As
it was mentioned many times throughout the evening, I felt honored and
proud to be a member of NOTE sitting in a circle of people all speaking
intelligently, respectfully and passionately about diversity in the
world of theatre.
Last night the Diversity Committee held an open discussion about diversity, what does it mean and why is it important to us at Theatre of Note. There was a slew of opinions about diversity, which covered ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation, socio economic status, and religion. We talked about it, not only from the point of view of selecting diverse actors for our chosen plays, but of selecting diverse plays that serve the needs of our company. It was all very exciting to talk about and think about, as ultimately it is up to us to make the extra effort so that we are a diverse company that is well-represented by the plays we put up. The very fact that we made the effort to have this particular conversation is already a step in the right direction.
However, we can’t end there. There were a lot of great ideas that were brought up so I hope we further pursue them and not let the conversation end here. We can’t think that just because we have a committee called Diversity, or that we are making an effort to have more parts of women, etc that we have done our job. In fact, the job doesn’t end. We must continue to be aware and have these conversations so we can come up with more and more ways to be inclusive of our company, and thus of the world.
