Local theater scene lacks plays by minorities and women

Authorship of stagings in coming season doesn’t reflect Bayou City’s makeup

Diversity matters to theater companies in Houston.

Main Street Theater says on its mission page, “We work hard to present theater that reflects the community we serve.” Stages Repertory Theatre shares a similar message on its mission page, stating that it “encourages conversation about important ideas, provides insight into other cultures and viewpoints, and helps develop each new generation of artists, audiences and citizens.” And in an interview with the Houston Chronicle earlier this year, Alley Theatre interim artistic director James Black said, “We need to hold a mirror up to the community.”

But in a city regularly hailed as one of the most diverse in America, how well do theater companies keep their word about welcoming diversity?

To be fair, diversity in the theater world is a complex, difficult-to-measure matter that involves attention to casting, staffing, artistic sensitivity and perspective. To explore one way Houston’s core theater groups pay attention to this matter, we’ve focused on a specific aspect of this nuanced issue — the diversity of voices, or writers. Authorship is the theatrical synonym to perspective. It’s also the most quantifiable metric when viewing theater companies’ upcoming seasons (compared to, say, casts and directors, which are not yet released).

Authorship is also important from a purely artistic standpoint. For instance, 60 percent of the New York Times’ “25 Best American Plays since ‘Angels in America’ ” were written by either a minority or a woman. In other words, the majority of the most important work in American theater comes from a minority or female perspective.

“The diversity is only natural because the most exciting theater is often (not always!) about the most urgent issues in the world it reflects,” the Times wrote. “Works exploring race and gender are prominent, for instance, because racism and sexism remain prominent.”

By looking at eight of Houston’s major theater companies, you can see a snapshot of just how relevant our theater scene will be in the upcoming year. But there’s one jarring takeaway: The “core” Houston theater scene might have one of the largest gaps between minority authorship in theater (6 percent) and city minority population (51 percent) in the U.S. — a whopping 45-point gap between art and reality.

Note that these companies do not represent the entire professional theater scene. Mildred’s Umbrella, Horsehead Theatre Co. and Rec Room, though small, present often more modern and inclusive seasons than most of the eight companies listed. And the Ensemble Theatre remains a cornerstone of African-American theater in Houston.