Lewis: : : If I hadn't thought 18 years ago to look around the community in which the theater is situated, which is 80 percent African-American, and to program as such, I'm not sure we'd be in the financial health that we are right now. Seven out of 10 of the top-selling shows at Center Stage have been African-American. They have been a very loyal audience, and I am very grateful to them.
Alsop : [Referring to the partnership between the BSO and Darin Atwater's Soulful Symphony]: Clearly the symphony has started down this path. But when I look at the makeup of the orchestra, the musicians do not reflect even remotely the diversity of the community. Getting into the schools in kindergarten and reaching the kids early is the only way. They don't have the opportunity to partake in the same way the rest of the population does. It's our responsibility to somehow turn those odds around.
It's lonely at the top
What's it like to be a female arts leader in Baltimore?
Alsop: : My immediate answer is it's fantastic, it's wonderful, but there are a lot of issues. The discussion of women's leadership issues is even more repressed in America than the discussion of race. [She proposes a future city or statewide festival addressing the topic of women in management.] It need not be spoken in an extremely pointed way, but we could subtly celebrate the achievements of women. It could help young women coming up to move ahead.
Chinn: : It could also be an opportunity to build more arts leaders of color. It's very rare to find a managing director of color unless you're part of an African-American or Asian-American theater company. They're going into accounting and marketing and fundraising, but for some reason, there are very few managing directors of color in this country. I'd like to explore why that is.
Lewis: : Being a woman informs my work, but it doesn't define it. I came up at a time when it was so much harder than now; I don't feel thwarted in any way. I was invisible for so long, or tried to be, so I'd slip through. When I was at Hartford Stage in the 1970s, I was accused of taking a man's spot: "This is a do-or-die situation for women. We don't really think you can direct."
I like men. I do appreciate their humor. But, for an opening-night gift, they gave me a box of Midol. At Yale, one professor moved every woman from set design to costume design.
