40 Black playwrights on the theater industry’s insidious racism
LA TimesFor Netflix’s “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” writer-director-star Radha Blank channeled the frustrations of a career in theater into her first feature film. This gatekeeper’s less helpful notes include saying her piece isn’t “Black” enough, requires a white character to “grab the core audience” and would be perfect for a white director who just staged “A Raisin in the Sun.” “Some people think he’s a caricature,” said Blank, who based the producer on various New York artistic directors and raps about programmers’ affinity for “poverty porn” in the movie. ROBERT O’HARA Director and playwright, “Bootycandy” An artistic director in Portland told me, “I love your work, but I just don’t have the courage to do it.” This white man, with his privilege and his multimillion-dollar theater, was othering me and essentially saying, “I like Black people, but you can’t work here because I’m too afraid of your Blackness.” And I’m supposed to feel excitement that his gaze has recognized me? KEENAN SCOTT II Playwright, “Thoughts of a Colored Man” I’ll never forget one of my first meetings about my play, when I was told by a white producer, “I don’t know if a story about seven Black men is commercial enough.” I feel like my white counterparts are never asked: “Will these seven white men be commercial enough? She came in with declarative statements like, “We think your play could be funnier.” And it’s like, “My play is funny, but the jokes are Black, and Black actors will know how to do that.
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