Editorial: Spring Term 1 2020-21

This issue of Drama & Theatre bears more than one reference to the indisputable fact that – due in part to a statistical likelihood of straitened financial circumstances – young people from minority backgrounds have been among the hardest hit by the extraordinary hardships of 2020. It is also the case that the wave of Black Lives Matter protests which followed in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in the Spring, has prompted a greater degree of effort – long overdue on the part of some institutions – in seeking to redress longstanding systemic inequalities. The world will emerge from this pandemic looking different in a number of ways, and while many of those ways are cause for alarm, we can but hope that some positive changes will arise from the ashes of this terrible year. On page 14 we meet an inspiring young Black person uncompromising in their determination to make a difference to the opportunities available in the theatre industry for the ‘Young, Gifted & Black’. Meanwhile, on page 26, a university professor tells me of her quest to ensure that the students she hopes to support into careers in the performing arts are taught by lecturers and visiting practitioners who represent the full gamut of their own diversity. There is a long way to go in ensuring that the same, or similar, opportunities are taken up by people from all ethnic, economic, even geographical backgrounds – and it is necessary for that change to be made actively. It isn't enough for opportunities to be available to all – extra work also has to be done to encourage young people to overcome the less visible barriers – the ones put up by expectation, within themselves or their communities. This starts in education, and it's wonderful to see that challenge being taken up heartily, where it is.