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[0:01] Christine Toy Johnson: Welcome back to Talk Back, the Dramatists Guild's podcast about building the theater we want to see.

[0:07] Christine Toy Johnson: I'm your host, Christine Toy Johnson.

[0:09] Christine Toy Johnson: This season is all about collaboration.

[0:13] Christine Toy Johnson: In this episode, we talk about the Dramatists Guild's new inclusion rider and the initiatives surrounding it.

[0:20] Christine Toy Johnson: This rider is the first of its kind to come out of the theater industry.

[0:23] Christine Toy Johnson: Our goal is to empower and encourage dramatists to advocate for diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and anti-racism in our own works, while collaborating with our producing partners towards these shared goals.

[0:38] Christine Toy Johnson: Our guests are playwrights and Dramatist Guild Council members Ty Defoe and Chisa Hutchinson.

[0:43] Christine Toy Johnson: At the time of this recording, the Inclusion Rider has yet to be rolled out, but it's set to be introduced in a three-prong approach.

[0:52] Christine Toy Johnson: And I'm so excited to talk to two of our Dramatist Guild Council members and members of the Inclusion Rider Task Force.

[1:00] Christine Toy Johnson: Could you please introduce yourselves, Chisa?

[1:03] Chisa Hutchinson: Hi, I'm Chisa Hutchinson. My pronouns are she, her, hers, and I'm a playwright hailing from Newark, New Jersey.

[1:11] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you, Ty.

[1:13] Ty Defoe: Hello, everyone. Ty Defoe here, pronouns he, him, his, writer, residing in New York City, Lenape Hoking, but currently here in Lands of My Peoples, the Anishinaabe people in the Great Lakes, Michigan.

[1:28] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to talk to you about this initiative of the Guild that's really near and dear to my heart. And also to thank you for being on the task force.

[1:40] Christine Toy Johnson: I wonder if you could tell our listeners why we formed the task force, and what compelled you to join, which for which I'm eternally grateful.

[1:52] Ty Defoe: This is Ty. So I think, you know, initiating this collaborative conversation comes at a moment of deep urgent need for the field. Because I think writers have been searching for active ways to support change. So I think it's really important to partner with theaters and producers and folks that are wanting to do a type of shift around values of equity, diversity, inclusion. And I think, you know, joining the task force is important because it takes a diversity of voices with a plethora of ideas and a plethora of values to engage and grapple with a very not only rigorous intellectual process around creating something like an inclusion rider, but creating a document that could continue to live on and be sustainable for the field to protect the rights of writers and to protect the rights of all people so a robust collaboration could happen. So my need to join this task force comes at a very urgent moment.

[3:08] Chisa Hutchinson: Yeah, I'm glad that Ty is talking about the larger societal context for this, because my motivations are mostly selfish. As a Black female playwright, I was very interested in this initiative because I tell stories mostly about people of color, largely about women, and I've been doing this for long enough to notice a pattern of my having to compromise with producers or just sort of negotiate with them on who's gonna be on my team to collaborate, who are the ones who are going to help me tell the story that I'm trying to tell. It was really important to me and to my work, not necessarily just because it's a form of social justice, right? Which is of course really important, but also I need to say that as somebody who creates art that's about people who have been historically excluded from this forum, from this medium, it's really important to me to have the people who are most qualified help me tell that story. And that's usually people of color or it's usually women. So yeah, it was really important to me to feel like I could do something about this.

[4:38] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you so much. I think the discussions that we've been having as a task force have been so illuminating, and the process for finding what the elements need to be, what the puzzle pieces need to be to make it happen has been really robust and, as Ty mentioned, full of some very diverse voices. And I wondered if either one of you would like to speak about what the process has been like and the challenges that have come into that process.

[5:09] Ty Defoe: I think one of the biggest challenges that we faced when we first put together the document was sort of with this assumption that everybody's on board with diversity. Right. And we didn't really feel like we had to build a ramp up to this idea or to try to convince people why this is ultimately to their benefit. And when we ran the idea and ran the language that we want to use in the inclusion rider by certain parties, mostly producers, we got a little pushback. We got, I think folks were feeling defensive about it and feeling criticized and feeling, you know, I'm just gonna go ahead and say it, feeling prideful, you know, and feeling like, hey, we're already doing everything we can do to address this inclusion issue, right?

