In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• 'Creating Change Where it Matters the Most':Artistic Directorship and Representation in the London Theatre
• Harry Derbyshire (bio)

Britain has changed drastically in the period since the Second World War, both in terms of the demographic make-up of its population and in terms of prevalent social attitudes, but British theatre has sometimes struggled to keep up. Despite seismic shifts such as the rise of social realism in the 1950s or the surge of feminist playwriting three decades later, the danger has never been too far away that the theatre will become—or, some would say, remain—a bastion of wealthy white male privilege, sealed off from the progress being made in wider culture. This has been an issue both in relation to the fictive realities being presented on stage and the professional power structures through which work is developed and programmed. This article responds to a significant development in this narrative of intermittent progress, a marked increase since 2010 in the number of women and people of color who hold the post of artistic director of a London theatre. In this article I welcome this development as an important and overdue advance in the capacity of British theatre to represent and speak to British society in the twenty-first century, consider how it has come about, and assess the likelihood that it will come to be a permanent change in the composition of the UK theatre industry—an essential outcome if theatre is to serve London as well in the twenty-first century as it has in the past.

The article is divided into four parts. First, after an initial discussion of unequal representation in British theatre and the particular significance of the artistic director, I quantify recent advances in representation at the artistic director level with specific reference to the mainstream subsidized [End Page 199] theatres (such as the National Theatre and Royal Court, which are in receipt of public funding via the government body Arts Council England) where the majority of new plays produced in London are staged. Second, I identify the circumstances in which this overdue shift has taken place, considering the role played by task-focused groups such as Tonic and Artistic Directors of the Future within the wider context of structural discrimination. Third, I present two case studies intended to shed light on the kinds of challenges that artistic directors from previously under-represented groups can face: the first considers Emma Rice's brief tenure as AD at the Globe (2016–18) and the second looks at Indhu Rubasingham's re-branding of the Tricycle Theatre as the Kiln (2018). Fourth, I conclude with a sustained discussion of the situation in 2021, taking into account the shifts in the cultural narrative caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. If it can show itself to be representative and inclusive, London's theatre will continue to play a progressive role in the development of UK culture more widely; but if the gains of recent years are lost, it will slide backwards towards irrelevance.

Representation, Artistic Directorship, and Change

Although this article focuses specifically on artistic directors, the discussion of their role must be considered in the context of wider issues of representation in British theatre, culture, and society. As Dave O'Brien, Chancellor's Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh, authoritatively puts it, "Theatre stakes a claim to be an artform that represents and reflects society. British society is currently marked by a range of social divisions that stretch far beyond the cultural sector. As a result, inequalities in the workforce and audience for theatre should not be a surprise. British theatre and the associated performing arts industries are characterised by exclusions by gender, by race, and by class."¹ Such exclusions relate very clearly to the legacy of the past. While there has been clear movement away from the values of colonial Britain, when sexism and racism operated as organizing social principles, inherited social attitudes and institutional structures are the cause of widespread and continuing systemic discrimination through which inequalities that strongly resemble those of imperial Britain are perpetuated. [End Page...

中文翻译：

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“在最重要的地方创造变化”：伦敦剧院的艺术指导和代表

代替摘要，这里是内容的简短摘录：

• “在最重要的地方创造变化”：伦敦剧院的艺术指导和代表
• 哈里·德比郡（简历）

自第二次世界大战以来，英国在人口构成和普遍的社会态度方面都发生了巨大变化，但英国戏剧有时难以跟上。尽管发生了翻天覆地的变化，例如 1950 年代社会现实主义的兴起或 30 年后女权主义剧本的兴起，但剧院将成为——或者，有些人会说，仍然是——富有的白人堡垒的危险从未离我太远男性特权，与在更广泛的文化中取得的进步隔绝。这一直是一个与舞台上呈现的虚构现实和工作开发和编程所依据的专业权力结构有关的问题。本文回应了这种间歇性进展叙述中的重大发展，自 2010 年以来，担任伦敦剧院艺术总监的女性和有色人种人数显着增加。在这篇文章中，我欢迎这一发展，认为这是英国戏剧在 21 世纪代表英国社会并与英国社会对话的能力方面的一项重大而迟到的进步，考虑它是如何发生的，并评估它的可能性英国戏剧业的构成发生了永久性的变化——如果戏剧要像过去一样在 21 世纪为伦敦服务，这是一个重要的结果。

文章分为四个部分。首先，在初步讨论了英国戏剧中的不平等代表性和艺术总监的特殊意义之后，我量化了艺术总监层面的代表性的最新进展，并具体参考了主流补贴[End Page 199]剧院（例如国家剧院和皇家法院，它们通过政府机构英国艺术委员会获得公共资金），伦敦制作的大部分新剧都在此上演。其次，我确定了这种迟来的转变发生的情况，考虑到以任务为中心的群体，例如未来的补品和艺术总监在结构性歧视的更广泛背景下所扮演的角色。第三，我提出了两个案例研究，旨在阐明来自以前代表性不足的群体的艺术总监可能面临的各种挑战：第一个考虑艾玛·赖斯 (Emma Rice) 作为全球广告 (2016-18) 的短暂任期，第二个关注Indhu Rubasingham 将三轮车剧院重新命名为 Kiln（2018 年）。第四，我以对 2021 年形势的持续讨论作为结束，考虑到 Covid-19 大流行和 2020 年“黑人的命也是命”运动的复兴引起的文化叙事的转变。如果它能够表现出具有代表性和包容性，伦敦的剧院将继续在更广泛的英国文化发展中发挥进步作用；但如果失去了近年来的成果，它就会倒退到无关紧要的地步。

表现、艺术指导和变革

尽管本文特别关注艺术总监，但必须在英国戏剧、文化和社会中更广泛的代表性问题的背景下考虑对他们角色的讨论。正如爱丁堡大学文化与创意产业大臣戴夫·奥布赖恩 (Dave O'Brien) 所言，“戏剧声称自己是一种代表和反映社会的艺术形式。英国社会目前存在一系列社会分歧，远远超出了文化领域。因此，劳动力和戏剧观众的不平等应该不足为奇。英国戏剧和相关的表演艺术行业的特点是被性别、种族和阶级排斥。¹这种排除非常清楚地与过去的遗产有关。虽然已经明显偏离了殖民地英国的价值观，但当性别歧视和种族主义作为组织社会原则运作时，继承的社会态度和制度结构是广泛和持续的系统性歧视的原因，通过这些歧视，与英国帝国的不平等非常相似延续。[结束页...