An access to a theatre education is as simple as teaching acting classes in a school. It’s allowing anyone to participate in shows and extracurriculars involving the arts. It’s giving kids a space in which to creatively express themselves without judgment, and giving them a group of people who will welcome them with open arms. And most importantly, it’s telling everyone’s stories, not just one kind of person’s stories.

It’s easy to see the end goal, but it’s harder to reach it. There’s too much left to do to summarize in a blog post, but I think these three ideas are a good starting point to make the arts more accessible:

1. Write more diverse work.
2. Produce more diverse work.
3. Cast shows diversely, and disregard traditional casting practices.

1. Write more diverse work.

The first one will take a long time, and honestly, it’s already being done. When I asked for diverse plays at a Samuel French booth at a Thespian conference, they had tons to give to me from just the small table. These plays are being written. The struggle lies more with number two.

2. Produce more diverse work.

Over four years at my high school, we produced five period pieces and three musicals. Those five period pieces called for overwhelmingly white casts, and lacked diversified casts and varied races. No modern full-length plays have been produced. If we don’t produce modern plays, we miss out on opportunities to both tell modern stories and take advantage of all the students seeking a theatre education, because we’re limited to a certain type of person who we can cast.

The issue with this is that classic plays and period pieces are excellent works of literature, and are often read in English classes, making them ideal high school productions. Halting their production is not the solution. Which leads to number 3.

3. Cast shows diversely.

Not every period piece requires a cast that would have suited that period. Different interpretations of a piece, especially at a high school level where participation by all students is encouraged, is a valid decision for a director to make. The idea of casting by race is old-fashioned, and limits us from exploring a piece’s and an actor’s full potential.

As a hijabi, the last part you’d expect me to play is that of a devout Christian woman living in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. But this past fall, I played Mary Warren in my school’s production of The Crucible, taking to the stage for the first time in four years.        

My sister directed the show, and she and our teacher worked together to ensure that the cast was comprised of students who could play the roles best, and not just those who looked the part. While The Crucible is a period piece set in a time and place dominated by Caucasians, my director recognized that the play is not about race. It’s about fear and deception, and how our fears can turn us against each other. Since the heart of the play lies in issues other than race, my director chose to cast racially blind for the production.

That choice is not one often made, even in high school theatre. I’ve watched countless productions where looks have played an important role in the casting process. But to increase equity and access in arts education for all, we have to consider disregarding race if we want to produce classic pieces like The Crucible, or we risk only giving a full education and experience to students who fit a certain profile.

There are many pieces where race is important, like Ragtime. But those pieces also carry important messages about race within them. If the story isn’t about race, perhaps it’s time we start considering looking past race.

And it’s obvious that that artistic choice is not a wrong one; our production of The Crucible sold the most tickets for a straight play at our school, ever. I learned how to act in a serious piece, gaining skills and knowledge that I wouldn’t have gained if I’d only acted in the classroom. My hijab was not the impediment that I’d always thought it was. With a little clever costuming that was devised by a fellow hijabi in the costuming department, I blended in as a Christian woman. Through that production, my classmates and I gained access to the stage and theatre education that might not have been possible at another school or on another stage.

When cultivating the next generation of artists, we must think carefully about how we’re going to help them succeed. One way is by showing them that their stories are valid and real, no matter what they look like or where they come from. Tell all your students’ stories.