Or they're like, ah yeah, this isn't really something that we can realistically do without even really sort of thinking about steps that they could take to make it happen. So yeah, I think one of the biggest obstacles has just been the defensiveness on the part of producers and the feeling attacked or feeling judged, which is totally understandable. So we've been really working to sort of craft language around the inclusion rider that really emphasizes, hey look, this isn't an attack, this isn't a weapon, we're not coming at you to bludgeon you with it. This is just the way for the playwright to share their values, to stand on a principle and to invite you as a producer, as a collaborator, right, to stand with us on that principle.

[7:08] Chisa Hutchinson: Absolutely, well said. I think the spirit of collaboration has always been at the core of this, and it's been interesting to try to find ways to express that in ways that can be best heard and received. Ty, do you have any thoughts to add?

[7:28] Ty Defoe: Yeah, absolutely. I love that Christine and Chisa are talking about utilizing something like an inclusion rider as a tool, right? Like it is a tool in service of collaboration. And also regarding your question, I think, you know, the privilege of not having to think about race, disability, colonization, right, as a part of everyday lives, I think that's where the problem lies, right? I think like understanding from the industry and colleagues that this inclusion rider is a form of trying to seek collaboration beyond things that have not been historically identified on paper, right? So I'm kind of thinking about that and just being clear about those lines of collaboration too. There does have to be a point where we have to see something like an inclusion rider as a tool, as an opportunity to collaborate in an intentional and meaningful way, and to say, hey, we need to try something new because something clearly isn't working for many, many writers and dramatists. There are things that have worked, but thinking about the entire, you know, global community of writers, like what an important tool this could be.

[8:49] Chisa Hutchinson: Absolutely. I think also we've been talking about this a lot, and it's part of what is so exciting to me about empowering our members to advocate for what they believe in, what we believe in: diversity, equity, inclusion, access, anti-racism in our own works, while we're also reaffirming our authorities to choose our own creative teams and reaching across the bridge and saying, will you join me, please? I'm really excited about the possibility of creating seminars, webinars, a class, a course, or something, explaining what the inclusion rider is and how to use it and how to present it to producers, having that be part of a larger discussion about writers' rights and how they can assert them.

So, not just who's gonna be on my design team, who's gonna be my director, who are we going to cast, but also actually know I don't have to change that line if I don't want to. I don't want to make that character white because you can all you want to cast someone from your acting company, right? That's not the story I'm trying to tell, right? So to be able to remind our members that they are empowered to have those conversations. I think we need to offer some kind of education about what rights they have and when to have the conversation about them because that can be hella awkward, right? You know, you don't want to scare off the producer by being like, I know I have a right. So, you know, I mean, but that's not the way to come into a collaboration, right?

But you definitely want to find those moments. I think that's gonna be key, you know, to talk about when it's appropriate to have these conversations and yeah, when to assert yourself and to also interrogate, you know, to also find out as much as you can about the producer, about the types of people that they like to work with. It's a larger discussion, and the inclusion rider is just part of it.

[11:07] Christine Toy Johnson: We'll be right back with more on the Dramatists Guild's new inclusion rider.

[11:12] Christine Toy Johnson: And we're back. Ty and Chisa help us unpack what the Inclusion Rider means for artists. Here's Ty.

[11:21] Ty Defoe: I was thinking about the Inclusion Rider as an aid and or tool, in particular for dramatists who might be perceiving positional power differences with theater artistic leaders who might be reluctant to start this conversation on their own, you know, thinking about new writers, thinking about historically marginalized individuals, depending on one's career, right.

[11:44] Ty Defoe: And how with writers in particular, depending on who you are, how that can change over the course of time, right? Depending on where you're situated and how you're situated. And I'm thinking about that as an indigenous, you know, on the trans LBGTQ plus two spirit spectrum about that, right? Um, to be in conversation with a writer could be helpful. So I think education is huge. I think about how do we address making these systematic changes that can continue on into the future, right? To make change now. And I heard this from someone once. They said, if our stories are missing, so are we, right? Yes. I think I said that actually. Yeah, I mean this podcast and that really hearing that. I was, you know, Christina, I think about that.

I'm like, wow, how amazing that could be to be thought leaders with this writer to engage in conversation. So I think it's a great way to educate folks just learning about it. And for those who maybe never had to think about what inclusion is, right? It also isn't so laborious to those continuing to educate, you know, who are exhausted by this conversation at this moment, right? But also to share in the process of aligning values before getting into the thick of rehearsal and production, where oftentimes there is tension between artists and theater company, right? So it would help the dramatist better understand specifics of theater, even the goals and the history of a said theater, um, audience, artistic community, as well as the context of a particular season as the play would appear, right?

