- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents, "Keystone Edition Arts", a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Arts".

And now Erika Funke.

- Welcome to "Keystone Edition Arts", where the art this time is theater.

It turns out that Shakespeare used the word diverse in plays including "As You Like It," "Henry V," and "The Merchant of Venice."

Diverse has special resonance today for theater companies around the country and Paul Lazar shows us why.

- [Paul] After two plus years of closures and altered interactions, theater groups welcome audiences back to in-person performances.

The return may differ for some, the result of deep discussion about what it means to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive, commonly referred to as DEI.

Those three words could lead to theater organizations performing different plays and musicals or considering options regarding who fills roles.

The Theater Communications group created a database of Black, indigenous and people of color directors that can help theater groups work with someone who offers a different perspective.

DEI also applies to the audience.

Plays and casting choices can help grow an audience.

So could flexible pricing that allows people from all economic levels to partake, providing devices for people with hearing impairments, and dedicated performances for people who are neurodiverse.

The National Endowment for the Arts Chair, Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson recently said, "If we don't figure out how to integrate the arts into how we think of building healthy, opportunity rich communities where all people can thrive, we will be stuck."

The focus by theater groups and other arts organizations on diversity, equity, and inclusion may lead the way toward healthier opportunity rich communities where we all thrive.

For Keystone Edition Arts.

I'm Paul Lazar.

- There's one skill theater artists must develop and that's listening.

They need to listen to each other on stage so their performances have presence.

Gaslight Theater, founded in Wilkes-Barre in 2003 to produce Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", is convinced of the importance of listening, listening to each other as we all wrestle with questions of diversity, inclusivity, and equity.

In 2020, they invited members of the theater community to a round table discussion listening session and actor Adam Moore took part.

- I want to be able to do those roles that I saw as a kid growing up and saying, "Look at this changing and look at that changing and look at the fact that now Black actors are everywhere."

Now there's not a need for Black entertainment television because Black actors are on different channels and in different movies and stuff like that.

That's what I want as well.

And I don't want to be in theater where we're doing only "Dreamgirls" or only a Black show.

I don't want that either.

I want it to be to a point where it's not a thought.

It's, "I'm going in that audition 'cause I like this role" and the person casting is like, "I like that guy.

Not 'cause of his race, not 'cause of how he looks, but because of the performance that he just gave."

- Actor Adam Moore, who took part in Gaslight Theater's conversations about equity in northeastern Pennsylvania theater and offered his vision for a healthy theatrical arena for creative change.

We're welcoming guests from the regional theater community to expand and extend that conversation.

Amy Byrne joined the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble as education director in 2015 and she became a full-fledged ensemble member in 2020.

She's taught at the college level and she hails from Tennessee.

Scott Colin Woolnaugh from Georgia, originally?

- Alabama.

- Alabama.

He's artistic director of the Little Theater of Wilkes-Barre and former board president of the Music Box Dinner Playhouse.

He is disabilities services coordinator at Misericordia University.

Brandon Hanks is producing artistic director of Rebel Stages, the Rebel Initiative in the Poconos.

He's an actor and award-winning director and choreographer who tells us the company was founded to nurture and embrace performing artists of all genders, ages, shapes, sizes, orientations, races, and cultures.

We have a studio audience filled with theater makers and the heightened energy in the studio is unmistakable and we hope they'll join us shortly.

Welcome, Scott.

We know that the Little Theater has a long history and you remind us that you're marking your 100th anniversary.

- We're actually just wrapping up our 100th anniversary.

- And these wonderful pictures that have come out in the paper and on your website show, for example, the dapper Congressman Dan Flood striding across the stage and pillars of the community who were founders.

I'm curious, first of all, of course, we want to know how Little Theater has been managing the DEI issues, but has that long standing weight of that tradition served as an obstacle in any way and what about the demographics of the regions?

- Well, you're talking about the demographics of the region.

The latest census shows that 26% of Wilkes-Barre is Hispanic.

13% of Wilkes-Barre is African American.

And if you look at how a community theater is supposed to be a reflection of its community, that means in a 30 person cast of a musical that we would produce, seven of those individuals should be Hispanic and four of those individuals should be African American.

And those numbers simply aren't there.

And so we are not currently a reflection of our community and the reason for that is part of that history.

If you look back to 1922, how the Little Theater movement got started, it was wealthy white folks in their parlor rooms reading plays that they saw on Broadway.

And that's how it started.

