Coalition Of Immigrant Artists Launches Initiative To Combat Xenophobia In The Theater Industry

The Immigrant Theatermakers Advocacy initiative (itainitative.org) works with institutions seeking to reverse xenophobic policies and create programs that welcome immigrants, and supports individual artists seeking help on their immigration journey

A group of immigrant artists including producer Jody Doo (Singapore), director Danilo Gambini (Brazil), playwright Francisco Mendoza (Argentina), and dramaturg Salma Zohdi (Egypt), announces the creation of the Immigrant Theatermakers Advocates (ITA) initiative, which seeks to engage institutions to combat xenophobia in the theater industry, and to provide resources and community for immigrant artists. The initiative, which has been operating informally since the pandemic shutdown of 2020, represents the culmination of the individual efforts of its members in creating a field that is more open to those who don't have the privileges associated with U.S. citizenship.

ITA will build community for immigrant theatermakers through a mailing group that opens communication between artists, and will be a resource where immigrant theatermakers with questions can hear from others who've navigated the system. The initiative will also work with institutions to create space for immigrants and program their work, as well as to revamp their policies and generate their own resources for helping up-and-coming immigrant artists. The initiative is also working on making available a list of immigration lawyers that have worked with ITA members and are willing to offer discounted services or free consultations to artists referred to them through the group. And among its core goals for the future is the creation of a fund to cover legal and government fees for theater artists applying for visas.

The group is mentored by an Advisory Council of immigrant artists that includes director Saheem Ali (Kenya), the Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director at The Public Theater; director Sarah Benson (England); director and playwright Moisés Kaufman (Venezuela), Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project; dancer-choreographer, actress, and director-producer Olga Levina (Ukraine), Co-Founder and Executive Producer of the Jersey City Theater Center; producer Roberta Pereira (Brazil), Executive Director at The Playwrights Realm and incoming Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts; and director, playwright, and producer Chay Yew (Singapore).

The seeds of ITA were planted in two different institutions. The Playwrights Realm—where Mendoza acts as Marketing Manager—created the International Theatermakers Award in 2020, which for two years selected five theatermakers applying for O-1 Extraordinary Abilities visas and covered all their legal expenses and government fees (the award has now been discontinued). Also in 2020, Rattlestick Theater—where Doo, Gambini, and Zohdi acted as Producer, Associate Artistic Director, and Literary Associate, respectively—started the Global Forms Theater Festival, which presents works by immigrant artists, and produced Global Gab, a monthly digital series that was geared towards that community. (Rattlestick announced that a reimagined Global Forms will return in Spring.)

The members of each group decided to combine forces and create an initiative that was not housed in any particular institution, but instead free to operate in its primary purpose of creating a more welcoming industry for immigrants. “Regardless of where each of us is from, the obstacles we have faced in our journey are very similar,” says Zohdi (now the Literary Manager at New York Theater Workshop and Director of Development and Communications at Noor Theatre). “We not only have to navigate the labyrinthine American immigration system, which has been designed to exclude us, but also the entrenched xenophobia in our industry, which continues to put the burden on us to constantly prove ourselves and advocate for our right to be treated equally.”

“Americans tend not to realize what a huge issue this is, so they don't feel any urgency around it,” says Mendoza, the first visa holder to win the Princess Grace Awards Playwriting Fellowship in 2022, which had previously been open only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents—a rule that was changed upon Mendoza's engagement with the awards' administration. Pointing at the recent change in the Pulitzer Prize, whose board similarly announced this year that they'd be expanding eligibility for the awards to authors, playwrights, and composers who are not U.S. citizens, Mendoza continues, “The Pulitzer is one of the most prestigious awards a playwright can aspire to, and it ran for over a hundred years without admitting noncitizens. It has a big effect on your psyche to enter this country, and this field, and be told ‘this is not for you, you can't play, you only get to watch.'” Mendoza is now in talks with the Dramatists Guild of America to find ways to amplify ITA's message to all the Guild's current—and more importantly, prospective—members.

