Editor’s note: This week marks a major transition for Jon Carr; he leaves the post of artistic director of Dad’s Garage in Atlanta and starts a new role as executive producer at The Second City – Chicago, a premier comedy club and theater, and school of improvisation. As he bids farewell to the city he’s called home since 2003, Carr leaves us with a few reflections prompted by the racial reckoning of 2020 and need for diversity in live performances and the arts community.
After two decades of making Atlanta, and Dad’s Garage Theatre, my home, I am moving. Recently, I accepted the position of executive producer with The Second City in Chicago. I certainly am a bit sad to leave behind the great city of Atlanta, which has done so much to support my career and teach me about how to promote diversity in our community. Moving can evoke deep emotions, and for me, I am reminded of how, as a child, moving in and out of a predominately white neighborhood helped me understand what the invisible structures of racism look like.
I think back to my childhood at times. One memory stands out for me. It was moving day, and my family was packed and ready to leave. I loved my little neighborhood in Los Angeles and was sad to see it go. It was all white, but everyone had been wonderful to me and my family. A neighbor came by to wish us well and to privately talk to my dad. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned what our neighbor said. He thanked my dad for being a part of the community, and he was so happy that we were not blocked from buying our home. On our last day at my childhood home, my father learned that before we moved in, the neighbors had explored their legal options for stopping us from buying a home. Here is the twist. I’m not 100% sure our neighbors were racist. They did not want to stop us because they hated Black people or they felt we were inferior. They wanted to stop us from moving in because if we did, they would immediately lose thousands of dollars on the value of their home simply because they were no longer in an all-white neighborhood. That was a hard, cold fact of real estate at that time in Los Angeles, and it is an example of systematic racism. Regardless of your intention or heart, if you simply do everything you’re supposed to within the system and you still produce racist results, then the system itself is racist. The neighbor who told my father this thought of it as a compliment. He was happy that their efforts failed because they got a chance to know our wonderful family.
It was 1980 something, and that neighbor had never heard of systematic racism. If you tried to explain it to him then, he would never have believed you because he hadn’t seen it or experienced it. If a white person can’t see it, then they certainly can’t dismantle it. If we want white people to be part of this solution, we need to help them see these invisible structures. I believe that this is why we need artists, and theater, more than ever. At Dad’s Garage Theatre, where I am closing out my time as artistic director, we believe in the power of our art to change perspectives for the better. Art and theater can make the invisible (like structural racism), visible. Simply through stories that viewers understand, these issues resonate on a deeper and more personal level.
While that may sound very high-minded and theoretical, “Making the Invisible, Visible” is a matter of giving artists of color the chance to show us the truth of their lived experiences as they see it. When I wrote “Black Nerd,” I never intended to write a play to tackle complex issues of race and identity. I simply wrote a story, and my experience as a Black person in America is organically a study in race and identity. Your story isn’t preachy when it is simply the truth.
We are in the middle of such a major cultural inflection point surrounding racism, and I believe the reason is that the invisible structures of racism have been made painfully visible to mass audiences. Tiffany Porter, the brilliant black woman who directed “Black Nerd” was asked by WABE’s Lois Reitzes why there is such a push for racial justice right now. Porter hit the nail on the head when she said smartphone technology has allowed people to record and broadcast moments of hate and racism that would in previous times go unseen. We’ve been recording police brutality since Rodney King, but it has been within the last few years that the invisible racism of policing Black bodies has become visible through videos shared on social media. It is only when you can make a five-hour YouTube playlist of brutally police beatings of Black people who people stop and say, maybe this is a real thing.
Despite the profusion of online videos that unflinchingly depict violence against Black people, I don’t believe this is enough to create true societal change. Going back to the power of artists to make hidden truths visible, artists also have the power to create empathy through their work. Through storytelling, through vulnerability, through all the things that make great art so compelling — artists of color have the chance to speak directly, with emotion and truth, to wide audiences. This is why we need artists and theater now more than ever. Artists do more than shock us with the truth of racism. They help audiences feel, understand, and connect over these issues, which is vital for societal change.
Over the next few years, I imagine there will be an explosion of creative content related to dismantling racism and white supremacy. Theaters across the country will scramble to find just the right “diversity” shows for their upcoming seasons. But, it’s not as simple as scheduling your “One Black-themed show of the year.” If you haven’t nurtured the careers of people of color, and if you haven’t made your company an accepting place for non-white people, you can’t just expect diversity to magically happen.
I was the first Black person to join the ensemble of performers at Dad’s Garage Theatre. Since then, building a more diverse theater has become a priority for the company. What we realized is that you have to actively build anti-racist structures to support diversity in an organization. For us, that means building a supportive structure of our artists of color, from the ground up of our organization. This includes having a scholarship program for diverse performers to complete our improv training program. Since most of our stage performers come from our class system, this scholarship is like the foundation of our anti-racist structure at Dad’s Garage. We focus on taking the time needed to prepare artists and give them the long-term tools for success. We help build the talent and creative careers of diverse performers from the ground up. We have worked to create structured systems that support the needs of our performers of color — such as affinity groups, or even something as simple as providing backstage hair and makeup supplies specifically for non-white performers.
Credit: Jonathan Phillips
Credit: Jonathan Phillips
I am very thankful for my time in Atlanta because it has truly taught me how to program for diversity. What I’ve learned working at Dad’s Garage, and what I’ve learned working in the capital of Black excellence, is that we have to try harder to support the growth of people of color. This is not just words and policies on paper, but institutional actions and shifts in company culture that truly uplift marginalized voices. This is what I am bringing to The Second City in Chicago.
Much of our nation may not be able to see the insidious invisible structures of racism, but we are slowly starting to wake up and open our eyes to these problems that have surrounded us for years. My hope is that we can build a new structure of society — one based on anti-racism. I hope that we can see and appreciate the structures of anti-racism (support for people of color, removal of discriminatory practices). Like what happens so often in culture, we artists are at the forefront of building this new world. I hope that creatives across the nation continue to help us eliminate racism and build more empathy for our fellow citizens.