Part of that is that, part of the barriers and one of the things I was looking at when I was looking at the DEI question is barriers.

Why are individuals not coming and why are they not represented on our stage?

And so part of that barrier is history.

Another part of that barrier is representation.

And so many of the plays that were being produced, especially in the '40s, the '50s, the '60s, when African Americans would come out, they were relegated to maids, to slaves, to those types of roles.

Well, I'm not gonna want to go out if I know I have no shot at the lead.

I'm not gonna go out if I know I'm gonna be relegated to some of those roles.

And so that perception needs to change.

And it starts with education.

With so many arts programs getting cut in education, so many people of color do not have access to proper theatrical training, to proper theatrical experiences.

They can't get to Broadway.

They struggle with that access.

And so in other words, they don't see themselves on stage.

Programs like Kappa that Alice Lyons is doing at the Wolf Pack School at the Wilkes-Barre Area High School is getting that access and hopefully those students there will trickle down to us as part of the community and part of community theater that are going to add to our talent pool as well.

- Have there been outreach efforts on the part of-- - We just did a show, actually, one of our audience members, Jamil Powers, directed "Into the Woods."

And one of the purposes of that show was to invite individuals of color to participate in, Adam Moore said it beautifully, "I don't want to do 'Dreamgirls,' I don't want to do Black shows.

I want to do shows for everyone."

And that's what "Into The Woods" was trying to do.

We were trying to do a show that was pretty much mainstream inviting people of color to come and giving preference to people of color in that show.

And it was met with a modicum of success.

I was very, very pleased with the turnout.

- We'll circle around to everyone.

Amy, welcome.

And we know that when we go to the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble website, BTE has drawn up a very strong DEI statement.

And the theater, from what we understand, has been developing, actively, ways to increase diversity in casting and also, of course, choices of plays and also in audience inclusion and we had an arts in radio conversation where you talked about the efforts to include people in terms of audience, actual structural changes to the theater.

How do you all talk about what Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble has been doing, the successes, the challenges, especially, again, demographics as maybe a possible limitation?

- We have a DEI committee that we have formed and they meet regularly.

They also conduct an annual review to check in with where we're going, where we've been.

We also held a listening panel in early pandemic days.

We were relegated to Zoom, but we have really taken a lot of time to listen to people that we have worked with in the past and look at ways that we can expand how we are working with new artists in the future.

Bloomsburg is really, as a professional theater in a rural area, we come up against a lot of challenges.

It's hard to attract artists of color and diverse artists to our theater because the cost of living in Bloomsburg is so much lower than the larger metropolitan areas.

And so our pay for our guest artists is not necessarily as high as what the guest artists would need to be able to sustain their cost of living.

Because they're gonna come to Bloomsburg for a three month contract, they're not going to give up their apartment in Philadelphia or in New York.

So that's been one of our major challenges, is checking in with how can we find a way to sustain our finances as a theater but also make sure that we're able to pay these guest artists what they need and what they deserve and be able to get them into our theater.

So it all becomes this very difficult balancing act of we're already operating on a pretty thin line to begin with, so where can we make adjustments and shift things to make sure that we're able to get artists onto our stage, be able to get designers at the table with us?

One of the areas that we've been able to have a good amount of success are when we do our community summer and Christmas shows we cast community children on stage.

And so we've been able to reach out and make sure that we are diversifying our casting as much as we can when we're working with our community kids.

And that has been really wonderful - And catching the spark of theater if they haven't before.

And answering a question that you've had or the issue you brought up, Scott, about education.

And welcome, Brandon.

It sounds as if Rebel Stages was founded to address the DEI issues head on.

You have a manifesto, almost, to rebel against what's stagnant and break out of traditional boxed in thinking.

What differences have your founding principles made in the theater productions that you create and how did you just say, "We're going right for it?"

- Well, thank you for asking that question and thank you for having me this evening.

I initially started Rebel Stages as a way to, like you said, fight against the traditional thinking of casting.

As a queer Black artist myself I started out in acting and constantly I would be told that they wanted to hear a certain style of singing from me, where growing up I was trained classically.

And so I wanted to come up with the company that rebelled against the traditional way of thinking and expose and enlighten audiences to new walks of life.

And whether that means doing a production of "Romeo and Juliet" with an all Black cast or doing the same production of "Romeo and Juliet" with two male identifying people playing Romeo and Juliet.

I think it's important to enlighten and expose audiences to different walks of life because that's what good art is.

