Trying to be Inclusive

Posted by Bruce Miller
It was about six years ago that the Barksdale Board of Trustees devised its five-year accessibility plan. The overriding goal was to increase attendance and impact by proactively opening the theatre’s doors, hearts and minds to segments of the Central Virginia population that were under-represented in the Barksdale audience.

We’ve always called it a lower-case accessibility plan, rather than an Accessibility Plan, because we knew it would be devilishly hard to achieve success. Long-standing attendance (and non-attendance) patterns are hard to change. We didn’t want to make a huge deal about it, and run the risk of seeming failure. We think of these efforts as a process, a mind-set, a work in progress.

When it comes to accessibility, there is no such thing as “mission accomplished.”

But I'm proud of us. We've taken the task seriously. We’ve worked hard and systematically. Now that the first five-year plan has been implemented, it’s a good time to take a glance backwards and see what, if anything, has been accomplished.

Our goal for year one was to become more attractive to younger audiences. When I say “younger,” I mean anyone under the median age of the American regional theatre audience, which I'm told is 55.

Beginning with the 05-06 Season, we made a commitment to ourselves that at least two of the five shows in our Signature Season at Willow Lawn would be important NEW plays or musicals—fresh and exciting work written within the previous five years.

Our track record reads like this:
05-06 – Syringa Tree, The Full Monty
06-07 – Brooklyn Boy, Intimate Apparel
07-08 – Doubt, The Little Dog Laughed
08-09 – The Clean House, Well
09-10 – Boleros for the Disenchanted, Putnam County Spelling Bee

Has it worked? I have no scientific evidence; we don’t ask people their age when we greet them at the top of the stairs. But judging from the audiences we’ve observed, we answer with a hopeful YES!

We still tend to attract the smart set, and that's the way we like it. But it’s hard to find an evening audience these days when at least a quarter of the crowd doesn’t appear to be younger than me. And as the run progresses, the audience becomes even more youthful. We’re feeling good, and we will be continuing our commitment to new work.

In 06-07 we extended our commitment to African American artists and audiences. Including shows that relate specifically to African American experience (marked with an asterisk*) and shows that included African American actors in non-traditional roles, our track record looks like this:

06-07 – Intimate Apparel*, Mame, Into the Woods
07-08 – Member of the Wedding*, Guys and Dolls
08-09 – Children of a Lesser God, Well* (sorta), Thoroughly Modern Millie
09-10 – Putnam County Spelling Bee, Black Nativity*, Grapes of Wrath, Crowns*

(Black Nativity and Crowns are co-produced with the African American Repertory Theatre and will be produced at the new Gottwald Playhouse at CenterStage.)

Has it worked? Again, we think so. I don’t want to overstate our progress, but less frequently these days will you find an all white audience at Barksdale Theatre at Willow Lawn, particularly in the evenings. We still have considerable work to do on this front, but we’re moving in the right direction.

In 07-08 we began seriously to address issues of economic accessibility. We expanded our $15/$20 rush ticket program to include all ticket buyers, and we introduced our $10 U-Tkts for university and high school students. These discount programs have grown considerably each year, as more lower income Richmond residents learn that Barksdale Theatre is one of the best values (and cheapest tickets) in town.

In 08-09 we launched our efforts to welcome deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences into our theatre. We upgraded our infrared hearing systems, we produced Children of a Lesser God, and we began offering ASL sign interpreted performances for every production. We are now in year two of this initiative, and despite several bumps in the road, we regularly attract to each production 20 to 30 patrons who specifically ask for the infrared devises and/or visual access to the ASL interpreters. Clear progress.

In the current season, 09-10, we began our Hispanic Theatre Project, produced in association with the Latin Ballet. Boleros for the Disenchanted was very well received by all audiences, and attracted upwards of 60 new Latino families who had not previously appeared on Barksdale’s box office records.

Let me explain. Here again the evidence is anecdotal, not scientific. Throughout the run, I've been talking with our box office staff, house staff, and Ana Inez King, who worked directly with the audience during almost every intermission. Their best guesses indicate that we welcomed to the show 97 couples and/or parties that appeared to be of Latino heritage. And we added about 60 names and addresses to our mailing list representing those 97 parties. (Try as we might, we frequently fail to obtain contact information from walk-ups, rush ticket buyers, individual couples in larger groups etc.)

