In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way. Of course, in the current presidential election we’ve watched one candidate make incendiary and offensive statements and receive great press attention and outrage for doing so. The result there is that it appeals to a certain portion of the voting population and, while the candidate may “walk back” or “recalibrate” his statements, actual apologies are exceptionally rare.

Watching this sort of “offend-apologize” dynamic when it comes to the arts can be instructive, whether it’s the Old Navy t-shirts that crossed out “artist” in favor of “astronaut” or “president,” or the AT&T campaign that urged people to watch football at the theatre. In the former case, the product was dropped; in the latter, AT&T expressed their love for the “thespian community,” saying they meant “no disrespect,” but the ads actually continued after that.

The just-finished Labor Day weekend saw two examples of affronts to the arts community. The better known example was the Wells Fargo “Teen Day” campaign, which used “ballerina” and “actor” as the abandoned pursuits of teens, in favor of current interests as “botanist” and “engineer.” While the Wells Fargo campaign did allow for something else to come along in the future, the fact that it didn’t offer anything but the arts as being in the past yielded an avalanche of outcry, and as awareness peaked on Saturday, Wells Fargo offered an apology late in the afternoon (east coast time).

Somewhat less noticed was the dismay over a casting notice from San Francisco mainstay Beach Blanket Babylon, shared online by monologist Mike Daisey, which stated that while “historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian,” “all ethnicities are welcome to audition.” They generously noted that “If you don’t [fit their description], your voice and stage presence could change our minds.” This is tantamount to saying, “white people preferred, but hey, people of color, if you go above and beyond, you may get a shot.”

To those who say that artists have the right to cast whom they choose, I will absolutely agree, but doing so in a way that is patently discriminatory is not OK. It’s all the more puzzling since the notice, so far as it was disseminated by Daisey, doesn’t actually describe any characters (performers double, triple, quadruple and more in BBB) – and the show has clearly hired artists of color in the past. But BBB pulled the casting notice within a day and issued their own apology.

The Wells Fargo and BBB apologies are worth looking at closely, because there’s a distinction between them. The bank’s mea culpa read, “Wells Fargo is deeply committed to the arts, and we offer our sincere apology for the initial ads promoting our September 17 Teen Financial Education Day. They were intended to celebrate all the aspirations of young people and fell short of that goal. We are making changes to the campaign’s creative that better reflect our company’s core value of embracing diversity and inclusion, and our support of the arts. Last year, Wells Fargo’s support of the arts, culture and education totaled $93 million.” Note the phrases “sincere apology” and “making changes to better reflect our company’s core value.”

Whether you think the ads should have ever gotten through in the first place, the statement is reasonably definitive. There’s no waffling. I know I won’t be alone in watching for new materials, although there are currently flyers with the old language in Wells Fargo outlets around Manhattan and presumably the country. Will they all be recycled today and new ones rushed to offices around the country? After all, Teen Day is less than two weeks away.

What you find on the Bleach Blanket Babylon site instead of their casting notice

The apology from BBB is rather less absolute. “We apologize to anyone who may have been offended,” it reads, “by the audition notice that was posted on our website. Beach Blanket Babylon was founded on the principle of poking fun but never offending anyone and we hold these principles true today. We have removed the audition notice from our site and promise to be more sensitive in the future.” This statement deploys the worst kind of “non-apology apology,” in that it is only sorry that some people were offended. It doesn’t actually take ownership for what it did, and places responsibility on those who were upset. Are they sorry for what they wrote, for the sentiments expressed, or only sorry that it bothered some people?

Even though BBB says they’ll try to be “more sensitive,” all they’re really saying is that they won’t be so boneheaded in the future. That this took place in a city that has been at the forefront of diversity is particularly startling. Just because BBB pulled the notice quickly over a holiday, and because it wasn’t quite the national cause celebre that Wells Fargo’s gaffe became, doesn’t mean they should be allowed to skate on this.

The “we’re sorry if you’re offended” construction is oft-floated, and I’ve had it thrown at me directly in my role at the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts. When a prominent critic wrote about Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan in the recent Broadway revival, they repeatedly used the word “cripple,” which is deeply offensive to people with disabilities, throughout their review, and not simply when referring to the title of the play. When I conveyed the fact that the term was an affront to many, and that even the character in the play objects to it, I was told that since the play used the word, so could the critic. “I’m sorry if any of your group was offended,” was the response, as if I was representing some fringe opinion, ignoring the millions of people with disabilities in the country who might see things my way.

The BBB notice has a corollary in a recent casting notice from City Center’s “Encores!,” for its upcoming “concert version” of The Golden Apple. While the construct of Encores! shows being concerts, as opposed to relatively simple, quickly rehearsed productions, is largely in the past, one might think that it still affords the opportunity to cast with less concern for appearances than the average full production. But when “Encores” posted a casting notice that repeatedly emphasized they were “not looking for heavy character actresses,” they were called out quickly thanks to actor Kirsten Wyatt (saying “Pretty sure #Encore is saying no fat checks. Fat men – feel free to audition”). Again, an apology, with the offending phrases removed, but it was impossible not to be aware of the bias at play.

The Wells Fargo, AT&T and Old Navy disrespect isn’t exactly new, and while some claim it may be inadvertent, it belies an attitude towards the arts that says they’re dispensible, or easily treated as the butt of jokes. It’s fair to acknowledge that ads are intended first and foremost to sell a product, not to be arts advocacy. But let’s remember that Misty Copeland’s Under Armour spot was a sensation precisely because it championed an artist not as some silly nerd, but a paragon of skill. It’s a shame the Madison Avenue folks can’t get the message about valuing the arts more generally. It’s still too much about the cool kids making the arts nerds the butt of their jokes.

As for these casting notices that seem blithely unaware or uninterested in the offense they give, that’s even more shameful. We hear a great deal about the arts being a big tent and embracing talent first and foremost, yet casting notices seem to periodically reveal fundamentally exclusionary sentiments. Perhaps its better to hear about them than not, so they can be called out for what they are, but if the result is simply to cause producers, casting directors and the like to employ better language to mask their intent, the field isn’t exactly advancing, is it? If we expect others to portray our field with respect, admiration and value, we need to do better too.

Update, September 7, 7 am: Late yesterday afternoon (west coast time), Beach Blanket Babylon issued a second apology regarding their casting notice, more detailed and definitive than the first. It appears below.

Now in its 20th year, the New York International Fringe Festival, better known as FringeNYC, has presented nearly 4,000 productions for five-performance runs each summer, sustaining a beehive of theatrical activity in spaces on the Lower East Side. In contrast to many fringe festivals, all of which seem to owe a debt to the progenitor, the Edinburgh Fringe, FringeNYC is a curated festival, with its 200 annual productions chosen from an array of applications. Unlike reports from Edinburgh, which have some 8,000 productions scrambling for space and audiences each summer, FringeNYC engages all of the necessary spaces and doles them out to the productions they accept, controlling the probability of the highly speculative rents that have crept into Edinburgh. FringeNYC also negotiates an agreement with Actors Equity, provides lighting and sound equipment, and covers general liability insurance.

FringeNYC’s two decade history and success made last week’s “Biz Blip” from the Dramatists Guild to its members, challenging terms regarding subsidiary rights, or ongoing revenue, within FringeNYC’s authors agreements all the more surprising. While it was not sent as a press release or public statement, the missive, issued the night before the 2016 Festival began, quickly became a topic of conversation on social media. One of the early sources for non-Guild members was Isaac Butler’s Parabasis blog, which reproduced the item in its entirety. Headed “NYC Fringe Contract: Warning,” it read, in part:

Playwrights should be aware that the standard for fringe festivals around the world (including the US Association of Fringe Festivals, the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, and the Edinburgh Festival, the model on which most other festivals are based) is that, as presenting entities that are not actually producing the work, festivals are not entitled to subsidiary rights from authors. The NYC Fringe, however, under Article IV-B of their contract, requires an author to pay 2% of subsidiary rights revenues earned within 7 years of the festival (after the author’s first $20,000). And the contract does not limit the scope of its definition of “subsidiary rights,” so it includes every use of the play on a worldwide basis; this is a definition broader than a LORT theater or even a commercial off-Broadway producer might be granted.

Because Arts Integrity and its director Howard Sherman have ongoing relationships with both the Dramatists Guild (having worked with them on multiple instances of theatrical censorship and having received an award from the Dramatists Legal Defense Fund) and FringeNYC and its producing artistic director Elena K. Holy (including reporting a 3-day “Fringe Binge” for Narratively.com and participating in a panel on censorship during the 2015 festival), it was incumbent that both parties have an opportunity to explain their policies and views.

*   *   *

In conversation at one of the FringeNYC Lounges on the first full day of the 2016 Festival, Holy said of the Guild statement, “My initial response is that most of what they’ve said is true about our contract. However our contract incorporates a Participants Manual, which is like 64 pages, and none of that was included [in the Guild’s summary of issues]. We don’t have an attorney on staff so we wrote the participants’ agreement in 1997 and haven’t really changed it much since then. Every year, facts, figures, dates and stuff change, and technology changes, so that part gets put into the Participants Manual.”

Regarding the Dramatists Guild’s explicit comparison to the Edinburgh Festival, Holy explained, “We call ourselves presenters, but my biggest point of contention with what the Dramatists Guild said is we should be compared to Edinburgh. They see Edinburgh Festival Fringe as an industry standard, which totally makes sense, they’re the granddaddy of them all, they were 50 years old when we started, but the model is very different. They charge a similar participation fee to us and then they hand you a list of venues, and say ‘Great, go out and rent one of these venues to produce your show in.’

“Our thought was that if we did that in New York City and set loose 200 shows all looking to book the same 16 days, forget ten grand a week it would be thirty to forty grand a week, just through supply and demand. So we rent the venues, equip the venues, we staff the venues, we do marketing, we do marketing speed dates, director speed dates, town meeting – we are very hands on, and we’re invested in their production and we like to have skin in the game. I like that we are an adjudicated festival.”

Regarding the festival’s economics, Holy said, “On our 2014 990 form, we operated on 86% earned income. We’re invested in our artists. We spend between $6,000 to $7,000 on each show at FringeNYC. Part of that is we want a) for them to be invested in us and b) if they see huge success, huge unlikely success, for having done the show at FringeNYC, which does about 13,000 industry and press comps a year, then we would like for that to be recognized in order to keep our participation fees low for future artists. In our 19, almost 20, years now of doing our festival, three shows have contributed to that.” She cites Urinetown, which paid approximately $5,000 in royalties to the festival, as well as Eva Dean Dance and Dixie’s Tupperware Party.

