2.5: Art - Drama

Earning a degree in Drama prepares students to become actors, art consultants, set designers, visual artists, and scriptwriters, along with other professional theatre skills (Foster,2011).Students studying performing arts learn multiple forms of performative creativity such as drama, music, and dance. In providing a framework for understanding the relationship between the performing arts and white supremacy, we must examine how racism operates and how racial hierarchies are constructed within the arts and in theater education in the United States.To make the case for understanding the arts as white supremacy property, a dual-lensed framework that defines “the performing arts” as both an inclusive and exclusive educational experience based largely on student testimonies can be analyzed. From the top down,performing arts institutions are largely private not-for-profit and this privatization makes it all the more difficult to hold these approximately 473 United States institutions accountable(“General Drama and Theater Arts”, n.d.). New York University awards the most degrees in General Drama & Theater Arts in the US, but Portland Actors Conservatory and American Academy of Dramatic Arts-Los Angeles have the highest percentage of degrees awarded in General Drama & Theater Arts (“General Drama and Theater Arts”, n.d.). Tuition costs per term for General Drama & Theater Arts majors are, on average, $7,070 for in-state public colleges,and $36,680 for out-of-state private colleges. (“General Drama and Theater Arts”, n.d.).

An abstract of systemic racism in theatre begins with the origins of stage drama, traced back to the slave trade and colonization period. The cultural appropriation of Middle Eastern,Asian, African, and Native American performance traditions was dominated by white European writers, directors, and actors. In the early years of the slave trade, Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) were only able to put on private performances at plantations and the homes of the slave owners (L, 2019). The first characters of color to appear on stage in the 17th and 18th centuries were white people wearing ‘blackface’ makeup, appearing at intervals in white productions as comic relief, usually playing dim-witted servants (L, 2019). The use of blackface characters grew in popularity in the early 1800’s, with BIPOC characters portrayed as racist caricatures: lazy, buffoonish, superstitious and slow (L, 2019). The performances were typically burlesque and aimed at a low-brow audience, but they soon infiltrated the opera house, first as entr’actes and eventually taking over completely to become America’s first national art form (L,2019).

According to Howard University, people of color have been an integral part of theatre and drama since its beginnings in colonial America, with the first American production of a play taking place during the middle of the seventeenth century (Howard University, n.d.). The play,Prince of Parthia, patterned its form from neoclassicism which entailed rigorous adherence to decorum and grandiose spectacle, as all theatre in America would until the Minstrelsy period beginning in the early 19th century. The minstrel show was an exploitative form of theatre that belittled and made light of the Black experience and was performed primarily by white actor swearing what was commonly known as black face (Howard University, n.d.). A West Indian slave played a character known as Mungo who was a profane clown of little authenticity in the 1769 play,Padlock(Howard University, n.d.). In early productions featuring Black actors, they were given two options: accept the comical, minstrel type role or create their own theatre(Howard University, n.d.).

The first professional Black theatre group in America, founded by Mr. Brown (who’s first name is said to be unknown) in 1820-1821, was the African Company, and their theatre was the African Grove, located in lower Manhattan (Howard University, n.d). The African Company's repertoire was primarily made up of Shakespearean dramas, but they also showcased the first play written by African Americans called King Shotaway, while performing for diverse audiences(Howard University, n.d.). Unfortunately, The African Grove closed in 1823 after it was vandalized by white hoodlums, so Black actors had to resort back to minstrelsy (Howard University, n.d.). During this time there were still Black theatre companies being formed and finally, in the 1900’s Black actors completely stopped performing minstrelsy (Howard University, n.d.).

