom do not attend theatre with their families and might not have another opportunity, to this medium that we so love.  They are the beginning of what can turn into a lifelong love for theatre – either as creators or as attendees – if that exposure is allowed to become a recurrent part of their lives and not a once-every-two-years field trip.  The 11-year-olds who saw the first show I worked on at YPT are now almost 17.  The 17-year-olds who saw the production I co-directed in 2011 will be 21 this year.  They do not stay children.  They become the very audience that we are courting.  

We cannot speak about building our audiences when we do not give these people (omit the word “young” for a moment) their due respect as audience members.  We can’t.  If we want an industry that is truly connected to the community at large, taking a long hard look at how we are engaging with youth is central to this.  We claim to want an audience that is actually comprised of the breadth of people that make up our city; if so, then the messages we are sending to underrepresented youth about our priorities -- and their worth – is paramount.  How can we say that we want diverse audiences when we don’t take seriously the one branch of our industry that brings many marginalized children and teenagers of colour into communion with theatre?  TYA deserves more than our respect.  Frankly, as relevant to this discussion, it deserves our reverence.

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PART II

To begin truly changing the face of youth involvement in theatre, we must look at some of the very real and complex impediments to it.  Often, part of the reason is cultural.  A sad and extremely challenging reality is that for many children of immigrant parents, the arts are not considered a viable career option by their families.  Many of the parents of these young people have come to Canada hoping to give their children the opportunity for an education and career that will ensure success and financial stability.  This focus, along with the ever-present reality of systemic and societal racism, makes “academic” subjects the sole trajectory.  Nothing will cause some immigrant parents a stroke faster than “I want to be an actor” or “I want to be a playwright”, and so these kids learn that these are directions you simply do not head in.  I was not permitted to take Vocal Music in Grade 9 as an Arts credit, despite the fact that singing was one of the things that I naturally gravitated to.  I was, however, allowed to join the school choir.  Letting me do that as an extracurricular activity actually made my parents more lenient and understanding than many.  I had classmates who simply were not allowed to have such “hobbies” – they were viewed as distractions from academia and little else.  

Sensitively confronting this is no small feat but if we want to change the landscape – as we insist – we must try.  We cannot use it as an excuse, especially when there is a significant piece of the puzzle that we are overlooking.  That piece is very much OUR responsibility.  When parents of colour look at the theatre industry, we must be honest about what they see.  They see show after show after show after show with white casts, telling stories about white people.  If you were a parent trying to ensure your child’s future, and 90% of the time that you saw an ad for a play, or a dance company – everyone was Caucasian – WHY in God’s name would you encourage your child to try to pursue that path???  The majority of concerned parents will eschew the idea of their child entering an industry that does not seem to want them.  As a teenager, I longed to be in the music business with all of my heart.  My parents were not into it and at the time, what I felt was a lack of support.  In retrospect, I understand that they were looking at a Canadian pop music industry that hadn’t embraced one black female singer-songwriter.  (They became very supportive later and for that I am grateful.)  The same thing happens with young people from underrepresented groups who wish to enter the theatre.  I have heard several stories from students of colour in theatre school, feeling nothing less than traumatized upon realizing that they have just committed to a program for the next 2 to 4 years of their lives in which absolutely no one else is like them, and in which all the work being done is geared to reflect the 99% who are not them.  How does that incentivize youth of colour to enter our industry, or their parents to believe that there is a place within it for their children?

Addressing this is not impossible.  To begin dismantling these fears though, we have to dismantle the systems that justify them.  ALL young people need to feel that a sustained career in the arts is possible, substantive and potentially impactful.  To make them believe that, we need more than one student of colour in a class of twenty-five.  We just DO.  That means reaching out beyond the students.  That means reaching out to families, and not the ones who are already onboard.  This means walking into the field of skeptics. This means reaching out to neighbourhoods.  Those who have felt excluded are not going to come to us.  We must go to them or that conversation is over before it has begun.  Some will say that to actively mandate more students of colour in school programs and audiences feels uncomfortable.  I will challenge anyone who says that and argue that in the most diverse city on the planet, doing anything other than that should feel uncomfortable.  

