RISE Series E5: Mieko Gavia (Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop)
The Women & Theatre RISE Series presents mini-interviews conducted at the Inaugural RISE Summit with network partners of RISE Theatre, all of which are organizations working to increase equity in the theatre industry. In this episode, Hayley and Amy talk with Mieko Gavia from Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Guest: Mieko Gavia, Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop
Music: Chloe Geller
Listen to all published episodes of the Women & Theatre RISE Series here.
Many thanks to RISE Theatre, Maestra Music, Playbill, and all the amazing organizations working to increase equity in theatre!
Episode Resources:
Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop website
About Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop:
Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop, LLC (BRTW) uses narrative and performance as a methodology to recenter Black narratives in identifiable and solvable problems.
BRTW is a Brooklyn-based collective founded in summer 2015. They are dedicated to developing, producing, incubating, and promoting Black art and artists who actively engage with justice in their work. BRTW recognizes that we live in a world rife with injustice, including but not limited to those that impact individuals and communities due to: race, gender, sexuality, religion, disability, language and literacy, court involvement, economic status, and nation of origin.
BRTW’s work brings artists and audiences into conversation and community action, centering Black intersectional identities and experiences. In accessible narrative, performance, conversation, and media, BRTW seeks to create art as revolution.
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Women & Theatre RISE Series! We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! On this series, we share mini-interviews conducted at the Inaugural RISE Summit with network partner organizations of RISE Theatre.
Hayley: We’re thrilled to uplift these amazing organizations that are working to make the theatre industry a more equitable space.
Amy: Today, we’re excited to share our interview with Mieko Gavia of Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop.
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people! We are here at the Women & Theatre Podcast booth at the RISE Summit with Mieko Gavia from Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop. Mieko, thank you so much for being here. Could you please share your pronouns and tell us a little bit about Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop?
Mieko: Sure! I’m Mieko Gavia, my pronouns are she/they, and Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop is one of my favorite projects that I’ve done in my lifetime, honestly. We started in 2015 after the massacre at Mother Emanuel AME Church. Our founders went to a meeting of theatre professionals to kind of be in response to the massacre, and they left feeling unsatisfied with the conversations that were being had there. So they decided to start their own theatre company. And I was brought on shortly after.
So we do a lot of our own work, we produce a lot of our own work, we produce a lot of original work relating to the Black experience - and a very diverse Black experience, so you know, with different, like - gender, mixed race, monoracial, sexuality, socioeconomic status, incarcerated status, immigration status, stuff like that.
Hayley: Amazing, thank you so much.
Amy: Fantastic, yeah! Can you tell us, Mieko, about something you’re working on right now that’s lighting you up?
Mieko: Yeah! So right now, we’re planning to do a reading later this year, probably in December, of a play that I wrote, actually.
Amy/Hayley: Wow, congratulations!
Mieko: Thank you! It’s called Ophelia: A Prism, and so it’s a, like, 90-minuteish piece about Ophelia’s story in Hamlet, the different facets of her personality, and the intersections between a racialized identity as a femme person and what it means to be trapped in this hypersexist world.
Amy: I love that! I wrote my senior thesis in part about Ophelia, and I love explorations of her character.
Mieko: Oh, heck yeah!
Amy: So good!
Hayley: Yeah! Could you share with us what you think is the biggest challenge facing the theatre industry right now?
Mieko: I think, especially since 2020, when everybody shut down, there’s so few venues now. A lot of the venues where, when I was coming up as a writer/actor, and even in BRTW, we used to do a lot of touring to colleges. They either don’t have the budget or they are completely shut down. The people that we used to work with have moved out of the city or - you know, all of those promises that were made in 2020 about diversity, equity, and inclusion in theatre - those promises, when they faced the financial realities of our economy today, they were very easy to get dropped. You know, once it was kind of out of the spotlight. So I think it’s - a lot of it is a funding issue.
Hayley: Yeah, for sure.
Amy: I agree, yeah. Could you tell us what is one small step listeners can take to make the theatre industry a more equitable space?
Mieko: I think something that people can do - there’s a really great popup, pay-it-forward program of audience members - who may be like critics or designers or something - saying, “Hey, I have a spare ticket to this show” or “I bought a spare ticket to this show. This show is about a Black person or a disabled person, this is the theme of the show. I would love to take this person with me.” And that’s - that’s amazing for bringing people in the door, whether they be theatre professionals, whether they be people who aren’t super familiar with theatre. Because we need audiences. And we need audiences who are inspired by what we’re doing. And so if you can break down some of the financial barriers to bringing people in to see shows about marginalized people, specifically, then that’s gonna go a really long way.
Another great way is just to, you know, talk about theatre with other people. Talk about the kind of things you want to see. Support the people that you do enjoy going to. And saying, “Hey, I saw this person, their design work was excellent. You should hire them.” Like, the network is huge.
Hayley: Yeah, speaking people’s names into rooms, for sure. Yeah! Cool. Could you share with us where our listeners can find out more about you and the Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop on the internet?
Mieko: Sure. Me personally, you can find me at miekogavia.org. BRTW, you can find us at thebrtw.org. We’re also on socials as either @thebrtw or @blackrevolutionarytheatrenetwork.
Amy: Amazing. Thank you so much for being with us today, Mieko. And thank you all for listening to our conversation with Mieko Gavia from Black Revolutionary Theatre Workshop!
Mieko: Thank you!
Hayley: Thank you, bye!
(Music)
Amy: Women & Theatre is a proud network partner of RISE Theatre.
Hayley: Thank you so much to RISE, Maestra, Playbill, and RISE Program Manager Victoria Detres for collaborating with us on this series. Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews! If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show was written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks again for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