To continue to vanguard against tokenization, right? And then I think educating theaters too, to before going into pre-production with, as Chisa was mentioning, the hiring and planning and knowing more about values of the writer and the values that the writer brings to the project, that might not be apparent from a play itself, I think.

[13:53] Ty Defoe: So and I also think about as Chisa mentioned too, this just being part of the conversation. Like, how does that then relate to designers and or director choices? So I think this writer and education could be huge a conversation and continue to be.

[14:11] Christine Toy Johnson: Yes, thank you so much. You've for both of you for mentioning all of the actually all of the parts of these of the approach that we're in we're endeavoring to put together. And also the word tool is really important because it's been something that we have really been intentional about saying that this is a tool that our members could choose to use, they could choose not to use it, but that it's the language that the business first department has created gives us a template if we need one or a jumping off point if we need one.

[14:50] Ty Defoe: And I think that is going to be really helpful to a lot of people. I want to talk a little bit more about the three-prong approach, the three separate but equally important aspects of the initiative. One, Chisa and I worked on together, which was a list of questions that a writer might ask oneself before even considering to submit their work to a specific theater. I think that a lot of us have been in the position where we just are so happy that someone wants to produce our work, we might skip that step when actually interrogating these questions could help prevent any terrible occurrences that could happen later. Chisa, do you want to speak about that a little bit?

[15:39] Chisa Hutchinson: Yeah. So I think this part of it is, I mean, if you think of it like dating, right? And you go and you have your first date. Like instead of sort of bending over backwards and trying to make yourself into something that this person might be interested in. So go into it with this energy of like, okay, well, are you right for me? Because you know, uh you're bringing something to the table, you're bringing a great play, and you know, if they want your play, they will do things like oh, hire the director that you would like it's a little more complicated than that sometimes, but you have that right to assert, right? Yeah, to just sort of the giving giving writers that Beyonce energy, you know. This is how I think of it like Beyonce energy.

Who you know, she can go do a shoot for Vanity Fair or whatever and say, absolutely no, actually, my photographer needs to be a black woman, right? And my or my photographer needs to be just somebody who knows how to light black skin, and that is this photographer here who is black, and that's how it's gonna be, right? You know, so to let our writers know that that they have value, they have something of value, and that they should enter into an exchange like it's an exchange and not a charity, or just this one-sided thing, and I think that once more writers start to get that kind of confidence underneath them, right? They will feel a lot more comfortable interrogating the companies that they're looking at, or who you know, the companies that are looking at them, and sort of nudging and massaging those companies into spaces, you know, sort of carving out space for themselves, I guess.

[17:43] Ty Defoe: I was thinking about like this idea of barometer of comfort too. I think about barometer of comfort as it relates to folks who might not have the language and or words or feel empowered to engage in conversation because of access vocabulary communication, as it were, you know, underscoring English. So all of these things I'm thinking about as it relates to that. And this writer, as Chisa was mentioning, what a great way to see how you're working together in a relationship by building formative relations. And I do think it can really empower a conversation dialogue. Might be a little awkward at first, but also I think it could be really interesting to really know and understand how values are aligning at this time in particular.

I think that's so important and smart because we do need to look at uh this as a partnership. And one of the other uh parts of the initiative is to provide language if one needs it, to ask questions, specific questions of our producing collaborators, so that we know where their values are and uh like you said, to to make sure that we are aligned and that we can build this project together because we can't literally can't do it without one another.

[19:15] Chisa Hutchinson: And I wonder, you both have mentioned the possibility slash probability of some kind of awkwardness, perhaps some defensiveness. And I wonder if there are any other drawbacks or roadblocks that you can um foresee that we might be able to brainstorm how to navigate.

[19:36] Ty Defoe: Yes, go ahead, she's so or shall I call you Beyonce.

[19:39] Chisa Hutchinson: Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, I think one of the major obstacles that producers face is availability or um connection to, I guess, how to how to connect with particular pools of talent that a playwright might be insisting on, particularly if those pools are full of people who have been historically excluded from the mainstream theater. It's that catch 22 of well, we want qualified people, but historically excluded people don't have experience because they have been historically excluded. And also to uh uh I think that there are qualified people who do have experience that have also been historically excluded, but they might not have access to be considered for the jobs, and one of the things in this writer is to ask for the producers to commit to widening that access to uh for people to be considered, and I think that's going to be an important part of this too.

