Award Winning Playwright Almost Slaps a Theatre Patron (and what that apparently says about our theatre) — Page 7

She wasn't disrupting, she was engaging. There's a huge difference.

It's not about the difference as the two are not mutually exclusive. You can engage and be disruptive simultaneously. I've witnessed it before.

Kad said: "I just do not see how THIS incident- a pissy little spat at an off-Broadway theatre- is anything representative of the larger issues of race in theatre or in the country. To bring it to that point, a lot of assumptions and leaps have to be made; but the writer has framed it in such a way that questioning her account gets shut down (this thread is an example).

Even in the biased account of the blog post, I just don't see it as being anything more than a conflict between one woman who is passive-aggressive and one woman who is aggressive. "

Here's the key section:

"And this wasn’t an isolated incident. Here’s a quick list:

• That time at a prestigious theatre festival when black women were responding exactly how I want them to respond to my play—loudly and expressively and “ummm hmm”-ing—and an older white patron approached them at intermission and said: “Can you enjoy the play a little quieter, please? ”
• That time my play was being performed at a Tony ­award-winning regional theatre and older white patrons saw me coming to my reserved seat (that they were sitting in), and refused to get up from that seat until an usher assured them that I was the playwright.
• That time my parents were coming to see my first Equity production at a beloved regional theatre, and again, older white patrons refused to believe that the seats they had taken were actually reserved for people that looked like my parents.

Why are all of these things important?

Because theatre has a white privilege and elitism problem. There is an environment that is fostering this kind of behavior. Our collective institutions—artistic staff, marketing departments, etc.—are placating the older white audiences, and are afraid to challenge them, or even educate them. We take their donor money and put them on boards, and we brush their microaggressions off as our old grandma or grandpa who might be a little racist and elitist but are otherwise harmless.

To that I ask: harmless to whom? I am telling you it is not harmless. It is harmful. It further marginalizes audiences of color and tells them they are not fully welcome in the theatre, except by permission of the white audience. It tells the upper-middle-class white audience that theatre is their home first and the rest of us are just guests."

The point is, whether you think Morriseau is overreacting or not, her experiences have lead her to be wary of situations exactly like this, and it ties in to the shooting of a twelve-year old because these experiences are being had with the exact kind of people who would defend the shooting of Tamir Rice, and vote in a way that promotes the shooting of Tamir Rice, because they are racist. That's the bigger picture. Morriseau is living in a country and dealing with a people who say that her kind, her race, her color shouldn't speak up about the glaring inequalities, and are more than happy to inform her of their opinion and baldly act in a way that expresses it.

Charley Kringas Inc is making two enormous assumptions:

1) Everything Morisseau says/writes is the pure, unvarnished truth, and

2) You know enough to form a strong judgement after hearing only one report, only one side of the story (and that report brief enough to read in a few minutes).

Updated On: 12/14/15 at 03:39 PM

I'm not talking about her story, I'm talking about her reaction as coming from a long series of similar encounters that are couched in racial aggression.

What I'm saying is, if you go through your entire life being told that, because of how you look, you are necessarily "second" or "lesser" or even "less worthy of being alive", you are probably going to bristle quicker at events like this. I've worked with these people too and as much as they are crotchety in an overall way, they're crotchety in a racist way, too. Believe her or not, the reason this article exists is tied directly to the racism in our culture and it's hardly shocking to suggest that maybe she's not totally incorrect to feel prickly towards the Janes who condescend to her.

If someone slaps you every time you meet them, you could be forgiven for wincing when they raise their hand.

Tell that to the black parents who have to counsel their kids on how to act around police officers so as not to get shot.

"Tell that to the black parents who have to counsel their kids on how to act around police officers so as not to get shot."

Seeing how that's a complete non sequitur, I doubt that will happen. Akin to saying "I'm rubber, you're glue." (I'm sure that you probably really felt strongly that your reply was cogent/relevant, but it just wasn't, sadly.)

No Kringes. "you people" LOL, are accusing us people of being racists because of comments we made in this thread about a supposed event in a theater.

Stick to the topic at hand please.

Charley Kringas, I normally stay out of these discussions. But that was a pretty sh***y statement you made about the men and women who risk their lives everyday. Yes, I said risk their lives.

It's hardly a detour to want to discuss the cultural reasons she might feel touchy about these kinds of situations.

lmao

^^^ further proof that you've totally run out of ammunition..epic fail, cringes.