Black Lives Matter

I began a pithy post for today about the Minnesota Theatre Alliance’s Statewide Theatre Conference that Hannah and I attended last weekend. But in the wake of recent community events, we feel called to speak about larger, more pressing issues.

Namely, that black lives matter.

Which is also to speak about the conference, in which many moments of connection and searching and mourning happened. In no small part this included a rousing speech on community from Claudia Alick from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in which she spoke about the #Every28Hours project; a fishbowl discussion on Misrepresentation, Misappropriation, and Exclusion moderated by Pogi Sumangil and including Rick Shiomi and Rhiana Yazzie; and a beautiful, funny, terrifying, moving performance of Carlyle Brown’s Acting Black (which you can, and should, watch on YouTube).

These moments remind us that everyone’s moral imperative at this time is to listen to voices which are often pushed to the margins. We see you. We stand by you. We support you.

You can learn more and find out how to help Black Lives Matter here.

In each Savage Umbrella process, we place our hands over our hearts and then open ourselves to the space. We encourage everyone to open their hearts, in hopes that together we are better.

Black lives matter.

-Laura & the SU company members