Share the Stage

August 6, 2008

Dear Andrew,

I am writing a response directly to you re the message you put out on your Facebook page yesterday which is, unsurprisingly, generating a lot of emails to me.

Firstly, before anything else, I must answer the question you put near the top of your letter. “Does the Festival actually have a policy to exclude people based on race?” The answer is definitively “No”. Since the incident you write about occurred five years ago (not quite clear in your statement, perhaps) there have indeed been shifts here at The Shaw regarding redressing racial and gender imbalances on our stages.

I will certainly say that my efforts to bring female voices on our stages have happened most swiftly, through the invitations to female directors, and a new focus on female writers. I will also say that our efforts to diversify casting and open up our stages to diverse stories has moved more
slowly – and, as I said in a company meeting only one week ago – too slowly.
I would point out that each of the last five years has seen an increase in the number of actors of colour in our company, and that we are already well into a process of collaboration with a theatre company in Toronto to seek out and translate mandate pieces from China, Japan and the Phillipines. We are also currently building a pre-season intensive that would help introduce
young actors of all colours to the kind of work we do and the training it requires and will include a component for young writers specifically of colour to introduce them to, and make them a part of this world.

You may look at this and say “Small steps too late”, I say “Steps nevertheless and better late than never”. Obviously, I do not intend to sit in my messy office here in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and do this alone, and I do welcome input on all of these VERY IMPORTANT issues. I too believe that
together we can make a difference.

I am reading the emails I am getting very carefully – especially the ones which have adopted a thoughtful attitude: the abusive ones are a little harder to take, but there you go.

I would love to talk to you personally about this, but if this does not suit, then let me at least reassure you that I have read, listened and that your words and others are not falling on deaf ears.

Sincerely,

Jackie Maxwell
Artistic Director

P. S. As I am a techno-idiot, I am simply emailing this to you, so please feel free to distribute my response to anyone you feel should see it on your Facebook page or whatever. I, too, will share this letter with those who have corresponded directly with me.