Students at Florida State University Acting Conservatory and Theatre Company Detail Institutional Racism

Within days of the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, theatre companies all over the country began to release statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and expressions of how they value black lives on their stages.

Some of these statements haven’t gone over well with black actors, designers, crew members who have said that some of these companies never truly valued their contributions before and are simply posting messages to support to cover themselves from backlash without addressing some very real problems within.

The Asolo Repertory Theatre, its conservatory, and Florida State University are under fire today after a letter sent to administrators charged the theatre and university with examples of institutional racism.

In the letter, which can be seen in full here, students question the theatre conservatory and university’s commitment to black presence when they’ve failed to produce a single work written by black playwrights over the past 20 years and call into question the admission practices of Florida State University.

Since the 1999-2000 season, the FSU/Asolo Conservatory has produced 91 plays in its production seasons. None of them were written by Black playwrights. That is zero plays by Black playwrights over 21 years. Over that same span of time, the Conservatory has employed only one Black director.

We surveyed the syllabi, and from 2017 to the present day, the entire curriculum of our program—including movement, voice, acting, and text analysis—has included only two Black authors, August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks. Parks was just added to the curriculum last year. Wilson and Parks are two out of twenty-one readings on the syllabus for text analysis. The other nineteen are all written by white men. We also analyzed student demographics.

From the graduating class of 1999 to the graduating class of 2020, the percentage of Black students who have graduated from the Conservatory is 6%. And our investigation has led us to believe that since the inception of the Conservatory in 1974, there has been only one Black faculty member who was employed for two years over a decade ago.

The letter states that Asolo Rep has only produced three Black playwrights and hired three Black directors in the last 21 years. The three Black playwrights are Lynn Nottage, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Regina Taylor. The three Black directors are Nicole Watson, Tomé Cousin, and Marion J. Caffey. They have all signed the letter, along with over 200 current and former students.

The students go on to say,

“To stand against racism is, at minimum, to center and uplift the voices of Black people and people of color. Your claims that you stand in solidarity against racism are not only false, they are offensive. “

They also accuse Asolo/FSU of “widespread microaggressions, racial biases, and discrimination.” The letter also includes recommended action steps if Asolo/FSU truly wants to change for the better.

One source connected with the theatre told me, “The drama program at FSU was recently named one of the best 25 college drama programs around the world, but it's not the best for black people. “

In an email to the Herald-Tribune, Ms. Nottage said she signed the letter because “it speaks to the shocking exclusion and marginalization of Black voices, not only on the faculty, but in the student body, curriculum, training, and productions on the main stage of the theater.”

“It is time to bring pressure to bear on our institutions that have been resistant or slow to change, and let them know that racist practices, whether conscious or unconscious, will no longer be tolerated,” she wrote. “I have worked at the Asolo, it is a beautiful and necessary theater, but the truth is, in order for it to stay relevant, it must recognize and embrace the complexity and diversity of our nation.”

In response to the letter, Asolo administrators released the following statement:

“We have received a courageous and heartfelt letter from a number of FSU/Asolo Conservatory students. We are meeting with them as soon as possible to discuss urgent matters. It is important that we meet with the students before we speak with the press.”

Personally, I am very glad that the students and alums of this theatre program and company are speaking out. If these programs want to pledge solidarity, they need to be held accountable and admit how they’ve failed in the past.

While the statistics at Asolo/FSU are bleak, they’re hardly surprising. The populations at most acting conservatories are overwhelmingly white in both student and faculty. And with show selection usually based on the student population, it’s not surprising that so few works by black playwrights or works with prominent black roles were so hard to come by there.

I am hoping that these programs are truly taking letters like these to heart and instituting major changes among their ranks.