A Casting Controversy Tangled Up in ‘Blood Knot’
American Players Theatre’s production of Athol Fugard’s play about mixed-race brothers has raised thorny questions about representation.
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
This monthly column is designed to feature voices and issues that are underrepresented in the American theatre. Please send ideas and tips to Associate Editor Diep Tran at dtran@tcg.org.
Talking Back: A Protest of Yellowface at the Muny
Last week a group of theatre artists disrupted a show that included racist elements. Was their message heard?
Yes, Lighting Design Has a Diversity Problem
Their instruments can evoke every color of the rainbow, but the designers are still overwhelmingly white and male.
How 4 Gender-Nonconforming Youth Made Their Stage Debut
My play ‘The Mermaid Hour’ asks theatres to cast only trans or gender-nonconforming performers in the lead role. Here’s how they, and the teens, rose to the occasion.
Fish in Water: How White Playwrights Unpack Whiteness
Do a crop of inward-looking new plays about white privilege represent a step forward, or are they an expression of privilege in themselves?
How To Be an Artist in a World That Hates You
If you can find a calling that gives you peace, you owe it to yourself to follow it, no matter what stands in your way.
Kiss Me, My Fair Carousel Woman: Now Is the Season of Our Discontent
Is this really the right time for a spate of male-authored, male-directed musicals about subservient women to come to Broadway?
The Diversity of ‘Anne Frank’
Grappling with complex issues of representation, a multiethnic People’s Light staging offers a version for our fraught times.
Gay Theatre Gets Hammered by the Canon, Again
The NY Times’ recent ‘Brief History of Gay Theatre’ was not so brief. So how did it manage to leave out so much gay history that wasn’t white and male?
Will Theatre Leadership Remain White and Male? I Hope I’m Wrong
I and others like me could lead our field to greater equity and inclusion, if we’re given the chance—and if we even want it.