Chapter 2



? (Emilia Smart-Denson December 9, 2019) AbstractThis paper investigates the relationship to diverse, equitable, and inclusive story telling in professional theaters and undergraduate drama programs. I use production season data, survey results, and anecdotal experiences to understand how representation of certain communities, backgrounds, and experiences impacts students and professionals. A few standout discoveries are that 1) University production seasons are generally less inclusive than professional ones and that 2) the majority of students are aware of this discrepancy. However, this research revealed a more complicated story than I expected, so I ultimately decided to explore several potential conclusions that could be drawn from the data. The theatre field is incredibly nuanced and complex; it will rely on individuals to continue working within their own institutions to move towards more inclusive practices, as well as field wide work.Executive SummaryThe theatre field is constantly evolving. In the last century, this exponential change has forced attention onto severe gaps in the inclusion of people from marginalized communities, backgrounds, and experiences on stage, off stage, and in audiences. While many professionals and some educators are addressing these issues, not much has been done to solve these problems fieldwide. My thesis investigates the intersections between two sides of the theatre field- educational and professional- and ultimately offers three potential conclusions to the data. Finally, I make recommendations towards future steps, primarily focusing on collaboration between professionals, educators, and students in order to fill the gaps identified. Much of the research and writing on this subject already relies on anecdotal experiences, which I pull from. However, by adding quantitative analysis of season production data this paper is able to more exactly compare the two sides of the field. I compared data collected by the Theatre Communications Group on their member theater’s season production data to the same information from high-level undergraduate drama programs. TCG members make up most non-profit theaters in the United States. This showed that university theatre seasons are about as unrepresentative of the American population as professional seasons are, and when combined with in-class curriculum, students are being exposed to significantly less diverse work than is being produced by TCG member theaters.This data is supplemented by quantitative and qualitative survey data consisting of students’ responses to their curriculum and analysis of current industry and educational practices like the Madeleine Moore Burrell Playwrighting Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago. This research showed that students recognize lack of representation as problematic. At Columbia College Chicago I discovered a program fostering a strong relationship between industry and education. Their new fellowship program not only uses professional connections to educate students, but also addresses a need in the industry by funding new play development. The Burrell Fellowship, while still developing after only one year in operation, is a great example of what I see as the future of growth for our field.The first potential interpretation discussed is that educational institutions are emphasizing “the classics” as foundational texts and forcing the industry to innovate. I draw from my season data to show that there is proportionally more new work being produced professionally and more classical work being produced in educational settings. This line of thinking suggests that while undergraduate curriculum is lacking diversity, this has encouraged professionals to innovate at an ever-increasing rate. The Latinx Theatre Commons and The National New Play Network are two specific examples of how the field has come together to overcome the lack of innovation in educational settings. If educational institutions choose not to adapt their curriculum to rely less on the current canon they could at least invest more resources in developing entrepreneurial spirit in their students so that they can grow past “the classics” post-graduation.Next, I explore the possibility that educational institutions and professional theatres have different goals. Educational institutions serve students and faculty, while professional non-profit theaters serve audiences. Programming will naturally vary based on the differences in these organizational missions, as well as the needs of the specific communities being served school to school and theatre to theatre. In slight contradiction to the first interpretation, this point suggests that educational institutions actually need to be taking bigger leaps to be more progressive than professionals. This will allow students to not only meet the industry where it is post-graduation, but to push it forward during their time in school.Finally, I posit that educational institutions and professional theatres both hope to move forward in a more inclusive way but are holding each other back. The cyclical nature of this relationship dates back to the creation of undergraduate drama programs and the regional theatre movement. These two sides of the field have always been connected. Today, drama programs train students based on what it being produced professionally, while theatres are limited in what they produce by the artists coming out of training programs. To break this loop of low representation and exclusion of individuals from marginalized backgrounds, both sides of the field must come together. This process has already started with the Theatre Communication Group’s Higher Education Pre-Conference at their annual National Conference. Continuing to break this cycle will require more groups’ contributions and consistent work from all aspects of the field.This issue is urgent because of how long it will take to break this pattern. Curriculum change happens slowly, and students who will be entering undergraduate degree programs in the next five years may not even notice changes. From there, it might be decades before those students are the leaders of major theatre organizations and art institutions, creating programming that students and teachers can look up to. Students, audiences, professors, and professionals are missing out on access to excellent theatre and a broader understanding of the human experience. It’s time for that to change. Table of ContentsAbstract……………………………………….……………….………….. iiExecutive Summary………………………….……………….………….. iiiAcknowledgements …………………………………………………….… viiiChapter 1: Introduction……………………………………………… 1Chapter 2: Hypothesis……………………………………………… 4Chapter 3: Data……...……………………………………………… 5Background…………………..……………………………………. 5Production Seasons…………...……………………………………. 7Survey Responses…………….……………………………………. 17SU Drama Alumni Data……………………………………………. 20Visiting Columbia College Chicago………………………………. 22Chapter 4: Possible Interpretations……………………………………… 25Interpretation 1……………….……………………………………. 25Interpretation 2……………………………………….……………. 30Interpretation 3……………….……………………………………. 36Chapter 5: Conclusion……………………………………………… 43Note ……....……………………………………………………………..… 46Works Cited.……………………………………………………………… 47AcknowledgementsI have many people to thank for helping me through this process. I am so grateful to everyone at Columbia College Chicago who spent time with me during a very busy part of the year- Peter Carpenter, Kristiana Rae Colón, Michael Brown, and especially Dawn Renée Jones for giving me so much guidance. The Honors staff at Syracuse has also been so helpful every step of the way and I really appreciate the genuine interest in my project showed by so many people. Syracuse University’s Department of Drama has inspired this project in many ways. I am thankful to all the faculty who shared their syllabi and their time with me when I first began asking these questions, as well as everyone who has shared this discussion with me since then. Particular thanks go to a few people-Ralph Zito, who helped me broaden my understanding of this field and what it means to be an educator.Jim Clark, who has been there for me since day one. Katherine McGerr, who made me believe that the thing I cared about mattered enough to spend two years on it, and who supported me every step of this process. Chapter 1IntroductionWhen I started touring colleges as a sophomore in high school, I found that the most reliable talking point during any spiel was the “notable alumni.” At the crest of his celebrity, Lin Manuel Miranda dominated my tour at Wesleyan University, Aaron Tveit loomed over my every step on Ithaca College’s campus, followed by Tony winners at Syracuse, Emmy winners at Northwestern, and Oscar winners at Yale. Significant alumni working professionally in their field act as incredible advertising tools for their alma maters - a practical example of who you could be, if only you enroll. I was easily seduced by names like Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Aaron Sorkin, and Thomas Kail. These individuals, though not working in my specific area of study, illustrated the kind of work I was interested in and implied its accessibility. The suggestion is implicit but clear: undergraduate training relates to professional work. When marketing drama programs to future students, it may not be important to consider exactly how that relationship manifests. However, when it’s time for curriculum to be developed, classes to be taught, and graduates to enter the field, it becomes necessary to dissect that relationship. When it comes to the representation of diverse communities, backgrounds, and experiences in curricula and professional productions, it is particularly important to interrogate how professional and educational theatre feed each other. Professional theatre is moving towards more inclusive production practices, particularly through initiatives led by groups like the Theatre Communications Group, the Latinx Theatre Commons, and The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists. However, progress is slow and even slower at educational institutions. If university marketing departments want to take credit for the successes of their graduates, must they also acknowledge their culpability in the continuing exaltation of work that represents less than a third of our country’s population?As a sophomore at Syracuse University I began investigating my own training. Faced with another semester’s worth of syllabi lacking plays or other texts written by anyone other than white men, I began collecting data. Over a year, I collected syllabi from my own classes and eventually from any professor who would share them with me. The summer before, I had attended the Theatre Communications Group national conference in Portland, Oregon, as a volunteer. I attended a multitude of events discussing equity, diversity, and inclusion in many forms, including one workshop on inclusive education. As I analyzed the syllabus data, I returned to wondering about the discussions I’d been a part of at the conference. Why were professionals regularly attempting to discuss and address systemic issues in their institutions while a freshman year curriculum with less than 20% of its material created by women or people of color had remained unaddressed for years? How were my peers and I to enter a field in the middle of these new conversations if we were still being taught the same model developed forty years ago (Zazzali, Klein 271). Conversely, how was the field supposed to answer these questions if all the bright young graduates