{"id":285,"date":"2013-07-18T06:07:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T13:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/?p=285"},"modified":"2013-07-18T06:07:20","modified_gmt":"2013-07-18T13:07:20","slug":"on-why-lazy-under-researched-arts-journalism-just-sets-the-diversity-conversation-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/2013\/07\/on-why-lazy-under-researched-arts-journalism-just-sets-the-diversity-conversation-back.html","title":{"rendered":"On Why Lazy, Under-Researched Arts Journalism Just Sets the Diversity Conversation Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"31071033\"<\/a>I wish I could say, full WASP, “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.”\u00a0 But I can’t; I’m angry, too.\u00a0 This conversation about diversity that we are having as an industry is too important to be lazy about it, especially on the national stage.<\/p>\n

Growing up, my mother always held me to a really high standard.\u00a0 There was one time she asked me to straighten up our basement, which was full of my toys, and I did, made a strong 10-year-old effort, and when I proudly told her I was done, I for some reason also asked her to tell me what she thought of my work.\u00a0 She, to her credit, asked me if I was sure, and then when I said yes, she went through the basement and indicated a variety of things that I hadn’t done–treating me like an adult who had been asked to do a task and hadn’t given it my full effort rather than as the kid who naively asked for input.\u00a0 I might have been a bit young for that exercise, but in hindsight I take the point, and in general I feel like it’s totally acceptable to ask that people bring their A-game when I’m bringing my A-game–that people legitimately try, and try fully, and that if they don’t you call them on it, and if they do you respect that effort by making any critique from an informed and respectful place.<\/p>\n

Which is why I am so frustrated by a piece on the play American Night<\/em> that Lily Janiak wrote<\/a> and published on Howlround<\/em> a few days ago.\u00a0 Ostensibly a “newcrit” review of American Night<\/em>, it is a disappointing and lazy work of journalism filled with generalities framed as facts and veiled critiques about the way an arts organization that is legitimately trying to broaden its programming and audience does business that makes no attempt to actually investigate and lay out facts and takes no account of how incremental change happens or how arts non-profits stay stable.<\/p>\n

To give you the quick flavor: American Night<\/em> is a play that emerges from some of the folks at Culture Clash and that follows the dreams and hallucinations of an immigrant on the eve of his citizenship exam.\u00a0 It is part of a larger concerted effort by Moscone and his staff and artists to actively shift Cal Shakes’ historically classic-driven mission toward one that explores the culture and diversity of California and that is more inclusive and engaged in the lives of all Californians.\u00a0 I have not seen the work, and I think that’s important to say–my frustration with Janiak’s article stems not at all from her critical response to it (about the last third of the piece) and instead emerges entirely from the first two-thirds, when she says things like:<\/p>\n

“Looking around at the audience at any given Cal Shakes performance, you can see why the company is expanding its offerings.”<\/p>\n

“Many theaters want their audiences to be less old and less white in order to both have a more sustainable source of ticket buyers and to better reflect their communities. But with Cal Shakes, defining community isn\u2019t easy. The company is near \u201cBerserkeley,\u201d famous for its diversity and progressivism, but \u201cnear\u201d is a relative term.”<\/p>\n

“Of course, it\u2019s wrong to think of a theater\u2019s community as limited only to its town, but Cal Shakes doesn\u2019t exactly get a lot of foot traffic.”<\/p>\n

“And once you arrive, there are other, subtler signs that this is a theater for elites only. Groups with five-star picnics take all the picnic tables, which can actually be reserved if you are of a certain subscriber status, more than an hour before performance. Certain theater seats have blankets waiting on them, while everyone else must pay to rent them. And at the lengthy section on corporate sponsorship during the curtain speech, everyone knows just when to shout, in unison, \u201cPeet\u2019s Coffee & Tea!\u201d along with the speaker.”<\/p>\n

“In all these ways, factors both intrinsic to Cal Shakes\u2019s location and perpetuated by its culture contradict the company\u2019s rhetoric about audience engagement. In reality, it\u2019s the kind of theater where, if there\u2019s an interactive exhibit outside the theater (as there is for American Night), the company must instruct audiences to interact with it; at a recent performance, the employees tasked with this unenviable chore looked uncannily similar to bright t-shirt-wearing, clipboard-wielding Greenpeace employees.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I should say that a while back, while I was looking to hire a position in my previous job, I had the occasion to read a variety of samples of Janiak’s writing and found her an extremely intelligent writer, thoughtful and engaged in her subject most of the time.\u00a0 This is, perhaps, part of the reason I am having such a strongly negative reaction to her piece on American Night<\/em>–it goes for easy points, relies on a lack of knowledge, and ultimately reaches a facile and pat conclusion that does a disservice to the larger questions Janiak raises in the piece both because is under-represents the progress that Cal Shakes has made and because it does so with easy insults to Cal Shakes’ core audience and without any apparent recognition of the inherent risks of what Cal Shakes is trying to do.<\/p>\n

Cal Shakes is, like all theatres, an imperfect one.\u00a0 Some of their shows I have liked, some of them I haven’t.\u00a0 Critics are going to criticize because that’s what critics do, and all of that is just fine.\u00a0 But–and this is so, so crucial to remember–they deserve informed criticism, in particular because they are making an effort, bringing their A-game, trying hard.\u00a0 Jon Moscone, in a panel I was on with him, told the story of doing Spunk<\/em>, their first big foray into culturally diverse work, and it being such a success for them–most popular show on record, critical success, highly diverse–and feelings great about it.\u00a0 And then he did what I did with my mother–he went and spoke to diverse artists in his circle, and he said, “didn’t we do a great thing?” and they said, “do you want me to be honest?” and to his credit, Moscone said yes, and they asked what the next step was, and he said he was considering doing Ain’t Misbehavin’<\/em> and they told him all about how terrible an idea that was–that that wasn’t representing culture and diversity of California, that was pandering to a new audience–that he needed to try harder, think harder, do more to make change that was real, systemic, incremental and permanent.\u00a0 Moscone and his team are listening, and trying, and trying hard–and to have someone half-assedly snark about it because in two years Cal Shakes hasn’t flipped audience percentages, hasn’t done away with Peet’s Coffee as a sponsor, hasn’t whatever, well, it just sets the whole damn conversation back.<\/p>\n

And so, to some of Janiak’s points:<\/p>\n