In late June, Pride Films and Plays faced a wave of allegations on social media about the behavior of founder and executive director David Zak, leading to Zak’s resignation and the appointment of Donterrio Johnson as artistic director. In early November, Johnson resigned, charging that Zak was still in a hands-on role with the company (which, under Johnson, did rebrand itself as PrideArts).
According to Pride’s board president Cheri Tatar, Johnson was informed before he took the role of artistic director that Zak would still be involved behind the scenes. Tatar told me, “It was abundantly clear when I talked to [Johnson] that we had described the role that David would play and that we knew David wouldn’t be front of house anymore, nor would David be part of the artistic team. But David had a great deal of knowledge and a lot of people within our organization who were very positive about David and didn’t feel that his being pushed aside would have been correct.”
Before the Pride controversy erupted, Second City was in the spotlight for long-standing allegations from former BIPOC cast members about its failure to address institutional racism. In early June, as the George Floyd protests were taking place across the country, Second City’s longtime owner, CEO, and executive producer Andrew Alexander announced that he was leaving, and the organization brought in Anthony LeBlanc as interim executive producer.
The company still has a mainstage performance venue around the corner in the Broadway Armory, and their commitment to new work has moved online with the “New Frontier” series of digital plays in development. (The “Rough Cut” readings, part of that process, will be online free through their YouTube channel in December.) But the Frontier’s closing is a loss for the itinerant companies that rented there over the years.
In the press release, Colón noted, “This opportunity to collaborate with Congo is a meaningful personal milestone because Sam Roberson and I dreamed of many collaborations that we didn’t have time to see to fruition, but those that we did achieve changed the course of my life. Both on stage and in the streets, my work is rooted in nurturing and galvanizing the radical imagination. We are living in urgent and unprecedented political times and it’s my life work to creatively refract my unique frontline experience and illuminate the possibilities engendered by uprising.”
