Monochromatic

Given that I took a week of vacation to go to a theatre festival, you won't be surprised to learn that I am a huge fan of theatre.  My love of theatre started at the age of 12, when I played the role of Weasel in "The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf"*, and it has grown over the following 28 years thanks to an impressive local theatre scene.  I have seasons tickets to the main theatre in my city, I can easily be convinced to see pretty much any play, and the annual theatre festival is my own personal Christmas.  Love it!

I also view theatre as something that's pretty important.  As a teenager, it took me a long time to understand and accept the fact that I am bisexual, and theatre made the entire process easier.  The plays that I went to often featured characters who were grappling with their sexuality, and when I watched them, I felt seen.  I may not have been able to tell my parents or even talk to my friends** about what was going on in my life, but I could go to the theatre and see myself reflected in the characters on stage.

Which is why I think it's important for a lot of stories to be told in the theatre, not just those of straight, white, cis-gendered, middle-class, heterosexual people.  But when I go to my theatre festival - my beloved, take-a-week-off, favourite-time-of-the-year theatre festival - those are the stories that are getting told.  And those are the people telling the stories.  Of the 25 plays I've seen to date, with over 50 actors in total, there have been only four non-white actors.  Four!  The population of my city is over 30% non-white, and yet virtually every actor at the festival is white.  And virtually every story is about white people.

I find this really sad, particularly because I view the theatre community as one of the most diverse and accepting groups of people anywhere.  If theatre isn't a space that welcomes and encourages the participation of everyone, then what space is?

*Because everything is available online, I found a video of a school performing "The Trial of the Big Bad Wolf", which brought back so many memories.  So many memories.  So many feels.

**Of course, my friends aren't idiots, and it didn't take too many times of me asking "Hey!  Wanna see this random lesbian play with me?" for them to figure it out.