Overview

Many professional theater artists attempt to use live performances in formal theater spaces to disrupt racism and create a more equitable society. Privileged Spectatorship: Theatrical Interventions in White Supremacy examines the impact of such projects, looking at how and why they do and do not intervene in white supremacy. In this incisive study, Dani Snyder-Young examines audience responses to a range of theatrical events that focus on race-related conflict or racial identity in the contemporary United States. The audiences for these performances, produced at mainstream not-for-profit professional theaters in major American cities in 2013–18, reflect dominant patterns of theater attendance: the majority of spectators are older, affluent, white, and describe themselves as politically progressive. Snyder-Young studies the ways these audience members consume the stories of racialized others and analyzes how different artistic, organizational, and programmatic strategies can (or cannot) mitigate white privilege.This book is essential reading for scholars and students of theater, performance studies, and critical ethnic studies and for theater practitioners interested in equity and inclusion.

Full Product Details

9780810142527

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Reviews

Through a rich set of case studies, Privileged Spectatorship explores the power of American theatrical performance to interrupt the enduring strength of white supremacy. Dani Snyder-Young insightfully examines how such productions about race actively engage white spectators in ways that are at times transformative. Seeking to decolonize the white gaze, this book foregrounds the existence of white privilege and racism as it considers theatrical practices that might disrupt them. Accordingly, this is a work not only of theater criticism but also of theater activism that should appeal to theater scholars, practitioners, and spectators across the color lines. --Harry J. Elam Jr., author of The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson

Author Information

Dani Snyder-Young is an assistant professor of theater at Northeastern University. She is the author of Theatre of Good Intentions: Challenges and Hopes for Theatre and Social Change.

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