The Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC) will follow up their three-day Broadway For Black Lives Matter...Again forum with a new program centering the experiences of Black students in predominantly white theatre institutions. Titled The Miseducation, the free, two-hour event will be streamed live via an unlisted YouTube link July 27 at 6 PM ET.
Register to receive the link at BwayforBLM.com.
"The faculty, administration, and curricula of theatre schools place limits on what Blackness is and can be, creating an internal struggle for students’ most authentic selves," says BAC Founder and President Britton Smith. "We owe our BIPOC students an equitable education framework that understands their uniqueness, and prepares them to participate fully in the theatre industry. We must acknowledge the roots of racism in our educational standards before we reach this goal."
"For Black students, training in theatre too often equates to the Trauma Olympics masked as a diversity initiative," adds BAC organizer Mikayla Bartholomew. "Black students deserve to be heard and protected. Scrambled, unclear statements of solidarity posted on social media isn’t anti-racist work. Our schools must begin to engage in legitimate, effective anti-racist work too."
Broadway For Black Lives Matter...Again presented streamed forums spotlighting the experiences of Black artists working throughout the theatre industry and worked to examine unjust individual and systemic frameworks in order to rebuild in the post-pandemic world as an anti-racist community. The June event saw more than 8,000 attendees over three days.
BAC, founded by Smith, Jackie Bell, Amber Iman, Cameron J. Ross, Adrienne Warren, and Christian Dante White, is a platform that advocates for students, artists, organizations, and communities to use the arts as an integral part of their social change work.
Its inaugural event, in 2016, was Broadway for Black Lives Matter, featuring Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Jeanine Tesori, among others, alongside policy experts and activists.
The Coalition was also behind a recent edition of The 24 Hour Plays: Viral Monologues, titled "COVID & Incarceration".
