No, really, we must start thinking about diversity!

I feel like I've been going on forever about how white populations are precipitously heading toward the minority in the Bay Area, since I saw this presentation from the San Francisco Foundation that said, well, that white populations would in fact be the minority in all five Bay Area counties SFF serves by 2050. In fact, there will be no majority population much more quickly than that, and certain counties like Contra Costa and Alameda will reach a Hispanic majority within the next 20 years.

And now here's this New York Times story by Sam Roberts that essentially outlines the same projections for the entire country, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Depending on whether immigration continues at the same level as it has been or continues at a slower pace (those are really the two options), whites will be in the minority nationally between 2040 and 2050.

Why is this important? It is faulty logic to think that an arts infrastructure that creates work for and relies primarily on the attendance of white audiences will be able to sustain itself when projections are showing 20-30 percent drops in white population in the next 40 years. And right now, no one seems to care. Recently, we did a study of how our 100 Free Night of Theater companies are approaching non-white audiences. Here are some bullet points from the study, which is still being processed:

• 39% of companies claimed no African-American or Asian-American audience share. Almost half (44%) claimed no Hispanic audience share. For comparison, the SFF study puts the current ethnic distributions for those three communities as 8% African-American, 23% Asian-American, and 22% Hispanic in the 5 Bay Area counties.


• Of those that claimed some non-white audience share, the average claim was 7% for African-American and Hispanic, and 12% for Asian-American.


• 85% of companies were producing shows that they self-reported as not particularly resonating with non-white audiences of any ethnicity.


• 88% of companies were planning no particular outreach to non-white populations.

I find these numbers incredibly frustrating. I know it's hard, and I know there's a lot of nuance in the conversation. And I know it's such a hard conversation to have with companies, especially because there are few stories of organizations who have (1) had the impetus to become more inclusive and (2) succeeded. But this isn't a thought exercise anymore.

Mission Paradox, in a post spawned from discussions on Arena Stage's diversity conference (read more at their New Play Development Program blog), argues that companies all fall into one of the following groups, and then suggests a path forward:

1. The Sincere Effort Group - They have the support, the money and the time. At most these groups will need help and guidance on the strategy side of the ledger. They want to diversify, but they may not be sure how, or confident in their ability to do so. This group deserves all the help, encouragement and guidance they can get.

2. The Scared - These people have some sort of fear barrier stopping them from diversifying. Fear of losing audience. Fear of losing money. Whatever. This group should be supported and encouraged . . . to a point. Some organizations spend their entire life cycle scared, that's just how it goes.

3. The "Other Priority" Group - These organizations have decided, for whatever reasons, that other initiatives are more important then a diversity effort. I think we, as an industry, should respect the decision this group makes. Maybe it's a bad decision. Hell, it is probably a bad decision. But groups have the right to make bad decisions.

4. The "No Desire" Group - This group has no desire to diversify. Who really cares why they feel that way? The only thing that matters is that they made that choice.
Again, that's a perfectly acceptable decision to make.

I think our job as a field is to look at each organization and figure out which "diversity category" they fit in.

Then we deal with them accordingly.

Our job is not to move people from one category to another. That's a choice only they can make. Embrace the ones that want change. Support the ones that need help. Wish the rest of them the best of luck and send them on their merry way.

It's a hard line, but honestly if we're talking about a crisis of relevance (and when aren't we talking about a crisis of relevance?) then diversity has to be part of the conversation.

What group do you belong to?

Measure C in Oakland Passes!

While you have probably heard much in the news (I know I can't seem to get away from it) about Oakland voters passing Measure F, which allows for the taxing of medical marijuana dispensaries, local media outlets seem to be treating the passing of Measure C as a parenthetical news story.

The good news is that Measure C, which called for a 3 percent increase in the city hotel tax fund to go toward supporting arts and culture, was overwhelmingly passed. More details about the results of this vote can be found at http://www.insidebayarea.com/crime/ci_12675902?source=rss.

Theatre Bay Area Walks to Eradicate AIDS

This past Sunday, many of the Theatre Bay Area staff participated in the 2009 San Francisco AIDS Walk through Golden Gate Park. As a team (there we are, at left!), we raised over $1,000 for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. It was a great experience for all of us, and we got a tremendous amount of support from friends, family and colleagues.

The walk itself is about 6 miles through Golden Gate Park with 25,000 other walkers from far and wide. The day was gorgeous in a way that San Francisco summer days rarely are--there was almost no fog, and the sun warmed everything to just the right temperature that we could walk in short sleeves. Monday morning (the morning after), commuting from sunny Petaluma, my bus plummeted into a big old layer of fog--much more traditional summer weather for the city. I’m glad we got the sun instead.

