Backlashes to black people
Theaters all across the country have a difficult time attracting audiences of color. This is a near universal issue for PWI not-for-profit theaters, regional theaters and commercial theaters alike. It is, however, NOT a problem for our nations historically Black, Native, Latine, AAPI and MENA institutions, which are able to attract beautiful brown folks for every show. There’s been lots of speculation inside of institutions about the reasons why we don’t see more BIPOC people at these PWI theaters; it could be programming, but doing a season of plays by people of color does not bring in people of color audiences; Ticket price is another possible reason, but as many theaters have discovered, making tickets cheaper doesn’t produce sweeping change in audience demographics and often you just end up accidently subsidizing your wealthy white patrons theater viewing.
If you’re a black person, you might understand another reason. Black people are often confronted in inappropriate ways by white peoples attempting to police their behavior. White people attempting to tell you how to behave, how to speak, how to use slang, how to occupy space, how to be smaller, how to make them more comfortable. This happens almost once a week to me and it’s especially prevalent in the theater world – white people will try to use the enclosure of the space of the theater to trap a black person and explain their personal rules of the space to them. If you’re a black theater person, you brush this off and you move on with your life knowing you belong in the theater just as much as anyone else. If you’re a black non-theater person, you never come back to any theater again. It’s really as simple as that. I know more than a few black friends who won’t come to the theater with me because of these experiences. We go out dancing instead – it’s much less risky.
Recently, American Repertory Theater (ART) has continued their initiative of having one performance be an all-black audience. Many theaters have been trying this out over the last few years – having black theater nights, where they promise open and welcoming environments that will hopefully change black people’s perceptions of what theater is. I think that relationships are hard to build and community takes time and effort – but I think that this is a solid thing to experiment with.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished.
In the autumn of 2021, ART experienced a backlash against their black theater nights in the form of think pieces asking if this is another form of segregation? Is this doing more harm than good? Why would black people feel uncomfortable in theaters anyway? Do they really need this special treatment? Why aren’t there white theater nights then? Are we sure this isn’t racist?
Do questions like this just make you want to give up? Quit this life in the theater and do something more welcoming, like ice fishing? I imagine you and me sitting around a hole in the ice, cold hands, warm hearts, the petty bickering behind us, at peace, happy, calm…..But darling, that is exactly what they want! They want us to be battered by fake questions, fake offense, fake slights - weighted down by these disingenuous inquiries and peevish complaining. But we shan’t. We will continue to come up with new ideas, they them out, and transform steadily forward. Our goal of an inclusive audience is not a pipe dream – and we can achieve it even if there are forces that don’t want us to.