Rising Leaders of Color Program

The 2017 cohort.

Now that it's officially announced online, I'm happy to share that I was selected as a rising leader of color by the Theatre Communications Group. The Rising Leaders of Color Program selects early-career leaders in theatre for professional development in attempt to diversify the field. Unsurprisingly, theatre, like a lot of the arts, is a largely white field. This year TCG created an arts journalism track (arts journalism is also pretty white), for which I was selected.

To be honest I had never heard of TCG till a few days before the deadline for RLC program was due, but some friends pushed me to scramble together an application and get it in. It's a huge opportunity for sure and it took awhile to process. I had taken a break from reviewing, unsure if I wanted to get back into it, and having a national organization take interest in me, in believing I have potential has made me realize that arts writing something that I can pursue professionally (well, I'm pretty sure there isn't anyone in Portland who makes their entire living out of arts reviewing, but still).

I'll be talking more about the program and the opportunities it brings as time goes on. I've spent the last few weeks working extra at my day job to take a week off for for the TCG Conference in Portland and I've been pretty exhausted.

You can read the press release for RLC here.