entering their workspaces lacked the resources, knowledge, or motivation to participate?I began to wonder: what is the actual nature of the relationship between professional and educational theatre? Where do we currently stand, and how does the progress of one impact the other? I quickly discovered nuance where I hadn’t expected it and straightforward truths behind many complex discussions. Ultimately, there is no one relationship, but a myriad of chemical reactions between individuals, institutions, history, art, power, and privilege that creates a complex ecosystem, synthesized as “American Theatre.” It is essential to include undergraduate education and all its intricacies in our understanding of this environment and to consider this ecosystem as both sides attempt to move forward.Chapter 2HypothesisDrawing from the information at my fingertips and the syllabi I culled from the Department of Drama at Syracuse, I expected to discover clear evidence that undergraduate theatre students were being underserved by their curriculum. The hypothesis came in two parts: First, that there is a distinct absence of curriculum based around the work of women, people of color, or people with other marginalized identities; second, that this absence is a detriment to students and the theatre industry by underpreparing all students to enter the field. Anecdotal conversations, op-ed pieces from online journals, and my observations of operations at professional theaters all suggested this to be true. However, I was unable to find any conclusive, quantitative data or research into the extent of the exclusion or its impact on American theatre.Chapter 3DataBackgroundI started collecting data before the formal start of my thesis process, but I quickly realized that my understanding of theatre education today had to be supported by a historical context. Anne Berkeley’s “Changing View of Knowledge and the Struggle for Undergraduate Theatre Curriculum, 1900-1980” paints an excellent picture of the development of this field. She suggests four stages of development, centered around a debate of “culture versus craft.” This debate asks what the purpose of undergraduate theatre education is. Initially, theatre classes were introduced to supplement liberal arts educations through deeper explorations of modern and classical texts and as a way to encourage the continuing development of culturally engaged citizens. After the Great Depression, the professional theatre industry shrank and the movie industry (which was seen by the elite as less culturally enriching) had flourished, leaving space and incentive for universities to begin producing work. Over time, the producing units at universities developed into fully fledged production companies. Berkeley traces the growth and professionalization of these programs to the 1950s and later, only slightly preceding the American regional theatre movement.This movement, sparked by W. McNeil Lowry at the Ford Foundation, created an uprising of not-for-profit, professional theaters all across the United States. “Suddenly, for millions who thought of theatre as a distant and esoteric experience, live performance was becoming a local affair” (O’Quinn). High quality theatre was becoming more accessible to audiences outside of New York City. However, with the exception of the work of groups like El Teatro Campesino, the Free Southern Theatre, and The Negro Theatre Ensemble, the main audiences were white and upper middle class. While the regional theatre movement grew to meet the needs of more Americans, certain populations continued to be excluded from representation on stage and in the audiences of the largest non-profit institutions.Many of the first wave of these theaters were started by individuals who had received training in these new, highly professionalized undergraduate programs and had audiences who had attended universities with production units on their campuses. Highly skilled artists were leaving universities, utilizing government and corporate funding, and putting their knowledge to work. In turn, universities began hiring back these excellently trained and now experienced professionals to teach and further develop their programs. Anne Berkeley summarized the views of the actor and educator Kenneth Graham as he expressed them in 1966: “Graham suggested that (1) schools should work together with professional theatres, and (2) professional theatre should provide models of excellence in performance for colleges and universities, models that would give purpose to students and teachers” (Berkeley 17). Thus, the relationship between professional and educational theatre is not one invented by admissions offices to entice potential students. There is a significant historical connection between universities and regional theaters that hasn’t been significantly reevaluated in the last 40 years since Berkeley published her 1980 article on the subject.In 2015, Peter Zazzali and Jeanne Klein published an addendum to Berkeley’s piece, analyzing the place of undergraduate theatre education in the 21st century. They suggest that “theatre professors seem to merely recycle what they were taught”, referring to that phenomenon as “self-perpetuating pedagogy” (Zazzali and Klein 261). Another challenge that they suggest faces contemporary theatre training is the same marriage to regional theatre that sparked the development of the field. By mimicking regional theaters, undergraduate programs are tied to a system of filling seasons and producing plays that may prepare students to do work that is already happening but limits the room for exploration and innovation from students and faculty. By mimicking an industry that has systematically excluded women and people of color since its founding, universities are bound to do the same. If schools and professionals are still working off the same model Kenneth Graham described in 1966, perhaps that explains why both regional theaters and drama programs have failed to exit their own “self-perpetuating pedagogy” and continued reinforcing an artistic culture that over emphasizes “the classics,” disenfranchises artists from marginalized backgrounds, and fails to meaningfully engaged with large swaths of the American population.Production SeasonsEvery year, the Theatre Communications Group surveys their member theaters and publishes a list of the top plays and playwrights produced nationally in each season. In the 2018-2019 season, the largest number ever of women were represented in the Top 10 plays and Top 20 playwrights (Tran 2019). This certainly shows an evolution in the producing practices of American regional theaters, who have been historically reliant on white male authors like Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Neil Simon. Some of the living playwrights on the list, like Paula Vogel, Lisa Kron, and Brenden Jacob-Jenkins have a multitude of works being produced across the country. The same is true for the deceased playwrights on the list, William Shakespeare, August Wilson, Tennessee Williams, and Sam Shepard. Some of the living playwrights have made the list based almost exclusively on productions of just one of their plays: Sarah DeLappe (The Wolves), Bess Wohl (Small Mouth Sounds), and Lucas Hnath (A Doll’s House, Part 2). This division shows that theaters are responding to both the depth and quality of certain playwrights’ entire careers as well as to the momentary explosive popularity of some works. When publishing this data in American Theatre Magazine, editor Diep Tran does not include works by William Shakespeare since the frequency of their production overwhelms that of all other plays. I have chosen to reincorporate Shakespeare into my analysis to paint a fuller picture of the place of “classical” work in contemporary American theatre. This choice changes Tran’s Top 20 to what I will refer to as a top 21. Her Top 10 from the 18-19 season was actually a top 11 due to a tie, so I will refer to it as the Top 10* as she does in her article.Table 1Top 20 Playwrights 2018-2019 (Including William Shakespeare)William Shakespeare9623.0%Lucas Hnath338.0%Lauren Gunderson286.8%Dominique Morisseau266.3%Lynn Nottage204.9%Paula Vogel184.4%Kate Hamill184.4%Karen Zacarias174.1%Simon Stephens174.1%Lisa Kron174.1%August Wilson163.9%Sarah DeLappe133.2 %Ken Ludwig122.9%Branden Jacob-Jenkins112.7%Jen Silverman112.7%Enda Walsh102.4%Tennessee Williams102.4%Christina Ham102.4%Bess Wohl92.2%Sam Shepard92.2%Duncan MacMillan92.2%Source: American Theatre Magazine, Season Programming Data, Theatre Communications Group, September 2019.When looking at the TCG data past the Top 20 playwrights (21 including Shakespeare), there is a steep drop-off in the presence of women writers and writers of color. In total, playwrights in the top 21 were produced 410 times in the United States in the 18-19 season. By dividing the number of productions of each playwright by that total, one can determine their percentage of representation in the top 21 (see table 1). This is useful because it illustrates proportionally which playwrights and identities are dominating non-profit production seasons. 49% of the plays written by top 21 playwrights were written by women. However, when you consider all the plays reported to TCG by their member theatres in 2018-19, only about 25% of the plays were written by women. It would be wrong to draw conclusions about the content of a play based off the gender of a playwright; however, it feels fair to state that this disparity proves that the perspectives of women are underrepresented today in the American theatre. The same shift happens when considering plays written by people of color. In the top 21, 25% of the plays were written by people of color. When expanded to include all plays produced in the 2018-19 season less than 12% were written by people of color. Of the Top 10* plays produced that season (actually 11, due to a tie) 8 were written by women and 3 written by men, which implies a parity or perhaps even bias in non-profit theaters towards the work of female authors. However, this imbalance does not hold when looking at less commonly produced plays and suggests that if a woman’s play is not being popularly produced nine or more times in a season it may not be being produced at all. People of color do not have as much representation in the Top 10* list: only 3 of the 11 plays were written by people of color. Yet that proportion is still higher than it is when you calculate the number of writers of color among all the plays produced by TCG member theaters. This data from the Theatre Communications Group is a somewhat simplistic snapshot of where the American Theatre is in one season. It doesn’t illustrate trends over time, the discussions happening behind closed doors to develop seasons, or the responses audiences have to the plays. That said, by taking the temperature of the regional theater in 2018 it provides a point of comparison with educational theatre. In order to compare the two sides of the field I decided to duplicate the TCG survey data, focusing instead on the production seasons of undergraduate theatre programs. While in-class curriculum has a significant impact on drama students’ experience and their relationship to professional theatre, the productions produced by a university are its most direct correlation to the industry and are directly tied to the professionalization of undergraduate theatre. The research from Zazzali and Klein also suggests that a production-based “post-course curriculum” (263) is the future of undergraduate theatre education. This model would rely