Megwyn Sanders-Andrews

In 2023, four years after the New York Times had declared that the gates had been flung open for diverse leaders at regional theatres, and the same year American Theatre Magazine profiled a cohort of leaders of color navigating upheaval at theatres across the U.S., I was hired, as a white woman, at a regional theatre, in a leadership position, in Milwaukee, Wis. None of those individuals, profiled by the NYT and American Theatre Magazine, remain with their respective theatres. Nor do I. I...

There’s a moment near the end of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time —the stage adaptation—that still sits with me. Christopher, a 15-year-old boy coded as autistic, has done something monumental: he traveled to London on his own, solved the mystery of who killed Wellington (the dog), found his mother, survived a sensory and emotional gauntlet, and wrote a book about it. And then he asks the question that lands like a dare: “Does that mean I can do anything?” In the production I...

Representation shapes real lives. Casting artists with disabilities, avoiding dehumanizing tropes, and judging work by community-grounded aesthetics creates theatre that respects—and reflects—our full humanity.