Holy acknowledges that some applicants resist FringeNYC’s terms.

“Our 2% clause,” she notes, “when a famous person walks into our office and fills out an application form and doesn’t submit their script, or when someone’s agent calls us and says, ‘I know they’ve been accepted into the festival but we can’t sign this,’ it’s a pretty good indication that they don’t need one of our 200 slots.

“We only have 200 spots and if their career is beyond what we can offer, if their play is being produced that widely or if in the past they’ve had opportunities on Broadway, there’s really no reason for our 2500 volunteers to volunteer to help make somebody’s show happen when that somebody has ample opportunity elsewhere. So I’m not ashamed to say it scares a lot of people off and they’re probably people that shouldn’t be applying for our festival even.”

But isn’t it possible that FringeNYC is capitalizing on people’s desire to get their work seen on a New York stage, whatever the cost?

“Are they,” Holy asks, “given that it’s kicked in three times in 20 years? Given that it doesn’t kick in until after they’ve made $20,000, which actually these days means that you have to have a major motion picture made out of your play? Are they really encumbering their project? Most often what happens here is it’s not even the plays from FringeNYC that gets picked up. It’s our playwrights’ second and third plays that are what’s being produced regionally, or that’s when they get the Netflix series or the television show or whatever. So we certainly are not still around because of that $5,000 from Urinetown in 2000, or it was probably 2001 that it started.” She notes that the Fringe has received no subsidiary income from such shows as Matt and Ben and Silence! The Musical.

*   *   *

Regarding the citation of other fringe festivals in the Dramatists Guild’s “Biz Blip,” David Faux, associate executive for business administration at the Guild, explained in a phone conversation, “When we speak to festivals and producers, every single one of them can say, ‘We’re special, we’re different, we do things differently from what the other people do,’ and invariably they’re telling the truth. That’s the beauty of the theatre, every festival has its unique attributes, every producer has his or her unique attributes that they bring that nobody else can bring. That’s part of the chemistry of good theatre. So the fact that they do something that other festivals don’t do, we can just look at the other festivals and say, ‘Yeah, but they do things that you don’t.’ Why would the thing that they do different have to rest on the authors’ shoulders? Why should the author be burdened with a unique attribute of the festival?”

“We look at thousands of contracts that our authors ask us to review every year,” said Faux. “When you see that many contracts you see patterns and you see where theatres and festivals are deviating.”

“It’s always germane what other people are doing in the market,” notes Faux. “With the Guild in particular we don’t tell members whether or not to sign contracts, we don’t dictate terms of contracts, but we do express our opinions when we believe a contract has substandard terms. In that way, all we have is the comparison.”

Asked to explain a very general idea of common practice regarding subsidiary rights, Faux said, “Commercial theatres certainly receive subsidiary rights. They’re taking on a lot of risk and this is how the author shares in that risk on the back end. If it works out, the success of the authors work can go back to the commercial producer or the investors.

“With not-for-profits, there’s a different structure, because they are receiving grant monies, they don’t pay taxes, they get a certain number of benefits that commercial producers don’t. So that’s why it would be unusual to see an author giving subsidiary rights of more than 5% to a not-for-profit theatre. That’s about the top when you talk about regionals, LORTs. We’ve seen a trend lately of only having subsidiary rights kick in after a significant windfall, and by significant we’re talking $40,000 to $50,000. These are general terms.

“At festivals though, you don’t see authors having to yield a revenue stream on their future revenue. That’s what’s different about this. You know what happens, a theatre festival in Wichita, Kansas will hear that NYC Fringe is getting subsidiary rights from the author. And that festival in Wichita doesn’t say, ‘Oh, it’s New York City, of course it gets something we don’t.’ That festival in Wichita says, ‘Our production values are even better than what they’re getting in New York. Our dedication, the number of hours we put in, because we have lower overhead, we can spend more time on each individual, festival has more value.’ And they may be right about that.

“But nobody thinks, ‘New York City Fringe is so much better than my festival they deserve what they get.’ They all think they have something to bring to the table that New York City Fringe doesn’t. So suddenly because one festival says, ‘I want to tax the author,’ now authors are getting taxed all across the nation. So we have to say something about it before it becomes a standard practice.”

*   *   *

Addressing some smaller items in the Dramatists Guild statement, there are several points that bear clarification.

• The Guild’s memo states, “It has been reported to us that the Fringe sent out its contracts to authors for this year’s festival at the end of July. If that is true, then it was a contract presented only a few weeks before the festival was scheduled to begin, after money has been raised and spent, leaving little or no time for authors and producers to assess their options in good faith.” Holy points out that all of the major terms of the agreements are included as part of the application process, so the terms should not come as a surprise, unless, in her words, “they didn’t read the information on the application before they submit.” However, Holy acknowledges the lateness of the agreements this year, saying, “I take full responsibility. We were trying to do everything electronically this year using DocuSign and I set it up so that the author’s agreement would fire when everyone had completed step one, the participants agreement and their W-9, and they haven’t all done that yet. That was a foolish way to set that up. So then I just gave up and e-mailed them a PDF.” Holy noted that this was a new process this year, replacing the previous practice of mailing paper contracts back and forth.

• The Dramatists Guild cites “the standard for fringe festivals around the world (including the US Association of Fringe Festivals, the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals, and the Edinburgh Festival, the model on which most other festivals are based).” However, Jeff Larson, responding to an online inquiry by Arts Integrity to the US Association of Fringe Festivals, commented, “The USAFF is a loose affiliation of United States Fringes and does not enforce standards on its members.”

• The Guild noted, regarding the authors contract, that, “There are no obligations specified (either in the contract or the rules) for the Festival to support the show with any particular expenditure of marketing monies, nor any warrant of proper billing for the author and the play in whatever marketing and advertising the Fringe might do, and there is also no guarantee of mutually acceptable venues or performance schedules for the play, nor any discussion of the festival’s duties with regard to providing technical support.” As Holy noted above, those terms are included in the Participant Manual, an Appendix to the Participant Agreement. While the Guild concerns itself solely with the authors agreements, in the interest of transparency, FringeNYC might consider providing both the authors and participants agreements, as well as the participant manual, to the Guild so that all pertinent terms regarding production of the authors’ work are made clear.

• The Philadelphia Fringe Festival, which more closely follows the Edinburgh model, posts its guidelines and artist tools for prospective applicants. They can be found at http://fringearts.com/all-presentations/artist-resources/ for comparison purposes. Details on producing at the Edinburgh Fringe itself can be found at https://www.edfringe.com/participants/planning-your-show.

*   *   *

So what of the FringeNYC terms regarding subsidiary rights, given the Guild’s characterization of prevailing practice and Holy’s acknowledgement that the terms cited were correct?

It is perhaps useful to look at the example of another New York summer festival, the New York Musical Festival, commonly referred to as NYMF, in operation since 2004 and the starting place for such musicals as Next To Normal and [title of show]. In 2010, NYMF sought to introduce a subsidiary rights clause to their agreements, saying in a statement:

Writers are the core beneficiaries of NYMF. Our goal is for NYMF shows to have future life, and for as many of our writers as possible to have their work produced again after the festival.

We specifically chose not to demand income from future third-party producers, as many other theater companies do, because doing so would encumber the project — making it less likely to be optioned or produced. Instead, we carefully structured our contract so that if — and only if — writers benefit substantially from NYMF’s support, they give back a small percentage so that we can provide similar opportunities to future generations of writers.

We think that’s fair.

Following a challenge by the Dramatists Guild to these new terms, NYMF withdrew its new terms in less than a month, writing in a statement:

The mission of NYMF is to support theatre artists, not to argue with them. We therefore withdraw our request to share in the subsidiary rights of authors participating in the 2010 Festival and will remove that section (Paragraph 5(E)) from our contract. Given the challenges of moving new musicals from the page to the stage and on to further productions, NYMF wants first and foremost to ensure that the shows we present have the unified support of the community.

While not working in the same kind of festival format, the O’Neill Theatre Center, one of the country’s oldest play development labs, also sought to introduce a subsidiary rights clause in 2006, at the start of the application process for the 2007 summer season. That effort drew a rebuke from Marsha Norman and Christopher Durang, the co-heads of the playwriting program at The Juilliard School at the time. A report from the New York Sun notes that the effort was quickly rescinded:

“We have their assurance that they will not this year, or in the future, be asking for a percentage of future royalties from the plays they accept for development,” Mr. Durang and Ms. Norman wrote. “They are looking for other sources of funding, but those monies will not come from your subsidiary rights.”

As the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative, I must step out of the third person to note that during my tenure as executive director of the O’Neill Theatre Center, from 2000 to 2003, I recall being charged by the board of directors to investigate the impact of introducing a subsidiary rights participation in authors’ future royalties. While I do not retain my notes from the time, I clearly remember my survey of prevailing practice, which consistently showed that regardless of whether I spoke with a festival, developmental, or producing organization, there was a clear dividing line for when it was appropriate to negotiate for subsidiary rights. That line was when a show was actually produced, not merely workshopped or showcased, even in cases where the work in question had been commissioned.

*   *   *

In conversation, Elena Holy noted that “we call ourselves presenters,” although in the context of explaining how the role of FringeNYC differs from the Edinburgh Fringe, she noted more direct involvement with productions than many presenters might have. In its Participant Agreement, which is signed by the designated liaison for each FringeNYC show, FringeNYC identifies itself as the “Presentor,” as distinct from a Producer (to which the Participant may be equivalent, even when the Participant is the producer, author and performer all in one). It is the Participant who is taking on primary responsibility for raising money, securing rehearsal space, assembling the show and delivering it to FringeNYC – the role of a Producer – and is even subject to penalties if it is unable to do so after a certain date, though they may not have continuing right to the show themselves. While FringeNYC does provide resources to each production and makes an investment of resources in them, mores than many fringe festivals, anecdotally the costs of producing the shows themselves, especially for companies not based in New York, can be considerably more than the FringeNYC allocation, once artist compensation, physical production, and travel and housing are factored in. In addition to the 2% subsidiary rights participation that FringeNYC asks of authors, it also asks for 2% of the Participants’ future revenues as well (again, over the $20,000 threshold).

While the discussion of Presentor, Presenter, Participant, Producer and so on may seem semantic, it’s not. Subsidiary rights typically accrue to producers who mount full productions of shows, at their expense (or with funds raised by them), whether commercial or not-for-profit, although the terms may vary. In Arts Integrity’s experience and in the examples given, they are not customary for productions which do not meet that standard. As for subsidiary rights granted by authors to entities responsible for the original mounting(s) of their play, for more than 25 years, there has been discussion of the complications engendered by encumbrances on authors when works receive several early productions that each secure (or demand) subsidiary rights. Providing them to developmental productions as well could have the effect of making it too expensive to produce a work that has promised multiple payments to multiple entities, or severely impede an author’s ability to be properly paid for subsequent productions. Additionally subsidiary rights are typically activated once a production has given a certain number of performances; as few as five are typically insufficient.