“The gatekeeping is very real, and it sometimes comes from the most unexpected places,” says Gambini (who is currently the Associate Artistic Director at DC's Studio Theatre). “The feeling that you need to prove yourself, and have evidence of how ‘extraordinary' you are, takes a toll on your mental health. It is a very intense extra layer of anxiety, on top of the struggle that we ordinarily go through as we try to make a life as working artists in the US.”

“You're usually fighting alone,” adds Doo (now Global Assistant Producer at The Moth). “The thing we found is that places that are welcoming of immigrants tend to be the ones that already have immigrants in them. We realized if we work only from within, our reach is limited; creating an initiative that is not associated with any particular institution allows us to engage with places that may not even be aware of their need for change, let alone have the tools to enact it.” Doo has found a new partnership with the Executive Producer of Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC), Olga Levina, a fellow immigrant and member of ITA's Advisory Council, who is committed to making JCTC a welcoming space for immigrant artists. The company just held an Immigrant Artist Meet-Up on September 30, produced by Doo. “ITA is just as much about providing support to our community as it is about engaging with institutions.”

The group is embracing an emergent strategy, open to opportunities to collaborate by sharing knowledge about how the system works (and how it can be navigated by both artists and institutions), making connections between those seeking help and those who can provide it, and uplifting examples of initiatives and projects that model a more inclusive industry. While the initiative is not currently accepting donations from individuals, the group is open to conversations with funders about crafting programs that financially support immigrant artists.

About the Co-Founders

Jody Doo is a producer and host born and raised in sunny Singapore. She is passionate about using her work to uplift minority and diverse voices. Currently, Jody is the Global Assistant Producer at The Moth. Previously, she co-founded Global Forms Theater Festival at Rattlestick Theater (4 seasons) and produced/hosted Global Gab (3 seasons) - a monthly panel where she dug deep with fellow immigrant artists. Jody is also ¼ of the Oversight Committee at Spellbound Theatre, which replaces the traditional role of an Artistic Director.

Danilo Gambini is a director, writer, and producer, originally from São Paulo, Brazil. He is currently the Associate Artistic Director at Studio Theatre. Recent directing credits include the world premieres of Ni Mi Madre (Rattlestick/ OBIE Award Winner, Drama Desk Nom., NYT Critics Pick), and the musical Sabina (Portland Stage Maine, co-directed with Daniella Topol). Before Studio Theatre, he was the Associate Artistic Director at Rattlestick Theater, Co-Artistic Director at Yale Summer Cabaret, and a member of Roundabout Director's Group. danilogambini.com

Francisco Mendoza is an Argentinian writer currently living in Brooklyn, NY after spending several years in Brazil. He's a graduate of Tisch's MFA program, a Princess Grace Award and Neukom Prize winner, and a MacDowell Fellow, and his work has been developed and presented at New Dramatists, The Lark, The New Group, Central Square Theater, Two River Theater, the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Northern Stage, and San Diego Rep, among others. His writing has been published in outlets such as The Brooklyn Rail and American Theater Magazine. He has taught at the New School, ART/New York, The New Group, and the 24 Hour Plays. He's currently the Marketing Manager at The Playwrights Realm, and acts as a consultant and educator for other non-profit theater companies. notrealmendoza.com

Salma S. Zohdi is an Egyptian Dramaturg living in the U.S. Salma is the Literary Manager at New York Theatre Workshop, Director of Development & Communications at Noor Theatre, a Lucille Lortel Award Voter, and an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Department of Dramatic Writing. Salma aspires to create spaces where we can generously and inclusively examine art, culture, community building, and the necessary global and social justice conversations. MA: AUC - English & Comparative Literature. MFA: Columbia University - Theatre (Dramaturgy). zohdiscriptconsultancy.com