[20:50] Ty Defoe: Yeah, absolutely. And when companies can address that, I'm sorry, I'm gonna keep thinking, I keep thinking in like sort of Machiavellian terms of like how will this ultimately benefit the producer? So for writers out there who are listening who need the language to talk about that, I just think about like how incredibly loyal I'm just gonna say black people, like black people are when they see a story about black people told well told with nuance and authenticity which you can really only get when you've got you know colla you know a team a symbol that knows about that life right when black audiences see that they are incredibly loyal and they will keep coming back and keep coming back to a company that that would take take those pains right to tell our story well.

[21:01] Ty Defoe: Would you like to comment on um any of the the roadblocks or drawbacks we might encounter and how we might navigate that? Those I was thinking about it more like if the inclusion writer isn't used by collective of writers that this moment could become quite irrelevant right so I think the power and the abundance model theory is utilizing the writer to create shift in the culture so I kind of was viewing the inclusion writer in that way and I think that being said I think the roadblocks I think wow what a great way to make theaters culturally vibrant and relevant by engaging in conversations that folks might not have had in the past right we are a time right now of of just engaging in conversations and as Chisa was mentioning, bringing various audiences, black audiences, native audiences, you know, A API community audiences, disability audiences together and artists together, because I mean, there's a reason why we are also here on this podcast during this time of the global pandemic, being able to think about how to culture shift in and change the field of theater.

[23:15] Chisa Hutchinson: And I do think there is such a great agency that writers have to educate selves and to engage in in the conversation with the writer.

[23:25] Chisa Hutchinson: So I I don't know. I think the drawbacks are the um not using, I think. Yeah, I I also think about you know what colonization has done to our minds and ways of continuing to contribute to the status quo.

[23:42] Chisa Hutchinson: The fear that might be out there of using something like an inclusion rider. But you know what? Why not try? Why not try it? Because as you said, Christine and leading the charge on this, it is a living document that must change.

[23:57] Chisa Hutchinson: Right. Because the world changes, theater changes every second.

[24:03] Ty Defoe: Yes, thank you so much. I think it's it's so important to look at this as an opportunity to move beyond the status quo, like you say, and and really be brave and bold and lead our way into the next chapter of how we're telling stories and and who gets to tell them and through whose lenses and and all those good things.

[24:30] Ty Defoe: Theater companies need to start thinking of people of color, black people, disabled people. I mean, like people who have been historically excluded, like um the companies need to start thinking of like like like the Democrats do come election time, you know?

[24:48] Ty Defoe: Like really need to starting us and and thinking thinking about us like we're the future because we are that we're what is it, we're gonna be the majority, like people of color anywhere gonna be the majority by what 2040?

[25:04] Ty Defoe: So you know, get on that bandwagon. Get it on the crowd floor.

[25:11] Chisa Hutchinson: So yeah, but if you are, you know, a big reputable theater company that's only been catering to predominantly white audiences, then where are you gonna be? Where are you gonna be?

[25:28] Chisa Hutchinson: Yeah, I think also, you know, people have been um making efforts to welcome us all in, but maybe not necessarily considering that they're welcoming us in on their terms without considering what else needs might need to be in place so that we actually do feel welcomed, right?

[25:51] Chisa Hutchinson: I wrote a play called Somebody's Daughter that's predominantly Asian cast, and I got a mock-up of the ad that was just it was like offensively lazy. It was it was just basically like a a graphic of like Chinese paper lanterns that were and I'm like what the hell does that have to do with the play?

[26:16] Chisa Hutchinson: Did you read the play? Like did you read the play? The play is about culturally sanctioned gender bias, you know, and like and how much of that sucks.

[26:28] Chisa Hutchinson: So what is what are these what what do these lanterns have to do with anything? And I just Because we all have we all have paper lanterns in our.

[27:10] Chisa Hutchinson: Like, can we get somebody who who can do that? You know, um, without my little self having to like explain to them why I literally had to go into like stock images to find something more appropriate myself, and I really wish that I'd have something like the Inclusion Rider before I got into that, or that I had taken a seminar about how to enter into that collaboration, right?

[27:44] Chisa Hutchinson: Um, which requires a very particular set of people with a very particular set of experiences that would inform things like marketing and costumes and lighting and you know, and hopefully, yeah, hopefully it would prevent you from having to educate the entire team, right?

[28:05] Ty Defoe: Ty, I'd love to hear any of your thoughts always.

[28:09] Ty Defoe: Jesus, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and I'm like, ah, because I feel like there are so many stories. Like if we could like make this collective archive, there'd be so many stories to share about how I guess non-inclusion is happening in each in each writer's life.

