Theater and the Privilege Pipeline

Last week, I spoke with a friend about our current moment in the country and particularly in the arts.

Since then, more and more people have called for a reformation of the performing arts world.  One of those people is the person I'm speaking with today.

I had the honor of taking a class with them a little over a year ago about creating opportunities for disenfranchised voices within an arts community, and they were gracious enough to speak with me one-on-one.

Here's the interview:

ME:  Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it.

THEM:  Thank you for asking me.  I love to be asked.

ME:  Have you been getting asked a lot lately to speak on some of these topics?

THEM:  Yes, but I only said 'Yes' to you.

ME:  Oh, I feel very special then.

THEM:  (Laughs.)  I said I don't know if at my age I have the strength to start from the beginning with someone, but you were in my class last year, and I remember how eager you were to do the work, so I'm hopeful that we don't need to start at square one.

ME:  I hope so, but I'm willing to start wherever you want me to start.

THEM:  Where I would start--if you're open to this--you know what we did during class?

ME:  We did a lot.

THEM:  We did.  Do you remember the first question I asked everybody in class?

ME:  It was to talk about a time when we felt we weren't heard or seen.

THEM:  You told a story--I love that story.  Would you--Have you told your readers the story?

ME:  No, I don't think so.  I've been telling friends the story lately, but I haven't talked about it publicly, I don't think.

THEM:  Would you open to doing that?

ME:  Sure.

THEM:  I'd love to have you do that to start this conversation.

ME:  I don't know why this stands out the most to me, but, um, when President Obama got elected, I remember that as being a time of--People being very excited. But I also remember it as the time when Prop 8 passed. And I remember it being very--confusing as to how to feel. Because I felt like I had been left behind. And I felt like nobody cared about how LGBTQ people were feeling at that time. And I remember going to a theater.  A big theater here--here in Rhode Island.  One of the bigger ones, um, that everyone knows, and I remember the Artistic Director getting up to do the cell phone speech, and I'm sitting there, and I had just talked to a friend in California about what it was like living there when Prop 8 passed, and how upset he was, and the Artistic Director gets up onstage and goes "What a great week, huh?"  And I remember all these people in the audience--this audience full of--clearly full of rich people.  Full of people with the scarves and the sweaters tied around the neck like a J. Crew catalog--

THEM:  Not the most diverse crowd?

ME:  Not at all.  Um, and this was a theater that was not a place where I had seen LGBTQ stories presented or performed.  I didn't see people like me onstage there.  I never got the sense--and still don't--that they care about those stories, but this was a place that I had a lot of respect for, and I remember hearing "What a great week, huh?" and people clapped, and I'm sitting there like--I don't even know if I have words for that.  How bad that felt.

THEM:  Like you weren't welcome.

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  Someone walked in the room and shut the door and you were on the wrong side of the door.

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  Now I want to tell you--I told you this story in class--that my first memory of that--as an artist--was being told in school that I couldn't be the lead in the school play because in the movie a white actor played the part and I wasn't white, so I couldn't play that part.  It was a small moment, but I recall that sting.  It's a unique sting, isn't it?  There's disappointment.  In this life we've chosen. There's a great deal of disappointment.  What you felt was not disappointment.  What I felt when I was told I could not play a part when I was young girl in a school production that only parents and teachers were going to come see, that wasn't going to mean anything to anybody but the children at that school, and I was a child--that wasn't disappointment. It is--We are in a moment when people are looking back on their lives and they are looking at moments in their lives when they thought they were disappointed, but they are seeing that what they experienced was not disappointment.  It was not the cruelty of the arts--this famous cruelty that we tell people they need to get used to or take a hike. It was sexism. It was racism. It was homophobia. It was transphobia. It was something of an insidious nature.

ME:  You speak really insightfully about the accusation that--Oh, some of these people are just doing this to settle old scores.  Not all of this was racism, not all of this was--

