“Last week, a university theatre club in New Zealand decided to cancel their upcoming production of Chaplin: The Musical after it had been discovered that the actor had a notorious past when it came to conduct with teenaged girls.”

Sixteen current and former students of Pace University’s School of Performing Arts have filed individual lawsuits in hopes of forcing the school to address allegations of systemic racism within its musical theatre program. Named in the lawsuits are not only Pace University but also its former head of the musical theatre program, Amy Rogers.

“A theatre professor at Northern Oklahoma College was arrested last week on charges of sexually abusing his students. The details of the allegations against him are disturbing, to say the least.”

“Earlier this month, the University of Utah decided to cancel their production of Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World due to a failure “to address essential issues of representation and identity presented by the script.” To add insult to injury, theatre department officials pulled the show two weeks before it was set to stream online, after students had already been cast and rehearsing for months.”

“With college theatre programs looking to produce new and more diverse material, the ripple effect into the design process must also evolve. It is our expectation that the students that graduate these programs over the next few years will be the most versatile artists of their generation. Here are 20 programs, in no particular order, that we feel are doing that job very well.”

“From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for making this semester the best that you could have possibly made it. Logging on every day was that much easier because you were on the other side of the screen ready to welcome us.”

“I’ve seen that some BFA programs will be holding live auditions via virtual methods such as Zoom, Skype, and Google Meet. I think this is a mistake. There are too many variables when it comes to live auditions over these online meeting services that could hinder a student’s audition. What colleges should be doing is letting students submit pre-recorded self-taped auditions.”

“The current students of the CSU Chico Theatre Department’s Theatre Diversity Committee do not stand with the CSAC group and their efforts to malign our current administration. We fear this group will cause lasting damage to our educational environment and does not seek to bring about positive, constructive change as they claim is their purpose.”

“Let’s stop comparing majors. Let’s stop making college a competition. I know that I could never major in Biology, but I also know plenty of people who could never major in Theatre. We all have our strengths and we all have our weaknesses. Let’s celebrate our own strengths and let’s marvel at the strengths of others.”

“After months of private conversation between a student-alumni group and representatives of California State University Chico’s Theatre Department, the group has decided to make the interactions public following a virtual town hall that took months to arrange was canceled at last minute by the institution. The Northern California university joins a slew of other schools facing scrutiny over systematic practices and curriculum that promote bias and inequality within their program.”

“Thanks to the campaign “See Our Truths”, current and former black students are coming forward with their stories of how they had to endure multiple instances of racism during their time in Pace University’s musical theatre program, much of it coming from the head of the MT program, Amy Rogers, and her assistant JV Mercanti.”

“A former student in Western Kentucky University’s theatre and dance program claims in a federal lawsuit to have been subjected to racial discrimination and sexual harassment by a professor in the program.”