BWW Exclusive: Playwright Gregory S. Carr Pens Manifesto for the BIPOC Theatre- 'I Am Not August Wilson'
By: Gregory S. Carr Jun. 10, 2020
As BroadwayWorld previously reported, our team is committed to to being a substantial part of a collective industry-wide effort to help address racism and white supremacy in the theatre in as many ways as possible; including a number of specific steps of action that we are already at work to implement.
If you are a Black artist or an artist of color and would like to share your stories, your work, and your experiences, or to recommend someone else that we should get in touch with for one of our initiatives, please feel free to email us at contact@broadwayworld.com.
Below, read a piece from playwright Gregory S. Carr. He writes:
I Am Not August Wilson: A Manifesto for the BIPOC Theatre
First and foremost, I want you to understand just one thing: I am not August Wilson. I am not the child prodigy who could read at an early age. I am not the scholarly teenager who was racially bullied at a prestigious Catholic high school and told by his black teacher that he plagiarized a paper about Napoleon Bonaparte. I am not the co-founder of Black Horizon's Theatre during the height during the Black Power Movement. I am not the chain-smoking pithy poet of the Black Arts Movement. I am not the writer of Black Bart and the Sacred Hills at the Penumbra Theatre. I am not author of the Pittsburgh-Cycle of Plays, ten successful plays dealing with the African American experience in every decade of the 20th century. I am not the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. I am not the winner of several New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards. I am not the winner of Drama Desk awards. I am not the winner of a Tony award. I am not the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
So, you could imagine the shock that I had when a colleague of mine named Desiree tried to submit my play for a reader's series at the Arena Stage back in 2005 to a predominantly white staff for consideration. Now mind you, when she couldn't get my play read, she let me know that she tried to champion a script by theatre legend Paul Carter Harrison, and had been scouting plays for years at the famed National Black Theater Festival while being the only black member of Arena's senior staff. Not one of the plays she presented to the artistic team was ever considered for production, including Festival hits such as George Washington's Boy by Ted Lange, Knock Me A Kiss by Charles Smith and Black Angels Over Tuskegee by Layon Gray. After presenting my play Mogadishu Lost, (which she had seen at the National Black Theatre Festival) to the white staff, one of her white female colleagues asked, "Is it like an August Wilson play? Does it read like an August Wilson play? That's what regional theatres are looking for --- the next August Wilson."
This feeds into the fallacy that you can have more than one Eugene O'Neill, that you can have more than one Arthur Miller, and that you can have more than one Tennessee Williams, but there can only be one black playwright prototype, August Wilson. Even Wilson, in his seminal stand against the ghettoization of black theatre in the "Ground on Which I Stand", decried the marginalization of black artists in the theatre. He dared to attack the sacred cow of "non-traditional" and "colorblind casting" as a means of white theatres of absolving themselves of developing new black works for the theatre to tell new stories. Wilson was self-aware of the fact that he had become the "black playwright poster boy" for white liberals and decided to push back against the white theatre power structure from pigeonholing him. What was his reward for daring to speak up against his slave masters? The white establishment thought that Wilson was Stephen and then he turned out to be Django. I can imagine a chorus of "how ungrateful he is" for taking those good white folks' money echoed. Now here he was railing against them. In fact, after his now infamous "The Ground on Which I Stand" debate with theatre critic Robert Brustein about race and theatre, Brustein accused Wilson of being a racist. Brustein accused Wilson of "segregating" theatre and being a racist for simply advocating for what W.E.B. DuBois had advocated nearly a century before him: a theatre for us, about us, near us and by us.
And that's where we are today. Many white theatres clutching their artistic pearls and wring their theatrical hands as to what should be done "now". I've seen some of the social media campaigns and they are somewhat condescending. Suddenly, theatres are acknowledging that there is racial inequity in the theatre and want to "reach" out to artists of color? All at once, the establishment wants to listen to black people's marginalized stories after ignoring people of color's requests for dialogue all this time? If Black Lives Matter, why is there such an urgent push to engage in dialogue about how we can improve race relations? However, this time, it's not that simple.
For years, we have been begging, pleading, and cajoling theatres to see us. For years we have endured rejection letter after rejection letter without explanation. For years we have watched mediocre white plays on Broadway receive readings, showcases, run-off Broadway, get regional theatre productions, Broadway productions, and garner Tonys every June. Well, that day is over. There has been a paradigm shift in the theatrical universe on a cataclysmic level. We are no longer politely asking for permission for you to hear us (passive), we are demanding that you listen to us (active). As change is happening in the streets, that change will eventually is going to wend its way to the doorsteps of the Great White Way. To codify my complaint, here are five items for a progressive agenda going forth:
Writers of color have been marginalized on Broadway for over 100 years. Stop patronizing and infantilizing writers of color. Validate our stories on a regular basis, not just when it's feasible for your theatre, when it's comfortable for your theatre staff, or comfortable for your audiences. Take chances on shows that feature stories about people of color and their desire to live out the American Dream. We've been producing A Raisin in the Sun for 60 years, but many of the racialized issues Hansberry addressed in her play unfortunately still exist today and may be worse. If a black play fails, let it fail the same way white plays fail. Don't pronounce a death sentence on all new works by people of color because one didn't succeed. For example, stories about social change from a black perspective have been around for many years but may have been flatly ignored for fear of alienating a predominantly white audience. On the other hand, shows like The Scottsboro Boys and Clybourne Park appear to feature stories about the black struggle but are thinly disguised statements of white writers making commentary on black lives. Both shows feature racial stereotypes and racial tropes, including a full-fledged minstrel show in the former and a barrage of racists jokes in the latter. And another thing; stop using our work as cover for your financial shortfalls. Stop rolling out A Raisin in the Sun or The Wiz to bring black people out and make up some of the money you lost. It looks like slavery and exploitation warmed over in a cauldron of indifference.