on experiential, participatory learning and inter/intra disciplinary initiatives, which would center the production season as the basis of student learning. It is also much easier to obtain public production seasons than the privately held and personally cultivated curriculums of top drama programs.In order to collect this data, I tried to follow TCG’s methods as best as I could with the following variations. First, I limited my data collection to 25 of the top ranked undergraduate degree programs in the country1. The selection of schools was based on rankings from Onstageblog (Peterson), Niche, The Hollywood Reporter (THR Staff), College Factual, Backstage (White), and Playbill (Arnegger). The criteria for the rankings was generally the authors’ analysis of the value of the training and how likely graduates are to find work professionally. This criteria for rankings best supported my goal of analyzing the relationship between the industry and education by focusing on programs with a public focus on students pursuing theatre professionally. Some schools with high rankings were removed from my final data due to not having publicly accessible seasons and not responding to my requests for that information. In the TCG data, the “playwright” of a musical was always classified as the book writer; I also followed that rule in my analysis. Additionally, TCG only counted “fully produced” plays in its list. In order to mirror this while still collecting an abundance of information, I created a tiered system for productions based on the resources received from their department. Plays in the first tier were a part of the “mainstage season,” had the longest runs, had the most expensive tickets, and attracted the largest audiences. Plays in the second tier were faculty-selected plays with fewer production resources and smaller venues or were directly marketed as a variation of “second stage.” The third tier was student-initiated work, pure workshops, and projects with limited formal support. Productions with no support from the university likely did not make it into my data because they wouldn’t have been listed publicly with the university’s season information.After collecting this data, I compared top 21 playwrights from TCG member theaters to the 28 playwrights with two or more productions from all tiers of my college data (see table 2). Then, I removed from consideration all but tier 1 productions, which cut the list of college-produced playwrights in half and left only 14 playwrights with multiple productions in the 18-19 university season (see table 3). The only three playwrights to appear in both the TCG and university data sets in that final ranking are William Shakespeare, Dominique Morisseau, and Paula Vogel. The second most produced TCG playwright, Lucas Hnath, only had one tier 1 university production, Lauren Gunderson had none, and Lynn Nottage had one tier 1 and one tier 2 production. Bertolt Brecht, the second most produced university playwright, received five professional productions at TCG member theaters, suggesting that while his work is still relevant professionally it has a proportionally more significant presence at the educational level. Table 2TCG Top 21 vs UG Top (including all tiers of production)TCG DataUndergraduate ProgramsWilliam Shakespeare96William Shakespeare22Lucas Hnath33Bertolt Brecht4Lauren Gunderson28Paula Vogel3Dominique Morisseau26Naomi Iizuka3Lynn Nottage20Anne Washburna3Paula Vogel18Anton Chekov3Kate Hamill18Caryl Churchill3Karen Zacarias17Dominique Morisseau3Simon Stephens17Jeanine Tesorib3Lisa Kron17Annie Bakera2August Wilson16Brian Crawleyb2Sarah DeLappe13Bruce Norris2Ken Ludwig12John Gordona2Branden Jacob-Jenkins11Dave Barry2Jen Silverman11Elizabeth Swadosb2Enda Walsh10Euripides2Tennessee Williams10Ike Holterb2Christina Ham10Jose Riverab2Bess Wohl9Lanford Wilsona2Sam Shepard9Lynn Ahrens2Duncan MacMillan9Lynn Nottageb2Moliere2Polly Tealea2Qui Nguyenb2Sarah DeLappe2Sarah Gubbinsa2Sophie Treadwell2Thornton Wildera2Source: American Theatre Magazine, Season Programming Data, Theatre Communications Group, September 2019.a. Note: Playwrights who had 0 full productionsb. Note: Playwrights with 1 full productionTable 3TCG Top 21 vs Undergraduate Top 14 (only tier 1 productions)TCG DataUndergraduate ProgramsWilliam Shakespearea96William Shakespearea17Lucas Hnath33Bertolt Brecht3Lauren Gunderson28Paula Vogela3Dominique Morisseaua26Caryl Churchill3Lynn Nottage20Anton Chekov2Paula Vogela18Bruce Norris2Kate Hamill18Dave Barry2Karen Zacarias17Dominique Morisseaua2Simon Stephens17Euripides2Lisa Kron17Lynn Ahrens2August Wilson16Moliere2Sarah DeLappe13Naomi Iizuka2Ken Ludwig12Sara DeLappe2Branden Jacob-Jenkins11Sophie Treadwell2Jen Silverman11Enda Walsh10Tennessee Williams10Christina Ham10Bess Wohl9Sam Shepard9Duncan MacMillan9Source: American Theatre Magazine, Season Programming Data, Theatre Communications Group, September 2019.Note: Playwrights who appear on both listsAt the undergraduate level, only 35% of the tier 1 productions written by playwrights in the top 14 were written by women, despite the fact that half of the playwrights in the top 14 are women. This dichotomy is caused by the heavy emphasis on work by William Shakespeare, making up 37% of the plays written by top 14 playwrights and 10% of all the tier 1 productions. That is significantly more than the 4% of plays he wrote in the professional seasons, though he still clearly dominates both sides of the field. Among tier 1 productions, 28% of the plays were written by women. Again, this is less than the 35% in just the most-produced playwrights, however the difference is less stark than it is in the TCG member theatre data. When all the tiers of production are considered, the percentage of women raises to 31%, a small but significant change. In the undergraduate top 14, only two of the playwrights are people of color - Dominique Morisseau and Naomi Iizuka - comprising about 8% of the productions included in the Top 14. Morisseau was the most produced playwright of color in the United States in the 2018-19 season professionally, but other people of color on that list- Lynn Nottage, Karen Zacarias, August Wilson and Branden Jacob-Jenkins - received one or fewer productions in my data. Considering all undergraduate tiers of production, about 10% of produced plays were written by people of color. Looking only at tier 1 productions, that number falls to about 8%, the same number comprising the Top 14. That number is disarmingly lower than the percentage of women playwrights, and it is a drastic shift when compared to the TCG Data. In the Top 20 playwright’s data from the TCG, 18% of the plays were written by people of color.An interesting data set is the playwrights with multiple productions at the undergraduate level who did not receive any tier 1 productions of their work. Those playwrights are Anne Washburn, Annie Baker, John Gordon, Polly Teale, and Sarah Gubbins. Aside from Gordon, they are all white, female, contemporary playwrights. Washburn, Baker, and Gubbins each had two different plays from their body of work produced in the second or third tier in the 18-19 season. Gordon had his musical You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown produced twice at the second tier. Teale, who is primarily a director, made the list with two second tier productions of her adaptation of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. The other white contemporary female playwright on the list is Sarah DeLappe, whose first play The Wolves had two first tier productions in my data. Dominique Morisseau had two tier 1 productions of her play Detroit ’67 and one tier 2 production of her newer play Skeleton Crew, which was one of the Top 10* most produced plays professionally in the 18-19 season.A challenge of this data is the relatively small sample size, especially as compared to the TCG data. They collected a list of 2,300 plays whereas my final tally, including all tiers of production, was only 290 - only a bit over a tenth of the sample size. However, I think this data still allows a comparison between the two fields, drawing attention to the strengths and shortcomings of both. In both cases, the data is most useful to illustrate trends and themes that are resonating nationally, though my curriculum data is limited when it comes to analyzing the representation of specific identity groups or individual playwrights. The school data also fails to incorporate a major aspect of academic programming- the in-class curriculum.In addition to production season data, I collected a limited amount of curriculum information from Syracuse University Drama Department faculty. All professors were asked to share their reading lists from the 17-18 school year to be analyzed. Not all professors opted to participate, but from those that did, I compiled a list of 179 plays that had been assigned to students in all years and areas of study. Of this list, about 23% of the plays were written by women and 10% were written by people of color. Though I cannot extrapolate that data to any other Universities, it is interesting to compare Syracuse University’s in class curriculum to its performance curriculum. In the 18-19 season data I collected for Syracuse, 47% of the plays were written by women and 11% were written by people of color. Looking at only tier 1 productions, two of the six plays, or 33%, were written by people of color. For Syracuse University in this one year, the production season was more inclusive of marginalized identities than its in class curriculum. If this were true for every program in the country, the already limited exploration of work by women and people of color as shown in production seasons would be further extrapolated.It would have been essentially impossible to collect this kind of data nationally. Professors diligently develop curriculum over the course of a career and could be hesitant to share this intellectual material for a variety of reasons. Katherine McGerr found this obstacle in her own research a few years ago: “The teachers I spoke to were also reticent to share unpublished information about gender breakdowns in admissions or list scenes they typically assign” (McGerr). Considering the lack of responses within my own department, it seemed unlikely that teachers who did not know me would be willing to share their work. In the same piece, McGerr also suggests that there may be some “fear of being portrayed as biased” by someone analyzing and judging their syllabus without understanding its context within their course or the program’s curriculum. Throughout this work I have tried to remain conscious of that fact and to avoid painting individuals as biased. However, it is impossible to avoid the fact that there is not parity onstage and there is not parity in the classroom. Both Professor McGerr of Syracuse University and Dr. Amy Steiger of St. Mary’s College of Maryland have published essays on the online theatre journal Howlround exploring this issue. Both professors identify the overwhelming use of white, colonialist, male-written actor and director training texts as a root of this issue. An Actor Prepares written by Konstantin Stanislavsky in 1936 is the basis for most modern actor training, and as described by Dr. Steiger, reinforces oppressive mindsets by using sexist, racist, and colonialist metaphors. In her essay, McGerr wonders if “the training methods intertwined with [Shakespeare, Chekov, Miller] have reached a point of obsolescence.” Survey ResponsesIn response to the initial data collected by Professor McGerr and me during the 17-18 