My interview this week is with an artist I admire from a community that's currently embroiled in a debate over gender representation. When this person reached out to me asking to do an interview, I read up on the situation, and immediately got her on the phone.
Here's the interview:
ME: How are you holding up?
THEM: It's been a trying few months.
ME: This has been going on for months?
THEM: Yes, it has.
ME: Can you tell me where it all began?
THEM: In the way that you--with this series of interviews--were trying to showcase some of the issues that are going on right now in various communities, I wrote my own blog post about what I was experience in my community and why it had gotten me to a point where I felt like I wanted to just, uh, walk away from it--the community.
ME: So basically, I got you in trouble.
THEM: (Laughs.) This is all your fault, Kevin.
ME: What were the issues you wrote about?
THEM: They were--I wrote about gender disparity within the community. My community. Right now, the bulk of the theaters where I live are run by men. By straight men. By white men. We have very few women in charge of these organizations or the organizations that fund them.
ME: Arts advocacy groups?
THEM: Yes.
ME: What was the reaction to what you wrote?
THEM: I had a lot of support from women, as you can imagine. Men too. But the men in charge--who publicly and vocally supported what I was saying--then went behind my back and, uh, tried to get me banned from working where--and I was already talking about taking a step back so I thought that was kind of--you know, it was kind of funny that that's what they would try to do to silence me when I was already saying that I was looking to remove myself.
ME: Maybe they were worried that by publicly supporting you, they'd encourage you to stick around, so then they had to privately blacklist you.
THEM: That's--you know, when you put it that way.
ME: It's wild.
THEM: It is.
ME: How did you find out they were going behind your back?
THEM: A friend--a woman--recommended me to direct at one of these theaters--one run by a man, guy named _____--I know you can't put his name, but, uh, just for yourself, for context--she suggested that I could direct, because she wanted to get me back in the middle of things. Get me back working again. And this person--this man--had said that he was in support of that. He had said that publicly. Privately he told her, 'She's not working here. Don't you know what she said? Didn't you read what she wrote?'
ME: And so what did you do?
THEM: I called him to talk about it. He didn't answer. I tried again. No answer. Then I got what I would consider to be a, uh, a form letter. From him. Thanking me for reaching out but unable to speak with me. So then I wrote another blog post--
ME: Oh boy.
THEM: --About what I suspected was going on, and I found out that he was not the only one. This is the straight man MO, I guess. To show one face to the public and another behind closed doors.
ME: And what was the nature of your original complaint? Just that these guys had high-powered positions?
THEM: That--it went beyond that. You had to be in their immediate vicinity to get any opportunities. I asked after--There was a woman in a production--an actress--who, uh, seemed to come out of nowhere. We're a--we're a good-sized community, but everybody knows everybody. And this actress just came out of nowhere and was given a leading role in a mainstage show at this one very prominent theater. I asked about that to a friend, because this theater has a--they have resident artists--actresses--that they use, and it was very odd that they wouldn't, uh, cast one of those actresses in a part that big in that kind of show, and I asked, because I knew that those actresses wouldn't. They'd be too nervous to do that. So I saw the man--the director--who had cast her at this event we were both attending, and I asked how it is that actress wound up in that role, and he told me that she had recently moved to town and that she had joined his kickball team, and that's how they met, and he had cast her without even auditioning her.
ME: Uh...what?
THEM: (Laughs.) He said it very, uh--he did not seem to find this strange. I found it strange.
ME: I mean, this isn't me playing devil's advocate, but--have you heard anything along the lines of, 'Well, that's just showbiz?'
THEM: Oh yes, and I understand that. I do. But I also know that we're entering an age--I hope--of accountability? Of not just saying--You can continue to do whatever you want, because that's what you've always done. So I'd like to know where that starts. Can't it start with saying to someone, 'You shouldn't be giving employment to someone just because you enjoy playing kickball with them?'
ME: I feel like I've run into the testosterone phenomenon in theater a bunch of times. It's weird, because I got into theater to avoid that kind of atmosphere, and it's like it followed me here.
THEM: And you're a man running a theater, so this doesn't exclude you either.
