An all-star team of black theater artists has formed a new coalition vowing to combat racism in the theater community.
Black Theater United counts among its founding members the Tony Award winners Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, Phylicia Rashad, LaChanze, Kenny Leon, Adriane Lenox and Lillias White.
The group, whose founders also include the actors Wendell Pierce, Vanessa Williams, Norm Lewis and Brandon Victor Dixon, said it had formed a nonprofit that would seek “to influence widespread reform and combat systemic racism within the theater industry and throughout the nation.”
Among its plans: working for social change by pressing for greater participation by hard-to-count communities in the census, and reviewing theater industry practices and assisting black theater artists.
The effort is one of several prompted by a wave of national unrest over racial injustice that has followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.
Another group of prominent black theater artists last week issued a “Dear White American Theater” letter decrying racism in the industry.
The groups differ in their approach.
The “Dear White American Theater” collective introduced itself with a blistering critique of the theater industry, which it called “this house of cards built on white fragility and supremacy,” and then said it plans to turn to next steps.
“We are currently collecting data, testimonials and statistics, which will be incorporated into a comprehensive list of demands calling upon white institutions to examine, change and dismantle their harmful and racist practices,” the collective said in a press statement.
Black Theater United began by specifying actions it intends to take, including supporting existing efforts to bolster census participation and developing new mentorship programs for aspiring young black theater artists. The group said it will next “constitute an inquiry committee to accurately assess past practices and policies within the theater.”
There are several other efforts underway to call out and challenge racism in theater, and to champion black artists. Because the nation is still in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, many of the efforts are online.
The Broadway Advocacy Coalition, formed in 2016, last week held three online sessions to discuss racism, and then invited nonblack members of the theater community to sign a “public accountability pledge.”
The organization Broadway Black has created a new awards ceremony, the Antonyo Awards, to honor black artists working on Broadway and Off Broadway; the ceremony is to be held on Friday, which is Juneteenth, a holiday that celebrates the day the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Texas.
The intensifying national focus on race and racism have also prompted online panels discussing race in theater, and streaming productions of plays that deal with race.
Much of the conversation is taking place on social media. Black artists are sharing personal experiences of racism in theater (some under the hashtag #TheaterInColor); some white women theater artists with large followings invited black women theater artists to take over their social media accounts for a day (mirroring a similar campaign in other sectors of society).
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