The organizers led a pre-walk stretching session and made sure we all were hydrated throughout the run. They had an inordinate number of high school-aged volunteers shouting encouragement through bullhorns all along the route, and they had set up bands to play at regular intervals along the route to encourage us along, and provided water, ice cream (my favorite part) and other snacks to keep us energized.

The walk attracted an extraordinarily diverse group of people. There were church groups and scientists, tons of little tiny dogs, ladies in their 70s and little kids on Razors all taking the route. It was a great feeling to be giving to such an important cause, and we’ve already got plans to take part again next year.

More photos:

Brad Erickson, Theatre Bay Area's executive director.

The walkers stretched for as far as we could see - 25,000 total!

Deputy director Cara Chrisman with a little friend.

The team on the move.

Heads Up, Oakland Residents!

A heads up specifically to Oakland residents...

The city of Oakland, as you undoubtedly know, is in the midst of a mail-only election. The deadline for residents to return the ballot is July 21 (so it is suggested that it is mailed by July 16 or delivered in person).

The ballot has four measures to address the city financial crisis. One is Measure C, which provides additional funding to the cultural arts programs and festivals and the Oakland Convention and Visitors Bureau (and other organizations) by adding a three percent (3%) surcharge to the current eleven percent (11%) Transient Occupancy Tax (Hotel Tax) that persons who stay in Oakland hotels pay.

More details can be found at http://www.lwvoakland.org/files/oakland_voters_guide_july_2009.pdf.

A Skew: Critics and Users

As an offshoot to my previous post about advocacy and cheerleading--and as an offshoot of some of the comments it generated--I offer a couple of links that I picked up tonight while going through the some 50 blogs I subscribe to via Bloglines:

First, a Washington Post entry about whether or not critics matter, wherein;

Second, there's a link to a Goldstar survey about "entertainment habits".

I haven't yet processed all the info, so won't comment yet, but wanted to share and let y'all start the conversation.

Advocacy or Cheerleading...Or Both?

The July/August issue of American Theatre hit my mailbox today, and I found an intriguing juxtaposition in its Letters section. I skimmed the page and saw Tony Taccone’s name as one of the letter-writers, and I knew right away he was going to take exception to the feature Karen D’Souza wrote about You, Nero, where she basically rehashed negative criticism of the South Coast Rep performance in a feature that in theory was supposed to be about the second production at Berkeley Rep. (For some reason, the May/June issue hasn't been archived online yet, otherwise I would provide a link.) Now, when I read Karen’s article, I thought to myself, Why would she be rehashing all this negativity—and some of it was fairly below the belt—in an article about new work for a magazine like American Theatre? Tony pointed out the same thing in his letter—that “instead of a thoughtful examination of this topic, the story read like a harsh review of the first production”—and he also went on to support his colleagues at South Coast Rep.

Another letter in the issue referenced a previous letter that took the magazine to task for the “negative tenor” of David Freedlander’s article about Danny Hoch and that said that the magazine should not publish articles that generate negativity. This letter-writer, J.T. Rogers, said, “Wrapped in [this] complaint is an idea I’ve heard put forward by many people in many theatres around this country: that this magazine’s role is to serve as a cheerleader for the work we do. Full stop…. My response to this is: Really?”

Naturally, this topic really interests me. While I personally think that Karen D’Souza went way too far in her article—and question American Theatre’s decision to print it as is—I do understand the fine line of cheerleading and relevancy. While theatre does needs advocates, when does advocacy stray into cheerleading and start doing more harm than good? To give a simplistic example: Say a theatre critic always reviews every show she sees favorably. While the theatre community may be thrilled, in the longer term readers may start distrusting the critic because they spent money on shows they thought were awful. So they stop going to the theatre. So, what was the point in cheerleading? (I guess so companies could have good clippings for the funders?) Now, in this example, I’m assuming the critic is praising shows that are undoubtedly awful, not shows that elicit a more subjective response. Like I said, it’s simplistic. It also isn’t entirely relevant to American Theatre or Theatre Bay Area, because we don’t print straight reviews.

This is the gray area. In these two magazines, which advocate for theatre, is even a hint of negativity completely out of place, or does it provide, in J.T.’s words, “a serious response to a serious piece of theatre rather than a hagiographic profile”? Even though most of us can admit that sometimes our work is not up to par for any number of legitimate reasons or that our risks sometimes fail, do we still think that the job of the industry magazines is to completely disregard these facts and cheerlead instead? Or should the industry magazines paint a more multidimensional picture of the production, the person, etc.? I suppose it’s a case-by-case basis, but it seems to me that Karen’s article could have been much more nuanced without losing sight of the complexities of working on a new play that just isn’t, well, working—as well as some of the solutions.