For 20 years, FringeNYC has been and continues to be an invaluable asset for new, inventive, irreverent and diverse work in New York. While it can’t hope to catch up with the longevity of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it is deserving of a comparably long life. After the frenzy of the current festival subsides, FringeNYC would be well served to reconsider its policy regarding subsidiary rights, lest it prove an increasing impediment to the depth and breadth of work seen in its venues each summer. But precisely because the Fringe by its nature attracts younger or less established artists seeking a showcase in one of the world’s greatest theatre cities, with the possibility of being seen by industry and media professionals who could advance their shows, their careers, or both, it would do well not to ask more of its authors, its artists and its producers than any other fringe, showcase, workshop, reading series or the like. While many artists have enjoyed and benefited from the Fringe and have agreed to its longstanding terms, with the subsidiary rights language ultimately being activated for the very tiniest percentage, the Fringe’s embracing spirit can set an example for its artists and producers of what they can and should expect in the future, and that begins with their contracts.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes, authors of “In The Heights” (photo courtesy of New Dramatists)

The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular a non-Latinx actor in the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy. On August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories,” which drew a full house and an even larger online audience to explore the issues of race, ethnicity, authenticity and representation provoked by the Porchlight casting and an earlier production of Evita in Chicago; reporting from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader on the forum expanded its reach yet further). The event had been preceded by multiple online essays on the subject, including posts by Trevor Boffone, Tommy Rivera-Vega and Jose T. Nateras, as well as two reports (here and here) from Arts Integrity as the situation unfolded, and a commentary by me, writing in my capacity as interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

On Sunday evening, August 14, Victory Gardens artistic director Chay Yew shared, via Facebook, a post that was headed, “Just Got this from Lin-Manuel and Quiara.” Readers have noted that it seems to be coming from a single voice, but Hudes’s preface addresses that:

I will be swamped returning from vacation and may not get a statement out, I wanted to forward you my email interview thread with Diep Tran for American Theater at the end of July when this happened. Lin stood behind my comments in this thread then, and I assume that still stands. Here are some of my most relevant comments, cut and pasted for continuity which I am comfortable with them being posted publicly, in the context of “excerpts from her interview with Diep Tran for American Theatre Magazine.”

For those seeking more clarification about Miranda’s position, I was in touch with him with him following the publication of the American Theatre article; he had been on vacation when the controversy over Porchlight’s casting emerged. Responding to an offer to add his own thoughts, he wrote, referencing Hudes’s comments in the the article, “I honestly can’t improve on her words. She speaks for us both.”

Hudes’s full statement to Yew is as follows:

I am not familiar with Porchlight but based on them being Equity, then I can only assume this is a professional theater company. Within the context of professional productions, casting the roles appropriately is of fundamental importance.

The fact is that creating true artistic diversity often takes hard work. Concerted, extra effort. It takes time and money. You cannot just put out a casting call and hope people come and then shrug if they don’t show up. You may need to add extra casting calls (I do this all the time), to go do outreach in communities you haven’t worked with before. You may need to reach out to the Latino theaters and artists and build partnerships to share resources and information. You may need to fly in actors from out of town if you’ve exhausted local avenues, and house them during the run. When faced with these expensive obstacles, an organization’s status quo sometimes wins because it’s cheaper and less trouble. The Latino community has the right to be disappointed and depressed that an opportunity like this was lost. It can be very disheartening, as an artist and as an audience member.

The sad fact is that even in New York, where we Latinos abound, the theater world often reflects a much more closed system. I’m talking onstage and off.

For decades, the vast majority of Latino roles were maids, gang bangers, etc etc. It’s demoralizing, obnoxious, and reductive of an entire people. It’s a lie about who we are, how complicated our dreams and individuality are.

Chicago has a historic Puerto Rican and Latino community. Its history as a hub of Latino migration is beautiful and robust. I’ve had the honor of working in Chicago numerous times and getting to know a deep pool of diverse talent there. Artists like Eddie Torres founded Latino theater companies to create opportunities where there were none. The Goodman houses a Latino theater festival frequently, and they did a beautiful job casting my play The Happiest Song Plays Last. DePaul recently hosted the Latino/a Theater Commons festival. Chicago is poised to be at the forefront of these issues!

I am proud to have written complex roles for actors of many ethnicities: Latino, African-American, White, Asian-American, Arab-American. I have stumbled at times. But I continue to commit to nuance and specificity as the core of the dramatic impulse, and the gateway to the human experience.

I have been in a lot of rooms where people give lip service to being committed to diversity. But that’s different than doing the hard work that it often involves.

I do not hold these views as strongly with educational and non-professional productions. I’m happy for schools and communities who do not have these actors on hand to use In the Heights as an educational experience for participants of all stripes.

I have had the pleasure of working with directors of many backgrounds on my work. Women and men, Latin@, Asian American, African American, bicultural, and white. I have purposely tried to work with the widest range of directors possible, aesthetically and culturally speaking, and this broad group of collaborators has enriched my vision as an artist.

I have chosen directors based on many considerations: aesthetics, artistic mission, their connection with a given script, their history of excellent casting and designer collaborations.

Rather than demand a particular background for a director of my work, I try to encourage Artistic Directors and producers to consider hiring woman directors and culturally diverse directors THROUGHOUT their season–not just for the “Latino” play or “women’s” play. Directors of color should be hired to do EVERYTHING. They should be directing Shakespeare and Moliere and Ibsen and Cruz. Not just Cruz.

This post, in a slightly different form, first appeared on the website of the Arts Integrity Initiative.

The casting of the upcoming production of In The Heights at Porchlight Music Theatre in Chicago, in particular the hiring of a non-Latinx actor for the leading role of Usnavi, has provoked a great deal of comment and controversy in that community and beyond. In response, on August 9, Victory Gardens Theatre hosted a public forum, organized by ALTA, the Association of Latinx Theatre Artists of Chicago, “The Color Game: whitewashing Latinx stories.” It drew a full house and an even larger online audience to explore the issues of race, ethnicity, authenticity and representation, provoked by the Porchlight casting and an earlier production of Evita in Chicago; reports from the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader on the forum expanded its reach yet further. The event had been preceded by multiple online essays on the subject, including posts by Trevor Boffone, Tommy Rivera-Vega and Jose T. Nateras, as well as two reports from Arts Integrity (here and here) as the situation unfolded, and a commentary by Arts Integrity director Howard Sherman, writing in his capacity as interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

On Sunday evening, August 14, Victory Gardens artistic director Chay Yew shared, via Facebook, a post that was headed, “Just got this from Lin-Manuel and Quiara.” Readers have noted that it seems to be coming from a single voice, but Hudes’s preface addresses that:

I will be swamped returning from vacation and may not get a statement out, I wanted to forward you my email interview thread with Diep Tran for American Theater at the end of July when this happened. Lin stood behind my comments in this thread then, and I assume that still stands. Here are some of my most relevant comments, cut and pasted for continuity which I am comfortable with them being posted publicly, in the context of “excerpts from her interview with Diep Tran for American Theatre Magazine.”

For those seeking to clarify Miranda’s position, Arts Integrity was in touch with him following the publication of the American Theatre article; he had been on vacation when the controversy over Porchlight’s casting emerged. Responding to an offer to add his own thoughts, Miranda wrote, referencing Hudes’s comments in the the article, “I honestly can’t improve on her words. She speaks for us both.” Additionally, Yew reports that he had received an e-mail from Miranda backing the statement.

Hudes’s full statement, the excerpts from her American Theatre interview, as she provided it to Yew, is as follows:

I am not familiar with Porchlight but based on them being Equity, then I can only assume this is a professional theater company. Within the context of professional productions, casting the roles appropriately is of fundamental importance.

The fact is that creating true artistic diversity often takes hard work. Concerted, extra effort. It takes time and money. You cannot just put out a casting call and hope people come and then shrug if they don’t show up. You may need to add extra casting calls (I do this all the time), to go do outreach in communities you haven’t worked with before. You may need to reach out to the Latino theaters and artists and build partnerships to share resources and information. You may need to fly in actors from out of town if you’ve exhausted local avenues, and house them during the run. When faced with these expensive obstacles, an organization’s status quo sometimes wins because it’s cheaper and less trouble. The Latino community has the right to be disappointed and depressed that an opportunity like this was lost. It can be very disheartening, as an artist and as an audience member.

The sad fact is that even in New York, where we Latinos abound, the theater world often reflects a much more closed system. I’m talking onstage and off.

For decades, the vast majority of Latino roles were maids, gang bangers, etc etc. It’s demoralizing, obnoxious, and reductive of an entire people. It’s a lie about who we are, how complicated our dreams and individuality are.

Chicago has a historic Puerto Rican and Latino community. Its history as a hub of Latino migration is beautiful and robust. I’ve had the honor of working in Chicago numerous times and getting to know a deep pool of diverse talent there. Artists like Eddie Torres founded Latino theater companies to create opportunities where there were none. The Goodman houses a Latino theater festival frequently, and they did a beautiful job casting my play The Happiest Song Plays Last. DePaul recently hosted the Latino/a Theater Commons festival. Chicago is poised to be at the forefront of these issues!

I am proud to have written complex roles for actors of many ethnicities: Latino, African-American, White, Asian-American, Arab-American. I have stumbled at times. But I continue to commit to nuance and specificity as the core of the dramatic impulse, and the gateway to the human experience.

I have been in a lot of rooms where people give lip service to being committed to diversity. But that’s different than doing the hard work that it often involves.

I do not hold these views as strongly with educational and non-professional productions. I’m happy for schools and communities who do not have these actors on hand to use In the Heights as an educational experience for participants of all stripes.

I have had the pleasure of working with directors of many backgrounds on my work. Women and men, Latin@, Asian American, African American, bicultural, and white. I have purposely tried to work with the widest range of directors possible, aesthetically and culturally speaking, and this broad group of collaborators has enriched my vision as an artist.

I have chosen directors based on many considerations: aesthetics, artistic mission, their connection with a given script, their history of excellent casting and designer collaborations.

Rather than demand a particular background for a director of my work, I try to encourage Artistic Directors and producers to consider hiring woman directors and culturally diverse directors THROUGHOUT their season–not just for the “Latino” play or “women’s” play. Directors of color should be hired to do EVERYTHING. They should be directing Shakespeare and Moliere and Ibsen and Cruz. Not just Cruz.