ME: I understand that.
THEM: But then again, I don't see you producing a lot of Neil LaBute.
ME: I'd rather be fed to crocodiles.
THEM: (Laughs.) You know when certain theaters are being, uh, mainly guided by a masculine driving force. Not to perpetuate ideas of masculinity and femininity, but to look at something and say--Wow, we're constantly producing male playwrights. Wow, we're asking women to speak a certain kind of language in this theater.
ME: What language is that?
THEM: 'I'm a guy's girl.' 'I can hang with the guys.' I don't hang with guys. I don't want to hang with guys. I'm a woman. I like women. I love women. I don't mind men, but I would be very happy to never be in another rehearsal room with them, and I don't know why I should have to be punished for feeling that way.
ME: So now your community is really--
THEM: We're finally getting people to say what they mean. If you push hard enough, the bullshit falls away and you get them to just speak the dirty stuff. I was glad to get there.
ME: What was the dirty stuff?
THEM: You had the people who benefit from the current culture coming out to say--We like it like this. You had people who feel like they could soon be benefiting from the culture defending it. And then you had the rest of us.
ME: So the kickball teams weren't on your side?
THEM: (Laughs.) No, we didn't have them in our corner.
ME: What can men like me do to help? I run a company. I'm a man. What would you like to see me do differently?
THEM: Produce--and you might--I know you're already doing a lot of this, but--Produce plays by women. With women characters. Directed by women. And the step that I think is most important and not talked about enough is this--When it comes time to make decisions about what gets produced and who gets employed, that needs to be done by committee if the Artistic Director is a man. We just can't leave these decisions solely up to men anymore. I'm sorry to say that but--
ME: No, that's fair.
THEM: Y'all have just not demonstrated the ability to make these decisions in ways that don't protect your own privilege and your own power.
ME: Can you elaborate on that?
THEM: Do you agree with me?
ME: Totally. I just want to have you flesh it out, because I think it's important.
THEM: So listen, maybe that guy who cast that girl from his kickball team--maybe he thought she was pretty. I found her to be pretty. Maybe he didn't. I don't want to disparage another woman by saying she got something because she was pretty. But at the end of the day, when one person makes a decision about who they want to spend six to eight weeks in a room with, aren't they going to pick--or isn't their brain, their mind, their decision-making--that part--isn't it going to steer them towards people they find attractive? Or people they can 'hang' with? We like to say this is all subjective. It's not. Meryl Streep is a better actor than your cousin Chris who did theater once in middle school, and we all know that to be true. But we pretend it gets more complicated when it's local and when it's people we know. It doesn't have to be. When an entire community says, 'This person is miscast' that's the equivalent of saying 'This person got a job that other people were more qualified for' and it should be taken with that amount of, uh, seriousness. Casting is where the shady shit goes down, and that's why it needs to be made more transparent and looked at harder and there shouldn't be this feeling that nobody needs to explain why it is the way it is. Same with choosing directors and playwrights.
ME: But I don't know many Artistic Directors who would say they do everything themselves. Most of them, I think, would say they do have committees and they do--
THEM: But who are these committees made up of? Friends chosen by the Artistic Director? Or by the Associate Artistic Director or the Executive Director or--who are these people? Are there any people from the community? Theaters want to say they're of the community, but to them, it seems as though that extends only as far as the audience they allow into their building. Why not let them have a say?
ME: But then--Okay, so you're talking about a season selection committee or a hiring committee--
THEM: I--Yes.
ME: But then aren't they doing the job of the Artistic Director? Like, why have an Artistic Director?
THEM: I don't see the Artistic Director as needing to be the sole artistic vision of a company. [The AD] should be forming that collection of voices and ideas. And it's--you know, it's 2019. We need to be making sure that the last person in line to have a say in what kind of art we're presenting looks like someone in a David Mamet play, don't you think?
ME: Oh, this is going to make some people very angry.
THEM: It already has. I showed you those conversations I've been having.
ME: Are you saying there's no room at the table for the straight guys?
