A STATEMENT FROM THE AMERICAN THEATRE WING
“We applaud our colleagues at AAPAC for compiling this report and continuing to hold all of us in the theatre community accountable as we strive to create a fairer and more inclusive industry.
“From its founding day in 1917 up until the present day, the Wing has been committed to diversity and inclusion. Founded by women at a time when national suffrage was yet to be realized, the Wing boldly established an interracial policy at its Stage Door Canteen six years before the armed forces were integrated. More recently, the Wing established the Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative to provide grants to schools and scholarships to a diverse group of students who will strengthen our professional pipeline and help make our stages be more reflective of the country we are living in. Much more needs to be done and this report from AAPAC makes that very clear.
“In the coming months, the American Theatre Wing’s Diversity Committee, led by our chairman, David Henry Hwang, will reflect on this data and work on expanding the study to include offstage vocations, gender diversity, and other similarly important topics of inclusion. By the close of 2018, we hope to announce new partnerships, programs, and strategies that will help us continue to move the needle. We urge our colleagues in the theatre to do the same. It is not only a matter of doing what is fair and just; it is absolutely critical to the vitality of our field.”
-Heather Hitchens, President & CEO
Earlier today, the Asian American Performers Action Coalition (AAPAC) released its annual report, “Ethnic Representation on New York City Stages,” detailing the ethnic distribution of actors hired on Broadway and at the sixteen largest non-profit theatre companies in New York City, the only publicly available report of its kind. The full report, compiling 10 years worth of data, is available for download on the AAPAC website: www.aapacnyc.org |
