Keelay Gipson—activist, professor at Pace University, and award-winning playwright—and award-winning playwright Stacey Rose have launched a call to action on their Facebook pages for Black artists to hold theatres accountable in how they relate to, work with, and present Black artistry.
The post reads:
“Many of us feel a sense of deep betrayal after the lag in response to gross violations to Black bodies around the nation by the illustrious institutions that claim to hold our stories so dear. We are living in revolutionary times. It is time to revolutionize how we create as individuals, and how we engage White spaces should we choose to moving forward. Equity is no longer a request. It's a requirement.
“Stacey Rose and I are gathering information in order to gather these theaters and hold them accountable. Fill out the form. Share and forward to your networks of Black and Brown theatre-makers. Our goal is to collate all of this information to come up with a list of non-negotiable terms that we can present to theaters who want to work with us.”
The Theatre Makers of Color Requirements can be seen here.
“Many of us feel a sense of deep betrayal after the lag in response to gross violations to Black bodies around the nation by the illustrious institutions that claim to hold our stories so dear,” Gipson and Rose added in an expanded statement to Playbill. “We are living in revolutionary times. It is time to revolutionize how we create as individuals, and how we engage White spaces should we choose to moving forward. Equity is no longer a request. It’s a requirement. We are gathering information in order to gather these theatres and hold them accountable. Fill out the form. Share and forward to your networks of Black and Brown theater-makers. Our goal is to collate all of this information to come up with a list of non-negotiable terms that we can present to theatres who want to work with us. As many affinity groups/organizations reach out to Stacey and I, we want to make absolutely clear that when sharing this information, your stories and your voice will be heard. Likewise, your identity and privacy (unless otherwise noted) will be of utmost importance when disseminating this information.”
The duo are committed to advocating for the artistry of all people of color who work in every facet of theatre.
Gipson is the author of imagine sisyphus happy (Finalist; Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, P73 Summer Residency at Yale University), #NEWSLAVES (Finalist; Princess Grace Award, Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, Seven Devils Playwright Conference), CRH, or the placenta play (Semi-Finalist; The O’Neill, Bay Area Playwrights Conference, AADA Main Stage Live!), Nigger/Faggot (Downtown Urban Theater Festival), The Lost, Or How to Just B, What I Tell You in the Dark (Finalist; Premiere Stages), and Mary/Stuart, a dramatic queering of friedrich schiller's classic play (BAM Next Wave Festival, partnership with Wendy’s Subway and Lambda Literary). He earned the New York Stage and Film’s Founders’ Award, the Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists, as well as writing fellowships with Lambda Literary, The Amoralists, Page 73, Dramatist Guild Foundation and Playwrights’ Realm.
Rose is a 2019–2020 McKnight Fellow, 2020-22 Playwrights’ Center Core Writer, 2018-2019 Goodman Theatre’s Playwrights Unit writer, and member of The Civilians R&D Group. She was a 2018 Sundance Theatre Lab Fellow, 20170–2018 Playwrights’ Center Many Voices Fellow, and 2015–2016 Dramatist Guild Fellow. Her plays include Legacy Land, AMERICA v 2.1, and As Is (the latter two both featured on the 2019 Kilroys list). She served as Writers Assistant and Script Coordinator for Season 1 of the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. Rose is the recipient of a 2019 Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation Womens Commissioning Grant in partnership with Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. While at NYU earning her MFA, she received an AAUW Career Development Grant, Future Screenwriting Fellowship, and The Goldberg Prize for her play The Danger: A Homage to Strange Fruit. She recently received a Sloan Grant from MTC and is the winner of the Burman’s New Play Prize from Barrington Stage.
