In the current time, the subtleties of white supremacy are being exposed like cockroaches under a refrigerator. Everyone is learning that many of the systems with which the country was founded were invented to oppress minorities, specifically the black minority. These discoveries aren’t stopping at the top, however, white supremacy plagues every single institution. From the executive branch to the community theater around the corner, voices that were once silenced are speaking up about countless injustices. Artists everywhere are speaking up against white supremacist practices–some subtle and some not so subtle– present in many beloved theater companies. Some, like PlayPenn in Philadelphia, have received national attention, and a change in leadership was necessary.

To read American Theatre’s exploration of what went wrong at Philadelphia’s PlayPenn, click here.

But what comes next? We can expose individual companies and artists until the cows come home, but how do we work to build an anti-racist community. 

To better understand the question, I decided to start investigating these problems closer to their origins: college. From the moment that Black students step into an academic institution, we’re told that we are the “other.” We rarely see people that look like us, so we have no one to look up to.

I spoke with Lindsay Smiling (actor, director, and teacher) about the phenomenon. “I didn’t have any black professors at Temple University,” he said, “there was one on the faculty then, and I think she still works there, but I never had her.” It wasn’t until Smiling started working professionally that he had anything close to a mentor. Educators and counselors are vital to a young artist’s development because they offer much-needed guidance in a turbulent field. Unfortunately, as humans, we naturally gravitate towards people that remind us ourselves. Therefore, without a sufficient number of black educators, black students are left behind, yearning for assistance. Even the most socially conscious instructors can fall victim to their implicit bias.

Then, when we start studying the literature, we’re constantly bombarded with the false truth that “whiteness is the standard.” In Theatre History, we learn about the Greeks and the Elizabethans and the Russians. When we work with scenes, we analyze Ibsen, Simon, O’Neill, Chekhov, and many other old, white men. Once in a blue moon, we’ll read about August Wilson, but this seemingly inclusive practice only works to “other” works by black artists.

Brett Robinson (actor, creator, and teacher) spoke about her experiences at theatre school: “When I was in college, we did one black show a year, and there was the ‘black scene’ that everyone did.” This practice is damaging in many ways. It forces black students to portray and analyze characters that were explicitly written for people that were nothing like them by people who are nothing like them, effectively teaching these students that their own experiences aren’t worthy compared to those of white artists.

Also, minimizing the very illustrious canon of black works in favor of the same F​ences scene or ​For Colored Girls​ monologue reinforces a monolithic definition of “blackness.” What about the people who don’t fit into those tropes? This generalized view creates an identity crisis present in young black artists that don’t fit into the marketable image of a “black actor.” There are black singers who don’t belt or riff. There are black actors who don’t come from “the hood.” “I grew up in the suburbs,” Smiling said, “and I always felt like my identity didn’t match what people wanted me to be as an artist.” By continuing to enforce the white canon as the standard, we are not only telling black students that their experiences are less valid than their white peers, we are also pigeonholing them into a prescribed image of “blackness.”

When we make the move into the professional world, the oppression evolves. My interviewees described the people with which they’ve worked as “well-intentioned.” On the surface, the Philadelphia theatre community, like many others, is working toward better representation. There are shows with black actors, some with black characters, and even some with black directors. Ironically, this inclusion actually works to keep up the myth of inclusion. It’s what happens behind the closed doors of rehearsal spaces that reveals the truth.

As Black artists enter these predominately white spaces that preach inclusion, they are often met with pushback the moment they try to radicalize their art.  “There were a lot of conversations that I had to force,” Smiling said. “There was a lot of pushback with a smile on his [the director] face.” The director would say that his ideas were good intellectually, but not practically. All he kept hearing was: “we don’t want to make people uncomfortable.” This is a prime example of the myth of inclusion. You can cast a show with black actors. You can talk about having “tough conversations.” All of it means nothing if you are still catering to a white audience and treat their comfort as if it is more valuable than the voices of your black collaborators.

It means nothing if you are still catering to a white audience and treat their comfort as if it is more valuable than the voices of your black collaborators.