school year, we received a grant from Syracuse University to pilot an initiative called “Stories Untold.” This project brought professional theatre artists from diverse backgrounds whose work addressed specific identity issues to campus to run workshops and lead classes with Syracuse University drama students. A requirement of the grant was that we collect some kind of data to measure impact of the programming. We developed a short survey to administer to students in the fall, before the guest visits, and again in the spring after all three guests. The survey was developed to determine how visible representation can impact students’ feelings about professional theatre. I expanded the survey to be appropriate for non-SU students and increased its distribution outside of the University to anyone who had pursued an undergraduate degree in theatre. The surveys all consisted of the same three questions with possible responses of: Strongly Agree, Agree, Somewhat Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree. The questions were:“My community, background, and experiences are/were represented in my undergraduate drama curriculum.” “I believe that the communities, backgrounds, and experiences represented in my undergraduate drama curriculum are/were a reflection of professional theatre.” “My education in my undergraduate drama program has/did NOT introduced me to communities, backgrounds, and experiences different from my own.”Respondents were also invited to expand, confidentially, on any of their answers in an optional extended answer section that provided some insight into which communities, backgrounds, and experiences may lead to students feeling a certain way about their training or academic experiences. These optional responses provide more qualitative than quantitative measurements; however, they provide good insight into the experiences of students outside of my own institution. That information helps to look for quantitative patterns in the qualitative data and see connections between experiences in the classroom and expectations of the industry.In the external survey, 75% of respondents agreed to some degree that their communities, backgrounds, and experiences were represented in their undergraduate curriculum. That leaves 18% of students who felt unrepresented and 7% of students who did not agree or disagree. Additionally, 47% of students felt that their curriculum had not introduced them to communities, backgrounds, and experiences different from their own. Overall, about 67% of students felt that their curriculum was reflective of the industry in the groups it represented. That number drops to 56% for students who did not feel their identities were represented in the curriculum.The optional written responses reveal how much an individual’s understanding of theatre as an art form and an industry can change based on their lived experience. There were even contradictory responses from students at the same university. The responses from two students expecting to graduate in 2020 from the same undergraduate program exemplify this potential for different or even opposite student experiences. Student A selected agree, somewhat agree, and disagree to the questions, suggesting that they felt represented by their curriculum, believed that the work in their program was somewhat representative of the industry, and did feel that they had been introduced to experiences not their own. Student A stated, “I feel very lucky to have professors that were very passionate about exposing us to a broad sense of theatre history and shaking up what ‘cannon’ [sic] means.” Student B selected somewhat disagree, agree, somewhat disagree, suggesting they felt somewhat unrepresented by the curriculum, agreed that it reflected the industry, and somewhat felt that they had been introduced to communities, backgrounds, and experiences other than their own. Student B stated, “I'm a black woman at a pwi [predominantly white institution] and the focus is really on preparation on the Broadway stage a [sic] opposed to creating a well informed and well rounded actor. I have seen some amazing work from students who have chosen to do their own productions outside of the department but the curriculum is the same dusty curriculum that has been taught since before I was born because the same exact professors are still teaching.” Both students agreed that their curriculum reflected the industry on some level, and both did feel they had been introduced to experiences different from their own through curriculum. Therefore, the difference in their responses lies in their sense of their own representation, with A feeling represented and B feeling unrepresented. Since the question of representation is so complicated, it’s quite possible for student to share many of the same pieces of identity and have quite different experiences. Student A felt represented by their curriculum and talked about the program in a very positive way saying, “I feel lucky…”. Student B, citing her identities as a black woman, did not feel represented and spoke less favorably of her experience, referring to the curriculum as “dusty” and implying that the emphasis on preparation for Broadway is to the detriment of strong holistic training. Without being able to look at the work being done in the classroom; it still seems reasonable that students of color would not feel represented by the curriculum. Looking to the productions for more context: in the 18-19 production season for these students’ program, (the season immediately preceding their taking of this survey) 100% of the first-tier productions were written by men, five out of six of whom were white. The second-tier productions were 80% women playwrights, with three of the five playwrights being white. There was one black playwright produced in that season - the only woman of color. This distinction of men in the first tier of production and women in the second tier holds true into the 19-20 season for this program, suggesting that it is more of a trend, not a one season blip. For the surveys presented only to Syracuse University students, a shift can be noted between responses to the initial survey and the survey distributed after guests came to campus. A few significant takeaways include the fact that students who attended more events with the professional theatre artists were less likely to feel represented by the Drama Department’s curriculum. This could be explained a few ways, it seems most likely to me that students who felt unrepresented in the curriculum were more likely to seek out opportunities to interact with professionals of a shared community, background, or experience- suggesting that seeing oneself represented in the industry is significant for students. Students who attended more workshops were also more likely to believe their curriculum was similar to the theatre industry. According to my data, overall less students at Syracuse University felt unrepresented in their curriculum than in the responses I received from outside of the University. A few things could account for this disparity. 1) The population of a private University’s drama department in central New York is likely less diverse than the national population of theatre artists. 2) People who already felt underrepresented may have been more likely to respond to a survey about representation, while SU Drama students may have been primarily motivated by other factors.SU Drama Alumni DataWhen I discussed this research with the chair Syracuse University’s Drama Department, Ralph Zito, he brought up some informal data collection he’d done, assessing former students’ careers. I became curious about this information and what it could reveal about the impact of our department on the industry. This data, while not about the representation of marginalized identities, can help express how education stays with students and show that working professionals are coming from undergraduate drama programs. If professionals had not been trained in undergraduate drama programs then there would be less of a need to analyze these programs, however that is not the case. Generously, Professor Zito shared these findings with me. Of the 161 alumni who responded, 59% identified as still employed in a field directly related to their program of study. Respondents were primarily within five years of graduation, but the range included 27 individuals who had graduated 25 or more years ago. While Zazzali and Klein reasonably point out in their research that many people who get degrees in theatre won’t pursue it professionally forever, this data suggests that, at least for a time, many graduates do enter the field. The other aspect of this data speaks to the alumni not working in a field directly relating to their degree program. Of those respondents, 66% said “Yes” to the question “do you feel the skills and knowledge you acquired at SU Drama contribute positively to your current success?” Another 28% responded “Somewhat”. That leaves only 5% of students who did not feel any positive impact from SU Drama. This is reflective of the strength of arts education as a tool in all fields. Positive or negative contribution aside, the fact that nearly 100% of respondents, even decades after graduation, continued to feel impacts from their undergraduate education shows that the experience can stick with you regardless of your eventual career.Visiting Columbia College ChicagoI traveled to Chicago, Illinois with a research grant from the Renée Crown Honors Program to learn about the Madeleine Moore Burrell Playwrighting Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago. I visited the program in the last week of the semester, which was a culminating weekend for the first Fellow, Kristiana Rae Colón. I was interested in this fellowship because of its explicit interest in advancing student learning as well as supporting new play development and strengthening Columbia’s commitment to communities of color. This exemplified to me a reimagining of the industry-education relationship described by Kenneth Graham in the 60s. Instead of following the lead of professional theaters in Chicago, Columbia was making a choice to lead development and further the industry on their own terms. While on campus I was able to sit in on a class with Kristiana, see performances of plays written in her class and scenes from the play she was developing, as well as spend time with students, faculty, and staff from the College. My primary contact was Dawn Renée Jones, an accomplished director, the administrative assistant for the department of drama, and the conceiver and director of the Burrell Playwrighting Fellowship.The format of the Fellowship was what first interested me in it. The Fellow teaches one playwrighting class per semester on a topic of their choice, as well as participating in public readings of their already completed work and pieces they have in development. The Fellowship comes with a stipend that allows the playwright to focus on developing new work, though there is not a commission or an expectation that there will be a completed piece at the end of the semester. This format allows students to interact directly with a mid-career professional who can open their eyes to the current face of the theatre industry. It also allows public engagement with College programming and actually creates exceptional work that can be produced beyond Columbia and beyond Chicago.On campus, many of my assumptions about the success of the program were challenged. I was observing this Fellowship in its first semester, and everyone I spoke to