More than a hashtag: Making diverse, inclusive theatre the norm

Personal stories of race, gender and sexuality shared in a Caribbean hair stylist's chair. A glimpse into a convenience store and an Asian-Canadian family's struggles. A thoroughly remixed Hamlet delivered in English and American Sign Language.

Canada is no stranger to acclaimed plays told from diverse perspectives, but a new wave of theatre artists is pushing past existing boundaries to make inclusive storytelling the new normal.

"I want a contemporary colour palette. I want the people of the world that I see around me to be telling those stories," says director Ravi Jain.

"That homogenous world that I see onstage [traditionally]? It's just not my world. I don't recognize that."

Toronto-based Jain's latest work is his Shakespeare rebootPrince Hamlet,featuring actors in gender-swapped roles, performers from different racial backgrounds and a key character who is deaf and narrates the story in American Sign Language.

It's the latest reasonhis aptly named Why Not Theatre, currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, has earned kudos for innovative, thought-provoking and entertaining productions that offer something fresh to devoted theatre-goers, while also appealing to communities underrepresented in the performing arts.

"That's the thing for me," he says."Can we let people be their fullest selves when we tell stories and let their experiences they had growing up be the lens through which we see the story told?"

Making change

Canada has seen past blockbusters like Trey Anthony's da Kink in my Hair or Ins Choi's Kim's Convenience and the work of indie troupes such as Cahoots, FuGENand Obsidian, which specialize in stories from diverse communities. ButCanadian theatre overall has long been a bastion of white, European stories. There's still a distance to go toward more inclusive representation, especially for the larger, more established companies.

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"Ifyou look around, you go to the theatre and a lot of times especially at the established ones the audience is predominantly aging white people,"admits Martin Morrow, president ofthe Canadian Theatre Critics Association.

"There's definitely a serious awareness of a lack of diversity in the past and a real sincere attempt to improve that today," he says.

Theatrehas yet to regularly reachsome large, untapped audiences in part "because what people are seeing on the stage are not the faces on the street," according to Morrow.

A generation ofartists raised on traditional Canadian theatre is now changing the game, settling into roles as sought-after and influential creators, leaders and decision-makers.

They're revitalizing the scene by casting a wider net of collaborators and highlighting unheard perspectives. The argument heard in the past, that Canada didn't have the necessary pool of diverse actors, directors, playwrights and other creators, no longer holds. Being inclusive as other industries have shown makes financial sense.

The private sector figured out that it was good for business and good for society to have a more diversified workforce and to try to promote change at all levels of leadership. It seems like we're just figuring that out now [in theatre].- JovanniSy, director and playwright

"The private sector figured out that it was good for business and good for society to have a more diversified workforceand to try to promote change at all levels of leadership. It seems like we're just figuring that out now [in theatre]," says director and playwrightJovanniSy,

The challenge of every theatre company in Canada, especially in urban centres, is to navigate the divide between engaging existing subscribers and attracting new ones, he says.Sy has seen thousands of new audience members visitRichmond, B.C.'s Gateway Theatre for the first time after he introduced a contemporary, Chinese-language adjunct to the mainstage offering: one that appeals directly toresidents of Chinese heritage (who comprise nearly half of Richmond's total population).

Asartistic director, Sy's approach has been two-pronged: choosing programming that "shows the rich, multicultural nature of modern-day Richmond," and reaching out with initiatives like the Gateway Pacific Theatre Festival "as a way of opening our doors and making a bigger tent.

"People want what's comfortable to them," he explains, but "one of the beautiful things about theatre is it lets you glimpse into someone else's reality, lets you sit in someone else's shoes for a couple of hours."

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A holistic approach

As in film and television, the performing arts world is increasingly acknowledging its lack of diversity. In recent years, funding bodies such as the Canada Council for the Arts have started entrenching inclusiveness as a core criterion for grants and financial support. However, for many, that's only part of the solution.

It's not enough to program a writer of colour and hope that diversity starts happening in your theatre. It needs to be a holistic approach.- WeyniMengesha, director

"It's not enough to program a writer of colour and hope that diversity starts happening in your theatre. It needs to be a holistic approach," saysWeyniMengesha, a director who countsda Kink in my Hair,Kim's ConvenienceandButcheramong her achievements.

That might mean diversity training for institutions and their boardsas well as a company's creative team re-examining every level of a production, from carefully considering who is interpreting diverse stories to thoroughly exploring possible cultural sensitivities and engaging in meaningful audience outreach.

"You have to do more than just invite one person a playwright [into the mix]. You have to invite the whole community and work on different levels,"Mengeshasays. "It's time to reinvestigate the model."

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True diversity must extend beyond those standing onstage at the curtain call, agreesTheatre Calgary's newly ensconced artistic director Stafford Arima.

"It also means the writers, the directors, the designers, the musicians, the choreographers, the men and women who work within the theatre company," says Arima, fresh from steering the Broadway musical Allegiance, which starred George Takei and explores the Japanese-American internment during the Second World War.

Expanding the definition of Canadian theatre to include a multiplicity of voices and staging a wide assortment of exciting, provocative, illuminating or transformative stories it's simply what Nina Lee Aquino considers doing her job as an artistic director of Toronto's Factory Theatre.

"I want diversity and inclusion to go beyond being a hashtag on social media," she says.Factory Theatreis concludinga much-lauded season of plays that explore thenew Canadian experiences andthe notions of identity and home.

"It's about action. It's about doing it."

Improving diversity in Canadian theatre

7 years ago

Duration 3:24

New voices and new stories are reaching out to new audiences, CBC's Deana Sumanac-Johnson explains