American Theatre Magazine does the right thing.

I’m so pleased that American Theatre Magazine has published their September issue, dedicated entirely to #metoo stories.

Here are six brave theatre artists who came forward about abusers Gregory Boyd at Alley Theatre in Houston; Gordon Edelstein at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven; Darrell W. Cox at Profiles Theatre in Chicago; Jason McLean and Josh Peklo at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis; and Michael Halberstam at Writers Theatre in Glencoe, IL.

Here is a journalist’s story about reporting on her own harasser.

Here is a piece on how the Actor’s Equity Association can change to better protect its members.

Here are resources for survivors, including resources specific to the theatre world.

And here is the op-Ed by Editor-in-Chief Rob Weinert-Kendt, explaining how he and the TCG board came to the decision to publish this issue.

I thank him for acknowledging my role in it. It was really hard to do. (For background: here is my first blog piece about my experience of sexual harassment by Raphael Martin—then the Literary Manager at SoHo Rep, now proprietor of The Lit Shop in London—and ATM’s solicitation of the story, and then, their failure to publish it; here is their response to my blog post; and here is why I found that response so unsatisfactory.) But the work was worth doing. I truly hope TCG and ATM continues to take an active role in dismantling the structures of silence and enablement that have allowed so many abusers to abuse for so long in American theatre. We need them. We need all hands on deck to address this problem.

I’d also like to thank Diep Tran, the dedicated and brilliant journalist who saw this story through from beginning to end; my patrons on Patreon who enabled me to take a stand by paying me a salary for the work; the theatre artists who stood up with me to create a petition advocating for ATM to publish these stories; the 1,556 signatories, ranging from undergrads to MacArthur Fellows; and last but not least, again, ATM Editor-in-Chief Rob Weinert-Kendt and TCG Executive Director Teresa Eyring, for listening to our concerns and deciding to do the right thing, even though that necessitated a massive internal shift in institutional structure and funding.

I appreciate it. Survivors appreciate it. And everyone who’s had to struggle against the toxic patriarchal power structures in theatre appreciate it.

This is how we make change, and this is only the beginning.

Thank you.

~

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