was able to give me honest feedback about what they would want to see expanded, deepened, or changed in the future of the program. Colón identified for me some of the challenges of the process from her perspective: her position as an adjunct faculty member not allowing her access to creating long lasting change in the department, the difficulty of teaching students non-European styles when their training was so rooted in classical styles, and the institutional racism built into the structure of the department and the College. This last point was reinforced by an article from the student newspaper I read after leaving campus titled “Pulling back the curtain on race, diversity and curriculum in college theatre” by Alexandra Yetter. The article details a litany of micro- and macro-aggressions experienced by students in the department of drama, some of them experienced by students in Colón’s classes, who had turned to her for help. The article quotes Khalid Y. Long, the department’s visiting DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Scholar-in Residence who stated “Columbia College Chicago—an amazing institution—does not stand alone from institutions across the country that do have ingrained institutional racism and where students of color find they have to battle institutional racism” (Yetter) Peter Carpenter, the Interim Chair of the department at the time (he has since left the post) wished that students outside of Colón’s class had gotten more access to her and been more engaged in the process. Students I spoke to on campus who were not directly engaged with one of the projects of the Fellowship often had no idea it even existed, let alone were aware of Colón and her work. I did see many positive impacts from the Fellowship too. First, the intersection of Colón’s many identities painted a broad picture of what it can mean to be a working artist today. On top of her identities as a teacher and theatre artist, Colón is a woman of color, activist, abolitionist, anarchist, and (at the time of my visit) mother of a four-month-old baby boy. She held her child on her lap as she taught class, illustrating the myriad of identities that a successful theatre artist can have. The Fellowship was also successful in its explicit goal of deepening student learning. The class I observed was highly engaged, energetic, and exploratory. The presentation of scenes at the end of the semester was highly attended, suggesting to me that the students involved were excited enough about the material to invite their friends and share their work. The class was focused on Afro-futurism, a topic personally interesting to Colón, and one that the students could not have gotten from another course at Columbia. The most potential for success I saw in the program was how it will continue to uplift underrepresented playwrights. By using the University’s unique access to funding to provide playwrights with resources to create new work and allowing students to learn by example, the amount of high-quality work representing diverse backgrounds, communities, and experiences will only grow.Chapter 4Possible InterpretationsThrough this investigation I have collected a variety of data that I believe could support a number of conclusions. Some seem to oppose each other, but ultimately, I think each potential outcome adds another layer to the complex nature of a developing American theatre. Interpretation 1: Educational institutions are emphasizing “the classics” as foundational texts and forcing the industry to innovate.Professor McGerr identified in her essay “It Starts in the Classroom” the dilemma of relying on texts by Miller and Chekov to teach training methods developed by Stanislavsky, due to their correlation with his style. A similar dilemma arises around basic play analysis pedagogy. Aristotle’s Poetics is viewed by many as a definitive text on drama. By using an analysis method developed thousands of years ago, based on plays written thousands of years ago, modern texts are “othered” and older plays that fit better into that model can be deemed more successful. This may lead to phenomena like Euripides having multiple productions on undergraduate campuses and only one production professionally. Schools otherize women and people of color through production seasons by consistently programming non-white, male playwrights into second and third tier slots. By regularly presenting plays outside of the canon with fewer resources and support, schools enforce the mindset that these plays and playwrights are less valuable. In the first year of my undergraduate degree I was assigned to read 49 plays, four of which were written by people of color and three of which were written by women. These texts primarily came from two semesters of “Intro to Theatre” and one semester of “Musical Theatre Literature” – which encompasses the first-year play analysis curriculum for students in Syracuse University’s Department of Drama. The description of Intro to Theatre from the University’s official course catalog is “Lecture, reading, and discussion of basic principles of play analysis and mise-en-scène. Application of principles to selected dramatic texts” (Syracuse University). The course is not intended to specifically teach students history, heightened text, realism, or anything else that might limit the representation of a full range of experiences in selected texts. There’s nothing insisting that two weeks of the course be dedicated to plays from Ancient Greece, four weeks be dedicated to Shakespeare, or really any other allocation of resources. Restructuring this course to both explore and understand Aristotle as well as other global texts and methods of analysis would still fulfill the course description, as well as educate students in a more well-rounded way. Tony Kushner refers to the idea of the “starvation economy mindset” in his speech “A Modest Proposal,” where there is never enough time or other resources (Kushner). It is natural for theatre, professional and educational, to fall into this belief system. Artistry and struggle are almost synonymous in America’s (nearly) post-NEA landscape. There is not enough money, not enough audiences, and not enough support. Relating specifically to undergraduate programs, Kushner encouraged instructors to reevaluate this scarcity and find the time to teach the full breadth of human and artistic experience. Kushner does not argue that the Greeks should be struck from curriculum, but that a balance must be found to truly educate a whole person. I have been told often “there’s not enough time” when questioning instructors about their syllabus choices. The simple truth is that there is time, (if a limited amount) and that the choice of where to spend that time sends a clear message to students about what work matters and what doesn’t. It is no wonder then, if students are leaving training programs having spent four years emphasizing the significance of work by white men, that it may feel challenging or near impossible to identify strong work written by women, people of color, or people with other marginalized identities once they are producing work for themselves. This can be seen in the way theatres have latched on to a select few playwrights like Lauren Gunderson, Dominique Morisseau, Branden Jacob-Jenkins, and Lauren Yee to represent all these identities. That is not to discredit the obvious and expansive talents of those people, however the lack of women and people of color outside of the top 21 most produced playwrights suggests that their popularity may be more akin to tokenization than genuine representation. However, a changing landscape of theatre makers is preaching a new perspective on creation, challenging this pervasive starvation mindset. A central directive of the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), a national collective of theatre makers focused on amplifying Latinx work, is to create work from a place of abundance instead of scarcity. By celebrating the copious amount of exceptional work being created in the United States instead of exclusively bemoaning the lack of representation of Latinx work at higher levels, the Commons have been able to elevate work in a new way. One example of this is the LTC Carnaval, an event to showcase excellent Latin American work from North and South America. The event allows producers to meet performers, directors, writers, designers, and other creators who may be able to add to their organizations in the future. Carnaval, as well as other LTC convenings, creates a sense of amplification and community, reminding all those involved that they are not alone or isolated. This commons-based approach is incredibly innovative and has found success in activating many artists from underrepresented backgrounds around the country. Another innovative approach to the perceived lack of diverse work available is the National New Play Network. Founded in 1998, the NNPN “is an alliance of professional theaters that collaborate in innovative ways to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays” (National New Play Network). They achieve this through a number of initiatives including the New Play Exchange, Rolling World Premiers, commissions, and a Collaboration Fund. The Rolling World Premiers initiative supports multiple member theaters to simultaneously produce the same play across the country, giving the play and the playwright a boost of support and legitimacy. The New Play Exchange offers access to thousands of new plays and an opportunity for playwrights to distribute their work with almost no barriers. None of these programs are exclusively for marginalized groups, but by drastically lowering barriers to involvement in new play development, more playwrights from underrepresented backgrounds and experiences can participate.Theater organizations themselves also contribute to the encouragement of new play development. Almost every member of the League of Resident Theaters (LORT)- the largest non-profit theaters in the United States- has some kind of play development program. These take the form of workshops and readings for plays in development, classes for potential playwrights, and commissioning work. Universities, frequently research institutions, could certainly be taking on some of the heft of the work of supporting new play development, like at Columbia College Chicago with the Burell Fellowship. Many of the schools I collected data from did produce or support some kind of student written work, generally in a festival setting. However, very few schools (notably: New York University) were actively engaging with early to mid-career playwrights as a part of the production season.This lack of participation from undergraduate programs means that professional theaters must play an active role in bringing new voices to light on their stages. In the 18-19 professional production data 20% of the plays were identified as World or American premiers. This number is slightly inflated because many plays received simultaneous premiers or were co-produced and counted as two premiers. However, even a bit less than 20% is still a significant count and represents a commitment from many American theaters to new work. It should not be assumed that all new work is written by individuals from marginalized backgrounds, nor is it right to assume that the only way to produce work by a diverse group of playwrights is to do contemporary plays. If this view of the state of theatre is accurate, then not much needs to change. Necessity is the mother of invention, therefore a deficit in education can create