Jacqueline E. Lawton
  • Home
  • Info
    • Artistic Statement
    • Bio
    • Awards and Fellowships
    • Affiliations
  • Writing
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
    • Plays
    • Productions
    • Commissions
    • Award Ceremonies
    • Publications
  • Advocacy
    • Appearances
    • Facilitation, Workshops, and Trainings
    • Access, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the American Theatre
    • Gender Equity
    • Theatre and Technology
    • Theatre Action >
      • After Orlando
      • Climate Change
      • Every 28 Hour Plays
    • Testimonials
    • Additional Resources
  • Dramaturgy
    • New Play Development
    • Production Dramaturgy
    • Dramaturgy and Script Consultation
    • Additional Resources
  • Teaching
    • Qualifications
    • Curriculum Development, Theatre Arts Integration and Teaching Artist Training
    • Philosophy
    • Experience
  • Producing
    • ARDEO
    • On Stage with the Migration Series
    • Out of Silence: Abortion Stories from the 1 in 3 Campaign
  • Media
    • Gallery
    • Good Ink
    • Media Coverage
    • Interviews
    • Press Releases
    • Podcast & Video
  • Blog
  • Contact

On Diversity and Inclusion Series: More Thoughts

9/13/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
A few weeks ago, Megan Sanberg-Zakian (Boston area freelance director and one of TCG’s current New Generations Program Future Leaders) and I had an invigorating conversation about diversity. We met at the national conference during KJ Sanchez’s Set It Off: Peers Networking Workshop and connected immediately. Megan and I found ourselves in many of the same sessions and spent a good about of time processing our experiences.  

She reached out to me after reading the On Diversity and Inclusion Series with responses from some of TCG’s 2012 Young Leaders of Color. During our conversation, Megan shared how difficult it has been for her to hire designers of color. With each production, she makes a concerted effort to find women and people of color for stage management and design roles. Each time, she hits a wall. Celebrating and nurturing diversity is intrinsic to who she is as an artist and arts administrator. When she called me, she was beyond frustrated.    

We spoke for a little over an hour, but we wanted to do more than just talk. She suggested that we create a database of women and people of color who work in stage management and design. I sent her a list of folks in the D.C. area and counted my blessings once again to be living in a city filled a wide and varied number of wonderfully, talented theatre practitioners. I also reached out to Ed Sobel (Arden Theatre/PA), Seth Rozin (Interact Theatre/PA), Gregg Henry (Kennedy Center/D.C. and nationwide), Adrien-Alice Hansel (Studio Theatre and nationwide), and Megan Carter (The Women's Project/NY) for folks on their lists. If you’re reading this and you are (and/or know) a woman and person of color who works as a designer or stage manager, we’d love to know you. Please contact me with your information.  

Our conversation and this series has been made even more relevant ahead of TCG’s Fall Forum on Governance: Leading the Charge, which will be held in New York from November 9th to November 11th. The discussions, sessions, and speeches aim to provide working models to tackle questions like:  

  • How can we ensure more diversity in positions of leadership at our theatres?
  • How do we ensure our boards represent a diversity of thought and perspective?
  • How can we make diverse audiences an integral part of our communities?
  • How do we welcome artists of all backgrounds to the table?  

Seriously, folks, mark your calendars and register! I’m aching/hoping to be there. If all works out, I'll be reaching out to my New York cat-less friends for a sofa soon! In the meantime, I’d like to introduce you to five amazing, smart, talented and generous women who have contributed their thoughts to this round of the Diversity and Inclusion Series. I'll be sharing these responses with you in the coming days!  _


Picture
KHANISHA FOSTER

Khanisha Foster is a mixed race actress, writer, teaching artist, the Associate Artistic Director of 2nd Story and an ensemble member of Teatro Vista. She was chosen for the Theatre Communication Groups’s Young Leaders of Color 2009 and an artist exchange with the Citizen’s Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow. She is a Sarah Siddon’s Society Scholarship recipient and a two time finalist for the PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship. Her teaching artist work has been honored by the White House. Her writing has been published with CellStories and podcast through 2nd Story, and will be published in the November release of the anthology Briefly Knocked Unconscious By a Low Flying Duck. She has performed with Teatro Vista, the Goodman Theatre, Steep Theater, and Collaboraction, among others. She can be seen in the film Chicago Boricua, official selection the Tribeca Film Festival, the Chicago Latino Film Festivals, and closing night selection for the New York Latino International Film Festival. Currently Khanisha is working on her memoir Heroin(e), several screenplays, and her second child who is due in less then three weeks!