I am not talking about imposing quotas.  I am talking about reflecting Toronto.  When I walk past a theatre and see posters for its season in the windows, and the only dark-skinned face belongs to someone in the show from Africa, what is THAT?  Do we need to bring in black artists from outside Toronto in order to have them in our seasons, or are they more interesting when they are exotic imports?  Our industry does not reflect our city.  It doesn’t.  Not in administration, not on production teams and not on the stage.  And we don’t have the excuse on the stage that exists with these youth.  There are only so many shows a season, and more than enough trained, gifted artists of colour to feature considerably more than we do now.  Take a look at the photo I've included in this article, from the Michigan State University Excellence In Diversity Awards.  If we REALLY represented Toronto, every major theatre company would look like this. We are light years… light years… away.  Maybe we will never be this.  But we can certainly do far better than now.  We cannot scratch our heads as to why large chunks of the community do not embrace us when we give no indication that we actively embrace them.

So let us look at our programming as well.  People will feel more respected when their stories are part of the larger story.  Let us expand what we put on stage to include more non-Eurocentric models.  Let’s go beyond the black show in February with “for Black History month” in the blurb, as if the telling of stories about an entire race of people is relegated to 28 days a year.  Let us see more works that are culturally-specific, but also everyday stories about people who happen to be Asian or Native or South Asian or Hispanic, with race being inconsequential. Let us not fall into the trap of believing that the sole way to engage people of colour is to tell stories that are all about being black or Asian.  Tell HUMAN stories.  Whenever I read articles about how we need to engage youth of colour by producing more shows that are, say, “urban” or hiphop-centric, I cringe.  YES, produce those shows as part of a wide breadth of storytelling methods, but do not make those shows “the ones for the black youth”, as if what they can internalize and relate to is limited.  There is the risk of going too far in that direction.  Let us give to every group that with which they can identify personally, but also stress the universality of stories about people and relationships.  I REFUSE to believe that young people of colour cannot love Judith Thompson, Edward Albee, Hannah Moscovitch or Tennessee Williams.  I refuse.  They most certainly can, just as certainly as white teens can appreciate Suzan-Lori Park, August Wilson, Djanet Sears or James Baldwin.  But they have to feel that they are as welcome and relevant as any other member of those audiences.

During the time in which I have created theatre with people of all ages, outside of the “insider” theatre bubble, I have seen aching for art – hunger for it – and thirsting for acknowledgment of experiences through art. Working with members of the non-theatrical community, youth and adult, I am repeatedly captivated by the insights, skill and bravery they bring to the process of creation and the analysis of dramatic works. I have seen marginalized artists seek understanding of the role they can play in engaging their communities.  And so, we MUST endeavour to bridge the gap between them and our industry.  What I experienced with Emotional Creature is symptomatic of something greater.  There is a chasm that we are ignoring -- what you ignore grows. As we try to solicit interest in the theatre from one group of people, another group with tremendous potential for connection with us sits by the wayside.  They could be incredibly responsive, if we made more of a point of showing them how important they are and that their voices have value.  What voices they have.  Raw, powerful voices.  I have worked with kids with many years of theatre experience behind them, and kids with not a day behind them.  Almost without exception, I am impressed by the technical skill of the former group, whereas I’ve been emotionally walloped by the work of the latter.  

We are missing out.  When we do not make a concerted effort to connect with these young people, WE as artists are missing out not only on their patronage, but on what they have to teach us.  Our ties could be so much stronger.  Let us seek a deeper relationship, a lasting union built on mutual appreciation and respect for the others’ contributions.  Let us focus less on seeking engagement, and more on building a marriage.  I am inspired by the opportunity we have as an industry to foster a deeper connection between the inhabitants of our city and the work that we do.  We have too often seen “the community”, “the audience” and “the theatre community” as three distinct entities.  In reality, we are all part of the greater whole and WE must do the work to reach out and not remain self-contained.  As a dear friend of mine says, “We spend a lot of time calling each other out, and not enough time calling each other in.”  We can look at each other through new eyes.  Let us begin today to look at the youth of our city, particularly those whom we sometimes do not truly see, and enthusiastically say to them -- with eager and open hearts -- “Come in.”

-  TT