significant innovation at the professional level. Undergraduate programs can continue teaching what they teach, emphasis on the classics and all. In this case, they should create more programming that encourages students to create their own work so they’re prepared to participate in the innovative aspects of the industry post-graduation. These types of programs don’t need to spoon-feed the artistic process for students. Carnegie Mellon University’s “Playground” a week-long creative frolic celebrating whatever work students choose to create is a strong model to follow. Knowing how to interact with and create new work is an important skill every member of the theatre field needs. Educators could also consider expanding their base of classical texts to be more inclusive. History Matters/Back to the Future is a grant giving organization focused on improving the representation of women playwrights in university curriculums and professional production seasons. Their One Play at a Time Initiative asks teachers “to dedicate one class period per semester to a play by a historic woman playwright (plays prior to the 1960s)” (History Matters/Back to the Future). The organization’s website also includes a library of almost 100 plays written by women before 1960. A 2015 article in American Theatre Magazine by Susan Jonas presents “The Other Canon: 10 Centuries of Plays by Women”, a list of historical female playwrights that could augment current curricula. It is time consuming for professors to learn new material to teach, but resources do exist to help them do it.The industry should continue on its current trajectory, following the lead of the LTC and the National New Play Network to stimulate creative energy. New work is a greater financial risk for many theaters, but organizations like these and others make the work more accessible and digestible to the bottom line. As the canon expands it should start encompassing more and more playwrights from marginalized backgrounds, communities, and experiences. Audiences must be primed to take artistic risks with their theaters just as boards need to prioritize growth in this area. Schools can do their part by preparing students for this inevitable exploration, even as they invest class time in the classics.Interpretation 2: Educational institutions and professional theatres have different goals.Perhaps it is unfair to hold educational institutions to the level of artistic exploration and progressive production practices as at professional theaters. While Kenneth Graham and Anne Berkeley identify the two institutions as related, that does not mean they are identical. Universities and colleges are beholden to students as well as their own published curriculum and state regulations over their activities. Non-profit theaters have an obligation to their audiences and to “exist for one or more charitable purposes” (Foundation Group). In the years since undergraduate training programs helped feed the rise of non-profit theaters perhaps the dynamic has shifted and their goals no longer align.Season selection is a major topic in the world of non-profit professional theaters. It is a nearly year-round activity, undertaken by an entire team of administrative and production staff. Theaters respond to audience and community needs, constraints on resources, and potential revenue when selecting plays to produce, which should ultimately uphold the institution’s mission statement. Due to their identification as 501(c)(3) organizations under the United States tax code, non-profit theaters don’t have an obligation to financial stakeholders, in fact they don’t even have an obligation to make all their income through standard “earned” sources like a for-profit institution might. Theaters often make around 50% of their income through ticket sales or other exchanges of goods, with the other half of their funds coming from external funding sources like government grants, corporate gifts, and individual donations. This reliance on contributed income, as well as the season-subscription model, lifts the burden from individual productions to be revenue drivers for a given theater. Undergraduate seasons are picked for different reasons and through different systems. At Syracuse University the season selection process is led by the department chair and takes many months. First, certain faculty are identified as being directors for the upcoming year. Then each faculty member selects a few titles which are brought to the chair and full faculty for discussion. Ultimate decisions about season selection are made by the department chair, with the consideration of the following three points, in order of importance.The educational opportunities they provide to students from all fields.The artistic opportunities they provide to faculty in all fields.The experience of community audience members.Faculty considers season selection within the broader scope of a 3-4 year student experience, attempting to produce plays from significant genres and styles at least once within that time so each student can experience them before they graduate. In this model there is minimal student involvement and while student learning is at the center of the decision-making process, faculty interest and desires are the driver behind the process.At Columbia College Chicago the selection method is very different. Every three years an “Artistic Director” is selected from tenured faculty, who then leads the season selection process. This individual first solicits input from students through a series of town halls and public discussions. Faculty input is then taken. Sometimes a dramaturgy class may give input on potential titles. When asked about this model, the interim chair Peter Carpenter, said that the model might be changing soon, however there were no concrete plans to switch systems. Unlike Syracuse’s model, the process is centered on student opinion and filtered from there. Columbia College, with more students and more performance space available than Syracuse, has significantly more student led productions as a part of their curriculum. The College is also directly competing for student involvement with professional theaters in the city of Chicago, where students often go to work. Since each theater and school have unique missions and objectives it’s not right to hold them all to the same standards of achieving diversity in the same ways. The strongest general distinction between the two sides of the field is that the primary stakeholder for professionals are community members and donors, and the primary stakeholder for schools are students and faculty. However, in neither system are the primary stakeholders really the ultimate decision makers in season selection. A theater, especially a theatre in a large city with many cultural institutions, can afford to be pickier about the type of work they produce. Theaters in New York City are almost forced to specialize into a niche that distinguishes them from the myriad of other institutions. There are nonprofit theaters committed to only producing new plays, American plays, Shakespeare, international plays, etc. If an undergraduate program made a commitment to such a specific type of play they would fail to educate students who could fully participate in every aspect of American theatre.I began my research considering how education prepares students for the industry. Through my reading and discussion with department chairs I found that my focus needed to expand. Considering the success or failure of curriculum exclusively within the realm of how it relates to professional theatre is limiting. Zazzalli and Klein state “We are selling our students short if we strictly focus on their job placement and prospective careers in the conventional sectors of the entertainment industry” (262). Their point is that most millennials and Gen Zs will have many careers in their life, and the career expectancy for theatre BFA recipients is not particularly high. Peter Carpenter, at Columbia College Chicago, suggested something similar. He was very clear that the industry did not necessarily have room to absorb their 800 students along with all the students graduating from drama programs all over the country. Carpenter viewed part of the theatre programs job as preparing students for all sorts of careers and lifestyles through the development of soft skills related to performing arts like creativity, commitment, and communication. It is important to note that Columbia College is not a liberal arts school where students are expected to be generalists, taking a broad range of courses on top of specific ones for their degree. Like most of the schools I looked at, Columbia College Chicago is a pre-professional training program offering mostly BFAs, which require a higher number of credit hours in a specific arts discipline. The survey administered by Syracuse Drama chair, Ralph Zito, shows that 40% of respondents did not consider themselves to be employed in a field directly relating to their program of study. The fact that this question was even asked shows, as Professor Zito readily shared, this is on the minds of educators. Unlike Professor Carpenter, Zito did not necessarily feel that curriculum should be shaped to reflect this truth. He referenced a few ways that Syracuse prepares its BFA students for potential careers outside the arts through co-curricular actives but cautioned that it would be a public relations issue to suggest they were “preparing students for failure”. At The Juilliard School, when Zito taught there ten years ago, he said there was even less emphasis, though students were required to take a small liberal arts core in addition to their conservatory training.Regardless of the actual outcome of students, these schools are heavily focused on the professional futures of their students. The word “professional” appears 23 times in the mission and vision statements of the university programs I looked at (four times more than the word “diversity”). This does not mean that university programs have the same goals as professional theaters, but that they are attempting to train student to be able to achieve those goals. Purchase College’s missions statement presents a good example of how “professional” may not always line up with an inclusive education.The Conservatory of Theatre Arts in the School of the Arts at Purchase College offers intensive, highly focused BFA training programs in acting and theatre design/technology for a limited number of students who seek to pursue professional careers in these fields. The theatre and performance BA program is for those interested in exploring the history and aesthetics of world drama and performance and the possibilities of theatrical expression—as performers, directors, and playwrights—within a broader liberal arts context. (Purchase College) The divide drawn by this statement is that students who plan to pursue careers in the field receive education that is “intensive” and “highly focused” while students with less interest in pursuing a career in theatre learn about “the history and aesthetics of world drama and performance” within the framework of a liberal arts education. The implication being that students who are going to become professionals don’t need to understand their work in global framework. Tony Kushner’s “A Modest Proposal” warns against this emphasis on vocational training over liberal arts education. He believes that some people who are particularly talented at 17 may choose to go into conservatories, but that the vast majority of young people should be entering liberal arts