THEM: It's not just about guys, Kevin. It's a mentality. You're a guy, but maybe your mentality syncs up with the broader mentality a little better than most. You see what just happened on Broadway with To Kill a Mockingbird and the success of that show? How a male writer and a male director took a novel written by a woman with a female protagonist and made it all about the father. All about the male lawyer. And people eat it up. Because they're conditioned to eat it up. They're conditioned to get more excited about certain titles as opposed to others. That's why when you say you're doing The Crucible or Glengarry Glen Ross or, even some Shakespeare, there's more excitement. Because the men are excited about it, and everybody else falls in line. That excitement doesn't exist at the same level when you're talking about plays by women or work by women. People don't get as excited about Helen Mirren as they used to get about Al Pacino. And Pacino's never been as good as Helen Mirren is. Just to put that out there.
ME: (Laughs.) Okay then.
THEM: Everybody's sucked into it. This idea that, 'That play is good because it's so visceral.' Visceral means masculine. That's the secret language of critics. Visceral. Raw. Look at who they champion. Look at how many stories are still built around the put-upon man and his fight with society. It's--You know, you say to yourself, why are we even doing Arthur Miller anymore?
ME: You know, the last time I saw Death of a Salesman, I thought--Why are we supposed to like Willie? He's an asshole.
THEM: Yes, he is.
ME: But he's an asshole with pride, so we're supposed to--
THEM: Pride. It's always these characters who forfeit everything and hurt people and fuck up, but we cheer for them because they walk away with their pride. And that's a very, uh, male analysis of a lot of what's in the American canon.
ME: Were there other examples within our own community of people being given opportunities in ways that--Okay, I have to say something.
THEM: Okay.
ME: I don't mean to pull from what you're--
THEM: No, go ahead.
ME: I always felt like--Like because I couldn't go out and drink with people--I'm not much of a drinker, and for awhile, I never drank.
THEM: Okay.
ME: I always felt like that prohibited me from being available to certain opportunities, because I would find myself in situations where it was like--Here's a guy in charge of something and he's going out for beers with these other people, and if you don't go out with them and engage them in that environment then you're going to miss out, and I really feel like, in a lot of ways, I did.
THEM: You probably did. That's the other thing. People scoff at the term 'safe spaces,' but what about just neutral environments? I found out through listening to people when all this blew up that one retired Artistic Director used to take board members out to strip clubs and talk to them about what they'd like to see produced. Well, how did the female members of the board feel about that? Assuming there were any. How might the gay men on the board have felt? Or just the men who found that to be what it was, which was highly unprofessional. Where you make decisions is important. How you make them is important.
ME: In the last interview, the person I was speaking with talked about looking around the room--
THEM: Yes, and who's in that room. It's so important. Kevin, do you know how many times in my professional career I've seen three men go in a room, shut the door, and come out with a decision that impacted me and my colleagues? And they never once asked us to come in and offer another perspective on what they were discussing? We--Oh, I shouldn't even go into this.
ME: No, go ahead.
THEM: We recently saw--in my community--a play be commissioned about Susan B. Anthony--Susan B. Anthony, okay? And it's being written by a man. And the AD who commissioned the play said that, uh, How dare we criticize him for not doing plays for women when he just commissioned this play about this woman--and it's a pretty cliched choice by the way--but even that scrap on the table is being brought to us by a man.
ME: Do you still see yourself walking away?
THEM: Not at the height of a fight like this one, no. Because I won't give them that satisfaction. I still don't know if I feel like I can create art, but I can...I can fight. I can do that. So that maybe the next person doesn't want to walk away. That's something I can do and will do.
ME: Thank you for speaking with me.
THEM: Thank you. And I'd like to keep speaking with you if you'd be open to that, because you're someone I think could do better and if you're open to it, I'd like to see if by us speaking together, we could bring about some change where you are and maybe some where I am too, because I think it's all about this reaching out--these outside perspectives can be really valuable--outside the bubble, you know? I think we can help each other.
ME: I think you can definitely help me, and I'd love to talk with you more. Thank you so much.
THEM: Thank you, Kevin. And don't let me find out you're doing Mamet next season.
ME: Again, feed me to crocodiles.
THEM: (Laughs.) Okay, that's a start.
