Follow The Leader: La Boite's Todd MacDonald On Why Diversity Is At The Heart Of His 2017 Season

Artistic Director Todd MacDonald's 2017 program for Brisbane-based theatre company La Boite is starting as it means to go on, with a brand-new play, exploring a culturally diverse narrative, by a female playwright. Michelle Law's skewering comedy, Single Asian Female, needles race and gender stereotypes with a two-pronged intent, simultaneously holding a mirror up to the casually racist and misogynist attitudes that persist in certain quarters of Australian society, while disarming those offensive cliches with a nimble wit.

"It's about being powerfully political without switching people off," MacDonald comments as we discuss the healthy presence of comedy in La Boite's 2017 season. "These topics can be very close to the bone for a lot of people, but if you talk about these issues through comedy, and you allow people to be self-deprecating about it, then you have a chance of challenging the way people think. What's interesting about comedy is the complexity it can offer; the difference between two people's experience of a show can be pretty radical. Last season we presented [Young Jean Lee's] Straight White Men, and what was really striking for me, was there were many straight white men in the audience who were laughing at one level of the work, but also women and people of colour in the audience laughing at a very different level of it. So, comedy has that power to be subversive without being exclusive."

Instead of the predictable, well-worn (and often worn out) staples of the theatrical canon, largely written by dead white men about dead, white issues, MacDonald's 2017 season will champion diverse voices with work celebrating different racial backgrounds, women, sexual minorities and refugees. Among this year's offering, The Village showcases Australia's rich tapestry of cultures via the firsthand experiences of asylum seekers. Lady Beatle examines the feminine muse through the prism of pop-culture, inspired by the true accounts of the women who inspired the Fab Four's greatest chart toppers. The ferociously talented African-Australian playwright Candy Bowers challenges gender and sexual conformity in One The Bear, backed up by the mega-watt sass of the Black Honey Company.

MacDonald is passionate about the responsibility of theatre presenters to address what he describes as "systemic oppression" in our cultural landscape. "That might sound like strong language, but that's pretty much what it is. If you look at the cohort of actors who are graduating from our top drama institutions, it's overwhelmingly skewed white. And in my opinion, it's getting to the point now where theatre companies have to be invested in improving diversity at a grass roots level."

"People can smell bullshit a mile away: if it looks like tokenistic programming, then it probably is."

For MacDonald, the way his programming engages with young people is not merely a peripheral activity or an arbitrary education box-ticker; it is front and centre of his ambition for the future of Australian theatre. "I want to see how many diverse high school-aged kids we can get in to see shows like the colour-blind casting of A Streetcar Named Desire we presented last year, so they can imagine themselves on that stage. For a young Australian-Asian girl to see Single Asian Female and say, 'Fuck! That's me! I've never seen myself represented on stage before. That's what I want to do,' it's absolutely at the core of what we do."

One of the most effective strategies for broadening the spectrum of different ethnicities, cultures and genders working in Australian theatre is affirmative action — opportunities aimed at supporting work from underrepresented minorities. Some detractors have criticised such initiatives as being more about politics than art, but MacDonald insists this approach is the only practical solution to the issue of disparity: "I think it's actually very rewarding as a programmer to seek out these untapped narratives. It pushes you past your comfort zone and that is absolutely vital. If our arts leaders become complacent then we lose momentum and stagnate, and surely, the most important thing about any artistic practice is that it's constantly evolving."

Equally important, in MacDonald's opinion, is a greater emphasis on long-term thinking, introducing support for artists that not only enacts change in the immediate future, but also in the coming decades. "We need really robust succession modelling for diverse artists, female artists, indigenous artists and artists of colour through these very colonial organisations, and that includes La Boite which is 90-years white," he shares. "I see it as a major part of my responsibility as Artistic Director to develop artists and provide them with opportunities so they can eventually take my job."

Such a major commitment to diverse storytelling isn't just about improving the vibrancy of Australia's creative professionals. It's also about encouraging more of the public to engage with theatre, although MacDonald readily admits there's a long way to go. "Persistence through programming is the only way to address this, because things aren't going to change overnight. If you put on one show that celebrates a certain type of diversity, whatever that may be, and it doesn't bring in a more diverse audience, that isn't somehow indicative that people from diverse backgrounds aren't interested in theatre.

"We're fighting 60 years of entrenched, white, British, colonial theatre modelling — it's going to take time to build trust," he explains. "As programmers we need to ask, 'Why would someone want to come to La Boite? How are we making this a welcoming place? How are we decolonising our organisation? Do our front of house staff and our core staff reflect the kind of diversity we're looking to foster on stage and in the auditorium?' These are important questions because people can smell bullshit a mile away: if it looks like tokenistic programming, then it probably is. We need to protect the authenticity of those stories and show through long-term programming strategies that the theatre is a place for people from every background, not just the well-off or the white."

La Boite Theatre Company's 2017 season begins with Sing Asian Female, 11 Feb.