40 Black playwrights on the theater industry’s insidious racism

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Radha Blank's 'Forty-Year-Old Version' on Netflix highlights racism in the theater industry. We asked 40 Black theatermakers for their stories.

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Jackie Sibblies Drury and Jeremy O. Harris lead a new era of theater demanding that audiences confront the truths in front of them.When you’re a POC playwright, theaters will blame it on so many things — their company members, their subscribers, timing — because rarely are they willing to take a chance on your work and on you.

[The idea that] white stories always come first is ingrained in our culture, our society and our systems, and it’s wrong. I want other stories to have priority, to have the chance to truly shine. Not only are we not a monolith, but the play selection process as a whole needs to change. Theaters need to examine who is doing the reading, who is saying “yes” and “no” at all levels. Having one Black play in a season is not enough. And Black plays are no riskier to produce than white plays.I was part of a collaboration between theaters in California and France.

The theater world fancies itself as very liberal, but there are ways in which it replicates the very things it seems to disdain in our current administration. Your theater can’t simply say “Black Lives Matter.” You need to actually care about the Black lives in this industry.I was cast as the primary love interest in a production of a play that was considered a “forgotten gem.” This play was racist; it’s a slave to the time in which it was written.

He then suggested titles that felt like blaxploitation episodes like “Things Your Man Won’t Do” that really speak down to the African American audience. Up until that point, I had seemed quiet and agreeable and happy to be paraded with him from introduction to introduction in theater lobbies. When he asked me to share my ideas and career visions, his demeanor chilled and the outings ceased. During my exit interview, his advice for my career was flat: “I don’t know. Theater is finicky.”

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You want peoples respect you’ll have to earn it, not demand it. It may be the liberal way but not the conservative way

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Cultural appropriation

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Disgusting. You know whats not racist? My spicy feet~

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JordinSparks 'Insidious racism' towards WHITE people from the useless 'BLM' & self-loathing White hippy Marxist Antifa mobs.

Wow, I didn’t know there were so many black playwrights out there. It may have been a struggle for them, but I’m glad their voices and perspectives are here for everyone to see.

Well that's a damn depressing read! Kudos for these artist's strength and perseverance.

Is this the only way they can get work? Maybe write better plays.

Racism is appalling in EVERY ASPECT OF AMERICAN LIFE! Look at Hollywood. Hiring practices are like a plantation!

If you could please retweet.

Cinema has always been aimed towards whites people. History shows movies with white people playing every minority conceivable. We hijack music, dance, arts, ideas. Enough.

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“a certain kind of piece that caters to the “white with silver hair” patron” true

JoaquinCastrotx Hard to believe there is insidious racism in the theater if there are 40 playwrights in this article.

JoaquinCastrotx Must read

Oh look at the ppl in the replies wanting to deny these playwrights their stories and reality

You can give a black all the fortune and fame in the world and they’d still bitch.

point out racism is good and all but first they have to pay wages worth being a playwright across the board so that I dont see a strike every 2 years like clockwork

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Absolutely it’s there.

Such BULLSHIT!

Hollywood is totally racist. This why there are no blacks in Hollywood. I mean, when’s the last time any of us turned on the tv and saw a black person?

Those darn racist conservatives have took over the theaters too? I thought those were liberal bastions of freeedom, love and whatnot?

Racism everywhere is some big business.

With Netflix’s “Forty-Year-Old Version” now streaming, we invited 40+ Black people who work in theater to share their own experiences with racism — sometimes subtle, other times blatantly cruel

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