The Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation is expected to announce Tuesday a new residency program that will pair Minneapolis-based director Shá Cage with Los Angeles’ Cornerstone Theater Company, and Bay Area director Elizabeth Carter with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Named after the late Tony Award winner who was the first Black person to be nominated for best director, the inaugural Lloyd Richards New Futures Residencies are meant to create a leadership pathway for midcareer directors and choreographers of color. In addition to a yearlong partnership with Cornerstone and OSF, Cage and Carter each will receive a $40,000 grant and health insurance.
Richards, a five-time Tony contender whose historic nomination came in 1960 for “A Raisin in the Sun,” was a founding member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and the organization’s president from 1970 to 1980. He serves as a model of a Black artist becoming a leader in theater, said his son Scott, a composer and librettist who was part of the residency’s selection committee.
Scott Richards said his dad “became an artistic director, who became a producer, and through that position and through those skills, was actually able to really affect change, and create an environment where people like August [Wilson] were able to come up and come through.”
Through the residency, Cage will work with Cornerstone’s artistic director, Michael John Garcés, and will be embedded in the theater’s development process, which involves creating works in partnership with communities underserved by the performing arts. Carter will be mentored by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Nataki Garrett, joining the organization’s leadership as a lead artist on its digital platform and helping to plan its return to live, in-person performances.
The spark for the residency began more than five years ago when the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, a labor union formed more than 60 years ago, began hearing stories from members about the challenges of sustaining a career as a director or choreographer.
In 2019 the union, in partnership with its charitable arm, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation, launched a two-year, three-phase survey focused on members’ career trajectories, income sources, the impact of COVID-19 and the racial reckoning within the arts. After surveying 683 members during the first phase of the survey and 791 during the second phase, the organization found that midcareer directors and choreographers — defined as those with 15 to 30 years of experience — lacked the financial security and creative opportunities they needed to stay in the field.
According to the midcareer artists surveyed, only 17% of their income comes from practicing their craft. Further analysis showed midcareer women and midcareer artists of color were rarely given access to high-profile projects. And artists of color were almost twice as likely not to have health insurance.