Subsequent to Arts Integrity exploring the Porchlight Music Theatre’s casting of their forthcoming production of In The Heights, as well as Hedy Weiss’s article for the Chicago Sun-Times (detailed in Race, Spoken and Unspoken, in Chicago Cast Announcement), other voices weighed in on the issue of authenticity in casting. They added details that weren’t all apparent to someone outside the Chicago theatre community, as well as commentary on the situation.

Trevor Boffone, a professor at the University of Houston and Ph.D. in Hispanic studies, wrote about the situation on his website, asserting that the cast features “a white actor playing Miranda’s theatrical doppelganger Usnavi, the musical’s main character,” going on to write:

This casting decision gentrifies a show that is about a community fighting against gentrification. Evidently, Porchlight fails to comprehend the lived realities of Latin@s all across the nation who face many of the issues seen in Miranda and Hudes’ musical. This especially rings true when a white man is cast as Usnavi. These roles were written by Latin@s for Latin@ actors. The Latin@ community wants their stories told, but in an ethical way that speaks with the community in question. To gentrify In the Heights is to completely miss the point of the musical.

Tommy Rivera-Vega, a Chicago area actor who had auditioned for the Porchlight production, wrote in a public Facebook post:

I understand that you cast some Latinxs in the show (people that I have worked with before, respect their work, and love.) But when the person actually narrating the story is not Latinx, you are creating an atmosphere, an ecosystem, a perfectly created barrio around him, where the white folks behind it can now feel safe telling our story. You are essentially “building a wall.” Not giving us a chance….

By casting a non-Latinx Usnavi, and not even having an overwhelming Latinx support in the Production team, the backbone of the show suffers, because it was never lived. Being a Latinx will turn into devising what being Latinx is, instead of just being it. You have essentially gentrified Lin-Manuel Miranda’s gentrification masterpiece.

*   *   *

Asked about the ethnicity of the actors cast in many of the show’s leading roles, Porchlight provided a statement through their press representative, which reads:

While Porchlight specifically encouraged artists who self-identified as Latinx to audition for In the Heights both in our AEA and non union audition announcements; we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our hiring practices. Even if we knew for certain an artists’ self-identification (of any qualification) we do not feel it is appropriate to violate the confidentiality of their privacy.

When it comes to the subject of inquiring about ethnicity in any casting process, Porchlight makes an important point, which can be stated even more emphatically: while the company neither invited or required actors to state their ethnicity, they legally can’t. To do so would violate antidiscrimination laws in regards to hiring, where subjects such as race and ethnicity, as well as age, sexual orientation, and medical status, are off-limits. However, that doesn’t prevent a producer, theatre company, director or casting director from proactively seeking actors of a specific ethnicity (or gender, or disability) and inviting them to audition.

Writing at fnewsmagazine, “a journal of arts, culture, and politics edited and designed by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Jose T. Nateras explains:

The truth of the matter is, often, actors of color aren’t able to get an audition in the first place. For instance, Porchlight makes audition appointments available through a website that has only so many audition slots open for signing up on a first-come-first serve basis. It is well known that these slots fill up fast and whether or not the roles looking to be filled are for actors of color, a large portion go to white actors.

Granted, these are actors who, very understandably, want a chance to audition for one of the more respected musical theater companies in Chicago. An actor’s agent can submit them for auditions, or they can self-submit, but it is ultimately up to the casting department of a theater to call actors in from the many submissions they receive. So, yes, casting does come from the pool of actors who audition, but when you’re in control of who is in that pool, that’s not an excuse.

*   *   *

“…I immigrated from the single

Greatest little place in the Caribbean,

Dominican Republic.

I love it.”

– from In The Heights

The casting notice provided by Porchlight to the Casting Call portion of the Actors Equity website (the company hires both Equity and non-Equity performers) did state, “Especially seeking actors/actresses who identify as Latino.” However, the same posting, as is standard for Equity listings, also carried non-discrimination boilerplate, “Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to apply.”

Even Hamilton, praised for its diverse cast, got into trouble when it sought “non-white” actors, because such a notice violated non-discrimination hiring laws. But one way of addressing intentionality in ethnic casting, in being “color-conscious,” is to specify the race or ethnicity of the characters, not the actors.

It’s worth noting that when the AEA posting was used by Backstage as the basis for their own notice of the casting of Heights at Porchlight, the specific character breakdown repeatedly noted, under ethnicity, “all ethnicities,” which translates the non-discrimination language on the AEA website into the misleading suggestion that, unless otherwise noted, the characters themselves can be of any ethnicity. In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Luke Crowe, casting vice-president at Backstage, explained, “With Equity listings, we also default to the inclusive ranges (all ethnicities, all ages 18+, etc.) unless the Equity listing specifically defines narrower criteria.”

While three of the more detailed character descriptions as provided to Equity by Porchlight mention ethnicity – Usnavi “dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic,” Abuela Claudia “moved from Cuba to New York,” Carla is “of Chilean, Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican descent – the others don’t address it, save for Benny, who is “not Hispanic.” This contrasts with the current casting notice for an upcoming production at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, which at the start of the descriptions of the major characters in their breakdown, notes them as, “Usnavi, male, 20s, Dominican,” “Nina, female, 19, first generation Puerto Rican,” “Kevin, male, 40s, Puerto Rican,” and so on. While the published edition of the Heights script does not list ethnicity on its cast of characters page, the specific ethnicities are evident within the script itself, and even the back cover describes the setting as “a tight-knit Latin American community.” The clearer the breakdown, the stronger the call for the specific actors being sought.

*   *   *

Last fall saw questions raised and indeed controversy in connection with issues of authenticity in casting of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop in a community theatre production at Kent State University and a theatre department production of Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India, which was ultimately canceled, at Clarion University. In the wake of those incidents, In The Heights composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda went on record about his position over what should guide producers and directors in casting roles that call for specific races and ethnicities.

“My answer is: authorial intent wins. Period,” Miranda said, going on to emphasize that, “In every case, the intent of the author always wins. If the author has specified the ethnicity of the part, that wins.”

As part of the same interview, although previously unpublished, Miranda spoke of his intent in writing In The Heights. Having previously noted that West Side Story is populated by Latino gang members, he said:

“One of the impulses that went into the writing of Heights was, like, I don’t see a world in which I can play a part in musical theatre. There’s nothing existing. In the Heights was my way of writing something that had lots of roles for Latinos.”

*   *   *

In the struggle for equity in arts, across gender, racial, ethnic, disability and other communities which have seen choices default too often to white, Eurocentric males, there are many traditions, habits, practices and in some cases outright discrimination to be addressed. Exploring a single situation at a small theatre in Chicago is not meant to vilify that company, but only to highlight how challenging it seems to be for so many to move to a place of true diversity and equity, where stories that involve race and ethnicity are told with those elements intact, in addition to welcoming diverse artists into the telling of stories that were originally created by and for white artists. Only by looking at what has happened in the past and what is taking place today can we find our way to a fairer future – and a future where the voices of those creating work for today and many tomorrows can be heard and respected, even when they’re not in the room or even on the phone, checking to see that their intent has been understood and properly represented.

*   *   *

Addendum, July 27, 4:00 pm: Arts Integrity received the following statement from Porchlight Music Theatre, approximately five hours after this piece first went online. It reads, in its entirety:

To our colleagues in the Chicago Theatre community, please know that we at Porchlight Music Theatre have been intently listening to and have clearly received the messages of concern regarding our upcoming production of In the Heights. 

The thoughts that have been expressed are accepted with the utmost seriousness and consideration, and we humbly wish to contribute to this needed conversation.

In the casting of In The Heights, as with all productions at Porchlight, we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our casting and hiring process. All actors who attended were considered based solely on the content of their audition.

Our continual objective is to create and encourage an environment of inclusion in all our work here at Porchlight Music Theatre.

Moving forward, we are committed to expand our efforts in regard to inclusion and representation as well as furthering our relationships with the diverse talent and institutions that make up the Chicago Theatre community.

Addendum, July 29, 2:00 pm: In the wake of the casting conversations about the production, Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight, provided the following expanded statement to the website PerformInk, elaborating on their prior comments. Jason Epperson, publisher of PerformInk, told Arts Integrity that the site already had a four-part series on In The Heights in the works, with the first part always planned to focus on casting, when the controversy developed. This statement is reproduced with PerformInk’s permission.

We at Porchlight Music Theatre, as a company and as individuals, are deeply committed to being inclusive in all aspects of the organization. We acknowledge and apologize to the Chicago theatre community and the Latinx community as a whole for disappointment in the hiring of our IN THE HEIGHTS cast and production team, and for frustration that has been caused by the slowness of our fuller public response. We agree that we could have done a better job in making a public statement more quickly. We have been carefully paying attention to the conversations and assimilating them with the utmost consideration. During this time we have also been actively implementing many of the constructive ideas and suggestions that have been offered to us through social media and by email.

From the beginning, our casting approach was to hire an acting company that genuinely represented the community of characters as described in the play. We advertised in a transparent way with the intention of especially inviting actors who identify as Latinx to audition. There was an extremely large turnout, including many actors who had never auditioned at Porchlight before.

As is common knowledge, in the casting process we found ourselves at the heart of the challenge of how to hire a potential employee without crossing legal or privacy boundaries that would result in someone being denied employment based solely on their race. We found ourselves at the epicenter of the debate, “how can you know for sure when you cannot ask?”

There has been much conversation around the suggestion to do research and “ask around.” Prior to auditions, we did reach out to several noted Latinx artistic leaders in the community for guidance. All suggestions on avenues to post our casting notices were implemented. All suggested actors were invited to attend auditions. And during the audition process, we did ask around regarding actors we were interested in casting, but whose ethnicity we were unsure of, in order to gain as much insight as we could. However, that information often proved inconsistent and thus unreliable, with the only definitive means being to ask the actor directly as a condition of employment.

So, at the moment of decision, when an actor is in front of you, giving an excellent audition, and of whose ethnicity you are just not precisely sure, what do you do? From the information we were able to gather we moved forward with the actors who gave the best auditions, believing we couldn’t absolutely know their definite ethnic heritage without violating a boundary. We know now we could have done better.

Only post hiring did we learn conclusively that not all cast members self-identify as Latinx and that the fine actor playing “Usnavi,” Jack DeCesare, is actually of Italian descent. We want to be very clear that the responsibility for hiring Jack is wholly ours, not his. This excellent young actor merely showed up for an audition. And he did his job well. Our job was to assemble a company for a work that has unique casting responsibilities. We fell short.