THEM:  I would say--Listen to me now. I would say that a person who has had to deal with racism their entire life cannot be expected to intuit when they have been denied an opportunity because of the color of their skin or something else.  You cannot be expected, as a gay man, to intuit when you have been denied an opportunity--any opportunity--because you are gay versus you looking the way you look or talking the way that you talk or your talent or something else.  We do not get a print-out after we're rejected that tells us the real reason we were rejected.  The business of theater is not a business of transparency or honesty.  That means we have reached a point where people feel confident saying 'I think it was racism.' What I can say is that whether the person on the other end of that story knew that racism was playing a part in their decision--even they may not know that.  I don't believe the teacher who told me I couldn't play a role in school because I was Black and the person in the movie was white was intending to create aggression towards me.  I don't believe she wanted to hurt me.  I don't believe the director I worked with when I was in my twenties who refused to let me play roles unless the script dictated those roles were to be played by a Black actor was trying to hurt me. If we look at this as one person calling out another person, then we're missing the point. This is about calling out the systems that cause people who do not intend to hurt other people to hurt them anyway, because they're told that to do their job as artists, they have to do that.  They have to be cruel.  They have to service cruel people who are going to buy tickets and sit in the audience and those people are close-minded and they are not free-thinking, and they will withhold donations and so on. It is a terrible thing to put good people in that kind of environment and ask them to create.

ME:  And be empathetic.

THEM:  Which is what we're asking of them.  And ourselves.  Artists.  That is who we're supposed to be.  Until you hear someone say the 'b' word--Business.  When that word comes into the conversation, then we're allowed to be cruel.  We're allowed to say 'She's fat' and 'He's ugly' and 'He's too gay' and 'She's too dark-skinned' and anything we want, because we're doing business and business requires us to remove our hearts. I say abolish that. I love the word 'abolish.'  I say it all the time. We need to abolish this cruelty that exists.

ME:  Do you think that's doable?

THEM:  I think whether it's doable or not has no basis on whether or not we should try to do it.  You and I talked about The Last Dance a few days ago and that Michael Jordan quote.  I love that quote.  What is it?

ME:  (Laughs.)  I love that quote.  What is it?

THEM:  (Laughs.)  I'm old, Kevin.  I'm an old person.  Show me some kindness.

ME:  'Why would I think about missing a shot I haven't taken?'

THEM:  Don't you love that?  Isn't that--Why would I think about missing a shot I haven't taken?  We haven't even begun the work and you have people who never did the work asking why we should bother trying to do it because their white neighbors and their white friends and white people they don't know won't go along with it.  I say to them 'But will YOU go along with it?'  'Yes, I'll go along with it.' 'Let's start with you then.'  I can work with the person in front of me.  I'll worry about the man down the street later.

ME:  Do you think what some people have been--

THEM:  Who are some people?  You know these people?

ME:  Sorry I went to Rhode Island College, so it was always 'some people.'

THEM:  'Some people' is a way of avoiding accountability.  Get rid of that.

ME:  It wasn't a school known for its accountability.

THEM:  Get your money back then.

ME:  (Laughs.)  Oh boy, am I going to get in trouble.

THEM:  Let's all get in trouble.  I like being in trouble.

ME:  Okay, what's a way to--Okay, so, do you think that nepotism is a form of racism?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  Okay--

THEM:  You knew that!

ME:  That's how I introduce the question.

THEM:  Ah!  You see, I'm not used to doing these.

ME:  I'm sorry.

THEM:  I love it.  I'm learning.  I love that.  What was the question?

ME:  Nepotism and racism.

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  I've heard you speak about this and you talk about the 'privilege pipeline' which I love.

THEM:   I don't think--I do say that, but I don't think I invented it.

ME:  I'll look it up.

THEM:  Don't.  I like getting the credit.

ME:  (Laughs.)  Fine.

THEM:  When I say that, I'm talking about--it exists in all areas of life.  There's a privilege pipeline.  You're born with advantages and disadvantages that were put in place before you were born based on who your parents are, where they're from, how much money they have--you're born into all that.  To not be so broad about it, because you want to talk about theater and all this, if you were a child like I was, my parents could not afford to get me dance lessons.  They could not afford to send me to a performing arts high school.  They couldn't afford--There were opportunities, and I did manage to snag a few of those for myself, but that meant those opportunities were denied to others who were worthy, but the numbers didn't work out in their favor.  That meant I was put in the position, without my even knowing it and understanding it, that I was participating in denying people like me a chance at success because that's how the system was set up.  People of means are not denied opportunities.  They may hit a ceiling where they are suddenly among other people of means or people of more means than them, but they get a free trip to that ceiling, don't they?  They get to go all the way before they find out they can't go any further, and I knew people who were great creative minds who couldn't even get out of their own driveway.  They weren't allowed to.  If you start examining who is in the movies you watch.  Who the stars are.  Who the Broadway stars are.  Who the television stars are.  You will see a lot of people who have gone to the best schools.  That's a privilege.  We can't all afford to go to college.

