But I had to fight and say that I wasn’t going to change anything. And you all just did an Irish play were you worried about your audiences dealing with those accents?”Įventually, we came to an understanding and it was a real learning moment for the institution. Can you help with that in some way?” I was like, “What are you talking about? They’re speaking English. One of my early directing gigs, I was told, “We’re concerned our audience won’t understand what they’re saying. The Netflix comedy “Forty-Year-Old Version” won a directing prize at Sundance for breakout creator Radha Blank, who also wrote and starred.Īrtistic director, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Review: In Netflix’s terrific ‘Forty-Year-Old Version,’ Radha Blank finds art in all the right places But if I were to say that the choices they made are based on racism or white supremacy, they’d turn red and be so offended. And it shows up during Black History Month or in response to racial tension in the world. They’re rarely contemporary, and they’re drenched in strife, grief, poverty and pain, or atoning for some guilt they may have. It’s not to say that these places don’t produce theater of color, but it’s usually a certain kind of piece that caters to the “white with silver hair” patron and their idea of Black life. What I think they meant was, “Do you have any plays with white people in them? Or will help our white patrons feel better about being white?” What else do you have?” I heard that over and over again it was so frustrating and made me doubt myself. Writer, director and star, “The Forty-Year-Old Version”įor a long time I had no idea why so many theaters told me, after reading three or four of my plays, “We love your work, but we can’t produce it. With “Forty-Year-Old Version” now streaming, The Times invited 40 Black theatermakers to share their own experiences with insidious racism - sometimes subtle, other times blatantly cruel even amid the Black Lives Matter statements issuing forth industrywide.
Or, as Lee Edward Colston II put it, “in the year 2020, when white people discovered racism for the first time.” However, said Jocelyn Bioh, “This pushback against the whole system - these are conversations that artists of color have been dying to have for years.” The movie’s release transpires as numerous industries reckon with systemic support of white supremacy. I’m done holding it, I don’t want it anymore.” “I have held on to it for years and years and years. Meanwhile, these gatekeepers “don’t remember what they’ve done because they don’t have to, because it is the Black artist who has to hold the trauma,” said Robert O’Hara. “And then the way in which you’re gaslit as an artist, you wonder, are they right? You begin to second-guess your own intuition,” added Lynn Nottage.