A Theatre’s Responsibility to Its Community Jennifer Toutant (bio) Regional theatre companies in the last decade have become more focused on how to better serve their communities. As a result, our education departments have become less marginalized and more central to the theatre’s programming and ethos. Furthermore, new community engagement departments have formed at our theatres across the nation. Additionally, equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts have increased as we have been called out for wanting to serve our diverse communities despite the fact that many theatres are primarily white institutions. Theatre has long been an art form that examines humanity’s role as citizens of the world. Theatre has the potential to challenge society and tell stories that evoke empathy and understanding. In Theatre and Citizenship: The History of a Practice, David Wiles claims, “Theatre was for centuries a place of public encounter where opinion was shaped and relations of power were negotiated. Today we must ask ourselves whether that space of interaction has devolved to the internet, or whether face-to-face encounter of theatre is indeed still of relevance in the making of an active citizenship.”1 I assert that it is still relevant, but only if theatre exists for all rather than an elite subset of our population. By definition, citizenship means “membership in a community” and “the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community.”2 Theatre can be a gathering place for individuals to explore their community membership through storytelling. Additionally, a theatre as an institution can be thought of as a citizen of its own community. A theatre not only creates a space of collective experience for its audiences within its own walls but is also a member of its larger community, and it must exist with and for [End Page 90] that community. Given the American theatre’s history of exclusionary practices, it is imperative today that the work of a theatre extends beyond its own building. To realize our potential to be a communal place for all, we must build relationships with those outside our subscriber base. I am interested in exploring the changing role of community engagement and education in professional theatre, its function in theatre’s responsibility to citizenship (though I challenge the use of that word in this context), and the need to better prepare future theatre practitioners in the art of engagement. How are we to truly engage with the communities in which we are located if they are far more diverse than the practitioners we employ, and programming we produce, at our theatres? How do we expect diverse populations to attend our productions if the narratives we share on our stages are chosen primarily for their ability to appease aging white subscribers? How are we building meaningful relationships with our surrounding communities, and responding to their needs? In exploration of this topic, I solicited peers, colleagues, and young adults at professional theatres and academic institutions to answer the following questions: How do professional theatres define and value citizenship in our work? How are mission and vision statements of theatres changing and why? How has the role of community engagement and education changed in professional theatre in the last five years? How has community engagement and education programming been used in a theatre’s desire to become more inclusive? How are we preparing college students for the rapidly changing landscape of professional theatre, both as artists and as engagement practitioners? In answering these questions, I draw from my own experiences as the director of education for over thirteen years at Milwaukee Repertory Theater as well as the professional relationships I have developed in my career. Before I explore this litany of questions, I would like to scrutinize the word “citizenship.” As a field, we need to interrogate the usage of that word if we are to uphold it as a value. Theatres have a responsibility to examine our role as citizens of their broader communities. But in 2019, citizenship can be seen as a volatile word. As Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s director of community engagement Leah Harris describes: “Today, we have a news cycle that is constantly reminding us of who does...
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Oct 16, 2023
Siren Leirvåg 
Open Access
