Editor’s Note

EMAIL: LDAWES@ARTISTSREP.ORG

FOLLOW: @ARTISTSREP

FEEDBACK: ARTQUARTERLY@ARTISTSREP.ORG

October 2020. Welcome to the inaugural issue of ART Quarterly, a place for artists of all disciplines to share thoughts and ideas about their craft. The ART Quarterly pages are filled with people that dug deep into their artistic hearts to share their passion and love for the creative space. It’s a chance to bridge the gap between the artist and you, dear readers, by providing a peek behind the curtain of the myriad artforms you love.

March 13, 2020. The day before our annual fundraising Gala and two weeks away from announcing our 2020-21 season. The world, and subsequently the theatre world as we know it, shut down for the foreseeable future. Our purpose as a theatre organization came to a grinding halt and we were left with the question, what now? We would need to find a different way to perform. We would need to find a different way to work. We need to find a different way to … connect.

As the weeks went by and traditional in-person theatre was unlikely to return soon, we started to plan. During a meeting with our Marketing Director, I mentioned how disappointed I was that our playbills for next season were not needed. You see, we had re-imagined the ART playbill in the previous season. We made it content rich — an informative resource for patrons to enjoy before the show started and at home, long after the lights went down. It was our way of connecting the work to the audience. But without live productions there was no need for the deep dive, no need to bring the articles to life. The idea of a magazine was borne from the desire to build relationships between artists and audiences during our time apart. To build an even stronger connection to our performers when there is no audience. May 25, 2020. The day the world heard “I can’t breathe!” Three words that echoed and resonated through communities around the world. The day marked a change in what was being called a product of systemic racism into the revolution for real progress toward equality for Black, Indingenous, and People of Color. It became ever so clear that change happens by first acknowledging that change is needed. The need and desire for more conversation. And as a Latina, I knew that in order for our voices to be heard we needed to start the conversation. This first issue of the ART Quarterly is giving space to our BIPOC community to share their art, their work, their stories.

I hope you enjoy the stories and art inside. These stories are written by and created for people like you and me.

Welcome, my friends, to ART Quarterly.

Leslie Crandell Dawes Editor

P.S. While you will find entertaining, challenging, and enlightening content on the pages, what you won’t find is advertising. The ART Quarterly is made possible because of three generous donors without which this magazine would not have come to fruition. However, sponsorship alone will not sustain the magazine. Subscriber support helps us pay our contributors for their work. By becoming a Subscriber Member to Artists Repertory Theatre you will receive the ART Quarterly as a member benefit. An individual subscription to ART Quarterly allows us to keep producing the kind of highquality content you find in these pages today.

“The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward.” – Ijeoma Oluo