Them is an actress, writer, and director who was recently honored for her outstanding contribution to the arts by a national organization.
Here's the interview:
ME: How are you holding up?
THEM: It's been a trying few months.
ME: This has been going on for months?
THEM: Yes, it has.
ME: Can you tell me where it all began?
THEM: In the way that you--with this series of interviews--were trying to showcase some of the issues that are going on right now in various communities, I wrote my own blog post about what I was experience in my community and why it had gotten me to a point where I felt like I wanted to just, uh, walk away from it--the community.
ME: So basically, I got you in trouble.
THEM: (Laughs.) This is all your fault, Kevin.
ME: What were the issues you wrote about?
THEM: They were--I wrote about gender disparity within the community. My community. Right now, the bulk of the theaters where I live are run by men. By straight men. By white men. We have very few women in charge of these organizations or the organizations that fund them.
ME: Arts advocacy groups?
THEM: Yes.
ME: What was the reaction to what you wrote?
THEM: I had a lot of support from women, as you can imagine. Men too. But the men in charge--who publicly and vocally supported what I was saying--then went behind my back and, uh, tried to get me banned from working where--and I was already talking about taking a step back so I thought that was kind of--you know, it was kind of funny that that's what they would try to do to silence me when I was already saying that I was looking to remove myself.
ME: Maybe they were worried that by publicly supporting you, they'd encourage you to stick around, so then they had to privately blacklist you.
THEM: That's--you know, when you put it that way.
ME: It's wild.
THEM: It is.
ME: How did you find out they were going behind your back?
THEM: A friend--a woman--recommended me to direct at one of these theaters--one run by a man, guy named _____--I know you can't put his name, but, uh, just for yourself, for context--she suggested that I could direct, because she wanted to get me back in the middle of things. Get me back working again. And this person--this man--had said that he was in support of that. He had said that publicly. Privately he told her, 'She's not working here. Don't you know what she said? Didn't you read what she wrote?'
ME: And so what did you do?
THEM: I called him to talk about it. He didn't answer. I tried again. No answer. Then I got what I would consider to be a, uh, a form letter. From him. Thanking me for reaching out but unable to speak with me. So then I wrote another blog post--
ME: Oh boy.
THEM: --About what I suspected was going on, and I found out that he was not the only one. This is the straight man MO, I guess. To show one face to the public and another behind closed doors.
ME: And what was the nature of your original complaint? Just that these guys had high-powered positions?
THEM: That--it went beyond that. You had to be in their immediate vicinity to get any opportunities. I asked after--There was a woman in a production--an actress--who, uh, seemed to come out of nowhere. We're a--we're a good-sized community, but everybody knows everybody. And this actress just came out of nowhere and was given a leading role in a mainstage show at this one very prominent theater. I asked about that to a friend, because this theater has a--they have resident artists--actresses--that they use, and it was very odd that they wouldn't, uh, cast one of those actresses in a part that big in that kind of show, and I asked, because I knew that those actresses wouldn't. They'd be too nervous to do that. So I saw the man--the director--who had cast her at this event we were both attending, and I asked how it is that actress wound up in that role, and he told me that she had recently moved to town and that she had joined his kickball team, and that's how they met, and he had cast her without even auditioning her.
ME: Uh...what?
THEM: (Laughs.) He said it very, uh--he did not seem to find this strange. I found it strange.
ME: I mean, this isn't me playing devil's advocate, but--have you heard anything along the lines of, 'Well, that's just showbiz?'
THEM: Oh yes, and I understand that. I do. But I also know that we're entering an age--I hope--of accountability? Of not just saying--You can continue to do whatever you want, because that's what you've always done. So I'd like to know where that starts. Can't it start with saying to someone, 'You shouldn't be giving employment to someone just because you enjoy playing kickball with them?'
ME: I feel like I've run into the testosterone phenomenon in theater a bunch of times. It's weird, because I got into theater to avoid that kind of atmosphere, and it's like it followed me here.
THEM: And you're a man running a theater, so this doesn't exclude you either.
ME: I understand that.
THEM: But then again, I don't see you producing a lot of Neil LaBute.
