OUR COMMITMENT TO CHANGE
Music Theater Works has allowed a lack of diverse perspectives to hobble its vision and will be actively problem-solving to seek and hire artists of color, artists with disabilities, and others whose voices have not been historically represented on our stage. We will highlight their significant ownership of Music Theater Works’ artistic vision. I aim to alter both the internal and external perception of the company as well as fundamentally changing how we operate.
Starting with the 2020 season, the company will confront this past head on by:
- Committing to equitable and inclusive staff, board, casting and design teams. I am working with a representative team to understand our baseline, set benchmarks, and develop a timeline and quantitative goals for significant progress;
- Engaging in creative collaborations both with community partners and across the artistic world, among theaters, literary artists, visual artists, social service agencies, and others;
- Seeking new actors, musicians, writers, directors, and designers with multiple voices especially LGBTQ, women, emerging artists, artists of color, and those of varying physical ability in particular the deaf community;
- Developing cohort-based artistic and business partnerships that support the new direction as well as creating sustainable revenue streams.
- Recognizing how denying diverse perspectives negatively impacts staff, artists, leadership, and audience, and changing how we function based on these findings.
The company recognizes that “best intentions” are not enough, and is committed to allocating resources for more diverse accessibility such as holding auditions in communities of color and providing, for instance, travel stipends or other material support. As with the rest of the season as well, we are committing to inclusive design and artistic teams that will allow those voices to be amplified in casting and promotion.
Driving the new direction will be a commitment to turning the traditional gatekeeper role on its head. For too long, the gatekeeper has been seen as a barrier, preventing diverse voices from being heard. Music Theater Works will work to ensure that the gate is not a barrier but a wide- open ingress, empowering equity and inclusion by allowing voices ‘unlike mine.’
None of this will be easy. Like many legacy companies, it will be a challenge to bring new ideas to an internal structure that has operated similarly for 39 years, often simply in response to the financial pressures faced by all mid-sized companies. I am confident that my team and I, with positive structural changes, a practical approach to repertoire, and a strong marketing and branding outlook, will bring these new-to-us voices to every one of our existing and expanding constituencies.
As the Chicago theater community grows and changes, Music Theater Works cannot be just an isolated theater relying on an unchanging audience and a static repertoire, because audiences, and artists, have changed. Theater is storytelling, resonating with the era in which it is presented. Even the classics cannot exist outside the context in which they are presented. Music Theater Works is breaking out of its time warp, giving old and new stories life and a new approach to highlight eternal lessons that define great art for a new era.
Kyle A. Dougan
Producing Artistic Director