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‘No More All White Seasons’: Scathing open letter targets Philadelphia Theatre Company

At issue is diversity — of race, ethnic background, and gender identification — not only on Philly stages, but also in the front office, where decisions are made about plays, playwrights, and productions.

The Philadelphia Theatre Company presented its 2018-19 season this year after a yearlong hiatus to regroup under new leadership. Its 2019-20 season is being criticized for insufficient diversity.  MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer
The Philadelphia Theatre Company presented its 2018-19 season this year after a yearlong hiatus to regroup under new leadership. Its 2019-20 season is being criticized for insufficient diversity. MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff PhotographerRead moreMICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

Nineteen members of the local theater community posted an open letter on Facebook on Tuesday taking aim at the Philadelphia Theatre Company.

Titled “No More All-White Seasons,” the letter praises the current 2018-19 season for its diversity — then condemns a lack of it in the theater’s upcoming 2019-20 season. In the process, it points to the sometimes acrimonious diversity debate underway at local and national theaters.

Written by writer-producers Elaina Di Monaco and Haygen-Brice Walker, cofounders of the On the Rocks theater company, the letter laments that all three plays for PTC’s next season are by white playwrights, although the theater touts its selections as representing change and diversity. The signers, including Philly standouts such as actor-playwright James Ijames, identified themselves as being from a range of racial, ethnic, and gender identities.

The letter said that as one of the biggest theaters in the city, PTC has “a commitment to highlight stories that speak to the racial diversity of the Philadelphia community at large. And selecting three plays by white writers is not honoring this commitment.”

Paige Price, producing artistic director at PTC, said her company was blindsided by the letter. It was sent to every staff member at PTC on Tuesday morning, then posted on Facebook two hours later. Price said, “I had not heard from anyone prior to that.”

Price was hired in 2017, with the theater reportedly $1 million in debt. She immediately decided to take it semi-dark, not mounting any full-blown productions for the 2017-18 season, and she cleared the debt. In the current comeback season, Price made a promise of diversity and kept it, with plays such as Sweat by Lynn Nottage and How to Catch Creation by Christina Anderson. Both are by African American women, and both productions were notably diverse.

The three plays for next season are A Small Fire by Adam Bock (Oct. 18 to Nov. 10), Everything Is Wonderful by Chelsea Marcantel (Feb. 14 to March 8, 2020), and Wolves by Sarah DeLappe (March 27 to April 19, 2020). All three writers are white.

Di Monaco identifies as a white queer cisgender woman. She praised Price’s past work. “I know PTC is going through a period of change, and she has made some impressive decisions,” she said. “But when I saw the new season, I said, ‘This is not inclusion or diversity.’ It’s like they’re saying, ‘We’re going to do the bare minimum. We’re not going to produce a single person of color. But we’ll put a badge of honor on ourselves and skip into the night.’ ”

Walker, her co-writer, who identifies as a Latino cisgender queer man, said, “It’s not enough to have diverse casts on stage. It’s about who’s in your building every day as a full-time staff member. Do you have any people of color, any trans or gender-nonconforming people, in a power position?”

The letter asks eight pointed questions about the PTC selection process, including “How many artists of color, [gender-nonconforming], or trans people currently sit on your season selection committee?” and “How many full-time staff members do you have who are POC and or LGBTQ?”

That message resonated with the signees. One of them is Jarrett McCreary, who told The Inquirer, “As a black gay man, a writer and educator, I always ask not just, ‘Do you hire diversity?’ but also, ‘Where? Are they in the front office? Do they have executive status?’”

Why are actors not enough? “Because you run the risk, if they’re only on stage, of tokenizing these marginalized voices,” McCreary said. “True diversity has to be organization-wide.”

Price said that message resonates with her, too. “These conversations are a large part of what our industry, here and nationally, is talking about,” she said. “It’s a systemic issue.” She granted that her staff “is not as representative as one would hope” and that, while the board did add a person of color recently, she has not been able to fill two recent full-time slots.

All three plays for next season “are about women and their stories," she said, "something that is very important to us. In the end, we’re not going to do all the things in all the shows that we want to do. But we can hold those goals really high.” She offered to meet with the writers and signers of the letter.

Price also stressed that PTC is an example of a problem theaters nationally are facing: How to diversify both the plays you show and the audience for them – and still make money?

Walker said he sympathizes but stands firm. “Just because you’re dealing with a company in financial turmoil,” he said, “you don’t get off the hook.”