We absolutely stand by the cast and creative team that has been hired for this production, but we recognize that more must be done to assure a truthful dramatic representation of this work, as well as how we at Porchlight approach diverse and representative casting in the future.

To this end we have reached out again to diversity and cultural leaders, including The Chicago Inclusion Project, The Latina and Latino Studies department of Northwestern University, The Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University, Latinx theatre professionals in our community, and others to obtain suggestions of cultural consultants that we can add to the creative team to assure the best representation of the nuances of the work and the community being represented in it.

Further, we plan to expand our already planned post-performance discussion series by inviting many of the voices who have expressed themselves on social media or to us directly to join in a prominent way in this needed and continuing national conversation. And we welcome this production being a point of example and learning for not only Porchlight but for other arts organizations who, like us, may face the same challenges. We look forward to creating forums where we can move forward, and closer, together.

IN THE HEIGHTS is not only a play about community and gentrification, it is a catalyst for conversation about the way things are and ways they can be better. This production has become a source of valid controversy and conversation in our community and an important source of increased understanding and growth for Porchlight Music Theatre. We acknowledge and accept the response our decisions have caused. We deeply regret that our actions have caused offense to our friends and colleagues in the Chicago theatre community, and beyond. We truly are embracing this as an opportunity to improve our artistic processes and we sincerely hope that we can once again earn your trust and respect as the inclusive organization that we have always striven to be.

We welcome further conversation both in public forums and directly via email.

Porchlight Music Theatre
Michael Weber, Artistic Director

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

Subsequent to Arts Integrity exploring the Porchlight Music Theatre’s casting of their forthcoming production of In The Heights, as well as Hedy Weiss’s article for the Chicago Sun-Times (detailed in Race, Spoken and Unspoken, in Chicago Cast Announcement), other voices weighed in on the issue of authenticity in casting. They added details that weren’t all apparent to someone outside the Chicago theatre community, as well as commentary on the situation.

Trevor Boffone, a professor at the University of Houston and Ph.D. in Hispanic studies, wrote about the situation on his website, asserting that the cast features “a white actor playing Miranda’s theatrical doppelganger Usnavi, the musical’s main character,” going on to write:

This casting decision gentrifies a show that is about a community fighting against gentrification. Evidently, Porchlight fails to comprehend the lived realities of Latin@s all across the nation who face many of the issues seen in Miranda and Hudes’ musical. This especially rings true when a white man is cast as Usnavi. These roles were written by Latin@s for Latin@ actors. The Latin@ community wants their stories told, but in an ethical way that speaks with the community in question. To gentrify In the Heights is to completely miss the point of the musical.

Tommy Rivera-Vega, a Chicago area actor who had auditioned for the Porchlight production, wrote in a public Facebook post:

I understand that you cast some Latinxs in the show (people that I have worked with before, respect their work, and love.) But when the person actually narrating the story is not Latinx, you are creating an atmosphere, an ecosystem, a perfectly created barrio around him, where the white folks behind it can now feel safe telling our story. You are essentially “building a wall.” Not giving us a chance….

By casting a non-Latinx Usnavi, and not even having an overwhelming Latinx support in the Production team, the backbone of the show suffers, because it was never lived. Being a Latinx will turn into devising what being Latinx is, instead of just being it. You have essentially gentrified Lin-Manuel Miranda’s gentrification masterpiece.

*   *   *

Asked about the ethnicity of the actors cast in many of the show’s leading roles, Porchlight provided a statement through their press representative, which reads:

While Porchlight specifically encouraged artists who self-identified as Latinx to audition for In the Heights both in our AEA and non union audition announcements; we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our hiring practices. Even if we knew for certain an artists’ self-identification (of any qualification) we do not feel it is appropriate to violate the confidentiality of their privacy.

When it comes to the subject of inquiring about ethnicity in any casting process, Porchlight makes an important point, which can be stated even more emphatically: while the company neither invited or required actors to state their ethnicity, they legally can’t. To do so would violate antidiscrimination laws in regards to hiring, where subjects such as race and ethnicity, as well as age, sexual orientation, and medical status, are off-limits. However, that doesn’t prevent a producer, theatre company, director or casting director from proactively seeking actors of a specific ethnicity (or gender, or disability) and inviting them to audition.

Writing at fnewsmagazine, “a journal of arts, culture, and politics edited and designed by students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Jose T. Nateras explains:

The truth of the matter is, often, actors of color aren’t able to get an audition in the first place. For instance, Porchlight makes audition appointments available through a website that has only so many audition slots open for signing up on a first-come-first serve basis. It is well known that these slots fill up fast and whether or not the roles looking to be filled are for actors of color, a large portion go to white actors.

Granted, these are actors who, very understandably, want a chance to audition for one of the more respected musical theater companies in Chicago. An actor’s agent can submit them for auditions, or they can self-submit, but it is ultimately up to the casting department of a theater to call actors in from the many submissions they receive. So, yes, casting does come from the pool of actors who audition, but when you’re in control of who is in that pool, that’s not an excuse.

*   *   *

“…I immigrated from the single

Greatest little place in the Caribbean,

Dominican Republic.

I love it.”

– from In The Heights

The casting notice provided by Porchlight to the Casting Call portion of the Actors Equity website (the company hires both Equity and non-Equity performers) did state, “Especially seeking actors/actresses who identify as Latino.” However, the same posting, as is standard for Equity listings, also carried non-discrimination boilerplate, “Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to apply.”

Even Hamilton, praised for its diverse cast, got into trouble when it sought “non-white” actors, because such a notice violated non-discrimination hiring laws. But one way of addressing intentionality in ethnic casting, in being “color-conscious,” is to specify the race or ethnicity of the characters, not the actors.

It’s worth noting that when the AEA posting was used by Backstage as the basis for their own notice of the casting of Heights at Porchlight, the specific character breakdown repeatedly noted, under ethnicity, “all ethnicities,” which translates the non-discrimination language on the AEA website into the misleading suggestion that, unless otherwise noted, the characters themselves can be of any ethnicity. In an e-mail to Arts Integrity, Luke Crowe, casting vice-president at Backstage, explained, “With Equity listings, we also default to the inclusive ranges (all ethnicities, all ages 18+, etc.) unless the Equity listing specifically defines narrower criteria.”

While three of the more detailed character descriptions as provided to Equity by Porchlight mention ethnicity – Usnavi “dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic,” Abuela Claudia “moved from Cuba to New York,” Carla is “of Chilean, Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican descent – the others don’t address it, save for Benny, who is “not Hispanic.” This contrasts with the current casting notice for an upcoming production at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston, which at the start of the descriptions of the major characters in their breakdown, notes them as, “Usnavi, male, 20s, Dominican,” “Nina, female, 19, first generation Puerto Rican,” “Kevin, male, 40s, Puerto Rican,” and so on. While the published edition of the Heights script does not list ethnicity on its cast of characters page, the specific ethnicities are evident within the script itself, and even the back cover describes the setting as “a tight-knit Latin American community.” The clearer the breakdown, the stronger the call for the specific actors being sought.

*   *   *

Last fall saw questions raised and indeed controversy in connection with issues of authenticity in casting of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop in a community theatre production at Kent State University and a theatre department production of Lloyd Suh’s Jesus in India, which was ultimately canceled, at Clarion University. In the wake of those incidents, In The Heights composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda went on record about his position over what should guide producers and directors in casting roles that call for specific races and ethnicities.

“My answer is: authorial intent wins. Period,” Miranda said, going on to emphasize that, “In every case, the intent of the author always wins. If the author has specified the ethnicity of the part, that wins.”

As part of the same interview, although previously unpublished, Miranda spoke of his intent in writing In The Heights. Having previously noted that West Side Story is populated by Latino gang members, he said:

“One of the impulses that went into the writing of Heights was, like, I don’t see a world in which I can play a part in musical theatre. There’s nothing existing. In the Heights was my way of writing something that had lots of roles for Latinos.”

*   *   *

In the struggle for equity in arts, across gender, racial, ethnic, disability and other communities which have seen choices default too often to white, Eurocentric males, there are many traditions, habits, practices and in some cases outright discrimination to be addressed. Exploring a single situation at a small theatre in Chicago is not meant to vilify that company, but only to highlight how challenging it seems to be for so many to move to a place of true diversity and equity, where stories that involve race and ethnicity are told with those elements intact, in addition to welcoming diverse artists into the telling of stories that were originally created by and for white artists. Only by looking at what has happened in the past and what is taking place today can we find our way to a fairer future – and a future where the voices of those creating work for today and many tomorrows can be heard and respected, even when they’re not in the room or even on the phone, checking to see that their intent has been understood and properly represented.

*   *   *

Addendum, July 27, 4:00 pm: Arts Integrity received the following statement from Porchlight Music Theatre, approximately five hours after this piece first went online. It reads, in its entirety:

To our colleagues in the Chicago Theatre community, please know that we at Porchlight Music Theatre have been intently listening to and have clearly received the messages of concern regarding our upcoming production of In the Heights. 

The thoughts that have been expressed are accepted with the utmost seriousness and consideration, and we humbly wish to contribute to this needed conversation.

In the casting of In The Heights, as with all productions at Porchlight, we did not invite nor require potential employees to state their racial self-identification as part of our casting and hiring process. All actors who attended were considered based solely on the content of their audition.

Our continual objective is to create and encourage an environment of inclusion in all our work here at Porchlight Music Theatre.

Moving forward, we are committed to expand our efforts in regard to inclusion and representation as well as furthering our relationships with the diverse talent and institutions that make up the Chicago Theatre community.

Addendum, July 29, 2:00 pm: In the wake of the casting conversations about the production, Michael Weber, artistic director of Porchlight, provided the following expanded statement to the website PerformInk, elaborating on their prior comments. Jason Epperson, publisher of PerformInk, told Arts Integrity that the site already had a four-part series on In The Heights in the works, with the first part always planned to focus on casting, when the controversy developed. This statement is reproduced with PerformInk’s permission.

We at Porchlight Music Theatre, as a company and as individuals, are deeply committed to being inclusive in all aspects of the organization. We acknowledge and apologize to the Chicago theatre community and the Latinx community as a whole for disappointment in the hiring of our IN THE HEIGHTS cast and production team, and for frustration that has been caused by the slowness of our fuller public response. We agree that we could have done a better job in making a public statement more quickly. We have been carefully paying attention to the conversations and assimilating them with the utmost consideration. During this time we have also been actively implementing many of the constructive ideas and suggestions that have been offered to us through social media and by email.

From the beginning, our casting approach was to hire an acting company that genuinely represented the community of characters as described in the play. We advertised in a transparent way with the intention of especially inviting actors who identify as Latinx to audition. There was an extremely large turnout, including many actors who had never auditioned at Porchlight before.

