WHY THE MIX

As a resource for theatre professionals, we believe that the plays included in The Mix will advance equity, diversity, and inclusion work in the theatre by:   

  • Recognizing complexity: No person is wholly defined by a single identity. Plays in The Mix recognize the challenges and insights that come as we navigate intersecting and overlapping identities, both within and between individuals.

  • Catalyzing new collaborations: Powerful theatre is created through repeated collaborations, but an unintended consequence of repeated collaborations can be the creation of production patterns that exclude new partnerships. By highlighting plays that require artists from different backgrounds, The Mix encourages new collaborations.

  • Embracing breadth of experience: Stories that feature a diverse mix of characters often upend notions about what should be talked about in an “identity” play. Plays in The Mix help combat stereotype by portraying underrepresented characters who have a broad range of experiences not solely defined by their social identity.

 

MORE ON THE DATA

  • We did our best to encompass the original wording provided by the playwright in the charts below. In some cases, we grouped identifiers (e.g. East, South, and Southeast Asian), as we received nearly 200 unique identifiers from the 61.4% of playwrights who chose to participate. Playwright responses were extensive and include descriptors relating but not limited to ability, size, religion, age, place of origin, parenthood, partnership, survivor status, profession, socioeconomic status, neurodiversity, income, employment, health, philosophical perspective, and national status. Due to this volume, we created the charts below from the three most-reported categories: gender, race, and sexual orientation.

  • The data below only represents the reported information and is not available on an individual basis per playwright or play.

  • Each playwright listed in The Mix has approved their inclusion on the list.

 

HOW DID WE SELECT OUR NOMINATOR POOL?

  • The list of nominators (available on the main page) was compiled via an expansive group effort, with the help of many industry connections outside of Steppenwolf. The creation of the nominator pool included research into professional theatre companies nationwide that serve underrepresented communities with the intention of building a list that is inclusive of many perspectives and identities within the greater theatre community.

  • In January of 2018, we invited 154 nominators to participate in this new project. In our email, we asked the initial pool to suggest other theatre artists and professionals who they would recommend to be fellow nominators, and our list grew accordingly.

  • 120 nominators indicated that they would like to participate, and ultimately 96 people responded with nominations of up to three new or underproduced plays. In this case, “underproduced” was defined on an individual basis by the nominators.

Playwright Racial Identity

Character Racial Identity 

 

Please contact us via this form with any questions or feedback.

 

Special thanks to The Davee Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, Time Warner Foundation, Dani Barlow, Itzel Blancas, Becca Brown, Kevin Castillo, Kristy Conway, Celeste M. Cooper, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Juli Del Prete, Lucas Garcia, Rukmini Girish, Kenya Hall, Lauren Katz, MJ Kaufman, Emily Morse, Elise Peterson, Karen Rodriguez, Abhi Shrestha, May Treuhaft-Ali, Regina Victor, and Daniel Washelesky.

Enormous special thanks and credit to Ellen Wiese, who designed and created the webpage and pie charts for The Mix.