THEATER
The Flea Puts Focus on Black, Brown, And Queer Artists
Off-Off Broadway theater returns, responds to a reckoning for racial justice
BY TAT BELLAMY-WALKER
In the wake of a national
reckoning on racial injustice,
the Off-Off-Broadway
theater company The Flea
re-emerged this month with a renewed
focus on the voices of Black,
brown, and queer artists.
The news of the theater’s overhaul
of its practices comes nearly
a year after the theater company
took heat for using unpaid labor
and faced allegations of “racism,
sexism, bullying, and passive aggression,”
according to a letter
penned by a young Black woman
artist, Bryn Carter. In response,
The Flea promised to work internally
on these issues and pay its
members, though much of this
progress fell by the wayside when
dozens of actors lost their jobs last
December after the company shuttered
its programming for emerging
artists due to economic strain.
On October 7, the Flea returned
with a new mission that calls for
the company to support and invest
“in experimental art by Black,
brown, and queer artists.” Under
this new model, the organization is
looking to provide “space, fi nancial
support, and producing partnership
so these artists may develop
and share their vision in community
with audiences,” the group
said in a press release.
Some institutional changes include
hiring fi ve new board members
and a new board co-chair
as well as creating a reparative
partnership to help “restore positive
relationships” with former
artists. The Fled Collective, an
artist collective comprised mainly
of former Flea artists, has been
tapped as the company’s fi rst
resident troupe. Starting next
year, the Fled, which has a nonhierarchical
structure, will have
access to a three-year residency,
an unconstrained $10,000 cash
award, $50,000 in annual rental
credits, and other resources
intended to spearhead creative
work. Furthermore, the company
is starting a multi-year residency
program, which would provide
The dance troupe Emerge125 has been awarded a multi-year residency at the Flea.
Niegel Smith, the artistic director of The Flea, announced the company’s renewed focus on Black,
brown, and queer performers.
creative support to experimental
art groups.
The Flea’s Artistic Director, Niegel
Smith, who also serves on the
board of directors, pointed to The
Flea’s intentions to fi nancially support
LGBTQ people and artists of
color as he acknowledged that the
new effort stems from challenges
in equity and inclusion.
“Part of this is coming out of a
history of deep hurt in these spaces,”
Smith told Gay City News in
reference to the program’s mission.
STEVEN PISANO
THE FLEA
“I was invited into predominately
white institutions as a Black gay
man and other artists were invited
into these institutions and
were asked to conform or contort
ourselves.”
He added, “I’m so thankful to the
artists that came through the Flea
and said, ‘things have to change,
and things have to change now.’
We are going to be so strong because
we are doing it together and
will reclaim this space.”
With a new direction in place,
he said the company could begin
shedding light on these needs.
“I think about us bringing our
cultural truths and selves to the
table and doing it outside of the
heteronormative and white supremacist
gaze,” Smith said. “It’s
on our terms. I cannot wait to see
and support what my folks want to
make.”
Raz Golden, a leading queer
organizer from the Fled, said the
group is excited to have more artistic
control over their work and
rebuild a relationship with the institution.
“I think a lot of people may question
why the Fled artists, which
are primarily made up of former
Flea artists, would reintegrate with
the Flea institution after all the
troubles of last year,” Golden said.
“I think that if we took it as our responsibility
to take the Flea at face
value when they said they want to
make a safe home for resident companies,
then in some ways it’s our
responsibility to be that fi rst company
to test that theory to make
sure we can hold them to that.”
Artistic Director Tiffany Rea-
Fisher of Emerge 125, a dance
troupe, applauded the overhaul of
Flea as “radical.”
Rea-Fisher noted that it’s rare
for companies to openly share resources
and engage in a collaborative
process in the performing arts
world.
“It always felt like this zero-sum
game, ‘you win. I lose,’ so this idea
that ‘if I win, we win’ is really different,”
Rea-Fisher said. “Before, I
had very little say, and presenters
would tell me what they wanted
from me. There wasn’t a deep conversation
about where I am artistically
or what I actually want to
present.”
Rea-Fisher hopes this effort can
inspire other changes within an industry
fraught with a lack of input
from marginalized communities.
“An off-Broadway theater that is
run by a gay Black man — I love
that that’s what’s leading the fi eld,”
Rea-Fisher said. “I feel this model
will work well, and I’m hoping it
can serve as a model for other companies
moving forward.”
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