Your inclusion is also a myth if your rehearsal room proves unsafe or emotionally draining to your black actors. Ang Bey, actor and co-artistic director of Shoebox Theatre Collective and Wings of Paper Theatre, shared their rehearsal room experience as one of two black people involved in the creation of what was meant to be a radical piece.  “I often thought I was speaking for the entirety of black people. It was really hard. I had to act as a pseudo dramaturg and explain things that were not relevant to what’s on the page.” A lot of white artists in positions of power don’t understand the depth of what they expect of black artists. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn. In fact, that’s the only way we can grow. However, when you’re cornering your actors into conversations where they’re the minority and are expected to explain such complicated concepts, you’re subjecting them to further emotional labor to which they did not consent. You can’t preach inclusion while simultaneously creating an unhealthy environment for your black actors.

A lot of these “well-intentioned” people are also wiped out by implicit bias: the bias that creates a culture that privileges whiteness as a standard by which all things are upheld. “Theatre is inherently racist. Some bodies and races and ways that people speak and act are privileged over others,” Robinson said. The white supremacist canon of academia evolves in the professional theatre world. James Ijames (playwright, director, and actor and co-artistic director of the Wilma Theater) opened my eyes to how the colonized canon further promotes white supremacy in theater seasons.

Ijames spoke about the scene when he first arrived in Philadelphia. He mentions that everyone was using slogans like “equal opportunity” and “everyone’s the same.” These slogans are meant to foster an equitable environment, but in practice, they distance the conversation from the realities of oppression. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is season selection, a process rooted in implicit bias. Some certain plays and musicals are regarded as the blueprint for what “good” work is. When companies continue to focus on shows like that, they are setting a precedent for what the theater values. That precedent also negates any merit in the choice to include a “black show.” Ijames said, “If you have that as the foundation of what you think great art is, everything you choose is going to be inside of that lens and everything outside of that lens is structurally an outlier in your aesthetic and people (the audience, the staff, the actors) will interact with it as an outlier.” From this comes the famed ‘Black History Month’ slot: a section in a theater’s season reserved for a black show. That show infamously receives the least funding, the least rehearsal time, and brings in the least amount of patrons. All of this just further illustrates how theaters don’t provide the space or resources for black creatives.

Great. So we’ve identified a litany of problems. Now what? How can we move forward?

The name of the game is change. We have to reinforce that “change” isn’t a bad word.

Why is it that companies are reluctant to change? How can these people who claim to seek equality see the struggles experienced by black artists and do nothing? Smiling described a kind of trap that can lull people into a state of complacency. In working with directors that were resistant to change, Smiling noticed that for the most part, the leaders were thinking that change needed to happen on higher levels to be effective. We ​all​ have a part to play in the coming transformation. Change needs to happen on every single level to truly be effective.

The change that needs to happen is radical. “What I’m hungry for is great leaps of radical imagination…how theatre is operated, how housing works, how we relate as human beings,” Smiling said. This sentiment was shared by almost all of my interviewees. It is time for a grand upheaval of how things have always been done. All systems, both tangible and invisible, need to be drastically reevaluated. Changing these cemented structures is going to prove difficult because as the adage says, but we can’t think of it as possible. There are a few systems that my interviewees highlighted that need to be greatly upheaved.

As the co-artistic director of two collectives, Bey believes that the typical theatrical hierarchical structure fosters oppression. When everyone is on the same page with the same amount of decision-making power, it’s virtually impossible to ignore or silence someone else’s concerns. The typical subscriber model contributes to that oppression, as well. The current model places the power to influence a theater’s creative choices in the hands of the higher classes and places their opinions over the opinions of the majority of the community. It’s no surprise that these subscribers are typically white and over a certain age. When any one group has the power to sway the choices made by a company, the company will naturally cater to that specific group over others. “Of course you’re going to put on white supremacist shows if your subscribers are white supremacists or at least are raised to think that this is the only way,” Bey said. Theatre companies can never hope to change if they depend on their subscribers to stay afloat because we can’t wait until the general public tackles their own implicit bias.