About the Advisory Council

Saheem Ali is a proud immigrant from Kenya. He received a Tony Award nomination for directing the Pulitzer prize-winning play Fat Ham on Broadway, as well as an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence in Directing and Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel nominations for Fat Ham's Off-Broadway run at The Public Theater, where he serves as the Associate Artistic Director/Resident Director. His production of Merry Wives (Shakespeare in the Park) was recorded for PBS Great Performances and was the subject of the documentary Reopening Night on HBO. Upcoming is the musical Buena Vista Social Club at the Atlantic Theater. Recent productions include Goddess (Berkeley Rep), Nollywood Dreams (MCC), Romeo y Julieta, Shipwreck, and Richard II (radio plays). Other productions: Fires in The Mirror (Signature Theater), The Rolling Stone (Lincoln Center Theater), Passage (Soho Rep), Fireflies (Atlantic), Sugar in Our Wounds (MTC), Tartuffe (Playmakers Rep), Where Storms Are Born (WTF) and Kill Move Paradise (National Black Theater). He is a Usual Suspect at New York Theater Workshop, a Sir John Gielgud SDCF Fellow, and a Shubert Fellow.

Sarah Benson is an Obie award-winning theater director based in New York City. Recent credits include: Jackie Sibblies Drury's Fairview (Soho Rep, TFANA & Berkeley Rep) the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Benson was nominated for a Drama Desk for direction; Suzan-Lori Parks' In The Blood (Signature Theater). At Soho Rep: Richard Maxwell's Samara with music by Steve Earle; César Alvarez and The Lisps' Futurity (ART, Walker Arts Center and in New York with Ars Nova) Callaway Award for Direction; Lortel Award for Best Musical; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon (Soho Rep & TFANA); Lucas Hnath's A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney;  Sarah Kane's Blasted, OBIE award, Drama Desk nomination; David Adjmi's Elective Affinities featuring Zoe Caldwell (site-specific). Benson also directed the opening public performances at the PAC (Perelman) the concert series Refuge and the award-winning Skittles Commercial: The Broadway Musical (Townhall) for the 2019 Super Bowl. Benson is the recipient of a Vilcek Prize. Upcoming: Teeth by Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs (Playwrights Horizons); The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood (The Atlantic).  She was a Director of Soho Rep from 2007 through June of 2023.

Moisés Kaufman is a playwright and director. Broadway credits include Paradise Square (10 Tony Award nominations), the revival of Harvey Fierstein's Torch Song, Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo with Robin Williams, the revival of The Heiress starring Jessica Chastain, 33 Variations starring Jane Fonda (Tony Award nomination for Best Play), and Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (Obie Award and Tony, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and Lucille Lortel Award nominations). West End: Gross Indecency, I Am My Own Wife, This Is How It  Goes. Off-Broadway / Regional: Here There Are Blueberries (Tectonic Theater Project/La Jolla Playhouse), Seven Deadly Sins (Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, Tectonic Theater Project/Madison Wells Live), One Arm by Tennessee Williams (Tectonic Theater Project/The New Group); The Laramie Project (writer/director; Theater in the Square, Drama Desk nomination); The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later (writer/director; Alice Tully Hall); Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde (writer/director; Lucille Lortel Award for Best Play, Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play and the Joe A. Callaway Award for Direction); Macbeth with Liev Schreiber (Delacorte Theater); Master Class with Rita Moreno (Berkeley Repertory Theatre). Opera: El Gato Con Botas (New Victory Theater). Film/TV: The Laramie Project (HBO; two Emmy nominations for writing and directing, Opening Night Selection at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, National Board of Review Award, the Humanitas Prize); The L Word.  Kaufman is the Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project, a Guggenheim Fellow in Playwriting, and an Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award winner. In 2015, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, which he accepted in a ceremony at the White House.

