Hi lovely TCTB followers,
We're passing along a message we received today from the folks organizing the MN Theater Awards. For reasons they explain below, they are re-opening ballots until his Friday, September 14th at midnight. We at TCTB think that it is a good thing that they are calling out the lack of diversity among people voting and insisting on the need to "give everyone a chance to help represent the community." Please give them a read. - TCTB
Dear MN Theater Community,
We first want to thank all of you who have participated thus far in including your voice in the MN Theater Awards. From town halls to email conversations to submitting nominations, we’ve heard you, and we appreciate all of your input.
We have tallied the ballots, and are extremely concerned about the narrow scope of the results and the limited number of votes submitted. Approximately 90% of ballots came from people who self-identified as white performers and the top results in almost every category centered on the same four theaters.
Simply put, these results do not fully represent the Minnesota theater community.
We knew that our biggest hurdle would be reaching across the breadth and depth of the theater community we love.
We tried our best to reach out, but we realize that despite our best efforts, we have failed.
Therefore, ballots have been reopened and they will be available until this Friday, September 14th at midnight.
We want to give everyone a chance to help represent the community. We implore you to help us spread this message so that we can add more nominations to the ones we already have. These awards were designed to be open to all, but they lack meaning if the entire community is not represented.
Visit this link to vote and share.
https://bit.ly/2CBZ01J
https://bit.ly/2CBZ01J
Sincerely,
Four Humors
Four Humors
Contact us at mntheaterawards@gmail.com