Quick thought -- as a white theater patron who enjoys seeing plays written by people of color and spends most of his theater budget on Broadway or major nonprofit theater productions, I often see the same "hot" playwrights getting more and more exposure. By almost any measures, plays by playwrights of color I've seen at the Public Theater in New York or the Guthrie in Minneapolis have been excellent and have expanded my frontiers of theatrical experience. I'm not complaining, but I sometimes find myself wondering what about other playwrights of color? Are there only these handful that tend to get major productions at major theaters that are worth seeing?
Of course not, and thanks to forward looking institutions like the Mixed Blood theater in Minneapolis for giving lesser known playwrights, particularly African American writers, an audience.
The Mixed Blood this fall produced "Prescient Harbingers, a trilogy of plays by three black male playwrights. I got to see two of the productions, "Gloria," by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and "Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies," by Arvelle Chisholm. Both plays have been produced by highly regarded theater companies in other places and have received accolades, but both playwrights were new to me. Both plays were excellent, dealing with gun violence from two very different perspectives, but one similarity that struck me is that both plays incorporate humor abundantly in telling their stories. (I missed Hype Man, a Break Beat Play" by Idris Goodwin, but it received great reviews as well.)
Lesson learned: I need to get out more and see more productions by minority playwrights, especially those produced by great theaters that are a little off the beaten path.
