NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – Broadway is finding itself in a unique position—at the intersection of both the COVID-19 crisis that has left its theaters closed for months and growing concerns about its diversity.
The Theater District has looked frozen in time in recent months, with billboards advertising shows starting previews in March or having a final curtain in April. Now, three months into Broadway’s shutdown, it’s facing another reckoning.
Victoria Velazquez co-founded the nonprofit Women of Color on Broadway with her sister Alexia Sielo after they noticed only certain shows were open to casting people of color.
“It’s not just a diversity problem in casting the performers. There’s a diversity problem in recruiting the creative team,” Velazquez said.
Amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak and a national conversation about race, Velazquez said, “There is strong potential for this to be the turning point.”
She said a diverse Broadway show is a better show, both on stage and behind the scenes.
“You learn a lot from those people, and you get to appreciate people’s culture, people’s way of thinking and their traditions,” Velazquez said.
And it’s important, Velazquez said, to allow marginalized groups to tell their stories.
“As a black American, as a Latin American, as a queer American, allowing them to showcase their experience explicitly, with no kind of rose-colored glasses,” Velazquez said.
She said increasing diversity could also help open up Broadway to audiences it may not have appealed to before.
According to the Broadway League, white audience members made up 74 percent of admissions in the last full season.