Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2021 - 31

* " Recommend that the director and
creative team open conversations
about race... For example, opening
conversations about costumes, hair,
and makeup are especially important
since, even within a multiracial cast,
the default might be to white skin color
and hair texture. "
* " Question microaggressions that are
typically normalized in the production
process, like a White colleague
commenting that a Black actor speaks
Shakespeare well... "
By critically looking at our practice,
we discover " there are so many
places we, as stage managers, can
be culpable in perpetuating white
supremacy " (Alcorn and Porter 2020).
The 2021 Broadway Stage
Management Symposium brought together
some of these authors and other
stage managers to discuss Anti-Racist
Stage Management. The discussion
was passionate, insightful and demonstrated
the importance of evaluating our
own processes. Stage managers will be
on the front lines when issues arise and
need to take personal responsibility to
learn to see and discuss race issues and
to foresee and address concerns. This
is critical to creating the safe and equitable
spaces we want our theatres to be.
The Stage Managers' Association
(SMA), the professional organization
for stage managers across the country,
released a statement in June 2020
that states: " We at the Stage Managers'
Association stand with those who are
committed to fighting oppression, racism,
and hate. We can do better. We
must do better. We call upon all stage
managers to pledge to respect everyone
in the room and everyone at the table
to read, to listen, and to learn so that
we can understand individually how to
help make the rehearsal room and the
performance stage a place for joyful creation,
with mutual respect and collaboration
for all people working together in
the artistic process " (SMA 2020).
Access and diversity in stage management
is also part of the new era of
stage management. Stage managers are
actively creating avenues to bring more
stage managers of color into the tightknit
networks that have a huge impact
on a stage manager's career. Broadway
and Beyond: Access for Stage Managers
of Color has created networking events
Broadway Stage Manager, Michael Rico Cohen, backstage at the Lyceum Theatre. | Photo courtesy of
Broadway Green Alliance.
and an online database of stage managers
of color. Cody Renard Richard and
Broadway Advocacy Coalition created
a scholarship program for BIPOC theatre
makers
(www.codyrenard.com/
scholarship).
The SMA promoted the
Black Theatre Caucus a social media
program to highlight 101 Black Stage
Managers that comes with free membership
in the professional association
and the Broadway Stage Management
Symposium (with the support of BIPOC
stage managers) created scholarships
for stage managers of color to attend the
professional development and networking
conference for free (Rabinowitz
2020).
In the months preceding Broadway's
re-opening, the Broadway Advocacy
Coalition launched a new program
called Reimagining Equitable
Productions. This program held workshops
with the company of several
Broadway shows, including their stage
managers, to acknowledge the past
and pave a new way forward, setting
new standards and methods of communication
(Huston 2021). In August
2021, Black Theatre United (BTU),
an advocacy group for black theatre
artists founded during the shutdown,
published A New Deal For Broadway.
This document is the result of BTU's
founding members bringing together
numerous theatre workers, theatre
FALL 2021 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 31

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Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 2021

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