Leaders of theater interest groups make plea for funding, inclusion efforts for actors

Two leaders in the world of live theater pleaded before a National Press Club Newsmaker audience Dec. 14 for more funding, especially for actors and actresses, and one of the speakers urged theater-goers "to think of those workers while they're seeing them on the stage."

The Club invited Kate Shindle, president of the Actors' Equity Association, and Britton Smith, president of the Broadway Advocacy Coalition, to speak about reopening the theater after the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for greater diversity in the arts. They did so, but funding often seemed foremost in their remarks.

Shindle, who was 1998 Miss America, said that the COVID crisis caused the employment of actors to drop from about 100 percent to zero. She said the resultant "whirlwind was the most stressful time I have ever been through," and unemployed actors and actresses had to turn to "bartending, waiting tables ... and then those went away."

Starting by telling of his background as the Black son of a single mother and a father who spent most of his life in prison, Smith told of going into acting and winning a special Tony Award this year for his work on diversity. His coalition, which started as an effort by six Black actors, has a partnership with Columbia Law School. Then he made a calm but emotional appeal to do what one can about equity and inclusion.

"In our opportunities we do what we can," Smith said. "As an artist, I do my gig, I learn my lines, I show up on time," but he added that he also had an "unlocking" to do in being an agent of change. "Everybody has an unlocking to do," Smith said. "Show up as radically and truthfully as you can."

Shindle used the Club's Headliners Newsmaker to note the release that day of the Actors' Equity Association's annual report, which recommended that the National Endowment for the Arts increase federal arts funding, and establish objectives for grant recipients based on diversity, equity and inclusion. She commented that the report also called for living wages in the theater. She urged donors to think of a living wage for cast members as well as the needed renovations in the theater lobby or safety measures to protect against falling sets.

Shindle and Smith were interviewed while seated in a conversational setting by Club President Lisa Nicole Matthews. In her final question, Matthews asked each what are their biggest challenges, organizationally or personally. Shindle said organizationally, the fear of failure, "because people depend on us." She said leadership is making the best decisions with the information available. Smith said, "easily my biggest challenge is funding," and, personally, "finding moments to revive myself."