Yours in Solidarity

I am a white, college-educated male. I also identify as gay and Jewish; as an artist and a teacher.  I am incredibly privileged and my life has been made easy for me--my life as a human being and my life as a creative professional. And it is because of the skin I have; the skin my parents and my ancestors gave to me. But my people came here on boats with tickets purchased of their own free will with trunks full of family heirlooms and promise, with a desire for freedom and new beginnings.  

Some of us were not so lucky...

In the past months, I have been thinking a lot about our country, our theatre, and how they reflect one another--America at its best and its worst; its beauty and its pain. Our nation’s stories are varied and our voices speak thousands of languages, our mouths eat different foods, we dance differently to music that pulses with different rhythms and rings in different tones. But the voices and the faces of our American theatre and our Drama education system...  Varied?  Nuanced?  Rarely.

The myriad narrative accounts shared recently by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) theatre artists who struggle daily in our industry and in our educational institutions due to the melanin in their skin have revealed a long ignored chasm; a chasm that widens with each year, each day, each audition, each casting breakdown, each yes or no. That chasm has initiated a conversation we are having as a nation, as an arts community, and as individuals.  It is a conversation which I immediately felt called to engage in.

I sat at home on May 25, 2020, the world had been upended by Covid19, and then, our national amnesia returned to rear its ugly head: police brutality against Black bodies. I was pulled yet again toward my TV screen, to my New York Times headlines, and to my Facebook feed. In the days and weeks following, I was glued to Actors’ Equity groups, to posts tagged by mutual friends--brave messages written by beautiful strangers. But they were not strangers, despite our never having met.  These people were my people: artists and actors who do the job I do.  The job I love.  And they were not okay. There were memes of dance shoes that only come in creme (“white” people skin) or literal black (no one’s skin). And petitions and letters organized by students of programs where they felt unheard, unseen, and worst, emotionally or even physically hurt.  Abused.

Abused by people who look like me and had their “best” interests at heart, but ultimately were unable to understand the truth of the individual standing opposite them; unable to feel the pain and the confusion of someone who does not walk through the world in a body that looks like mine.  I felt that I had remained idle for too long.  Not educating myself fully on the experience and struggles of what it is to be BIPOC--not just in America, but in our American theatre--was no longer an excuse.

For those of us who are “white,” who do not walk through this world in a body bathed with the gorgeous variations of complexion, of melanin, that link BIPOC individuals to each other through their “other”-ness, we -- not they, WE! -- have a job to do.  It is to ensure BIPOC people feel they are in NO way “other” than what they are: full, worthy, intricate, specific, and necessary humans--nothing “other” than necessary to our communities, our cities, our country, and our stages. Their stories are particular in their nature, as stories are for any peoples (trans, Southeast Asian, Muslim, female...), but their stories are also human stories.  They are for all of us to hear, to learn from, to grow from, to celebrate and commemorate. And their stories need to be raised up above our own.

I believe it is our duty in this moment to sit up, to listen, to question, and to learn; to take on the mantle of educating ourselves and each other. We at MCA are taking some time to do that both individually and in community as your teachers, and we encourage those of you who feel the need to do so, to leap into action. Now. We all must commit to expanding our knowledge of BIPOC artists, BIPOC art, and deepening our awareness of what it is to be Black in both our country and in our theatres.  

WE must change.    WE must be better.    Knowledge is power.    Action is necessary.

There are all sorts of actions we can take in our theatre lives and our personal lives--anything and everything is important now: Making sure we eliminate certain offensive and triggering phrases or words from the rehearsal and performance space. Learning, rehearsing, and modeling how to ask forgiveness for perpetrating a racist act (accidental or not). Buying from Black-owned bookstores and other online retailers when possible. Reading (or listening to, or watching?--the internet is an amazing place these days!) a play by a Black American playwright. Committing to watch BIPOC-written/directed/starring TV and film. Listening to podcasts or following social media accounts about racial justice that allow us to learn who our neighbors are and how we can help them.

Please ask questions. Please engage in conversation with new people and attempt to see new perspectives. Please hold yourself, those around you, and us, accountable. Our late, great American freedom fighter Congressman John Lewis’s memory and legacy demands it. He was beaten crossing a bridge in Selma, Alabama for this cause in 1965 and bore a scar on his skull from a police baton till the day he died.

Are we going to let another 55 years go by before we decide to make meaningful change?

In support of a world, a theatre, and a classroom that reflects ALL of the American experience.  Yours in solidarity, 

- Coach Nick