In an upcoming blog post, I’ll talk specifically about the various efforts we made to connect with Central Virginia’s Latino community, and discuss what our next steps in this historic project will be.

Till then, I hope to see you at the final week of Souvenir. It’s a wonderful show, and closes after this weekend's performances at Hanover Tavern. It's an elegant and fun little comedy with music, and audiences are LOVING IT!

--Bruce Miller

"Boleros for the Disenchanted" Earns a Rave

Posted by Bruce Miller
Boleros for the Disenchanted opened Friday night surrounded with gala celebrations, and our first review appeared in this morning’s Times-Dispatch. Few things are more rewarding (and more of a relief) than to go through a rigorous tech week and then read a rave review prominently featured in the Metro Section of Sunday morning’s paper.

Here are the review quotes we’ll be pulling from this morning’s review:

“Spectacular!

Funny yet poignant,
Boleros touches a universal chord

A Comedy with the Ring of Truth

Acted with Brilliance:
Patricia Duran and Jorge Alberto Rubio dazzle
with their searingly honest portrayals.

Carmen Zilles is deeply affecting.

Luis Vega is endearing.

Bernardo Cubria is a delightful heartthrob.

Michelle Guadalupe is a coy spitfire.

Beautifully, feelingly directed by Bruce Miller.

A delicious, funny, heartbreaking journey

Love Abounds!”

--Susan Haubenstock, Richmond Times-Dispatch

It would be impossible for me to give too much credit to this outstanding cast. The theatrical process frequently astounds me. Five and a half weeks ago, I had yet to meet or hear of a single one of my cast of six. Then in two days of NYC auditions, I picked them from nearly a hundred auditionees, and ten days later they began arriving in Richmond for a whirlwind round of rehearsals. During the last three weeks, we’ve spent a LOT of time together. We’ve discussed all the things you discuss when mounting a show with this emotional depth, and we’ve become good friends.

Tricia, Jorge, Carmen, Luis, Bernardo and Michelle are six of the most talented actors with whom I’ve ever had the privilege of working. They have helped me immeasurably to understand the rhythms of Jose Rivera’s beautiful script. Together with our designers and our partners in the Latin Ballet, I think we’ve mounted a first-class production of this major new play.

I hope you will all come to see Boleros for the Disenchanted. It's a beautiful play, the first in our three year commitment to Richmond’s growing Latino community. Our Hispanic Theatre Project is exciting and important, and Boleros is funny and very moving. I’m especially proud to be a part of it all.

--Bruce Miller

Look to the Snow and Flowers

Posted by Bruce Miller
We all come from somewhere. And that somewhere is not just a place. It is an identity and a heritage made up of people and spirit. It is language, culture and music. Religion and dance.

My late father grew up in the small Amish / Mennonite farming community of Springs, PA, about 200 miles west of its sister community in Lancaster, and 100 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Springs is located on the Appalachian Plateau at the foot of Negro Mountain, so named to honor the heroism of a freed slave who died in battle during the French and Indian War.

Springs lies in the snowiest populated area of the United States, receiving on average 200 inches of snow per year.
My grandfather was the Mennonite minister in Springs. In accordance with custom, he was not paid in cash. Instead, the farming community provided for my grandfather, grandmother and their six children. One year, when the weather was particularly bad, none of the families had crops to share with their pastor, and so with a heavy heart my grandfather moved his family 100 miles southeast to Inwood, WV, where he found a job at the new Musselman’s apple processing plant.

Mr. Musselman, also a devout Mennonite, hired my grandfather to engineer, build and maintain the equipment that Musselman’s used to make applesauce. One of my grandfather’s inventions was a new, more efficient apple coring machine. This invention transformed Musselman’s into the industry leader it is today.

The mother of Jose Rivera, playwright of Boleros for the Disenchanted, grew up in the small Puerto Rican village of Miraflores (translation: look to the flowers). Puerto Rico is popularly known by its people as La Isla del Encanto – The Island of Enchantment.

The Puerto Rican economy traditionally thrived on agriculture and small family farms. In the late 1940s, a series of U. S.-led projects codenamed Operation Bootstrap transformed Puerto Rico from an agricultural to a manufacturing society, causing the economic collapse of many farm communities. As men and women could no longer support their families, they migrated from Puerto Rico to the Continental U. S. Emigration peaked in 1953, when 75,000 Puerto Ricans made the journey north.