As is common knowledge, in the casting process we found ourselves at the heart of the challenge of how to hire a potential employee without crossing legal or privacy boundaries that would result in someone being denied employment based solely on their race. We found ourselves at the epicenter of the debate, “how can you know for sure when you cannot ask?”

There has been much conversation around the suggestion to do research and “ask around.” Prior to auditions, we did reach out to several noted Latinx artistic leaders in the community for guidance. All suggestions on avenues to post our casting notices were implemented. All suggested actors were invited to attend auditions. And during the audition process, we did ask around regarding actors we were interested in casting, but whose ethnicity we were unsure of, in order to gain as much insight as we could. However, that information often proved inconsistent and thus unreliable, with the only definitive means being to ask the actor directly as a condition of employment.

So, at the moment of decision, when an actor is in front of you, giving an excellent audition, and of whose ethnicity you are just not precisely sure, what do you do? From the information we were able to gather we moved forward with the actors who gave the best auditions, believing we couldn’t absolutely know their definite ethnic heritage without violating a boundary. We know now we could have done better.

Only post hiring did we learn conclusively that not all cast members self-identify as Latinx and that the fine actor playing “Usnavi,” Jack DeCesare, is actually of Italian descent. We want to be very clear that the responsibility for hiring Jack is wholly ours, not his. This excellent young actor merely showed up for an audition. And he did his job well. Our job was to assemble a company for a work that has unique casting responsibilities. We fell short.

We absolutely stand by the cast and creative team that has been hired for this production, but we recognize that more must be done to assure a truthful dramatic representation of this work, as well as how we at Porchlight approach diverse and representative casting in the future.

To this end we have reached out again to diversity and cultural leaders, including The Chicago Inclusion Project, The Latina and Latino Studies department of Northwestern University, The Latin American and Latino Studies Department at DePaul University, Latinx theatre professionals in our community, and others to obtain suggestions of cultural consultants that we can add to the creative team to assure the best representation of the nuances of the work and the community being represented in it.

Further, we plan to expand our already planned post-performance discussion series by inviting many of the voices who have expressed themselves on social media or to us directly to join in a prominent way in this needed and continuing national conversation. And we welcome this production being a point of example and learning for not only Porchlight but for other arts organizations who, like us, may face the same challenges. We look forward to creating forums where we can move forward, and closer, together.

IN THE HEIGHTS is not only a play about community and gentrification, it is a catalyst for conversation about the way things are and ways they can be better. This production has become a source of valid controversy and conversation in our community and an important source of increased understanding and growth for Porchlight Music Theatre. We acknowledge and accept the response our decisions have caused. We deeply regret that our actions have caused offense to our friends and colleagues in the Chicago theatre community, and beyond. We truly are embracing this as an opportunity to improve our artistic processes and we sincerely hope that we can once again earn your trust and respect as the inclusive organization that we have always striven to be.

We welcome further conversation both in public forums and directly via email.

Porchlight Music Theatre
Michael Weber, Artistic Director

Howard Sherman is director of the Arts Integrity Initiative at The New School College of Performing Arts and interim director of the Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts.

The bombshell article in the Chicago Reader by Aimee Levitt and Christopher Piatt, about serially abusive practices at Chicago’s Profiles Theatre, rightly zoomed around the theatre world from the moment it went online on Wednesday at approximately 5:30 pm eastern time. Profoundly troubling to virtually anyone who read it, this account of abuse masquerading as theatre will surely be one of the seminal articles to be read, shared and taught for years to come. It is a cautionary tale about how, under the guise of art and daring, unethical and perhaps even illegal acts can be sustained by those who choose to exploit both the ostensibly safe spaces of creative practice and the unending appeal of theatre for those just looking for a break, any break, seemingly no matter what the cost.

It is impossible to say much more than Levitt and Piatt have already done with their essential yearlong investigation. But there are a few items that have come to Arts Integrity’s attention.

“The Village Bike” withdrawn from Profiles

If one visits the website of Profiles Theatre right now, the company promises a production of Penelope Skinner’s The Village Bike beginning in late August. That production will not be happening, because the playwright has withdrawn the rights. Skinner provided a statement to Arts Integrity via her New York representative, Scott Chaloff at WME. It reads, in its entirety:

When the article in the Chicago Reader appeared, it was sent to me by a number of artists in the American theatre community and beyond it.  Having read the article, alongside their emails, I feel it essential to withdraw the rights of my play ‘The Village Bike’ from that theatre. In light of the serious allegations made against the management, it would seem unwise for a production of this play – or indeed any play – to go on at that theatre until a full investigation has been made into their practices. I regret that it is not always possible from outside a community to hear the rumours of what goes on inside. Thank you to the brave actresses who came forward and to the writers of the article for raising awareness, and for giving the wider community an opportunity to take action.

Arts Integrity was advised that this would be Skinner’s only comment on Profiles Theatre.

It should be noted that in the wake of the revelations, the ad design for The Village Bike, shown above, which under other circumstances might be seen as merely provocative, seems to be further evidence of the pathology at work at Profiles.

Silence from the theatre

At approximately 5:50 pm eastern on Wednesday, Arts Integrity wrote to Larry Larsen, the senior vice prudent of Greentarget, the communications firm representing Profiles. The company had previously been represented by Cathy Taylor PR, a veteran Chicago press office, and it was Taylor who advised Arts Integrity to contact Greentarget. Taylor’s name was still on the Profiles site as the press contact for the theatre.

Asked for comment on the article and the situation at Profiles, Arts Integrity quickly received the following response from Larsen, about 20 minutes later:

I am representing the Profiles Theatre.  As you noted, the article has just appeared.  We are in the process of reading it.  I will respond further once we have reviewed it.

There has been no further response from Greentarget, which is primarily a corporate communications firm. One of the specialties, according to their website is “Special Situation Communication: protecting reputation during the most critical times.” This seems to be doublespeak for what most people would call crisis management. In any event, Greentarget’s strategy to date has been silence.

Should people have realized sooner

In a follow up piece for the Reader, “A critic’s mea culpa, or How Chicago theater critics failed the women of Profiles Theatre,” critic Christopher Piatt publicly examined his own failure to recognize the pathology of Profiles through the kind of work they presented over 20 years, a brave statement on his part, and one that is equally important reading to the main story if the theatre community as a whole is to truly learn from these alleged practices. It should be noted that, in hindsight, beyond The Village Bike image shared earlier, Profiles was either insufficiently self-aware of the image they were telegraphing, or didn’t care, when one looks at some images still cycling on their website from past productions. (Arts Integrity is not reproducing the images, given the unethical circumstances under which they were created.)

The trolls come out to play

Remarkably, in an account that communicates emotional damage and the kind of practices that must be eliminated, there are always naysayers. LA Bitter Lemons, an outspoken Los Angeles theatre site which Arts Integrity’s director challenged over its pay for review strategy about a year ago, has posted a short piece by editor Colin Mitchell which seems, in essence, to “blame the victims” of Profiles for not speaking up sooner. Read it if you must, but given this manner of engaging with a serious problem at one theatre that, unfortunately, is likely happening at other theatres and in the arts at large, Arts Integrity believes Bitter Lemons has gone from bitter to vile, and will no longer give further consideration to writing that appears on the site again. If you do read the piece, be sure to share your comments with the author and, perhaps, the site’s advertisers.

Aftermath

Even before the Profiles situation was revealed, the Chicago theatre community had already begun to come together over abuses in non-Equity theatre through the Not In Our House campaign, which includes a code of conduct. This effort needs to be replicated in communities throughout the country, and Arts Integrity stands ready to support and participate in these initiatives – and to be a vehicle through which artists who feel they have no voice can find support and guidance when it’s needed.

As for Profiles, there is distinct irony that the company has employed the tagline “Whatever the truth requires” in its marketing. The truth requires that Profiles be held to account now that they have been exposed for twisting the theatrical concept of truth to their own ends.

Update, June 10, 10:15 pm: Sometime in the past hour a statement from Darrell W. Cox, artistic director of Profiles Theatre, appeared on the company’s Facebook page. It begins:

On June 8, 2016, the Chicago Reader published an article entitled “At Profiles Theatre the drama—and abuse—is real.” For those who have not read it, I recommend you do so. The article’s overarching message of zero tolerance for workplace abuse is powerful and right.

Unfortunately, I am the villain in the Reader’s approximately 12,700-word article. The article chronicles much of my life since joining Profiles as recalled mainly through selective accounts of three women in my life. Most of the article dealt with people’s views of my work as an actor, director and artistic director of Profiles. But a portion of the article made allegations about my private conduct. Many people who read the article did not recognize the distinction and seemed to believe everything in the article without question.

Cox’s post goes on to express dismay over retribution that has been directed at him and the theatre since the article appeared, and states, “Joe Jahraus and I (Profiles artistic directors) have never and will never condone workplace abuse at Profiles Theatre….All of our actors are here of their own free will.”

It continues:

Unfortunately, the article has made it impossible for me to respond further to the women’s statements in a way that would convince anyone who believes their statements are accurate. I must rely, instead, on those who were and are a part of my life and Profiles Theatre to know the facts.

The statement concludes by asking for a meeting with the leadership of Not In Our House.

It should be noted that the original Chicago Reader article sought Cox and Jahraus’s participation, which was declined. In addition, as noted above, Arts Integrity sought comment or an interview with the Profiles leadership which, after being told a response would be forthcoming, never came; it has now been more than 52 hours. It was not, and is not, impossible for Cox to respond. He has elected not to.

A prophetic image on the Profiles Theatre website?

Update, June 10, 10:55 pm: In addition to the accounts in the article, and Darryl Cox’s Facebook reply, another actress who worked at Profiles, and who had previously declined to speak with the Chicago Reader, has come forward, writing, “I should have shared my story when called for comment.” Her full post can be read here.

Update, June 11, 6:00 pm: In the wake of his essay about the Profiles Theatre, referred to above, Colin Mitchell has been removed as editor of the website LA Bitter Lemons. The site’s publisher wrote that, “Colin Mitchell’s recent article within the Chicago theatrical community crossed from controversial into unacceptable.” Paul Birchall gives a fuller report of the situation wth Bitter Lemons at Stage Raw.

Update, June 12, 6:00 am: Last evening, Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune wrote on his Facebook page about the Profiles Theatre revelations. He began:

People have been calling for me to comment further on the allegations reported in The Reader. I felt it was important that I speak to the Reader’s reporter, Aimee Levitt, on the record, and I did. Not all of what I had to say ended up in the piece, which is neither unusual nor unreasonable. But I have been asked to say more and am now doing so, speaking only for myself. It took me a little time to re-read everything I had written about Profiles. It does not need liking; there has not been much to like these last 72 hours.