Picture
FANNY GARCIA

Fanny García is the founder and editor of pLAywriting in the city, a blog about theater and the arts in Los Angeles. The blog aims to build a portfolio of art criticism written by people of color and increasing the coverage of work that is neglected by the mainstream media. She was a 2011 TCG Young Leader of Color and was featured in their I AM THEATRE campaign. Last year, she worked with Individual Artist Collective to send a delegation of artists of color to TCG’s 2012 conference in Boston. She has written several plays including Portrait of Ten Women, which chronicles the lives of Latina women living with HIV/AIDS. Her play The Rosalila received a workshop production directed by Luis Alfaro in 2010. She recently served as Associate Curator/Dramaturg for Watts Village Theater Company’s Meet Me @Metro. She is also actively involved in the creation of a national Latino theater alliance with Kinan Valdez of El Teatro Campesino and other theater collaborators. She is also one of the original co-founders of East LA Rep.


Picture
DEEKSHA GAUR

Deeksha Gaur is the newly-appointed Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Prior to this, she served as Director of PR & Marketing at Two River Theater Company and Director of Marketing at Long Wharf Theatre. She is a proud member of the TCG New Generations Future Leaders program (round 7). Career highlights include producing new musical Ugo’s Last Dance by David Lefort Nugent in New York (for which she received the Foundry Theatre’s Producer’s Chair Award); producing A Bedtime Story at the Edinburgh Fringe, a play banned in India for seventeen years; running Summer Cabaret 2006 as the Associate Managing Director; and producing Mike Daisey's Invincible Summer at Yale Repertory Theatre. Brought up in Bombay and London, she got her undergraduate degree in history at Cambridge University, and her MFA in Theater Management from Yale School of Drama.


Picture
DAFINA MCMILLAN

Dafina McMillan serves as the director of communications & conferences for Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for not-for-profit theatre. In this role, Dafina oversees the overall internal and external communications strategy – as well as programs TCG’s convenings, including the TCG National Conference, which gathers more than 1,000 theatre practitioners annually.  Prior to joining TCG, Dafina served as the associate managing director of Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, MN, where she managed the day-to-day operations for the theatre, which included communications, fundraising, overseeing the annual fundraising gala and working directly with the board of directors. While previously in New York, she was an account supervisor at global public relations agency GCI Group (now Cohn & Wolfe) and implemented communication strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Dafina has served as a speech writer, led executive visibility and corporate social responsibility campaigns, supported brand launches, and worked with national media to secure online, print and broadcast coverage for her clients.  She also consulted with the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts on marketing and community engagement initiatives. Dafina is an alumna of The John F. Kennedy Center’s International Arts Management Fellowship in Washington, D.C. Originally from Houston, TX, she received her bachelor of science degree in public relations from the University of Texas at Austin.


Picture
ERICA NAGEL

Erica currently serves as the Artistic Engagement Manager at McCarter Theatre Center where her work bridges literary, producing, marketing, and educational projects under the umbrella of community and audience engagement. She also teaches courses in Community-based Performance and Devising Theatre with Youth at Princeton University. Originally from Western Massachusetts, Erica has worked on the artistic staffs of Geva Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Premiere Stages, and as a freelance dramaturg throughout the country. She is a proud recipient of a 2005 LMDA Dramaturg-Driven grant to create Bare Mountains, a documentary theatre piece exploring the creation of the Palisades Interstate Park System using interviews with communities who were displaced by eminent domain in the 1920s and 30s. In 2010, she was chosen to participate in the TCG New Generations Future Leaders program, which “seeks to identify exceptionally talented theatre professionals who will impact the field in a positive way.”  Erica has conceived and overseen community-based arts programs with community partners including The Human Rights Institute, The Darfur Rehabilitation Project, New York State Parks, and the Orange County Department of Veterans Affairs. Erica received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, and her M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice (Theatre and Social Change) from the University of Texas-Austin, where she regularly wore cowgirl boots to rehearsal.


