The Arizona Theatre Company recently received a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for Latino community outreach and programming, which brings the opportunity for diverse voices of Phoenix to be heard. But it also raises important questions about how we integrate those voices into a sometimes white-washed theater community.
Arizona Theatre Company, which operates out of the Herberger Theater Center at Second and Monroe streets, will be using the grant in several ways, said artistic director David Ira Goldstein.
In terms of performance, the company’s final show this season, “A Weekend with Pablo Picasso” by Herbert Siguenza, will add two Spanish-language performances alongside the usual English-language ones. The actor playing the lead character is bilingual, which allows him to perform in both languages too.
The company also wants to fund more playwriting work, which includes commissioning playwright-in-residence Elaine Romero for the third work in her series of plays about border issues as well as completing its National Latino Playwriting Award contest, wherein playwrights across the nation can submit unproduced plays, Goldstein said.
The company also plans to publish an anthology of past winners for the contest, one of which won a Pulitzer Prize and almost all of which went on to be completely produced elsewhere after winning the award.
As for the funds, Goldstein said they will help pay for Romero’s commission, hire readers for the contest, produce “A Weekend with Pablo Picasso” and increase the company’s marketing into the Spanish-language community.
Arizona Theatre Company will match the grant money it uses with its own funds, Goldstein said.
The clear upside here is that Arizona Theatre Company is being paid both to continue the diverse work it already does—the contest has been going for two decades—and to increase the diversity of its work, at least in terms of Latino communities. And the Latino community is certainly a very important one in Arizona, whose Latino population is growing rapidly.
“A theater needs to reflect its community because it’s a place where people gather together to experience a live performance,” Goldstein said. “We’re always looking for ways to deepen our connection in all kinds of communities.”
The goal here is to be inclusive, and by funding more Latino programming and increasing work for Latino playwrights, Arizona Theatre Company does expand its inclusivity. The questions that come to mind are: What limits are we facing here? Is this enough?
It’s important for the company to be hyperaware as it moves forward as to how it intends to include Latino voices. Just bringing in more Latino programming isn’t enough. Two Spanish-language performances absolutely can appeal to a broader audience, but the truth is that if what’s being performed is still reflective of a privileged worldview—theatergoers are often upper-class, and it’s arguable that theater performances often most appeal to white audiences—then the value of a Spanish-language performance falls flat.
The problem isn’t just whether or not minority and marginalized voices are included but rather how they are included. The ideology and types of performances we’re seeing in mainstream theater should be just as varied as the communities they exist in. I’m not just talking comedy through tragedy through drama here; I’m talking theater written by minority voices for marginalized communities given equal weight with the privileged voices we so often hear.
It’s not enough to bring in a Latino playwright if the themes of their work don’t resonate with people of color. Inclusivity doesn’t mean anything if lower-class, LGBTQ+ and other often-sidelined communities aren’t actively involved, not just on the production side but as audience members as well.
To really become more inclusive, theater companies have to lower their costs; many people can’t afford the prices of tickets as they are today. But there’s a lot more to be said on that topic, and it veers away from the core of what’s being said here.
Care and conscientiousness will be essential in how the Arizona Theatre Company diversifies moving forward. If the company doesn’t take a thoughtful and deeply aware perspective on how it intends to expand its outreach and programming in the Latino community, the grant will see more Latino work on the surface but fail to fund the steps necessary to give that work the substantive value it needs to change the face of theater to really, as Goldstein says, reflect its community.
Contact the columnist at molly.bilker@asu.edu
