Star Finch: I actually needed to speak to you about theatre within the Bay Area for quite a few causes, however one is simply the type of depth and scope of your profession, and the totally different roles that you simply’ve performed inside the Bay Area theatre scene.
Ellen Sebastian Chang: I’m hoping that you simply and I can have a dialogue about historical past, reminiscence, and what we’ve been informed, as a result of I believe this stuff are actually necessary as properly proper now, how we proceed to have a really residing, intergenerational dialog.
Star: I do know we talked about wanting to debate the massive shift in 2020 with the Living Document, which shook up the native theatre scene by way of nameless testimonies of encounters with white supremacy inside varied organizations. But even previous to that, have been there any shifts or variations that you simply skilled between, say, the nineties and the early aughts or the 2010s? Were there any shifts in theatre that means for you?
Ellen: Let me simply return to the nineties, as a result of I believe one thing occurred at ACT [American Conservatory Theater] within the late nineties. I couldn’t fairly keep in mind, however I appeared it up. ACT in 1997—in spring of 1997—acquired charged with racism, inside the appearing college. One of the issues that was talked about was there was no full-time Black college. One of the scholars was quoted in a San Francisco Chronicle article as saying, “There are so many questions that haven’t been answered in our profession”—speaking about theatre as a complete—“as to how does one deal with issues of cultural identity and distinction.” Then as we keep in mind, most not too long ago, Stephen Buescher—he sues, and settles. That was in February of 2019, earlier than the pandemic.
Star: 1997 to 2019—wow, twenty-two years later and the identical complaints. You talked about the lawsuit in opposition to ACT in 2019, however even earlier than that, in 2017, there was lots of forwards and backwards inside the group across the Marin Theatre Company’s manufacturing of Thomas and Sally. I recall pushback round each the premise of the play itself and the response of the theatre in the direction of protesters—the police being referred to as on ladies who have been on the market holding house and lighting sage. And so, in preparing for this dialog, I used to be actually making an attempt to recall the ambiance main as much as the Living Document in 2020.
There was lots of frustration and pushing again. But there was additionally the sensation that nothing was taken significantly sufficient to supply actual materials change. So that ambiance made the Living Document, such as you stated, nearly volcanic in its impression of simply everybody vomiting up all of their trauma, all of their frustration, all of their experiences with white supremacy that they’ve needed to swallow through the years right here within the Bay Area.
White privilege systemically continues to regulate the sources.
Ellen: That’s proper. I believe vomiting is an efficient picture, truly. Because now, we’re all standing in vomit. How do you convey unity, union, change, once we’re all standing in vomit? It is the vomit of the aftermath of ongoing COVID, designed racism, gun violence, the ever-increasing value of residing, and divisive ignorance of a nation nonetheless clutching historic amnesia and curated innocence. What is theatre within the midst of all of this?
Theatre, the entire arts, are part of a historic arc, which incorporates entry to funding and sources—actual property, healthcare, schooling, transportation, and so forth.—within the United States. I believe that having some historic lens, regardless of once we’re born in time, whereas it’s not all people’s accountability, it’s definitely somebody’s accountability. I’ve chosen this to be one among my duties.
That Living Document, it was an unbelievable purging. Is the doc already a previous recollection? My considerations in these thirty-six months is what was doubtlessly facilitated. Did it give “whiteness” time to shape-shift once more? “We See You, White American Theater”; the push to range, fairness, and inclusion (DEI) workshops; the shifting of small theatres to alter creative management—all of those institutional ideas, the language and methods offered by the historic thought labor of Black, melanated, Indigenous people… Did this present the concepts for the performative language, with some optical illusions thrown in, to proceed the established order? What has modified on a holistic, systemic stage? It all looks like one other charitable act. Charity, which, because the years have gone on, I really feel is “spiritual” cash laundering, together with philanthropy.
White privilege systemically continues to regulate the sources. Yes, the Living Document was personally highly effective. People wanted to get that out of their our bodies and to really feel their experiences weren’t singular. In the purging and making it public by way of the nameless web, it additionally grew to become inclined to hijacking. I learn on the newest Google Doc, the closed doc, or it’s hidden, as a result of white-presenting people got here in and hacked, and tried to alter—
Star: —delete it. It’s all the time the identical playbook of deleting the language, the historic report, the testimonials of the oppressed.
Ellen: What are the leads to the aftermath? The Living Document continues as a redesigned and managed web site with chapter websites in SoCal and a pair different cities. Okay. Where are we now? A reputation change. Land acknowledgement. More workshops and extra white papers to report on the problems, knowledge, statistics. Or a university diploma in DEI. Those are manageable shifts. And ones which might be a part of a discovered sample of a white mindset rooted in authoritative gatekeeping whereas persevering with to revenue from the creativity of the marginalized.
I learn a New York Times article about Broadway the place a playwright stated one thing like, “The gatekeepers are opening the gate. I didn’t imagine it,” and about how this specific play of this Black playwright was being dropped at Broadway so shortly. He was like, “Oh, it’s like the gatekeepers are opening the gate.” Let’s take heed to our personal language. Why aren’t we questioning the gate? Not that the gate is opening, however questioning who owns, operates, and controls the gate. It is among the challenges of this artistic business as a result of we want that recognition and the potential monetary rewards that include these establishments.