Picture
MEGAN SANDBERG-ZAKIAN

Megan Sandberg-Zakian is a current recipient of the Theater Communication Group (TCG) “Future Leaders” grant to spend two seasons at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA, working on a series of publically-engaged development and production projects. This January she will direct The Mountaintop for Underground Railway Theater (URT). Other recent directing projects include: The Brother Sister Plays at Company One (IRNE Award: Best Production; IRNE nominee: Best Director; Elliot Norton Nominee: Best Production), Lydia Diamond’s Harriet Jacobs at URT (Elliot Norton Nominee: Best New Play; IRNE Nominee: Best Ensemble, Best Actress) and the RI premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Perishable Theatre/Trinity Repertory Company (Motif Awards: Best Production, Best Set Design, Best Actor). Megan has served as Associate Artistic Director of the Providence Black Repertory Company (RI) and The 52nd Street Project (NYC). She is a graduate of Brown University and holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. www.megansz.com

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    My Blog

    Picture
    I'm a playwright, dramaturg, and teaching artist. It is here where you'll find my queries and musings on life, theater and the world. My posts advocate for diversity, inclusion, and equity in the American Theatre and updates on my own work. Please enjoy!
    Tweets by @dulcia25

    Categories

    All
    Advocates For Youth
    ARDEO
    Blackbirds
    Dance Exchange
    Dc Theatre
    Diversity And Inclusion
    Dramatist Guild
    Gender Parity
    Intelligence
    Lions Of Industry
    LoTT
    Love Brothers Serenade
    Mothers Of Invention
    Musings
    Nnpn
    Noms De Guerre
    Nso
    Our Man Beverly Snow
    Plays For Two
    TCG
    Theatre Education
    Theatre For Social Change
    The Hampton Years
    The Inferior Sex
    Triangle Theatre
    Wizard Of Oz
    Women Artistic Directors
    Women Directors
    Women Dramaturgs
    Women Playwrights
    Women Stage Managers
    Women Theatre Critics
    Xx Playlab Festival

    Archives

    June 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    May 2012

    Reading List
    2am Theatre
    American Theatre Wing

    Americans for the Arts
    The Atlantic
    Black Girl Dangerous
    Colorlines
    Feminist Crunk Collective
    Feminist Spectator

    The Good Men Project
    Guardian: Theatre
    Guernica
    HowlRound
    Media Diversified
    The Nation
    NEA Art Works
    NPR Arts and Life
    NYTimes: Arts

    Opine Season
    The New Yorker
    The Paris Review

    Salon
    Theater Talks
    Think Progress
    WaPo: Theatre
    Works by Women

    Vox

  • Home
  • Info
    • Artistic Statement
    • Bio
    • Awards and Fellowships
    • Affiliations
  • Writing
    • Upcoming Events
    • Previous Events
    • Plays
    • Productions
    • Commissions
    • Award Ceremonies
    • Publications
  • Advocacy
    • Appearances
    • Facilitation, Workshops, and Trainings
    • Access, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the American Theatre
    • Gender Equity
    • Theatre and Technology
    • Theatre Action >
      • After Orlando
      • Climate Change
      • Every 28 Hour Plays
    • Testimonials
    • Additional Resources
  • Dramaturgy
    • New Play Development
    • Production Dramaturgy
    • Dramaturgy and Script Consultation
    • Additional Resources
  • Teaching
    • Qualifications
    • Curriculum Development, Theatre Arts Integration and Teaching Artist Training
    • Philosophy
    • Experience
  • Producing
    • ARDEO
    • On Stage with the Migration Series
    • Out of Silence: Abortion Stories from the 1 in 3 Campaign
  • Media
    • Gallery
    • Good Ink
    • Media Coverage
    • Interviews
    • Press Releases
    • Podcast & Video
  • Blog
  • Contact