The Rep made no formal response to the issues raised in either the "We Are Listening" show or the closing night statement. What’s up? What can you do that’s different? Because this ain’t right,’” she said. “Luckily, it’s a whole bunch of militant people in a space where they’re not used to having militant actors who are like, ’No, this is wrong. And I felt the foundations of white supremacy sneaking into our very process even though most of our team is from out of town.”Ĭaldwell, also speaking during the salon, said she had never had an experience where a cast had to stick up for each other so much before working on “The Great Khan.”
"It's been really hard because it feels like at San Diego Rep it's still a predominantly white-led institution.
"Coming to San Diego to do this story felt like I was coming home to play with my roots while also doing a story about two young Black children in 2022 finding their way in a world that's not built for them and does not serve them," Bartholomew said during the salon. The salon was hosted by Ahmed Kenyatta Dents, director of venue experience for the Rep and Jacole Kitchen, director of arts engagement at the La Jolla Playhouse, and produced by the Rep in partnership with the Playhouse and The Old Globe. On March 21, Bartholomew, Caldwell and Beck spoke candidly about their experiences working at the Rep on the theater’s own “We Are Listening: A Live Salon About Black Artists' Experiences in the Theatre Industry” (archived on YouTube). The closing night statement followed other complaints raised by cast members just days earlier in March. "The company hoped that delivering the speech at the end of the final performance to a large paying audience and attaching it to the performance report for the entire staff and leadership team to see would be enough to inspire conversation and change,” McLeod wrote. In an email to KPBS, McLeod explained the company's decision to speak out at the end of the production run. Seated left to right: Molly Adea, Jerome Beck, Brittney Caldwell. Rich Soublet An undated publicity photo of the cast of the San Diego Rep's production of "The Great Khan." Pictured top left to right: Mikayla Bartholomew, Brian Rivera, Dylan Seaton. And while this space may not be the safest at the moment for minorities both onstage, behind the scenes, in administration, in service, it is a tenant of transformational justice and abolitionist principle to believe in the change that can happen.” We hope that this doesn’t stop when we all fly away. For allowing us, even with resistance, to call the Rep in and find a better way to move forward.
We say thank you to those who listened to us, who chose to course correct and find ways to support the needs to advocate for one another. But we hope that it sparks a lasting change in this theatre.
And while it brought us all together, it exhausted us, depleted us. “We make this statement as a cast and crew that has been subject to mistreatment (much of it disproportionately impacting the Black team members on this show) over the last two months. At the final curtain call of "The Great Khan" on March 26, the six-person cast delivered a statement on stage written by Bartholomew. This was not the first time such allegations had been publicly made. 'The Great Khan' closing statement at San Diego Repertory Theatre
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