ME:  Now it's more than college, now you have to go to grad school or a conservatory.

THEM:  They've changed the rules.  Why do you think they did that?  Because people were getting at playing the game.  People like me were getting better at it.  People like you were getting better at it.  So they changed the rules.  They changed it in a way where the people who had always benefited from the rules could keep succeeding.  You spoke to me about a young woman who wanted to be a playwright but nobody would look at her work, because she didn't have an agent.

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  She didn't have an agent, because agents want you to go to grad school and get a degree in playwrighting or they won't look at your work.  There are barriers in place.

ME:  What would you say to people who say that you can't fault people for being born rich or being born with advantages?

THEM:  I would say.  I would say.

     (Silence.)

I would say that I can't speak for everyone, but that equality is not always about taking away from others.  It's about giving.  It's about giving--If you were born with money so that gives you an advantage, how do we find an advantage for someone who isn't born with money?  We say the world is unfair.  But it's not unfair to everybody, is it?  That unfairness goes hand-in-hand with the cruelty I spoke on earlier.  It says 'This is how it is. Don't try to change it. You won't change it.  Don't try.'  But why would you settle for that?  Why would you settle for knowing that the next great creative mind is being squandered because he or she can't afford shoes let alone a ticket to a grad school?  He or she might not even know that they need to buy a ticket.  They might not even get to a place where somebody tells them the rules.  Nobody told me the rules, Kevin.  I wasn't losing the game.  I wasn't even in the game.  Do you understand what I'm telling you?

ME:  I'm trying to.  I'm nervous to say I do, because I don't want to seem like--

THEM:  You don't have to be nervous.  That's the right response.  You're trying to understand and while you try, you act.  That's what I want.  I want you to act while you try.  Act on that intention.  That's what you said you talked about in your statement and with your friend--the one you spoke with last.  That theater is about acting on intention.

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  Have you ever been arrested?

ME:  No.

THEM:  Have you ever had a bad experience with a police officer?

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  Were you frightened?

ME:  Yes.

THEM:  You see, I like to figure out where I meet you.  That's important to me.  It's not important to everyone and everyone has a different way of doing it.  But I like to know who I'm talking to, and I build off that.

ME:  I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

THEM:  That's a big statement, Mr. Broccoli.

ME:  (Laughs.)  I mean it.

THEM:  (Laughs.)  All right, well--I wanted to say about the privilege pipeline that--Being born, uh, give me a movie star--

ME:  One with a--

THEM:  Just anyone--

ME:  Well Dakota Johnson is Melanie Griffith's daughter.

THEM:  Her being Melanie Griffith's daughter means doors were going to open for her.  That's hers.  I don't want to take that from her.  She can't do anything about it.  It might have closed a few doors for her too.  I don't know.  I don't know her.  I can't speak to her experience.  What I would do is ask her--What have you done to keep the door open behind you?  That's something we can ask ourselves.  We can all ask that.  What are we doing to keep the door open?

ME:  Or are we worried that we're going to let somebody in who's going to take a role from us?

THEM:  Is that how you think?

ME:  I think that's how I--Yes, that's how I have thought, yeah.  Especially as a gay man.  If I see another gay guy at the audition, I know who I'm up against.

THEM:  So you would close the door to them?

ME:  I don't know if I would do it today, but I can't say I would never have done it.

THEM:  I've closed some doors when I was younger.  I understand.  While we were closing doors on our friends and the people in our communities, you know what was happening?  There was another door reserved for the powerful and the privileged and the nieces and nephews of those people--and that door was wide open.  They jammed that door open while we were body-guarding our door so we could be the one person like us in the room.  There was a time when I was happy to be the only person in the room who looked like me, because it meant I got in the room and that I was special, because I was allowed into that room.

ME:  When did you stop feeling that way?

THEM:  The first time I was in a room where everybody looked like me.  Then I never wanted to be in any other kind of room, and I wasn't for a long time, and now I like a little balance, but I would still prefer any kind of environment where I am not isolated in my experience.

ME:  Thank you so much for talking to me.  Can we do this again?  I feel like you just knocked me over and I need some time to process.

THEM:  Yes, let's talk again, and I'll get better at being prompted.

ME:  You did great.  I can't thank you enough.

THEM:  Be well.

Them has been a teacher and theatermaker for the past forty-six years.