The Last Five Years: COVID, DEI, and the Arts’ Identity Crisis
Five years ago, I sat in my doctor’s office in Chicago, dealing with a lingering cough. It was February 2020, and my doctor couldn’t tell me what was wrong. I remember thinking, Could this be that new virus I’ve been hearing about? It seemed like a distant concern—something happening “over there.”
Then March hit. The NBA shut down. Theaters went dark. Zoom became a lifeline. The world as we knew it crumbled in real time.
At the time, I was running a performing arts center at Northwestern University. When the lockdowns started, I thought we’d be back in two weeks—spring break, then business as usual. That delusion didn’t last long. My team was suddenly knee-deep in logistics we had never imagined: air circulation rates, HVAC systems, city and state mandates, and a growing realization that we had no playbook for this.
And then, George Floyd was murdered.
We were already isolated—stuck inside, staring at screens—and then we watched, on those same screens, as a Black man was suffocated to death in the street. The rage, grief, and reckoning that followed hit every industry, but in the arts, at least for me, it felt deeply personal. If any field was supposed to be about humanity, empathy, and justice, wasn’t it ours?
Arts organizations scrambled to respond. Statements were issued. Pledges were made. We were going to do better. But five years later, what’s the verdict? We made strides, but also took big steps back.
The DEI Boom—and Bust
Theater has always had a complicated relationship with diversity. I saw it firsthand in my early career for theaters I worked with, where “diversity” was an initiative, but not a priority. The real focus? Selling tickets, making art, keeping donors happy.
But over the next 10 years and especially in 2020, the conversations got louder. Suddenly, DEI wasn’t just a committee meeting among staff—it was front-page news. Organizations declared their commitment to equity, to anti-racism, to a radical reimagining of the field. I wanted to believe it. But I also knew to look at these declarations with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Along with my friend and fellow arts leader, Kelvin Dinkins Jr., I co-wrote We Don’t Want Your Statements, American Theater, calling out the hollow promises. Theaters were quick to say the right words, but real change? That’s harder. It requires power shifts, financial redistribution, hiring differently, thinking differently. Most organizations weren’t ready for that.
I saw this up close in my consulting work. My firm specialized in embedding equity into leadership hiring. We weren’t just another recruiting firm—we were Black-owned, and we ensured diverse candidate slates. And yet, time and again, we watched the same pattern unfold:
Organizations publicly committed to anti-racism.
They hired us to prove their commitment.
Behind closed doors, they balked at the actual work.
I once worked with a theater where the white staff pushed hard for a leader of color—so hard, in fact, that it felt performative. The board, also mostly white, resisted. Not because they were explicitly racist (at least, not in their own eyes), but because they didn’t like being told to prioritize a candidate’s race. The whole thing devolved into a political battle, and in the end, the final decision wasn’t about leadership—it was about ideology.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. Across the industry, I watched the DEI conversation become dogma, rather than dialogue. Instead of challenging power structures, some organizations used DEI as a branding exercise, a way to appear progressive without actually shifting resources. Meanwhile, the real work—creating genuinely inclusive, functional workplaces—fell apart.
Where We Are Now
Five years later, here’s the hard truth: the arts sector lost its way. We spent so much time arguing about language, optics, and positioning that we neglected the one thing that actually sustains this industry—great art.
That doesn’t mean DEI wasn’t important. It is important. But in our rush to fix centuries of inequity overnight, we overcorrected in some ways and underdelivered in others. We made theaters ideological battlegrounds instead of creative sanctuaries. We prioritized statements over systems. We alienated both old and new audiences.
And worst of all, we let the work itself suffer.
Theater isn’t just about who’s onstage or who’s in the boardroom. It’s about the experience—the communal act of storytelling. If we don’t refocus on that, we risk losing the very thing we’re fighting for.
The Next Five Years: A Reality Check
So where do we go from here?
First, we need to get honest about what worked and what didn’t. Arts leaders need to stop pretending they have all the answers and start listening—to their audiences, their artists, and yes, even to the people who challenge them.
Second, we have to reconcile DEI with sustainability. Equity can’t just be about representation—it has to be about creating workplaces that function, that nurture talent without burning people out or setting them up to fail.
And finally, we need to remember why we’re here in the first place. People come to the theater to be moved, to escape, to connect. If we don’t start leading with that, nothing else will matter.
The last five years reshaped the arts landscape. The next five will determine whether we saved it—or just postponed its collapse.
