Working Class Theater

I was prepping for the African American Theater lit class I'm teaching at Roosevelt, and came across an observation about "serious black drama." The historian I'm reading related a story of a failed drama production at the Apollo in the early 50's. The failure lead the then-owner of the Apollo to declare that blacks had no interest in serious drama. The historian went on to ask why should they? In downtown theater black audience were only shown images of themselves as servants or buffoons.

This observation resonated with some other things that have been on my mind lately. A few weeks ago I was sent an email that exhorted the recipients to write to the Governor because Illinois Arts Council funding was being cut. There was a lot of rhetoric about the importance of the arts.

Here in Chicago we're facing service cuts and fare hikes for our mass-transit system. The City claims its because state government failed to come through with needed funding. So I'm wondering, where are the impassioned emails from theater folk demanding we write our governor to restore our transit service?

I often wonder why more working class folk don't attend theater. And my first answer is why should they? We haven't been doing so good representing them on stage lately.

My second answer is why should they? We'll send impassioned emails about the arts but can't bother to get worked up about basic services or fiscal responsibility?

I find the disconnect particularly confusing because so many of us in theater are working class or come from working class backgrounds. Did we set aside those concerns when we took up the mantle of "artist?"

To take this back to playwriting, I wonder: Do we have a responsibility to tell the stories of the people who we hope to encourage to attend the theater? And further, if we profess to have a kinship with a group of folks expressed through our writing, does that mean we have a responsibility to follow those sentiments with action outside the world of theater?

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