The Friends sat down and recorded over Skype on June 8. They discuss the recent discovery that Broadway theater owners the Nederlanders gave over $150,000 to the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and why we should care. Plus, they talk about two theater productions that were filmed: Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu (available on Amazon Prime) and American Son by Christopher Demos-Brown (available on Netflix). They compare and contrast police brutality as portrayed by a Black playwright versus a white playwright.
Their guest this episode is Jasmine Batchelor, whose film The Surrogate is out for virtual release starting June 12. Batchelor discusses how the film opened her eyes to inequality for disabled people and what's it like for your mom to be played on screen by Tony winner Tonya Pinkins.
Here are links to things that Friends talked about in this episode.
- This Tweet about the Nederlanders.
- This Change.org petition to make the Apollo Theatre a Broadway house.
- Karen Olivo's Instagram post where she commits to not performing in a Nederlander theater.
- This profile of Christian Cooper in the New York Times.
- The Dear White American Theater petition.
- Jasmine Batchelor's op-ed for Talkhouse.
- A directory of local bail funds that you can donate to.
- Our friends at Broadway Radio, who made a sizable donation to Token Theatre Friends.
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