programs where they can learn a wide breadth of information and become strong critical thinkers. He couches that completely eliminating drama majors might be a bit extreme, however the jist is clear- a strong artist is a strong thinker.Kristiana Rae Colón told me that many students in her Afrofuturism class felt that their extensive training in the classics had developed a sense of rigidity that limited their ability to explore form in her class. Rigidity does not serve students to respond to a transforming industry. In her essay “Curative Pedagogy in the Undergraduate Theatre Historiography Classroom” Katelyn Hale Wood describes a method of developing theatre history curriculum that doesn’t ignore the cannon, but rather teaches students “how power plays out in the archive” (Wood 187). This model might not fit into a standard “pre-professional” course structure because it requires professors to expand their reading list beyond the traditionally understood lineage of western theatre, but it certainly breaks out of a rigid mold. An example Wood offered was teaching the ancient Greek play Lysistrata alongside Japanese Kabuki theatre in a “Theatre and the State” unit or combining a discussion of El Teatro Campesino with examples of contemporary protest performance. This model would require restructuring of individual courses but would leave students with a broader understanding of the field, and more preparation to interact with work outside of the western canon. Schools and professional theaters don’t need to have identical programming, but students and the industry would be better served by an educational system more inclusive than the professional theatre. Schools can focus on putting an emphasis on a liberal arts core, building entrepreneurial inclination, and developing an inclusive, global understanding of theatre. In research institutions, the opportunity exists for schools to experiment with form, style, and production methods. For example, Columbia College Chicago is considering experimenting with non-traditional rehearsal schedules to adapt to the changing lifestyles of theatre makers. Universities are educational institutions and have an obligation to students while theaters are public institutions with a duty to provide entertaining and educational content to their community. Educators should lean into the freedom their place in the industry gives them, refuse to be held back by a starvation economy mindset, and enjoy the abundance that exists in the theatre field today.Interpretation 3: Educational institutions and professional theatres both hope to move forward in a more inclusive way but are holding each other back.The flurry of activity around issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in professional and educational theatre institutions has only been growing over the past decade. Educators and artists are responding to changing social expectations that no longer accept micro and macro aggressions that create unhealthy work environments. Many theaters and educational programs have updated their mission statements to reflect goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Some are slower to move than others. In my survey, 33% of students did not feel that their curriculum represented the industry. Some of this variation likely had to do with individual curriculums at schools, as well as individual student experience. Students who identified as feeling underrepresented in their curriculum were more likely to feel that their curriculum was not reflective of the industry, suggesting that students may have a better idea of the work being produced professionally by members of their communities than their faculty. Only one student, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, stated that they felt their school’s curriculum was more diverse than professional theatre. Other than that, most students expressed sentiments in line with my analysis of season production data- Universities are producing less inclusive work than professional theaters.A student at USC said: “I think it's reflective of the professional theatre world in that the professional word is also not diverse enough” while another from Syracuse University said “There was a lot of ‘classical theatre’ but a lack of preparation for the current styles and representation in theatre”. A respondent with degrees from NYU and Columbia University gave an answer I feel to be most reflective of the research I have done:I only somewhat disagree that the undergrad drama curriculum reflected professional theatre because while professional theatre is more diverse than what we were taught, having primarily read the Western canon of plays, neither the professional industry nor my undergraduate theatre curriculum reflected actual humanity or society.The differences I found in production season data were not as far apart as some students seemed to feel in their responses. When considering all tiers of production, there were 6% more women and 2% less POC in University curriculum when compared to professional. The proportions on their own are exceedingly low, regardless of their relationship to each other. When considering in class curriculum in addition to public production seasons, an undergraduate curriculum slightly less diverse than professional seasons seems likely. This lack of equitable representation is in opposition to the stated goals of many schools I looked at. Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, CalArts, Baylor, Ithaca, Elon, Syracuse, and more state specific goals or beliefs related to diversity of students, staff, and/or curriculum on their websites. The same is true for many professional theaters. TCG has launched a serious initiative focused on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through American Theatre Magazine, emphasizing these issues at conferences, and the EDI Institute. LORT has an EDI Initiative intended to extend to and inspire all its member theaters, as well as resources for theaters interested in improving their inclusivity. Individual boards and leaders have also made strides to diversify production seasons as well as leadership.Despite these good intentions, professional and undergraduate institutions are still producing, on average, one play by a person of color and two plays by women for every six or seven play season. Based on survey responses, lack of diversity in both settings is not favorable for students, particularly students who are underrepresented because of it. Nicole Brewer, a professor at Howard University and advocate for inclusive and non-Eurocentric theatre training, points out how the emphasis on training from a white lens impacts students of color. “For students from marginalized groups, there is little doubt that conventional models of training fail to provide brave spaces for them to explore the vastness of their humanity.” (Brewer) She identifies many aspects of current training methods as oppressive and exclusionary, like the exclusive use of acting methods developed by white practitioners, emphasis on a “General American” accent as the necessary standard, and a lack of exploration of texts by people of color.Brewer discusses how this structure of her own training made her question her future as an actress, as well as provides examples of other students who had left school and the field after experiencing a severe lack of representation in curriculum at a variety of higher educational institutions. In my experience at an undergraduate theatre school, I have been told about the toll our whitewashed curriculum has on students. In a panel discussion with actresses in the cast of a student production of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, this topic was brought up. Seniors in the cast expressed that working on this production was the first time in their education that they had been encouraged to speak in a vernacular that mirrored their experiences. For some of the cast, this production was the first time they had felt like they were “good.” Peter Carpenter at Columbia College Chicago cited an example from his dance background in how inclusive education can inspire students. As head of Columbia’s dance program, Carpenter changed curriculum to hold western African dance and hip hop to the same level of importance as ballet and modern dance. Anecdotally, Carpenter found that by valuing skills of student that had previously been hidden, they were significantly more engaged in their learning. If a student went through four years of training, never having their community, background, or experiences validated as valuable or a relevant part of their identity as a performer, it’s easy for me to see why they might not choose to continue into the field. If the majority of students still see their curriculum as reflective of the industry, that implies there’s not much of a place for people of color in professional theatre.Regional theaters are relying on schools to provide them with skilled performers, designers, directors, playwrights, dramaturgs, and managers. Over the past few years, as cultural awareness has raised around these issues, many theaters have received backlash for favoring white men in hiring practices. One consistent response from organizations charged with this is that they selected the best person for the role. In casting, this sometimes means that white people are playing people of color, like Maria in West Side Story or The Engineer in Miss Saigon. There is a dramaturgical argument to be had that when the race or ethnicity of a character is significant to the story then someone not of a similar background could never be the best person for the role. That aside, it’s hard not to miss the subtext of the “best person for the role” argument when the resulting team is all white and/or male- women and people of color are not talented enough.This is where the relationship between training programs and theaters on this journey towards more inclusive work becomes very important. If schools do not admit, train, and then produce a plethora of skilled professionals from diverse communities, backgrounds, and experiences, the industry will never be able to hire them to produce the work they say they want to make. Students of color could be self-selecting out of the industry at any point in their educational journey after their first look at school websites in high school when they see nearly all white production seasons. The founder of the Burrell Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago said that one of her inspirations for creating the Fellowship was that black actresses had simply stopped auditioning for plays in the College’s season because they did not feel there was space for them. Anecdotally, I have heard similar issues brought up by students at Syracuse. In responses to my survey, several students indicated that the lack of diversity in their cohort of students hurt their ability to learn about communities, backgrounds, and experiences different from their own. This issue potentially speaks more to the class issues inherent in institutional education, as well as the centuries of institutional oppression that have systemically disenfranchised people of color. However, as a gateway to professional success, universities must be aware of which students they launch professionally and who is being stifled long before their first audition or job.The blame in this does not just fall on educators. If the logic from Anne Berkeley’s ‘Changing Views’ holds true today, professors are explicitly designing curricula for professional regional theatre. According