Q&A: Sierra Porter '22 On Lifting Black Experiences In Entertainment Industry

Palo Alto CA

18 August, 2021

1:55 PM

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By Peter Pu, The Stanford Daily August 16, 2021 The Daily sat down with Sierra Porter '22, a Lyric McHenry Community Arts Fellow. Fellows work with organizations to promote social justice with art. Porter worked from June 14 to Aug. 20 with The Fire This Time Festival, founded by playwright Kelley Girod in 2009. Its mission is to provide opportunities for African and African American playwrights to showcase diverse perspectives. Porter has previously worked with the Stanford department of Theater and Performance Studies on productions including "Godot Has Come" and "Revival." The Stanford Daily [TSD]: Prospective fellows have to indicate where they want to work in applying for the Lyric McHenry Community Arts Fellowship. Why did you specifically choose to work with The Fire This Time Festival? Sierra Porter [SP]: In winter, I worked on StageCast with Michael Rau, who is one of the directors at Stanford, and within this production was a play called the Loup Garou, which was written by Kelley Girod, and she is the founder of the The Fire this Time Festival. Michael was telling me such great things about her and how they met and how she was really influential in his artistic path, and so I wanted to know more about her and the work she's doing and more about the festival, because he told me that might be a really good match for me. And so I looked into it, and I read about her work. And I was like, "Wow, this is amazing. This is definitely something I want to do and be a part of and contribute to." And so I reached out to Kelley, and we met and we were on such great energy. TSD: Can you talk about your work and what you hoped to accomplish this summer at The Fire This Time Festival? SP: The Fire This Time is a theater company that gives visibility to Black playwrights and to the entertainment industry, and so part of what I'm doing is trying to assist in the projects that they take on. Right now, we are partnering with CTG, which is Center Theater Group, and we are doing a thing called "Not a Moment, But a Movement." We are discussing the Black experience in America. This came up after 2020 with heavy, heavy anti-Black sentiment, a lot of racial violence and killing of Black people. That helps Black people and also the whole community to take a stand. To put on productions that reflect the sentiment that what happened before, everyone's going to protest and speak up about this issue, it wasn't just a trend. This is a movement. This is long term. And we want to stay in that movement by putting out art that provokes dialogue with people. TSD: Can you give some specific examples of plays you worked on? SP: The most recent one that came out is "The Duat." We're still virtual, so I have not gone anywhere. I was doing editing, giving critiques, criticisms before it goes out, and then what I am doing for the theatre company separately — which is like less on the artistic side — is I am working on a handbook to discuss the accessibility measures being taken to make sure the theater is comfortable for everyone, as well as setting expectations, roles, and just the general workflow of The Fire This Time. And I love the work because it allows me to interview people, to get their experience, to know "here are some things that maybe need to be changed," or "here's some things that really worked well." That's what I'm hoping to produce by the end of the summer. TSD: As one of the goals of the fellowship is to promote social justice with art, how does the plays you worked on contribute to that? SP: We have been discussing systemic racism and how that prevails in just about all different aspects of life, including the entertainment industry. It's very noticeable that you will not see as many dark-skinned women in plays or to notice that the plays that are being done by certain top names will be by a lot of white playwrights and not with people of color. Our point is to provide visibility to these Black playwrights and allow these Black stories to be heard. There's that little tag that people put sometimes [on Instagram], where it says "Black stories" in it. The work that we're doing is giving these Black playwrights a chance to pursue their dreams, pursue their careers that they want. And for them to know that we believe in them. We know that they can do this. TSD: What are some of your main takeaways? What have you learned from this experience? SP: The art and entertainment industry has so much room to grow. There are really small measures that can be taken to be more inclusive of all people. It is recognizing that we are not perfect, recognizing that, "Hey, we as a company have some flaws. We as an industry have a lot of flaws." And not being upset with ourselves and being like, "Okay, how can we change them," is something that I'm really into. An example of this is having a sign language interpreter at a performance, something that can help people in the audience but is not necessarily for everyone. So making sure we're making theater accessible to all people, that includes people with disabilities and people of marginalized identities. The second thing is art cannot be forced. It wasn't until this past week that I was able to get in the creative zone to actually write something. And it's really tough because being in New York City: There's a lot of movement, everything's moving really quickly. The weeks fly by, and I haven't had time to be still and ground myself. I had the chance to do that last week, and then the ideas were flowing. It's really interesting how when I didn't expect it to happen, it happened. We all like to create, we all want to make art, but it happens in its own time. It shouldn't be forced because there's beauty in the journey of getting to it. The Stanford Daily is the independent, student-run newspaper of Stanford University. Read more of their stories at StanfordDaily.com.