Today, the U. S. Census Bureau estimates that more people of Puerto Rican birth or ancestry live in the 48 contiguous states than in Puerto Rico itself.

The hardships that prompted my father and Rivera’s mother to leave their very different lands of enchantment also enabled their two families to find a different magic forged in love, heritage and faith.

Boleros for the Disenchanted is based on the true story of Rivera’s parents. It is a story of love tempered by time, heartbreak and change. I love this story; it reminds me of my own.

I hope you'll join us at the theatre.

--Bruce Miller

"Boleros for the Disenchanted"

Posted by Bruce Miller
On September 18, Barksdale will open Boleros for the Disenchanted as the first play in our 09-10 Signature Season at Willow Lawn. Boleros also will be the first instalment in our three-year Hispanic Theatre Project.

During each of the next three seasons, we will produce one play from the rich treasures of Hispanic culture. All three of the plays will be presented in English, with super-titles for Spanish-speaking audiences.

The first time I read Boleros, I fell in love with this funny and deeply moving new play. It is written by Jose Rivera, an important and highly respected voice in American theatre. Rivera has written several successful stage plays, and last year he was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for Motorcycle Diaries.

Barksdale is proud to be among the first theatres in the nation to be granted the rights to produce this important new work.

Our Hispanic Theatre Project is produced in association with the Latin Ballet of Virginia, Ana Inez King, Artistic Director. Support for this access program comes from the Community Foundation and the Sara Belle November Fund of the Community Foundation.

The goals of the Project are:
1. to create a welcoming atmosphere at Barksdale Theatre for Greater Richmond’s Latino citizens, the fastest growing segment of our metro population;
2. to provide Richmond’s Anglo audience with the opportunity to experience and appreciate the magnificent works of Hispanic culture, both new and classical;
3. to develop and sustain new relationships with Hispanic playwrights, actors, dancers, musicians and other theatre artists; and
4. to strengthen our community by establishing a common ground upon which multiple cultures can come together to experience, celebrate and respond to the universal language that is art.

These are lofty goals. We’re giving them our best shot.

During the last two years of planning, there has been a lot of talk about the terms Hispanic and Latino. I’ve asked a great many people for their opinions, and I’ve learned a lot about how diverse the opinions are. In most corners, both Latino and Anglo, the two terms are interchangeable. The U. S. Census Bureau, for one, considers the terms to have the exact same meaning.

Those who prefer one term over the other tend to do so for the following personal reasons.

To some, “Hispanic” describes the cultures and peoples of countries formerly ruled by Spain—nations in which Spanish is spoken by the majority of the population. These countries include, of course, Spain, plus Mexico and its Southern neighbors in Central America (with the exception of Belize, where English is the official language), the nations in the Western half of South America (in other words, not Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language), and most of the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, etc.). Many also consider the former Spanish East Indies (the Philippines, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands) to be “Hispanic.”

Those who don’t like the term “Hispanic” feel that it recalls the violent conquests that supported the age of the Spanish Empire, which thrived between 1492 and 1898. This feeling was more prevalent in the 60s and 70s than it is today. It was during the 60s and 70s that the term “Latino” grew in popularity, particularly among U. S. residents of Latin American ancestry, mainly because it honored the identity of the surviving and evolving countries rather than their former conqueror.

Those who dislike the term “Latino” mention that the term exists only outside of Latin America, not inside it. The term was created, they believe, to separate and isolate men and women with Latin American ancestry from the rest of the U. S. population. Therefore they find the term to be slightly pejorative. They feel that the term “Hispanic” is used in Spanish-speaking nations to unite, and the term “Latino” is used in the States to divide.

Like all things political, it’s very complicated. There is no one “correct” or universal opinion. People just feel the way they feel. And as I mentioned, most people, both Latinos and Anglos, feel that the terms are interchangeable.

We chose to call our initiative the Hispanic Theatre Project for two reasons:
1. that is the phraseology that our friends at the Latin Ballet preferred, and
2. “Hispanic” is the broader term and allows us to include for consideration plays that originated in Spain rather than Latin America.

We are very excited about our new Project, and eager to share Boleros for the Disenchanted with ALL of Richmond’s theatregoers. I think you'll love the show. I certainly hope you’ll join us!

--Bruce Miller