The growth of theatre by other ethnic groups has been primarily a product of the 20th century in the United States. Asian-American theatre did not surface until the 1960s and has grown to around forty groups today. Early productions often had Asian themes or settings; "yellow face" was a common medium for displaying the perceived exoticism of the East in American performance (Morgan, 2018). Professors Sidoni Lopez and Hanane Benali write that Native Americans were largely left out of the theatre industry, despite their rich history of storytelling until the later 20th century. The stories that inspire Native American Theatre have been around for hundreds of years but did not gain formal recognition by colonial America until Lynn Riggs, a playwright of Cherokee descent, brought Native theatre into the spotlight through the Six Nations Reserve Forest Theatre in Ontario in the 1930’s (Lopez & Benali, 2016). Through these events, Native Theatre has been introduced to mainstream society and contemporary Native American Theater was born. Arab-American theatre dates to 1909, growing out of a small repertoire (Ali, 2017). The events of 9/11 and their ramifications have largely shaped Arab American theatre, with the current political climate further galvanizing it by reinstating a “clash of civilization” discourse (Ali, 2017).

In 2020 some light was shed on the history of performing arts colleges, with many students coming forward to tell their stories. As many institutions attempted to make vague statements about supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, students called out these hypocrisies, demanding real change. Contemporarily, students of color continue to face hostility and rejection from the people in power at performing arts universities. In a 2020 article written by Erica Batres, a theatre major student, she recounts first-hand knowledge of how the musical theatre and acting BFA audition process is set up to keep low-income students from auditioning in a series of calculated steps. First, to receive a callback, students must film a high quality prescreen audition in which some students invest hundreds of dollars in studio and audition coaches. Students who are privileged to have attended private performing arts high schools have an upper hand in this process because of the training they received and access to space and technology needed to produce the submission materials. Secondly, there are fees attached to audition submissions on top of the school application fees. The last step of auditioning requires students who have received a call back to have an in-person audition, in many cases this requires last minute airfare which isn’t always feasible for students who are not upper-middle class (Batres, 2020).Today, schools across the country vary in quality of resources due to the location and area of where they are placed, and racial segregation has played a destructive role. In predominantly BIPOC neighborhoods, there is a significant lack of funding within extracurriculars and even classroom supplies (Batres, 2020). This directly affects theatre education, forit is common practice that theatre be the first to go when budget cuts are proposed (Batres, 2020). Many theatre programs exist with no facility or budget, with students left up to fend for themselves to get fundraising, a teacher to donate their time, and request to use the cafeteria after school (Batres, 2020). The problem of access leads to less and less BIPOC performers auditioning for college theatre programs. As if access and preparation doesn’t set them back, the audition hurdle of getting accepted almost certainly will (Batres, 2020).

Not surprisingly, lack of representation is an issue for the field. The population of the United States is 63 percent white, yet 81 percent of performing arts graduates are white(“Artists Report Back”, 2014). The population of the United States is 12 percent Black, yet only 4 percent of performing arts graduates are Black (“Artists Report Back”, 2014). Every theatre department in every institution of higher education should be reckoning with the discussion of how to create a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community for students while recognizing that work on these issues is far from finished.

When BIPOC students do make it into the program and onto the stage, they often receive microaggressions and discrimination from the faculty, via Stereotyping in casting and difficulty accessing coaching. One African American student in Syracuse University’s theatre program was told she “passed the ‘paper bag test,’” an infamous measure that upholds colorism by excluding those whose skin tone is darker than the color of a brown paper bag (Diane, 2020).

It is commonly said that “if you want to be the best you must train with the best,” but what happens when the “best” is virtually impossible to access (Batres, 2020)? Training schools influence what our Broadway stages look like. To advocate for diversity in the theatre industry,actionable steps must be taken, such as supporting nonprofit organizations like The Fund for College Auditions (TFCA) (Batres, 2020). TFCA provides information and support to students and parents, funds for workshops and camps, grants for traveling fees, and much more (Batres,2020). Another step to be taken is to organize free theatre performances and workshops in low-income communities to create an accessible industry (Batres, 2020). There are many directions that can be taken to implement change within the theatre and drama industry, and those in powerful positions in the field have an opportunity to start demanding them.