The start of real change in the arts?
Local organizations are pushing inclusion efforts — but do audiences see them as effective?
In the midst of a summer of racial reckoning, Lyric Opera asked its audience: How dowe combat racism?
And the answerwas: Bring diversity to the main stage, foster a space that is inclusive and accessible, make the recruitment process public and ensure there’s diversity on the inside too.
Arts organizations are implementing myriad practices to promote diversity and inclusion in their spaces, fromcreating oversight committees to increasing diversity in their programming. But many of these efforts are still sitting in the planning stages, and it remains to be seen howaudiences will perceive those changes— as virtue signaling or the start of real change?
“We never stopped to think that the arts could be part of the problem,” said ChamilleWeddington, marketing strategist and associate professor of instruction in Business and Entrepreneurship at Columbia College Chicago. “We always say— the arts and creativity, they’re part of the solution. That’s not always true.”
The Second City is experiencing that firsthand. The leadership isworking to build amore diverse organization “from the ground up” following a recent controversy, according to interim executive producer Anthony LeBlanc.
In June, former employees and alumni sent out a letter demanding the company respond to past racist practices and sexual assault allegations. The comedy club and improv school is nowworking to reform, looking through their old scripts and sets to remove insensitive content, in addition to creating committees to address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.
“You have to have all three pieces,” said Alvin B. Tillery, Jr., director of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy atNorthwesternUniversity.
He said “diversity” is changing the makeup of your organization by adding new types of people into the organization. “Equity” includes the policies in place that ensure everyone in the organization is treated fairly.
“Inclusion is sometimes regarded as the ‘easy’ part, but I actually think it’s the hard part,” Tillery said. “You can’t change organizations that are not diverse or are exclusionary, and you can’t make them diverse and equitable without ruffling the feathers of the white men that have been at that organization.”
Parisa Jalili, chief operating officer of Second City, said making these changes while still holding virtual classes and events has its challenges.
“We’re correcting whilewe’re flying the plane,” Jalili said.“We’re able to kind of test a few things out whilewe’re not at fullblown capacity. Andwe’re setting it up in a
way thatwe can scale for the future.”
Audiences don’twant organizations or companies to just leverage a cause, Weddington said, but to have actual intention behind their actions. The transactional relationship between audience and artist creates an affiliation, she said:“We don’t alwayswant to be in a relationship with a given organization.”
If organizations come from a place of genuine purpose, that can help them stimulate loyalty among their audience, Weddington said.
Going forward, LeBlanc hopes The Second City will have a standing committee on diversity and inclusion. In terms of creating a more diverse audience, LeBlanc said the solution will go hand in hand with their internal practices and programming.
“We’ve had that idea that bringing more diverse voices into our classes and into our system allows us to create things that will also change and alter what our audience and our environment looks like,” he said.
RandyDuncan, chair of dance for the Chicago Academy for the Arts, said, similarly, he’s always looking to showcase diversity on the stage as a choreographer. Duncan also said dancers of color need to see people like them in the profession to knowit’s a viable career option.
“I think it’s very important to have representation on stage for those people who are interested in coming to support and see the dance art, to knowthat it’s for every
body and not just for a few,” said Duncan, who is also a board member of Chicago DancersUnited. “My feeling is that you should always look like the nation looks, and that is awell-diverse community.”
Audiences, especially younger ones, are looking for at least the appearance of diversity in their entertainment, Tillery said.
“I don’t think that most people are deeply analyzing diversity and inclusion efforts. They’re happy to see diversity,” he said. “It’s driven by feelings … Surface diversity, or a deep diversity— I’m not sure nowmuch that matters to the normal consumer or audience member.”
But engaged audiences are looking for “proof,” Weddington said. Theywant to see promises of deep change fulfilled by organizations.
“You can even think of it as something as simple as buying a beverage,” she said. “People read the label. They’re looking at what the competition is doing.”
Beyond asking its audience what changes need to occur, Lyric Opera is also trying to make opera more accessible— adding “access” to the typical formula of diversity, equity and inclusion, said Anthony Freud, general director, president and CEO of Lyric Opera.
“Opera as an art form and opera companies, generally, have an undeserved reputation for being inaccessible,” Freud said.
He said access is just as important as other inclusion efforts, like the subsidized
ticket programs Lyric uses to bring in a wider audience. Outside of the opera season, Lyric puts on an annual musical, which draws crowds who Freud said, for the most part, have never been inside the opera house.
“And in a successful year, like our ‘West Side Story’ year, we’re attracting over 100,000 people to our musical,” Freud said, adding that about 20% of the newcomers come back to see opera.
Some people see opera as elitist or unapproachable because the “gatekeepers” have made it thatway, Weddington said. She described “gatekeepers” as venues, directors, choreographers and critics: “They establish the culture. They establish the aesthetic.”
Lyric is trying to change this perception by adapting their programming, Freud said. They commissioned an opera, “Blue” which focuses on a Black police family’s fear that police violencewill affect their son. It will premiere in January.
Freud said Lyric is thinking about diversity, equity, access and inclusion as permanent pieces of the company’s mission.
“(We continue) by being serious about our intention, by communicating effectively about that seriousness and by making actions speak louder thanwords, ” Freud said. “This is an ongoing journey.”