Stop using your liberal leanings to masquerade your racism. Hiding behind these masks allow you to feel vindicated and gives you the opportunity to avoid dealing with your own implicit bias and prejudice. Nobody cares if your girlfriend/wife/significant other is a person of color so you can't be racist. Yes, you can. You can be a racist in an interracial relationship, which then can influence how you perceive artists of color. Teaching and mentoring black theatre students does not give you an instant pass to the cookout. I have been in the presence of more than enough liberal/progressive/woke types to hear racial epithets hurled around that you thought that you were at a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. It's never acceptable for you to use the word "nigger" (notice, I don't believe in the euphemistic "N-Word") or any other racial slurs in the presence of people of color. The St. Louis Municipal Theatre, known affectionately as "The Muny" performed selections from Jerome Robbins Broadway. During the King and I numbers, several members of the Theatre Communication Group protested the portrayal of a white actress doing "yellowface" by performing in traditional Thai costume and several stereotypical "redface" performances of Indigenous peoples. If this were 1968, we might roll our collective eyes and see this as holding on to the racist Broadway past; however, this production took place in 2018, so there's no excuse for someone not to have considered the ramifications of this tone deaf performance. Don't pat yourself on your liberal back and continue this kind of insensitive behavior. It's not going to fly anymore. We have woken up to a more global reality these days and people of color have had enough of these shenanigans.
Put your money where your mouth is. I attempted to write an article for American Theatre Magazine a few years back about the racial divide and how we should try to level the playing field, but they vehemently shot that idea down. They stated that they were "tired of talking about race." I truly thought that addressing racism in the theatre would be a valid topic, but I thought wrong. Many well-meaning producers and artistic directors make people of color promises of reading their work, workshops, and staged readings. If you have the resources to legitimately accomplish this task, then do so. Telling a person of color that you are "interested" in producing their work without a comprehensive plan of follow up is not only irresponsible, but it's cruel. Don't make promises you can't keep and be honest about your limitations. You will save everyone a great deal of time and alleviate unnecessary heartaches and heartbreaks.
If you come to our community, don't try to co-opt our culture. Cultural appropriation is not a new concept in theatre. The Gershwins did it with Porgy and Bess and we have been reeling ever since. Learn how to listen without having to give an answer for culture that doesn't belong to you. Be it black, indigenous, or other people of color, don't make assumptions for claim to be an authority. Regardless of how "woke" you are, what diverse group you went to college with, or what cultural studies classes you took, learn how to take a back seat and learn. We need to address the reason why we have arrived at this moment; unchecked systemic racism. We need to reflect on why in 2020 that artists are still struggling with the issue of color in the 21st century. We need to study historical trends such as the white Park Theatre's wholesale attack on the African Grove Theatre, replete with an assist from the New York Police department. It might be humbling for you or maybe even unsettling, but maybe we'll make some progress if you use your privilege in more productive ways than always having to implement a kinder, gentler form of white supremacy.
Learn to recognize and reign in your own microaggressions. Trigger phrases such as "colorblind casting", "non-traditional casting", and "nondescript characters" need to be thrown out. When you self-righteously claim, "I'm colorblind", you are insulting people of color at the most visceral level. What you may be saying is "I'm not prejudiced", but people of color hear is "You don't appreciate me for who I am." One thing for sure, I don't have a colorblind problem because every day when I wake and look in the mirror, I see a black man. The entire "non-traditional casting" farce could be dealt with by actively seeking out stories about people of color from every walk of life. The black community is in no way monolithic and many other communities of color aren't monolithic either. Telling an actor to be "nondescript" as a character is telling them to deny who they are. White artists can develop musicals and plays with people of color, but they need to spend an inordinate amount of time in that community. You need to have people of color as consultants to bring authenticity to a story that's outside your culture. The late Michael Bennett nearly had the cast of Dreamgirls walk out on the show on opening night because he didn't want to listen to and include his black actors on the creative development side of a show about Motown that was quite literally about their own lives. You have to do better.
As I said again, I am not August Wilson. I don't have his accolades. I don't have his props. I don't have his swagger. I definitely don't have a theatre named after me. But one thing I do have is a story. My own, distinct, unique, one-of-a-kind, authentic story. And I'm not the only one. There are many talented writers, directors, actors, producers, lighting directors, stage managers and set designers of color out there waiting for an opportunity. We don't need a pandemic or a civil unrest to bring this to our attention, but obviously it has. Let's seize this moment not for a short-term fix, but for a long-term structure. If you want to help us, we are willing, ready, and able to work with you, but we are no longer going to beg you. I am ready, if you are.
Gregory S. Carr, is an instructor of Speech and Theatre at Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis, Missouri. His plays include: Lunch Rush (Lamb's Theatre), Johnnie Taylor Is Gone, A Colored Funeral, (Karamu House and Cleveland Playhouse) Stormy Monday, (Soundstage Theatre), Mogadishu Lost, Tinderbox, and Live from Ferguson! (Emerson Performance Center). Follow him on Instagram (@iamyourgriot) and Twitter (@blackeagle1913) or visit https://bentonbarracks.wordpress.com/.
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