Participants: Including actors, writers, curators etc…
Annie Fitzmaurice(Coal Theatre Co); Anouk Mishti (Arts Intuition): Lynette Moran (Mouth to Mouth); Lee Simpson(Improbable; Bindiya Solanki; Jean StClair; Ilana Winterstein
No name changes as no responses received from those that attended below:
Emma (Shakyisles Theatre; Rebecca (Mercury Theatre; Meenakshi; Amy; Amanda; Alicia; Gege; Elinor; Gehane; Kate & Jan – surnames? =signers
Thanks to Bindiya for taking the draft notes of the session.
Summary of discussion, conclusions and/or recommendations:
• Identity and culture; is colour diverse or is it the experience, the story, what the person brings to the role? Just because there is an Asian/Black/Chinese person on stage does not necessarily mean that the show is diverse. It is also the experience that the person brings with them that attributes to the diversity.
• The UK is quite ‘accent-ish’. If you speak with a RP accent, it denotes that you are better educated than someone with e.g. a ‘Bristol-ian’ accent.
• Is colour-blind casting is a joke? It’s better in theatre than TV/Film.
• Why do I get called up by casting directors who are looking a half Scottish/half Arabian girl, do a fantastic audition, and then hear that I don't look half Scottish/half Arabian enough?!
• There's not a lot of diversity in Ireland. It doesn't address the political climate. Programming is not very culturally diverse.
• Who cares about cultural diversity? Is it only people who are culturally diverse?
• “There are two separate things being said here, one is to do with being cast regardless of ones own ethnicity rather than specifically, and the other that someone said that it’s not enough to see non-white faces in a cast – but wanted to see culturally specific roles, so that’s two quite different issues....”
• It's important to be included to properly
• How do you bring cultural diversity into casting? Where are all the disabled people?
• Coronation St asked me to audition for a character that is deaf. So when I got the brief, I read it through and it said “Deaf women who can speak well." This I thought isn't being diverse!
• Graeae Theatre Co put on a production of Sarah Kane’s Blasted and it was amazing! The casting was very diverse, but it didn't matter as it was the story that came through i.e. you didn't notice that the character was in a wheelchair.
• Is there not enough writing out there for disabled people? Is that why we don't see many on stage?
• The RSC and the National do have quite diverse casting and they are mainstream theatre companies.
• The Arts Council are arbiters of what is culturally diverse; they decide what is ‘culturally diverse’. Cultural diversity, when trying to get funding, is all about ticking the right boxes. How do you encourage work that is about culture in mainstream theatre?
• Disabled performers fail to fall into the diverse box. For Arts Council, diversity is other cultures/nationalities, not the disabled. The Arts Council is very interested in ‘ethnic’ women’s theatre.
• Diversity is a fashion. Disabled people need to be in fashion to get funding!
• Is our culture/diversity invisible or visible?
• Theatre is more diverse than TV/film. What can we celebrate from/about cultural diversity?
• Is there cultural diversity in culturally specific projects?
• The cultural diversity in Ireland is now being represented in the new writing that's emerging. Not everyone in Ireland is now white, Irish and Catholic.
• Cultural diversity is a reflection of society.
• With theatre, it is possible to engage people on a deeper level. You can have a white sibling with a black sibling, without there being a story to connect their races. Theatre audiences will accept this as a convention. Theatre deals with reality in depth; it's out & out self-interest to embrace and enthusiastically follow this. When people watch theatre, they can engage more intensely.
• In drama school, is it a fact that it is more difficult to train someone who disabled therefore there are less disabled performers out there with the skills to take on professional productions?
• Theatre and the arts are a small section of society. But we still need to be the advocates of cultural diversity…
• The idea of "Consensus reality" was highlighted in relation to theatre's ability to communicate on a deeper level of reality than film and television tend to, as cited above. For more info on this reference, please see Lee’s articulation that further illuminates the term:
Lee encountered the term "consensus reality" through Process Oriented Psychology - it simply means the things that we all generally accept as reality. The things we see with our eyes and hear with our ears and touch with our fingers that are real.
Underneath consensus reality are other levels; dreaming, imaginative, essence etc. Consensus reality is usually dominant but when we are in certain states these deeper levels of reality can seem more real, one of those occasions being in theatre (sometimes). Because of this, the consensus reality differences between two actors (colour of skin, body shape, means of moving around etc.) which might mean it is difficult to imagine them cast as relations or lovers or friends in a movie, can in theatre be superseded by their connection to each other and to the audience on a dreaming/imaginative level, thereby making it seem natural and right that they are in those roles. In this way theatre is not only showing examples of diversity or telling us that diversity is a good thing. It is itself modelling deep diversity by relating to people, and giving the audience the opportunity to relate to people on levels other than that of consensus reality; something which in life most of us rarely get the chance to do with people who are, on a consensus reality level, different from us.
D & D final notes (12.2.2010)
Anouk Mishti
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