Challenging Racialized Representations in the British Theatre

I’m working on a few related projects at the moment analysing and trying to intervene in forms of institutional racism in the British theatre. One of them is a collaboration with Emma Jude Harris and Aneesha Srinivasan, who are collectively known as Global Origins, a network and platform for international, multicultural & diasporic artists.

Emma, Aneesha and I are aiming to produce a set of recommendations for policies and practices in relation to racism and racialization in theatre, which we’ll publish later this year. We’re interested, obviously, in how people are cast, but also in what kinds of stories are made, who makes decisions about race and its representation, and how those decisions are made. We want to hear from as many theatre workers of global majority heritage as possible.

If you’re a professional theatre-maker (of any kind) and of global majority heritage*, you can support the research by filling out our short survey. It should take no more than ten minutes. Its aim is to help us to establish some headlines about the scale and significance of racialization and racism in the theatre. We will also be conducting short interviews to gain a more detailed understanding of the issues, and finally we will convene a focus group of people who work in the sector and have experience of antiracist organising, who we will talk to about our findings and who will work with us to set out recommendations for making change.

There’s a short blog about the project on Central’s website too.

*We know not everyone with experience of racism and racialization will identify with this term. If you’re in any doubt, please consider yourself included.