[28:30] Ty Defoe: For a long time people have expected the mistreatment in marginalized individuals to sacrifice themselves to make things whole, right? So it's like always the burden of those working towards racial injustice is laid on the people bearing the brunt of injustice and not necessarily the powerful people who maintain it.

[28:49] Ty Defoe: And also, you know, I I say this noting that it just happens without even being spoken about oftentimes, right? But those that are experiencing it can really like speak to it or tell these specific stories.

[29:04] Chisa Hutchinson: Thank you so much. I I want to close with this last question for now about how you think this whole initiative might be able to shift our relationships with our producing partners.

[29:20] Ty Defoe: I think the relationships are already shifting. I'm just gonna speak for me. The pandemic definitely definitely um gave me a lot of time to reflect on the kinds of theaters that I want to be supporting or that I want to be working with.

[29:38] Ty Defoe: And this rider really just concretizes that for me in a way that is practical. And I mean, not for nothing, but I mean I I can use it not only to say, hey, this is a thing that's really important to me and that is important to my work, but to also, you know, filter out companies and producers who don't share my values, who can't understand why these things are important to me.

[30:11] Ty Defoe: It's self-selecting, right? It's okay, you're not on board, then you're not gonna do this play. It's scary, right? It's a scary thing to be like, well, I'm gonna go out there and the very deliberately limit my opportunities is what it's gonna feel like, right?

[30:32] Ty Defoe: As someone who has actually worked with companies, gone through the very long and taxing production process with companies that didn't necessarily share my values on the inclusion front.

[30:50] Ty Defoe: I have to say, I'm not sure that I would do it again. I'm not sure that it was worth it. Any production opportunity that demands that you sacrifice a piece of your identity that's important to you is probably not worth it.

[31:02] Ty Defoe: And the inclusion rider is a great way, I think, to help writers figure that out.

[31:09] Chisa Hutchinson: Yeah, that's beautifully said. I and I think there is great power in knowing that being in partnership with a company that shares your values is something you deserve to have.

[31:24] Ty Defoe: And um hopefully this will help people have those tools to to reaffirm that.

[31:31] Chisa Hutchinson: Christine, I love that you said that you deserve, and I think that's so important in in this conversation because I think about what one hears versus what one understands.

[31:46] Chisa Hutchinson: The inclusion rider galvanizes everybody to speak the same language. But you know, they say if it's unless it's written down, it's not true, right?

[31:58] Chisa Hutchinson: And that's essentially to historically what things have been built upon. So it's intentionally gathering values to be like on the page and his writers and dramatists and folks dealing with contracts, and that becomes so important.

[32:14] Ty Defoe: And in particular, I think it is um making those things true. And I also want to uplift individuals too regionally who might be in the you know in rural communities in Iowa, you know, the dramatist is um across the entire nation of Turtle Island folks in Oregon and California and Texas, right?

[32:36] Ty Defoe: Where something like an inclusion rider might be highly beneficial to use, and there's a type of um power in this tool for anyone as it relates to age or gender or race or disabilities.

[32:50] Ty Defoe: So I was thinking about that and also the the educational benefits to to culture shift and change. I often think about cultural competency and how it can really help producers and and artistic directors and writers, but also every individual that interfaces with the piece that is going to, you know, be presented and or read, how important it is.

[33:19] Christine Toy Johnson: Thank you to Ty and Chisa. To read more about the Inclusion rider and to download a copy, visit www.dramatistsguild.com.

[33:28] Christine Toy Johnson: Ty is at Ty Defoe on Twitter. And you can learn more about Chisa's work at www.chisahutchinson.com.

[33:38] Christine Toy Johnson: To hear all our episodes, you can find us on the Broadway Podcast Network or Apple Podcasts.

[33:43] Christine Toy Johnson: Please be sure to rate us and leave a review. Talkback is a production of the Dramatists Guild of America.

[33:49] Christine Toy Johnson: It's produced by Amy Von Mesick, Sarah Storm, and me, Christine Toy Johnson.

[33:54] Christine Toy Johnson: Robert Delaney Pruyn mixes our show.

[33:57] Christine Toy Johnson: Our theme music is by Andrea Daley.

[33:59] Christine Toy Johnson: The Dramatist Guild Presents Talkback is distributed by the Broadway Podcast Network.

[34:05] Christine Toy Johnson: Let us know what you thought about the episode by using hashtag #DGTALKBACK.

[34:10] Christine Toy Johnson: As always, to be continued.