I found the allegations contained in the piece to be exceptionally distressing and painful.

The theater is a place of trust – actors need to trust each other to be able to make great art; audiences, critics included, must be able to trust that what they are seeing on stage is the work of professionals operating in a professional workplace. Those allegations would suggest I took too much on trust, to assume all the actors felt and/or were safe despite the lack of union representation, or some other workplace protections, in the room.

In addition to reflecting on his own writing in response to specific Profiles productions, Jones wrote:

Some of this, I think, has flowed from my longstanding obsession with viewing only the work as it is, in the moment. I’ve always seen that as a fundamental matter of fairness, as a self-corrective against bias. But these allegations serve as a reminder that context must always be considered, perhaps more than I have been willing to admit. Many of the numerous theaters that I have chosen to attend, and those choices have been mine, regularly operate with little or no protections, in a gray area between legitimate employment and an informal interest group with powerful leaders and an artistic product. The piece. for me, raises some questions about whether I should have been in those theaters at all, inviting the public to follow.

If Chicago theaters are to be viewed as professional, they need structures in place to protect their courageous artists who are asked, as part of this art, to give deeply of themselves. Not in Our House is, as most of you know, is working hard on this.

Update, June 15, 7:00 am: In a statement on their website and Facebook page posted late last evening, Profiles Theatre announced its immediate closure.

Hearing the word ‘vagina’ aloud before 1996, outside of a medical setting, was a bit startling. Encountering it in an article was likely to cause many readers more than a bit of surprise. Seeing it in newspaper ads, on posters or even on the sides of buses was seen as downright shocking. I remember it well.

Thanks to Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking The Vagina Monologues in 1996, the perfectly accurate, non-slang term for women’s genitalia became part of widely accepted conversation. The play had a long Off-Broadway run, has had countless professional and amateur productions around the world, and through Ensler’s V-Day initiative, The Vagina Monologues has generated more than $100 million for women’s charities internationally. Oh, and the word vagina has been demystified to the extent that you can hear it mentioned fairly regularly on network television comedies, where it clearly comports with network and FCC standards and practices.

But if you happen to be at the city council meeting this coming Tuesday afternoon in Ocala, Florida, you might think the word vagina, and monologues about vaginas, are something to be ashamed of and indeed silenced, attitudes from the pre-1996 era, if not even earlier. That’s because a local businessman named Brad Dinkins has asked and been scheduled to appear before the council to discuss, in the words of his request, “The respective leases between the city (landlord) and The Reilly Arts Center and the Marion Theatre (tenants) … and possible ‘use’ violations per the lease with the tenants. The issues at hand are in regards to questionable performances at each location, scheduled during March, 2016.”

Mr. Dinkins goes on to cite the performances that he believes breach the lease by being “questionable,” specifically a single performance of The Vagina Monologues at the city-owned Reilly Arts Center, which is leased to and operated by the Ocala Symphony, and The Marion at Midnight, a burlesque performance at another city owned and subleased venue, The Marion Theatre. In his request to speak at the council, Mr. Dinkins has lined up a whole team, which he describes as follows in his correspondence with the Ocala city manager:

“Besides myself there will be other local citizen participants, some of which will include Father Don Curran, Rector of Christ The King Church; Mike Sullivan, former PGA tournament golf champion, and Dennis Camp, attorney, who may or may not speak.”

Clearly Mr. Dinkins’s attempt is at least to have the city remedy what he sees as a breach by canceling the performances. In his request to be heard at the city council, he quoted from the lease agreements for the venues, which he asserts are virtually identical.

6.7.   The following guidelines shall govern the performance and other entertainment that may be shown at, or viewed by the public on, the Premises:

6.7.1 Tenant shall not use the Building (by, without limitation, presenting performances or other entertainment), or permit others to use the Building, in a manner that City, in its reasonable discretion, deems inappropriate or objectionable.

6.7.2  Prior to claiming a default under paragraph 6.7.1, City shall notify tenant that it claims a performance, or other entertainment, or use is inappropriate or objectionable, and, if Tenant no longer presents such performance or other entertainment, or permits such use, no default shall have occurred.

If they don’t immediately agree to fold their tents over this action and cancel these events which Mr. Dinkins finds “questionable,” his next step may well be to assert that the Symphony is acting as a poor steward of the Reilly, and that Carmen and Cesar Soto, who have a five-year lease of the Marion through November 2017, are also remiss, and seek to have both operators’ contracts revoked. It’s hard to say. After all, what does a former golf champion have to do with any of this? Who knows what Mr. Dinkins will want next beyond silencing these particular shows?

Based solely on the above, you might be tempted to brand Ocala a hick backwater town that is simply out of step with the times. But in point of fact, this year’s presentation of The Vagina Monologues would be the show’s fourth run in the city, albeit the first at the city-owned O’Reilly. But clearly its prior presentations by the Insomniac Theatre Company at their own venue in 2012 and 2013 and at the The Brick City Center for the Arts in 2014 apparently didn’t violate any community standards of decency. In fact they sold out, raising money for the Ocala Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Center and the V-Day charity. This year’s presentation is raising funds for the PACE Center for Girls.

As for the burlesque performances, they’ve been taking place at the Marion about three times a year for the past couple of years. Burlesque, of course, has become once again popular and even hip; it’s meant to evoke the tawdry era of burlesque’s heyday, but with a healthy dose of empowerment in performances that are welcoming to all body types and races, and beyond the binary definition of gender. The performances in Ocala are sponsored by, among others, a hair salon, an architecture firm, and a fitness club.

Let’s face it: what on earth does “questionable” mean? How about “inappropriate” or “objectionable”? If no one can agree on exactly what constitutes obscenity, these words are so vague as to very likely be unenforceable. After all, I find a number of the current presidential candidates questionable, but that doesn’t actually say anything about my perception of them. I also find Brussels sprouts objectionable, and the notion that  are appealing to be questionable, but so what? Does that mean if I were an Ocala resident I could attempt to prevent them from ever being served in these venues?

*   *   *

How did this incipient censorship effort reach up to New York? That’s because Chad Taylor, who produced Ocala’s prior productions of The Vagina Monologues and is directing it this year at the Reilly, posted his concerns on Facebook and it spread quickly. In his plea for support (and signatures on a petition), he wrote:

On March 1st at 4 PM at City Hall, this “offended” individual will be speaking before the City Council to get us shut down. He is bringing some “friends” who share his point of view. I don’t ask a lot of out you guys, but I cannot stand by and watch two female-centric shows that empower women be stopped because someone out there has an issue with the word Vagina. We must be heard. For every person who speaks against these shows we must have three voices for them. Let’s pack the place with people who aren’t afraid of giving women a voice OR adults a choice in how they want to be entertained.

It’s worth noting that a new member of the city council, elected in 2015, is Matthew Wardell, the music director and conductor of the Ocala Symphony, which as operator of The Reilly Arts Center is the producer of The Vagina Monologues. While one might make the assumption that he has a conflict of interest in this case, Wardell says he consulted with the city attorney and given that all proceeds are going to charity, he’s in the clear. “I can’t recuse myself,” said Wardell, “because there’s no financial interest.”

Wardell says that he believes the people speaking against The Vagina Monologues haven’t actually read or seen the play. “I don’t think they understand the impact of the piece on women – and men,” said Wardell. “Great art stretches us and and brings us back to a place where we can talk about it together.”

“I just don’t agree that the play is in any way immoral,” he said. “There’s nothing here that’s against the law,” he added, while saying that he didn’t believe anything was going to change the opponents’ minds.

“I err on the side of the First Amendment,” Wardell explained. “When I took the oath to serve on city council, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and you just don’t skip over the First Amendment.”

Wardell cited an event in the past year where the city council agreed to close down an entire city block for a movie promotion: a 50 Shades of Grey “Naught Or Nice” Party. He noted a similar sanctioned event for Magic Mike XXL.

Explaining that he’s not allowed to discuss business with fellow council members outside of actual council meetings, Wardell said that in light of other approved events, “I’d find it objectionable if my fellow council members had any objections.”

*   *   *

In his request to speak, Mr. Dinkins outlines the “meeting intent hoped for”

Following the interaction among the Council members and local citizens, it is hoped the City Council, acting as Landlord of both locations, will take action to investigate and determine if the upcoming events violate the “use” guidelines per their respective leases.

I can only hope that the city council of Ocala will have the good sense to let Mr. Dinkins and his team be heard in accordance with their standard practices regarding time allotted, scheduling and so on, even though Mr. Dinkins has asked to be scheduled early in the meeting for no apparent reason whatsoever other than his own preference. I hope the council insures that the conversation is civil, respectful and entirely fact-based, including recognition of the separation of church and state in all matters. I also hope that equal time will be given to any Ocala citizens who appear and wish to make the case on behalf of these performances, their producers and the venues in which they take place. I hope lots of people appear to speak on behalf of The Vagina Monologues and The Marion at Midnight.

Then I hope the city council will thank all parties and simply go on with the essential business of running Ocala without voicing any opinion one way or another or calling for any vote. They will have already spent far too much time on a retrograde, reactionary effort to deny members of the community access to legal and creative pursuits that they’ve previously enjoyed. I hope the council won’t use some wholly subjective, undefinable words in two lease agreements to dignify a call for censorship. Because that’s what I call, at the very least, questionable indeed.

Update, February 25, 2016, 9 am: Mekaella Lord, also known as Lady Mekaella DeMure, the producer of The Marion at Midnight and other Ocala burlesque events, has posted a Facebook notice of a peaceful protest against the censorious effort that will be brought before the Ocala city council on Tuesday. It reads in part:

This man & his co-speakers will present their case before council that day on our “unwholesome,” “unchristian” and “inappropriate” productions. Myself & others will also be allowed to comment and speak in our defense after his public comment. If you would like to attend, please do. Please keep it civil and polite as we represent an elegant & professional art, let’s keep it that way!
This man seeks to take away something from Ocala. The right to do any art uncensored and to have a voice as women, as artists. This single person is trying to redefine what art is and isn’t and what should or shouldn’t be allowed due to his personal preferences.
Will you allow that?
We are defending a LOT here. Not only our own production & right to work as performers in our own venues that we rented and hometown for our audience, but so much more.
All provocative art is objectionable to someone.
The fact that a person who has not even seen the show has decided to object does not make the show objectionable.
A free society is based on the principle that each and every individual has the right to decide what art or entertainment he or she wants — or does not want — to create & share. We are defending the right for females & artists to have a voice, to exercise their voice/art.