ME: I'd rather be fed to crocodiles.
THEM: (Laughs.) You know when certain theaters are being, uh, mainly guided by a masculine driving force. Not to perpetuate ideas of masculinity and femininity, but to look at something and say--Wow, we're constantly producing male playwrights. Wow, we're asking women to speak a certain kind of language in this theater.
ME: What language is that?
THEM: 'I'm a guy's girl.' 'I can hang with the guys.' I don't hang with guys. I don't want to hang with guys. I'm a woman. I like women. I love women. I don't mind men, but I would be very happy to never be in another rehearsal room with them, and I don't know why I should have to be punished for feeling that way.
ME: So now your community is really--
THEM: We're finally getting people to say what they mean. If you push hard enough, the bullshit falls away and you get them to just speak the dirty stuff. I was glad to get there.
ME: What was the dirty stuff?
THEM: You had the people who benefit from the current culture coming out to say--We like it like this. You had people who feel like they could soon be benefiting from the culture defending it. And then you had the rest of us.
ME: So the kickball teams weren't on your side?
THEM: (Laughs.) No, we didn't have them in our corner.
ME: What can men like me do to help? I run a company. I'm a man. What would you like to see me do differently?
THEM: Produce--and you might--I know you're already doing a lot of this, but--Produce plays by women. With women characters. Directed by women. And the step that I think is most important and not talked about enough is this--When it comes time to make decisions about what gets produced and who gets employed, that needs to be done by committee if the Artistic Director is a man. We just can't leave these decisions solely up to men anymore. I'm sorry to say that but--
ME: No, that's fair.
THEM: Y'all have just not demonstrated the ability to make these decisions in ways that don't protect your own privilege and your own power.
ME: Can you elaborate on that?
THEM: Do you agree with me?
ME: Totally. I just want to have you flesh it out, because I think it's important.
THEM: So listen, maybe that guy who cast that girl from his kickball team--maybe he thought she was pretty. I found her to be pretty. Maybe he didn't. I don't want to disparage another woman by saying she got something because she was pretty. But at the end of the day, when one person makes a decision about who they want to spend six to eight weeks in a room with, aren't they going to pick--or isn't their brain, their mind, their decision-making--that part--isn't it going to steer them towards people they find attractive? Or people they can 'hang' with? We like to say this is all subjective. It's not. Meryl Streep is a better actor than your cousin Chris who did theater once in middle school, and we all know that to be true. But we pretend it gets more complicated when it's local and when it's people we know. It doesn't have to be. When an entire community says, 'This person is miscast' that's the equivalent of saying 'This person got a job that other people were more qualified for' and it should be taken with that amount of, uh, seriousness. Casting is where the shady shit goes down, and that's why it needs to be made more transparent and looked at harder and there shouldn't be this feeling that nobody needs to explain why it is the way it is. Same with choosing directors and playwrights.
ME: But I don't know many Artistic Directors who would say they do everything themselves. Most of them, I think, would say they do have committees and they do--
THEM: But who are these committees made up of? Friends chosen by the Artistic Director? Or by the Associate Artistic Director or the Executive Director or--who are these people? Are there any people from the community? Theaters want to say they're of the community, but to them, it seems as though that extends only as far as the audience they allow into their building. Why not let them have a say?
ME: But then--Okay, so you're talking about a season selection committee or a hiring committee--
THEM: I--Yes.
ME: But then aren't they doing the job of the Artistic Director? Like, why have an Artistic Director?
THEM: I don't see the Artistic Director as needing to be the sole artistic vision of a company. [The AD] should be forming that collection of voices and ideas. And it's--you know, it's 2019. We need to be making sure that the last person in line to have a say in what kind of art we're presenting looks like someone in a David Mamet play, don't you think?
ME: Oh, this is going to make some people very angry.
THEM: It already has. I showed you those conversations I've been having.
ME: Are you saying there's no room at the table for the straight guys?
