Word: brustein
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Does pressure for increased minority representation in the arts interfere with artistic freedom? In a recent editorial written for The New Republic, Robert Brustein, artistic director for the American Repertory Theatre (ART), alleges that The Boston Globe has unfairly slighted such cultural institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts and the ART by claiming that they do not hire enough minority members...
...Brustein writes that The Globe's recent "investigation" into minority hiring practices was essentially "a statistical breakdown of the companies, staffs, audiences, and boards of all the major cultural institutions, tallying their records for employing 'people of color.'" The Globe promptly condemned any organization which had not hired the requisite number of minorities (only the Children's Museum...
...Brustein touches on a number of issues whose importance transcend his feud with one particular newspaper. According to Brustein, the insistence on playing a "numbers game" with minority representation obstructs the central purpose of a cultural organization, to provide quality artistic works. However, others insist that past prejudice has infused cultural establishments with an instinctive bias against non-Western works. This deficiency needs to be erased through an increased infusion of minorities, and number counting is an appropriate way of measuring the success of this program...
...Young, Gifted, and Black unfolds in a standard stream-of-consciousness manner, following Hansberry's life in rough chronological order. Autobiographical vignettes are interspersed with scenes from her two famous plays, A Raisin in the Sun and The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. The Playwright (Amanda Frye) narrates scenes as the ensemble enacts her memories. She moves around the perimeters of those scenes, smiling bemusedly and offering commentary taken from Hansberry's speeches and writings...
...same article, Brustein cites the realm of theatre as one of the few forums for genuine experimentation across ethnic lines. "The art of the theatre is the art of transformation--regardless of racial or ethnic composition...