And so I establish Rebel Stages in order to do that and change my community, in a sense.

Because I always say if you can't change what's happening on your block you're not gonna change the world.

And this was all, I'd like to always note, it was all pre George Floyd as well.

I think we're having these conversations now which is great.

However, sometimes it's a little too late.

But now I'm glad that we're here at the table and we're talking about these issues because it's been something that Black artists, Black actors, singers, and dancers have been fighting against since the start of time.

- Tell us about the demographics of the Poconos, where you draw from when you're making your plays.

- So it's funny that you say that because I actually just directed a middle school musical.

And so part of what my outreach is is I try to go and reach into the schools and go and direct these musicals so that they see a person of color in leadership as well.

And also try to cast them in non-conventional roles that they would never normally be cast in.

What sparked my career was I went and saw a production of "The Wizard of Oz" and it wasn't until I saw someone that looked like me who was playing Dorothy that I actually said, "Hey, I think I can do that."

Like Adam was saying at the beginning at the that lovely round table, it's hard to always be pigeonholed to doing a production like "Dreamgirls" or "The Wiz," whereas you grow up, you see all these mainstream film musicals, film musicals like "Little Shop of Horrors" and "The Wizard of Oz" and "The Little Mermaid."

And it's not until you see someone that really looks like you until you really feel like you have permission to do it as well.

Which is why having conversations like this are so important as well as casting someone of color as Ariel in "The Little Mermaid" is also important as well.

- Brandon, you and Scott, Scott, you and Brandon, actually had an exchange.

Brandon, you brought Rebel Stages to the stage of the Little Theater.

Was that a part of this initiative, Scott?

- I can say for my part, absolutely.

Brandon and I have known each other for a little over a decade and I wanted to, one, help Brandon expand his scope by bringing him to Wilkes-Barre and giving him a place to show his art and also expand Little Theater's scope in increasing our talent pool and so increasing in our own diversity on our stage.

And so it was important.

It was a win-win for both of us, I think.

- How about you, Brandon?

Yeah, it worked.

Did you get noticed in Wilkes-Barre?

- We did.

We did.

(Erika laughing) It was such a blessing to be at that theater and to ring in the, that was the 100th anniversary of that theater and to just be able to perform on that stage with that particular piece of Fats Waller's "Aint Misbehaving" was incredibly special and we're forever grateful to Little Theater for having us and hosting us.

- It was our first show back from Covid.

- And what energy you have in the studio when you've come to talk to us, Brandon.

So I'm sure that this was quite a terrific effort.

And we're going to now turn to our theater folks in the studio audience to see if there are any things.

Jamil, do you wanna follow up on "Into the Woods" or do you want to say something else?

Elizabeth, how about you?

Matt Hinton.

Lane, Alicia, Hank.

(laughs) - [Matt] Yeah, I'll say something right here, sure.

I just wanted to say-- - This is Matt Hinton.

Hello.

- Hi, Matt Hinton, Gaslight Theater founding member and just a theater lover, oh, thank you.

(audience applauding) To you too.

And to everyone onstage.

So I just wanna say, I find this a really helpful conversation too in discussing the great tapped and untapped talent that we have in this area for the stage.

And I'd like to see even more diverse conversations coming forward, too, about the bench strength we can add to it because there are so many people out there.

You talk about just expanding the talent pool of one company and all of these companies now starting to really have these exchanges.

That's a good development.

- Good, good, thank you.

And thank you Gaslight for doing what you did in starting the conversation.

(audience applauding) It's not fair to call on somebody in the audience, but I know that Dr. Alicia Nordstrom is doing tremendous work with students at Misericordia University in her psychology classes, but she's also a theater person.

And she's brought those two skills and passions together to touch us all.

Welcome, Alicia.

- Thank you, Erika.

I'm such a big fan of you and WVIA.

And thank you for this conversation.

So I am a psychology professor, so going towards the difficult conversations are so important.

So just a few questions came to mind.

One is that a lot of times I feel like theater companies are caught between "This is the art that we want to do, so we are going to do this art.

We're going to do avant garde shows or new shows that haven't been in Luzerne and Lackawanna County."

But then sometimes the drive is "We're gonna do shows that people will come and see."

So either because of financial constraints, like "We need to fill the seats, we need to support our theater," and sometimes the two of these things can be in conflict with each other.

So when I was thinking of Rebel Theaters, how are theatrical companies going to make these decisions, particularly if there are certain norms that we expect?