THEM: It's not just about guys, Kevin. It's a mentality. You're a guy, but maybe your mentality syncs up with the broader mentality a little better than most. You see what just happened on Broadway with To Kill a Mockingbird and the success of that show? How a male writer and a male director took a novel written by a woman with a female protagonist and made it all about the father. All about the male lawyer. And people eat it up. Because they're conditioned to eat it up. They're conditioned to get more excited about certain titles as opposed to others. That's why when you say you're doing The Crucible or Glengarry Glen Ross or, even some Shakespeare, there's more excitement. Because the men are excited about it, and everybody else falls in line. That excitement doesn't exist at the same level when you're talking about plays by women or work by women. People don't get as excited about Helen Mirren as they used to get about Al Pacino. And Pacino's never been as good as Helen Mirren is. Just to put that out there.
ME: (Laughs.) Okay then.
THEM: Everybody's sucked into it. This idea that, 'That play is good because it's so visceral.' Visceral means masculine. That's the secret language of critics. Visceral. Raw. Look at who they champion. Look at how many stories are still built around the put-upon man and his fight with society. It's--You know, you say to yourself, why are we even doing Arthur Miller anymore?
ME: You know, the last time I saw Death of a Salesman, I thought--Why are we supposed to like Willie? He's an asshole.
THEM: Yes, he is.
ME: But he's an asshole with pride, so we're supposed to--
THEM: Pride. It's always these characters who forfeit everything and hurt people and fuck up, but we cheer for them because they walk away with their pride. And that's a very, uh, male analysis of a lot of what's in the American canon.
ME: Were there other examples within our own community of people being given opportunities in ways that--Okay, I have to say something.
THEM: Okay.
ME: I don't mean to pull from what you're--
THEM: No, go ahead.
ME: I always felt like--Like because I couldn't go out and drink with people--I'm not much of a drinker, and for awhile, I never drank.
THEM: Okay.
ME: I always felt like that prohibited me from being available to certain opportunities, because I would find myself in situations where it was like--Here's a guy in charge of something and he's going out for beers with these other people, and if you don't go out with them and engage them in that environment then you're going to miss out, and I really feel like, in a lot of ways, I did.
THEM: You probably did. That's the other thing. People scoff at the term 'safe spaces,' but what about just neutral environments? I found out through listening to people when all this blew up that one retired Artistic Director used to take board members out to strip clubs and talk to them about what they'd like to see produced. Well, how did the female members of the board feel about that? Assuming there were any. How might the gay men on the board have felt? Or just the men who found that to be what it was, which was highly unprofessional. Where you make decisions is important. How you make them is important.
ME: In the last interview, the person I was speaking with talked about looking around the room--
THEM: Yes, and who's in that room. It's so important. Kevin, do you know how many times in my professional career I've seen three men go in a room, shut the door, and come out with a decision that impacted me and my colleagues? And they never once asked us to come in and offer another perspective on what they were discussing? We--Oh, I shouldn't even go into this.
ME: No, go ahead.
THEM: We recently saw--in my community--a play be commissioned about Susan B. Anthony--Susan B. Anthony, okay? And it's being written by a man. And the AD who commissioned the play said that, uh, How dare we criticize him for not doing plays for women when he just commissioned this play about this woman--and it's a pretty cliched choice by the way--but even that scrap on the table is being brought to us by a man.
ME: Do you still see yourself walking away?
THEM: Not at the height of a fight like this one, no. Because I won't give them that satisfaction. I still don't know if I feel like I can create art, but I can...I can fight. I can do that. So that maybe the next person doesn't want to walk away. That's something I can do and will do.
ME: Thank you for speaking with me.
THEM: Thank you. And I'd like to keep speaking with you if you'd be open to that, because you're someone I think could do better and if you're open to it, I'd like to see if by us speaking together, we could bring about some change where you are and maybe some where I am too, because I think it's all about this reaching out--these outside perspectives can be really valuable--outside the bubble, you know? I think we can help each other.
ME: I think you can definitely help me, and I'd love to talk with you more. Thank you so much.
THEM: Thank you, Kevin. And don't let me find out you're doing Mamet next season.
ME: Again, feed me to crocodiles.
THEM: (Laughs.) Okay, that's a start.
Them is an actress, writer, and director who was recently honored for her outstanding contribution to the arts by a national organization.
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