Category: Opinion
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Taking the Casting Conversations from personal to structural
The focus on specific producing theatres, plays, artists, and management staff keeps our conversations about racism and white supremacy culture in the theatre industry on the “personal” level instead looking to the “systemic.” If we make it about whether we can/not cast one particular play a specific way, whether these artists made a bad choice, we aren’t looking at the bigger picture–like, for example, the % of acting jobs going to white actors overall.
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TCG EDI Institute vs. ATM Me Too Response
I’m a Lucky One I consider myself to be truly, unbelievably lucky that I haven’t been the victim of sexual assault. A person is sexually assaulted every 98 seconds in the U.S. (that’s 570 experiencers of sexual violence daily). The chances of me being a possible target were strong. But, so far, I haven’t. I […]
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See something, Say something: Recognizing A White Frailty Fail
A scene from late summer 2016: I enter a Metro train at the rear and take a seat. I can see the entire car. It’s partially full, populated with the typical diversity of people that ride that line in the middle of the day–a mix of ages and races, suits and casual wear, obvious tourists and those who seem more […]
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Have you seen this graphic?
Which version have you seen more often?
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Excuse me, is that your bag?
My first encounter with Peggy McIntosh‘s concept of “the invisible knapsack” was in 1999. I was 23 years old. I had just moved to Washington, DC a few months prior to work at Arena Stage in the education department (a two person plus an intern office at that time). We were to work closely with Living Stage […]
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I know you know but because it’s Groundhog Day, let’s reexamine definitions of “privilege”
A privilege is an advantage, or right, or opportunity, or pleasure, or immunity granted to a particular person or group of people. “Privilege” is the holding of a set of advantages, rights, opportunities, pleasures, and/or immunities as a person or group of people. By definition it means there are others who do are disadvantaged, left […]
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Fairness & Privilege
Challenging myself this month to more openly reach out to my White, non-disabled, Hearing colleague with my writing. Seeking to share my perspectives, as jumbled as they may be right now at the point in the journey I’m on, and encourage more dialogue about diversity, inclusion, access, and equity. A fool’s errand? An out for my ramblings? […]
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The Wealth of Ensemble
Adam Smith. This is where my brain always starts. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. One of the seminal philosophical underpinnings of this country. There’s a singular “pie” of resources. It’s finite. We can all only have a single slice of the pie. Only if we work to grow the size of the pie can […]
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Because
I’ve been in a major U.S. city the past four days running auditions for a dog & pony dc show produced by another company. The auditions consisted of three 2-hour open-call “workshops.” After the first two audition/workshops I expressed mild concern over the diversity in the pool thus far (three people of color, everyone was […]
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Triangle – Tetrahedron Tension
Prologue Blog schedules be darned! This big eyed fish explored a new bowl and so the editorial staff has done a switcheroo. Who out there noticed? /crickets Ok, maybe this is my way of telling you 1) we plan 2) there’s a “we” 3) this post has a lot going on and it’s possible the dots […]
Rachel Grossman - A Big Eyed Fish 