Shifting norms can be very difficult so that audiences might not be expecting gender bending in different roles or different racial matches than they might envision a role to be.

So, I don't know, this is maybe for anyone, is how are we gonna make these kinds of changes, but also deal with the practical situations that theater companies have?

- She named you, Brandon, so Rebel Stage is first.

So you're first.

(Brandon laughing) - That is a great question.

That is a great question.

And I often have this conversation with Mitch McCluskey, who is the executive director at the Shawnee Playhouse.

I know it is hard but sometimes it comes down to taking a leap of faith.

It comes down to taking a leap of faith and knowing that there is a bigger picture at the end of the tunnel.

It's hard, like I said, to be resulted to an ensemble just because you are, per se, a person of color or even a person who is fluid in their gender identity.

Right now we're starting to see a lot of people come out as non-binary and not conform to these genders and I think it's up to us as theater people to lead that charge and put these people into roles that they identify as.

And my own motto has always been as long as you can kick, ball, change and sing a high C then you are the lead in that show.

You can do it, you can belt out that note.

If you are Millie in "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and you think you can sing it, then that's all that matters.

- Scott, you're shaking your head yes.

- No, absolutely.

I totally agree with what Brandon's saying.

And there is also, to use a science experiment, Alicia, you put the frog in a boiling pot of water it's gonna immediately jump out and it's going to balk against you.

But if you slowly raise that heat, if you make those gradual changes and you change a little bit here and you push the envelope there and then eventually that's how things change.

And all of a sudden those things that you're talking about, that we're talking about now that are just, people wanna push back against, they become the norm.

When we first announced that we were doing the, giving people of color preference in "Into the Woods," we got some resistance.

Resistance from people I wouldn't have expected it from.

And people were pushing back on it.

And saying, "Well, why don't we just cast whoever is best?"

Because we're not there yet.

We're not there yet.

And so let this happen.

And if you are right, if you feel in your heart that you're doing the right thing it makes it so much easier to stay the course.

- Now, Amy, you talked to us about the stresses and the strains on an ensemble theater like BTE or professionals, and it's different from certain other models of theater.

But you are also taking the chance.

You presented a remarkably successful production of "Mountaintop," "The Mountaintop" with Dr. Martin Luther King.

Those actors came because they loved the role and they respected you all.

- Yes.

The genesis in our play selection for that show, we had an actor that we had worked with years prior on "Superior Donuts" that we very specifically reached out to, we wanted to work with him again.

We had a different play at the time that we wanted to do and unfortunately the rights for that were not available so we set out to looking for another role.

And it was this really wonderful opportunity to be able to expand our preexisting relationship with that actor, but then also build new relationships with other actors, excuse me, that came with him, and the director as well, were all people that that he brought into our theater which was really wonderful to be able to bring in an entire cast and director, because BTE is so insular sometimes Because we are the actors and the directors for the majority of our pieces, we are really starting to expand bringing in guest directors, which is a step for us.

- That's wonderful.

Well, we will continue this conversation on Facebook and YouTube after the TV broadcast ends.

So please join us there, scoot over if you can.

We just quickly say that in closing we are grateful for all of you and we hope you'll stay with us in the audience and we wanna thank our guests, Amy, Brandon, and Scott and you for watching.

For more information on this topic, including links to our guests and resources, please visit WVIA.org/keystone and click on "Keystone Edition Arts."

And we remind you also that it's something that we feel very strongly about in sharing something that you all did at Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble and you've given us permission to have this clip.

And so what we're going to do is see that clip now.

And I'm going to say that everyone here is so passionate about these issues, it seems, because of the power theater can have in our lives.

And in 2018, the Bloomsburg Theater Ensemble produced the award-winning play "I and You" by Lauren Gunderson, who tells us, "I wanna make plays that end with a benediction in a secular or spiritual way.

'I and You' contains the biggest benediction of all my plays.

The ending begs audiences to talk to each other after the play, to think back on what they saw, to re-experience it with new insight, and I hope it asks you to take what you experienced back out into the world emboldened to use it."

So we hope this grand conversation will continue after this show, that we'll think about what we've heard and take it back to our theaters and our lives with each other.

- Don't be nice to me.

- What?

- Everyone is so nice.

Nice is fake.

Everybody tries to make things upbeat and positive and it's like, I'm not an idiot.

I get what you're doing and you're making it worse.

- You're not going to die.

- I might.