to Bonnie Marranca, New York theatre critic, in 2013- “Over the last thirty or forty years the basic framework of undergraduate theatre programs… has changed little” (Marranca 1). When looking at the work being produced in regional theaters across the United States today, or even on Broadway, why would an educator think that teaching diverse work is important? Students need to be trained to perform Shakespeare, realism, and perhaps a few new plays every once in a while. Musical theatre programs have even less of a motivator to teach from an inclusive perspective, since there are almost no musicals being produced professionally written by women or people of color. Jeanine Tessori and Lin Manuel Miranda still seem to be the only non-white men to have found professional success with multiple musical productions. However, if theaters are hesitant to produce work about/by/for diverse identities without including artists from those backgrounds and they can’t find artists to use, the ball returns to educators. The cyclical nature of this issue calls for fieldwide action. Nicole Brewer and the Cross-Cultural Collaborative Committee are leading work in this field, bringing together professionals and educators to find ways to revitalize educational systems to be more inclusive and responsive. TCG has also begun hosting a Higher Education Pre-Conference at their annual National Conference. This day unites faculty, staff, and students, as well as theatre professionals to ask the question “What are the ways in which landscapes are shifting in both higher education and the professional field, and how do we help prepare students for, and empower them to help catalyze, that change?” (TCG) The Theatre Communications Group is an excellent format within which to ask this question since it is so enmeshed in American non-profit theatre, however it is limited in its relationship with students and educational institutions. Other organizations that can be involved in this evolution are the National Association of Schools of Theatre (NAST), LORT, The American Theatre Wing, The Broadway League, and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). The independent journal Howlround already publishes articles about issues in education. American Theatre Magazine, a publication read by much of the industry, should also engage with this issue in order to raise its urgency.Chapter 5ConclusionConsidering how complex the American theatre is, it is difficult to draw one clear conclusion about the relationship to equity, diversity, and inclusion between professional and educational theaters. If anything, the lack of communication and collection of data throughout the field that created difficulty in my research is probably the reason that response to these problems has been so slow. With little interaction between institutions in the same lane, and almost no interaction across the aisle, these issues will not be easily solved. That said, I believe I ultimately supported my hypothesis. This research shows a lack of plays written by individuals from marginalized backgrounds and illustrates how this is detrimental to the field as well as to individuals. Drawing on resources like History Matters/Back to the Future, the National New Play Network, and the Cross-Cultural Collaborative Committee will help educators reexamine the archive and develop more inclusive curriculum. Theaters can continue their new play development programs as well as foster relationships with people from marginalized identities in their communities.Ultimately, change will be slow in any massive institution. At universities, curriculum is frequently controlled by professors who are protected, for good reason, by tenure and academic freedom. Long term solutions may lie in hiring practices that prioritizes faculty with a commitment to inclusive training and then involving those faculty in large curriculum change that reevaluates Eurocentric sequencing, placing white-male narratives as the default. Individual programs can lobby within their institutions for changes that will support students of color who wish to pursue this training. In general, predominantly white institutions may need to invest in deep cultural changes to make non-white students feel safe in their learning environments. Columbia College Chicago worked with the People’s Institute who led their faculty through a program called Undoing Racism. Short term solutions might come in the year-to-year selection of performance seasons as well as restructuring of individual classes. Reinventing curriculum, like Katelyn Hale Woods’ argument for curative pedagogy in this field, delinearalizes history and play analysis in order to remove the colonialist communications of value that come with how theatre history is currently being taught. Bringing in working artists like at Syracuse University and Columbia College Chicago, with a specific focus on introducing diverse identities to students, is a short-term solution that can introduce students to role models who can guide them through their career.Theaters are faced with similar levels of institutional weight. Many theaters still have nearly exclusively white executive teams as well as Boards of Trustees. By nature of their experience, these people may not be able to truly solve these problems within their institutions. Long term solutions for theaters might come in the form of leadership change in both management and artistic staff, as well as within the Board of Trustees. Full time staffing changes may be harder to implement, but show to show hiring of actors and designers can reflect progress more than it does now. Community engagement programming can move more quickly than season planning, and while this work wouldn’t be reflected in data the same way season selections would, true community engagement will ultimately feed back into season planning and the greater mission of a theatre. For non-profit theaters this issue is urgent. As the American population diversifies, programming must adapt to reflect those communities, backgrounds, and experiences if it hopes to continue having an audience.Once members of the field acknowledge that the lack of representation is problematic, action must happen swiftly. It takes a long time for institutions to change. It took three years to implement the Burrell Fellowship at Columbia College Chicago and despite extensive anti-racism training with staff, students still face marginalization in class and rehearsal. LORT’s EDI Initiative was implemented in 2014, yet there are still consistent reports of inappropriate behavior towards women and people of color, alongside the lack of representation in season planning. In order for students graduating in the next decade to notice change, short term solutions must be implemented now. As a student leaving school, I hope that the students following me have experiences that continue to be more inclusive and prepare them to make the same change in the industry.NoteCarnegie Mellon University, New York University, University of Southern California, The Juilliard School, Northwestern University, University of North Carolina School of the Arts, California Institute of the Arts, Boston University, Syracuse University, Pace University, University of California Los Angeles, University of Minnesota, Rutgers University, Emerson College, DePaul University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Connecticut, SUNY Purchase, Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles, CA), University of California Irvine, Ithaca College, Baylor University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Washington, Elon UniversityWorks CitedArnegger, Sarah Jane. “Big 10: The 10 Most Represented Colleges on Broadway in the 2018-2019 Season”. Playbill, 10 Sep. 2018. article/big-10-the-10-most-represented-colleges-on-broadway-in-the-2018-2019-seasonBerkeley, Anne. “Changing View of Knowledge and the Struggle for Undergraduate Theatre Curriculum 1900-1980”. Teaching Theatre Today: Pedagogical Views of Theatre in Higher Education, edited by Anne L Fliotsos and Gail S Medford, Palgrave MacMillan, 2004.Brewer, Nicole. “Training With a Difference”. American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Communications Group, Jan. 2018, 2018/01/04/training-with-a-difference.CollegeFactual. “2019 Best Drama & Theatre Arts Colleges in the U.S.”. College Factual, majors/visual-and-performing-arts/drama-and-theater-arts/rankings/top-ranked/p1.html. Accessed 02 Feb. 2019.Foundation Group. “What is a 501(c)(3)”. Foundation Group, 2019, Matters/Back to the Future. “About”. about.Jonas, Susan. “The Other Cannon: 10 Centuries of Plays by Women”. American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Communications Group, Oct. 2015, 2015/09/21/the-other-canon-10-centuries-of-plays-by-women.Kushner, Tony. “A Modest Proposal”. American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Communications Group, Jan. 1998, pp. 20-22, 77-89.League of Resident Theatres. “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Initiative”. May 2017, edi-initiative.Marranca, Bonnie. “Educating Artists”. PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press, vo1. 35, no. 1, Jan. 2013, pp. 1-3.McGerr, Katherine. “It Starts in the Classroom”. Howlround Theatre Commons, Emerson College, 08 November 2017, it-starts-classroom.National New Play Network. “About”. About, 2019, organizations/1693/national-new-play-network.Niche. “2019 Best Colleges for Performing Arts in America”. Niche, colleges/search/best-colleges-for-theater. Accessed 02 Feb. 2019.O‘Quinn, Jim. “Going National: How America’s Regional Theatre Movement Changed the Game”. American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Communications Group, Jun. 2015, 2015/06/16/going-national-how-americas-regional-theatre-movement-changed-the-game.Peterson, Christopher. “The Top 25 BFA Acting/Performance Programs for 2018-19”. OnStage Blog, 27 Aug. 2018, onstage-blog-news/2018/8/27/the-top-25-bfa-actingperformance-programs-for-2018-19. Purchase College. “Conservatory of Theatre Arts”. State University of New York, purchase.edu/academics/theatre-arts/Steiger, Amy. “Whiteness, Patriarchy, and Resistance in Actor Training Texts”. Howlround, 13 Aug. 2019, whiteness-patriarchy-and-resistance-actor-training-texts. AccSyracuse University. “Department of Drama.” Course Catalog, coursecatalog.syr.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=17&ent_oid=535&returnto=2226.THR Staff. “Top 25 Undergraduate Drama Schools Ranked”. The Hollywood Reporter, 20 May 2016, lists/top-25-undergraduate-drama-schools-895399/item/savannah-college-art-design-top-895438.Tran, Diep. “The Top 20 Most-Produced Playwrights of the 2018-19 Season”. American Theatre Magazine, Theatre Communications Group, Oct. 2018, 2018/09/20/the-top-20-most-produced-playwrights-of-the-2018-19-season.White, Alice. “25 Amazing Acting Colleges You Should Know”. Backstage, 28 May 2018, magazine/article/amazing-acting-colleges-know-5772. Accessed 02 Feb. 2019. Wood, Katelyn Hale. “Curative Pedagogy in the Undergraduate Theatre Historiography Classroom”. Theatre Topics, vol. 27, no. 3, Nov. 2017, pp. 187-196.Yetter, Alexandra. “Pulling back the curtain on race, diversity, and curriculum in college theatre”. The Columbia Chronicle, 28 May 2019, pulling-back-the-curtain-on-race-diversity-and-curriculum-in-college-theatre#photo.Zazzali, Peter and Jeanne Klein. “Toward Revising Undergraduate Theatre Education”. Theatre Topics, Volume 25, Number 3, Sept. 2015, pp. 261-276. ................
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