Update, February 25, 6:30 pm: Playwright Eve Ensler sent the following message to the organizers of the Ocala production of The Vagina Monologues, through her V-Day organization, via the Arts Integrity Initiative:

I stand with all of you who are standing for freedom, for theater, for women, for liberation.

The vagina is out of the bottle and she won’t be put back in!

In deepest solidarity,

Eve

This post will be updated as events warrant.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative. This post originally appeared on ArtsIntegrity.org.

Hearing the word ‘vagina’ aloud before 1996, outside of a medical setting, was a bit startling. Encountering it in an article was likely to cause many readers more than a bit of surprise. Seeing it in newspaper ads, on posters or even on the sides of buses was seen as downright shocking. I remember it well.

Thanks to Eve Ensler’s groundbreaking The Vagina Monologues in 1996, the perfectly accurate, non-slang term for women’s genitalia became part of widely accepted conversation. The play had a long Off-Broadway run, has had countless professional and amateur productions around the world, and through Ensler’s V-Day initiative, The Vagina Monologues has generated more than $100 million for women’s charities internationally. Oh, and the word vagina has been demystified to the extent that you can hear it mentioned fairly regularly on network television comedies, where it clearly comports with network and FCC standards and practices.

But if you happen to be at the city council meeting this coming Tuesday afternoon in Ocala, Florida, you might think the word vagina, and monologues about vaginas, are something to be ashamed of and indeed silenced, attitudes from the pre-1996 era, if not even earlier. That’s because a local businessman named Brad Dinkins has asked and been scheduled to appear before the council to discuss, in the words of his request, “The respective leases between the city (landlord) and The Reilly Arts Center and the Marion Theatre (tenants) … and possible ‘use’ violations per the lease with the tenants. The issues at hand are in regards to questionable performances at each location, scheduled during March, 2016.”

Mr. Dinkins goes on to cite the performances that he believes breach the lease by being “questionable,” specifically a single performance of The Vagina Monologues at the city-owned Reilly Arts Center, which is leased to and operated by the Ocala Symphony, and The Marion at Midnight, a burlesque performance at another city owned and subleased venue, The Marion Theatre. In his request to speak at the council, Mr. Dinkins has lined up a whole team, which he describes as follows in his correspondence with the Ocala city manager:

“Besides myself there will be other local citizen participants, some of which will include Father Don Curran, Rector of Christ The King Church; Mike Sullivan, former PGA tournament golf champion, and Dennis Camp, attorney, who may or may not speak.”

Clearly Mr. Dinkins’s attempt is at least to have the city remedy what he sees as a breach by canceling the performances. In his request to be heard at the city council, he quoted from the lease agreements for the venues, which he asserts are virtually identical.

6.7.   The following guidelines shall govern the performance and other entertainment that may be shown at, or viewed by the public on, the Premises:

6.7.1 Tenant shall not use the Building (by, without limitation, presenting performances or other entertainment), or permit others to use the Building, in a manner that City, in its reasonable discretion, deems inappropriate or objectionable.

6.7.2  Prior to claiming a default under paragraph 6.7.1, City shall notify tenant that it claims a performance, or other entertainment, or use is inappropriate or objectionable, and, if Tenant no longer presents such performance or other entertainment, or permits such use, no default shall have occurred.

If they don’t immediately agree to fold their tents over this action and cancel these events which Mr. Dinkins finds “questionable,” his next step may well be to assert that the Symphony is acting as a poor steward of the Reilly, and that Carmen and Cesar Soto, who have a five-year lease of the Marion through November 2017, are also remiss, and seek to have both operators’ contracts revoked. It’s hard to say. After all, what does a former golf champion have to do with any of this? Who knows what Mr. Dinkins will want next beyond silencing these particular shows?

Based solely on the above, you might be tempted to brand Ocala a hick backwater town that is simply out of step with the times. But in point of fact, this year’s presentation of The Vagina Monologues would be the show’s fourth run in the city, albeit the first at the city-owned O’Reilly. But clearly its prior presentations by the Insomniac Theatre Company at their own venue in 2012 and 2013 and at the The Brick City Center for the Arts in 2014 apparently didn’t violate any community standards of decency. In fact they sold out, raising money for the Ocala Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Center and the V-Day charity. This year’s presentation is raising funds for the PACE Center for Girls.

As for the burlesque performances, they’ve been taking place at the Marion about three times a year for the past couple of years. Burlesque, of course, has become once again popular and even hip; it’s meant to evoke the tawdry era of burlesque’s heyday, but with a healthy dose of empowerment in performances that are welcoming to all body types and races, and beyond the binary definition of gender. The performances in Ocala are sponsored by, among others, a hair salon, an architecture firm, and a fitness club.

Let’s face it: what on earth does “questionable” mean? How about “inappropriate” or “objectionable”? If no one can agree on exactly what constitutes obscenity, these words are so vague as to very likely be unenforceable. After all, I find a number of the current presidential candidates questionable, but that doesn’t actually say anything about my perception of them. I also find Brussels sprouts objectionable, and the notion that they are appealing to be questionable, but so what? Does that mean if I were an Ocala resident I could attempt to prevent them from ever being served in these venues?

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How did this incipient censorship effort reach up to New York? That’s because Chad Taylor, who produced Ocala’s prior productions of The Vagina Monologues and is directing it this year at the Reilly, posted his concerns on Facebook and it spread quickly. In his plea for support (and signatures on a petition), he wrote:

On March 1st at 4 PM at City Hall, this “offended” individual will be speaking before the City Council to get us shut down. He is bringing some “friends” who share his point of view. I don’t ask a lot of out you guys, but I cannot stand by and watch two female-centric shows that empower women be stopped because someone out there has an issue with the word Vagina. We must be heard. For every person who speaks against these shows we must have three voices for them. Let’s pack the place with people who aren’t afraid of giving women a voice OR adults a choice in how they want to be entertained.

It’s worth noting that a new member of the city council, elected in 2015, is Matthew Wardell, the music director and conductor of the Ocala Symphony, which as operator of The Reilly Arts center is the producer of The Vagina Monologues. While one might make the assumption that he has a conflict of interest in this case, Wardell says he consulted with the city attorney and given that all proceeds are going to charity, he’s in the clear. “I can’t recuse myself,” said Wardell, “because there’s no financial interest.”

Wardell says that he believes the people speaking against The Vagina Monologues haven’t actually read or seen the play. “I don’t think they understand the impact of the piece on women – and men,” said Wardell. “Great art stretches us and and brings us back to a place where we can talk about it together.”

“I just don’t agree that the play is in any way immoral,” he said. “There’s nothing here that’s against the law,” he added, while saying that he didn’t believe anything was going to change the opponents’ minds.

“I err on the side of the First Amendment,” Wardell explained. “When I took the oath to serve on city council, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States and you just don’t skip over the First Amendment.”

Wardell cited an event in the past year where the city council agreed to close down an entire city block for a movie promotion: a 50 Shades of Grey “Naught Or Nice” Party. He noted a similar sanctioned event for Magic Mike XXL.

Explaining that he’s not allowed to discuss business with fellow council members outside of actual council meetings, Wardell said that in light of other approved events, “I’d find it objectionable if my fellow council members had any objections.”

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In his request to speak, Mr. Dinkins outlines the “meeting intent hoped for”

Following the interaction among the Council members and local citizens, it is hoped the City Council, acting as Landlord of both locations, will take action to investigate and determine if the upcoming events violate the “use” guidelines per their respective leases.

I can only hope that the city council of Ocala will have the good sense to let Mr. Dinkins and his team be heard in accordance with their standard practices regarding time allotted, scheduling and so on, even though Mr. Dinkins has asked to be scheduled early in the meeting for no apparent reason whatsoever other than his own preference. I hope the council insures that the conversation is civil, respectful and entirely fact-based, including recognition of the separation of church and state in all matters. I also hope that equal time will be given to any Ocala citizens who appear and wish to make the case on behalf of these performances, their producers and the venues in which they take place. I hope lots of people appear to speak on behalf of The Vagina Monologues and The Marion at Midnight.

Then I hope the city council will thank all parties and simply go on with the essential business of running Ocala without voicing any opinion one way or another or calling for any vote. They will have already spent far too much time on a retrograde, reactionary effort to deny members of the community access to legal and creative pursuits that they’ve previously enjoyed. I hope the council won’t use some wholly subjective, undefinable words in two lease agreements to dignify a call for censorship. Because that’s what I call, at the very least, questionable indeed.

Update, February 25, 2016, 9 am: Mekaella Lord, also known as Lady Mekaella DeMure, the producer of The Marion at Midnight and other Ocala burlesque events, has posted a Facebook notice of a peaceful protest against the censorious effort that will be brought before the Ocala city council on Tuesday. It reads in part:

This man & his co-speakers will present their case before council that day on our “unwholesome,” “unchristian” and “inappropriate” productions. Myself & others will also be allowed to comment and speak in our defense after his public comment. If you would like to attend, please do. Please keep it civil and polite as we represent an elegant & professional art, let’s keep it that way!
This man seeks to take away something from Ocala. The right to do any art uncensored and to have a voice as women, as artists. This single person is trying to redefine what art is and isn’t and what should or shouldn’t be allowed due to his personal preferences.
Will you allow that?
We are defending a LOT here. Not only our own production & right to work as performers in our own venues that we rented and hometown for our audience, but so much more.
All provocative art is objectionable to someone.
The fact that a person who has not even seen the show has decided to object does not make the show objectionable.
A free society is based on the principle that each and every individual has the right to decide what art or entertainment he or she wants — or does not want — to create & share. We are defending the right for females & artists to have a voice, to exercise their voice/art.

Update, February 25, 6:30 pm: Playwright Eve Ensler sent the following message to the organizers of the Ocala production of The Vagina Monologues, through her V-Day organization, via the Arts Integrity Initiative:

I stand with all of you who are standing for freedom, for theater, for women, for liberation.

The vagina is out of the bottle and she won’t be put back in!

In deepest solidarity,

Eve

Update, March 2, 10:30 am: At the City Council meeting, both sides of the content debate shared their thoughts, with opponents of content restrictions outnumbering Brad Dinkins and his supporters. After hearing all concerned, the City Council took no action, other than asking the city’s attorney to review the legality of the pertinent clauses in the city’s venue leases.  “We don’t feel (we want) to ban this,” said Council Chairman Jim Hilty, according to a report on Ocala.com. “We’re definitely not looking to ban anyone’s free speech. I believe at this point we have to allow the shows to go on.”

This post will be updated as events warrant.

Howard Sherman is the director of the Arts Integrity Initiative.