To the faculty and staff of Circle in the Square Theatre School:

We, the alumni, have come together to demand change. The overwhelming abundance of oppression and abuse of power which plagues your institution and its past and present participants must be addressed and rectified. Your silence is deafening and your inaction in the face of racial discrimination, exploitation of racial trauma, and cultural appropriation illustrates irresponsibility as an institution and a lack of care for the student body. The institution is explicitly an active participant in systemic racism in the following ways:

  1. The required reading material caters predominately to Eurocentric ideologies and racist stereotypes. The denial of the world we live in to accommodate whiteness prevents BIPOC students from being able to fully explore their talent and their truths. Like the students, faculty should be consistently educating themselves on diverse theatre which reflects the world we live in today.

  2. By maintaining a predominately white, straight, cis-gender administration and faculty, this institution fails to provide the diverse student body with adequate leadership. This is further demonstrated by the similar guest artists brought in for weekly seminars. An institution that lacks representation within the roles of leadership fails to advocate for their diverse student body.

  3. Rather than celebrating the diversity of the student body within the program, there is an erasure of diverse cultural background under the guise of neutralization. “Neutrality” is the demand for assimilation into white ideologies, further enforcing the concept that BIPOC can only conform to the narrative deemed acceptable in relation to whiteness. Institutionalized racism is an exclusionary process that emphasizes differences as areas of improvement rather than an appreciation of individuality. 

  4. E. Colin O’Leary and Whitney Kaufman: You have blatantly disregarded numerous complaints regarding your faculty and white students about racist activity on micro- and macro-aggressive levels. You have ignored student’s experiences and silenced them in defense of white staff. Situations like this create distress in a setting in which it is not only necessary, but mandatory for your students to feel safe. It is your responsibility to cultivate a safe and secure environment for students to work under already vulnerable circumstances.

  5. The only POC faculty member has been constantly disregarded. Her image has not been added to the official school website yet, they have continued to tokenize her as a performative display of diversity at the school.

There needs to be accountability through actions rather than the performative allyship currently chosen as a means to preserve your image. Choosing to put on a display of solidarity without doing internal work is not a solution; it is part of the problem. This is how systemic racism continues to manifest itself in and outside of the institution. This institution focuses on maintaining the white status quo and not on the art of storytelling. We know this to be true due to the decision to continuously tell white stories, the overt lack of knowledge of anything non-white and the decision to white-wash Black and Brown stories to be palatable for the white gaze as seen through the children’s show and the distribution of materials in music, scene study, and showcases. The silence and racialized trauma are unacceptable and will no longer be tolerated.

Below is a list of actions that we demand be fulfilled in order to protect future students from being abused and violated by the current administration's willful ignorance:

  1. We demand a third-party investigation and immediate removal of the faculty and administration guilty of initiating and encouraging repeated and unapologetic racial micro- and macro-aggressions, cultural appropriation, and verbal abuse against BIPOC students. See student letters for examples.

  2. We demand a formal and public apology on all social media and public platforms on behalf of the Board of Directors and the institution’s heads addressed to its past and present BIPOC students. This should be followed up by an email sent directly to the school’s alumni and current students that acknowledges the events in the students’ letters.

  3. We demand that the roles and responsibilities of Admissions and Alumni Affairs Coordinator currently occupied by Whitney Kaufman be delegated into separate administrative positions filled by BIPOC.

    • To further efforts towards inclusive representation within the staff, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community must be hired; another grossly underrepresented community within the institution.

  4. We demand mandatory equity, diversity, and inclusion training spearheaded by BIPOC for staff and students at the beginning of every academic year, effective immediately.

  5. We demand a mental health counsellor. If the institution cannot afford a mental health professional, it should partner with an organisation that can ensure students are receiving the mental healthcare services they deserve. Include BIPOC and LGBTQ+ mental health professionals.

  6. We demand a statement of intention from President Paul Libin and Executive Director E. Colin O’Leary by the start of the 2020-2021 academic school year on how they plan to integrate BIPOC and LGBTQ+ faculty and administration.

  7. We demand individual statements of intention from the faculty by the start of the 2020-2021 academic school year, including:

    • An updated and diverse reading list with BIPOC and LGBTQ+ playwrights. This should include materials for Scene Study, European Scene Study, Musical Theatre Scene Study, Singing Interpretation, and the Musical Performance reading list. This new diverse material should be available through the school’s library.

    • Restructuring Speech Class to adequately apply IPA work in other classes curriculums. The exclusive teaching of the mid-Atlantic dialect as a base is outdated and does not prepare students for dialect work in second year, let alone the current state of the industry.

    • The Festival of Theatre should be a reflection of the diverse world in which the students live in.

    • The Arts Outreach performances for audiences of grades K-6 should require an open alumni audition and be an equal opportunity. It is currently stated that these shows are performed by the Alumni Ensemble, but such an ensemble does not presently exist.

  8. We demand the re-evaluation of the Showcase structure to better support the students.

    • When BIPOC/LGBTQ+ individuals bring in material to work with, the faculty must read and research it.

We understand the time it will take to fulfill and implement these demands. Nevertheless, we genuinely cannot encourage prospective students to attend Circle in the Square Theatre School in its current state. It is not enough to be non-racist; we all must be actively anti-racist. Currently neither of these practices exist institutionally. Now is the time to work with your community. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Circle of Inequity

Alex Acosta ‘15

Emily Adams ‘19

Lebene Ayivor ‘18

Joshua Balan ‘18

Autumn Beauchesne ‘19

Matthew Boyd ‘17

Becca Brown ‘18

Kevin Buiocchi ‘14

Eric Byers ‘21

Tavi L. Carpenter ‘15

Brian Chandler Cook ‘18

William Cox ‘17

Scarlett Diaz-Power ‘15

Jody Doo ’15

Ryan Doyle ‘20

Sigrid Forsythe ‘16

Brian J Gabriel ‘19

Emily Garcia ‘17

Abbyrose Garner ‘15

Rena Gavigan ‘17

Melanie Gettler ‘18

Jenny Hanrahan ‘20

Jody Smith Harper ‘17

Nadine Hart ‘20

Olivia Hartshorn ‘16

Hannah Heckman-McKenna ‘19

Eliza Hill ‘18

Olena Hodges ‘10

Meredith Hogeland ‘19

Íris Hólm ‘17

Shawn Michael Hunt ‘20

Tiffany Iris ‘17

Sarah Kebede-Fiedler ‘19

Ashley Klimper ‘18

Samantha Kolb ‘16

Jesse Krebs ‘15

Zaitouna Kusto ‘09

Ariel Labasan ‘14

Bess Lawson ‘20

Libby Lee ‘19

Sara Lily ‘18

Cassandra Lopez ‘16

Avital Masri-Lewis ‘20

John Richard Mateyko ‘17*

Robin Murray ‘18

Adriana Nocco ‘19

Caitlin Nosal ’16

Zuleyka Pagán ‘20

Bridget Paul ‘20

Megan Poulos ‘18

Frances Ramos ‘16

Tricia Richards ‘16**

Brittany Rincon ‘19

Devin Romero ‘20

Regina Romero ‘18

Kiialeah Rumer ‘17

Maranda Rust ‘17

Victoria Ruud ‘18

Michael Sanders ‘19

Gabbie Sansone ‘20

Cristina Sebastian ‘17

Julia Tarbox ‘18

Jason Eric Testa ‘21

Chris B. Valenzuela ‘20

Rebekah Wall '19

Melissa Warren ‘19

Molly Williams ‘18

*Summer Acting Workshop
** Did not graduate

We will lift our own voices.

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