Change is an action verb. “These are problems that require continual work,” Smiling said, “Being anti-racist is a muscle that you have to continue to work or else it gets weak.” Humanity tends to “fix” a problem and put it away to never think about it again. That’s not going to work here. We need to be consistently working, consistently having difficult conversations, consistently reevaluating our systems. Mariah Ghant, Artistic Assistant at the Arden Theatre Company, cannot stress the importance of communication enough. “We have to continue to have conversations with the people in charge even though it’s uncomfortable and hard.” We can’t be afraid of discomfort. Revolution is messy but necessary.

“What I’m hungry for is great leaps of radical imagination…how theatre is operated, how housing works, how we relate as human beings.”

Lindsay Smiling

Employing figureheads is not change. In the current moment, there has been a huge demand for a change of leadership, but you can’t just put a black person in charge and expect things to change. “We’re not magicians. We can’t wave a wand and systemic racism is gone,” Ijames said. What black leaders need is support in their endeavors. If the Board hires a black or BIPOC leader to run its organization, it then needs to supply the financial support and knowledge to make sure that they’re successful in the new roles. We can’t make it so we bring in a black person to steer a sinking ship just so we can point and laugh when the ship sinks, especially when the system itself is broken. “We can’t just replace people in a white supremacist system, because it corrupts,” Robinson said. “It’s not fair to POC to assume that they can magically change things.” We need to work to change the entire system because a black person’s existence will not singlehandedly abolish systemic racism.

This change is not only relevant to the insides of these institutions. We need to change the culture that surrounds the entire building, especially in how it relates to the audience. Theatre is meant to be a reflection of our community and society, but what does it mean if the majority of the community doesn’t feel welcomed into the theater? There are a lot of invisible rules that govern how one attends the theater, and these rules work to keep out specific kinds of people. Ijames voiced his frustration with this phenomenon. “I think we need to find ways to make audiences feel welcomed and capable inside our institutions. We want to bring high schoolers into the theater, but we want them to behave a certain way. We’re reaching out to black radio stations because we’re doing a black by a black writer, but we still have patrons in our community who will shush those people if they laugh too loud. What do we do to establish the culture, so we can feel like we can watch and feel safe from being policed?” We say that we want theatre to reflect the community and aim to appeal to more diverse audiences, but the change relies on these patrons that we’re trying to make sure feel like they belong and aren’t outliers in the aesthetic of the theater. 

Looking Towards the Future

So, what is all of this change for? What will this post-revolution world be? I asked my interviewees what their ideal artistic community looks like:

Theatre as more than entertainment. Theatre as revolution where people are going to be transformed. – Brett Robinson

A place that serves the community. Represents the community. -Lindsay Smiling

Inclusive and equitable. -James Ijames

I’d love to see it all be free. Have theatre funded by the government or the city. -Lindsay Smiling

No scarcity. Shared resources. We need to stop believing that our art is only valuable when it’s commodified. – Brett Robinson

Rigorous in thought. Perpetual Self-Examination. – James Ijames

I owe so much of my artistic development to the Philadelphia theatre community. It was there where I started to finally come into my own as an artist. I owe thanks to spaces like the Wilma and the Arden and Simpatico for giving me the space to challenge myself and grow. I would hate to see these spaces cease to be able to create. That’s why I’m so focused on these next steps – because I want the Philadelphia theatre scene to grow with the times rather than dying stagnant.

Thankfully, this moment gave birth to the Black Theatre Alliance of Philadelphia (BTAP), of which Smiling and Bey are founding members. “We are there to be that motherland for black artists that encounter racism on a daily basis,” Bey said. “We are there to be a sounding board for larger publications if anything is to stir up.” BTAP is currently using its platform to highlight the work of black theatre artists and provide microgrants to those who have been left unemployed by COVID-19. From here, the coalition can only grow, and  I’m very excited to watch it do just that. Let’s take steps into the future together.

To learn more about the Black Theatre Alliance of Philadelphia and to support their work, click here.

To learn more about The Civilians and to access exclusive discounts to shows, visit our website TheCivilians.org.