Olga Levina is the Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC, jctcenter.org) since 2006, and co-owner of White Eagle Hall (whiteeaglehalljc.com), and oversees the artistic vision, mission, and curation of performing arts and thematic seasons for the company. Under Olga's leadership, JCTC (a JCAC award-winning company) produced and presented themes like Personal and Universal, Justice, Happiness, Identity, Vanity, Borderless, and more, as well as programs like Arts for All, JCTCFilm series, JCTCKids, DirectorsLab, Jersey City New Play Festival, One City One People, Stories of Greenville, NJ International Theatre Festival, Voices, and Immigration Arts Summit. Olga oversees the JCTC's artistic mission development, and the JCTC presents programming at White Eagle Hall and JCTC Studio. Her directing credits include Mind, Body and Soul, Trojan Women, American Dreamers and Whispers, and Shouts of a Growing City. She received the Belarusian Philharmonic Award for the most creative choreography for Woman's Nature in 1988, JC CC Arts Leadership Award 2018, JCAC (JCTC) for the Programming of Artistic Excellence, and 2023 Making a Difference: Empowered Women Empower Women Award. She was the instrumental voice on the winning Jersey City Arts Fund Committee and on the founding committee of Jersey City Arts Council. JCTC is a member of NJ Theatre Alliance, Art Pride NJ. Olga is a member of ISPA and has participated in numerous panels, including the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit Immigration and Arts with NJTA. As an actor, Olga started her career at Yuri Lutinsky's Theatre Studio in Minsk. Lutinsky directed her in Song, based on M. Gorky's The Song of the Stormy Petrel and Song of a Falcon as well as Children of the Sun and Death and Love from the Italian Stories, L. Filatov's About Fedor- marksman, Gogol's The Government Inspector and others. She was born in Kiev, Ukraine and grew up working as a dancer-choreographer. Olga graduated from the Minsk School of the Performing Arts, studied acting with V. Bondarenko (Gorky's Russian Theatre in Minsk), directing with Jorge Cacheiro (MA, Directing; MFA in Theatre, Acting; MSU). Attended Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, Sally Jonson Studio, Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance (NYC). She holds BFA in Acting from Montclair University. Olga is a proud member ISPA, APAP and Under The Radar Symposium. Mrs. Levina is a guest lecturer at Pace University, NJCU, MSU and St. Peter's University.  She works in partnership with Cultural Institutes of Spain, Catalan, Poland, Italy, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Slovakia, Canada among others. Her personal mission is to bring diverse global communities together around the ancient art of storytelling.

Roberta Pereira is a Tony-nominated, Olivier Award-winning arts administrator and producer. She is the incoming Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of the Library for the Performing Arts in New York City. Most recently, she was Executive Director of The Playwrights Realm, an Off-Broadway theater company devoted to supporting early-career playwrights, where she produced several shows, including the world premiere of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, which was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Previously, Roberta developed and produced shows on Broadway and the West End. Roberta is also the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of Dress Circle Publishing, which publishes theater-themed books. She is a lecturer at Yale School of Drama and consults with the Miranda Family Fellowship. As a Latinx arts administrator, has been a speaker on arts administration and inclusion in the arts in multiple forums, including BroadwayCon, NYU/Tisch, Juilliard, Macalester College, Wesleyan University, Yale University, and Commercial Theatre Institute. Roberta is a graduate of Yale School of Drama's Theater Management program and Wesleyan University. She is originally from Brazil and lives in New York City with her daughter.

Chay Yew is an immigrant from Singapore. As playwright, his plays have been produced at The Public Theater, Manhattan Theatre Club, Long Wharf, La Jolla Playhouse, Wilma Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, Studio Theatre, East West Players, and internationally at the Royal Court (London), Napoli Teatro Festival, TheatreWorks (Singapore), La Mama (Melbourne), amongst others. His plays are published by Grove Press. As director, he has directed productions at the Public, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Signature Theatre, New York City Center Encores!, Rattlestick, Audible Theatre, Ensemble Studio Theatre, Humana Festival, Goodman, Arena, Berkeley Rep, American Conservatory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Alley, Denver Theatre Center, Seattle Rep, South Coast Rep, Old Globe, Seattle Rep, CTG, Woolly Mammoth, Hartford Stage, Huntington, amongst others. He is also the recipient of the OBIE Award for Direction. An alumnus of New Dramatists, he was the Artistic Director of Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago from 2011 to 2020. chayyew.com

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