Jeremy O. Harris Pulls 'Slave Play's LA Season Over Lack of Diversity

After igniting and continuing conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion both on and off of Broadway stages, celebrated writer Jeremy O. Harris has announced that he is canceling an upcoming Los Angeles run of Slave Play, a production that brought his name to the fore.

"Dear all," he wrote in an email he screenshot and posted to Twitter. "I'm emailing to let you know the reason why I haven't shared much digital enthusiasm for the season."

The email was to the staff of Los Angeles's Center Theatre Group. Harris's Slave Play, which was the most nominated debut play in history when it went to the Tony's this year, was set to go up alongside Rajiv Joseph's King James and Dave Harris's Tambo & Bones. The run was supposed to be Slave Play's first outside of New York.

"As a playwright who holds dear the principles of both inclusion [sic] it was a shock to realize that this season was programmed with only 1 woman across all theatres," Harris wrote. The Group spans the Ahmanson Theatre, King Douglas Theatre, and Mark Taper Forum. "As an Angeleno and a lover of theatre, I think Los Angeles audiences deserve an equitable showing of the playwrights working in the U.S. right now.

"I've spoken to my team and would like to begin the process of removing Slave Play from the season at this time," Harris continued. "Hopefully in its place some young playwrights I love may be able to join the fold like: Celine Song, Tori Sampson, Alesha Harris, Claire Keichel, Antoinette Nwandu, Ming Pfeiffer, Whitney White, Clare Barron, Majkin Holmquist, Genne Murphy, Aziza Barnes, and so many more."

Prior to going to the West Coast for that season, Slave Play was already slated to return to Broadway in a limited run at August Wilson Theatre for eight weeks. It is set to open on December 2 there.

Center Theatre Group, which had been retweeting posts heralding the arrival of Slave Play to its theaters as late as four days ago, tweeted seemingly in response to Harris, but not directly to him.

"We understand your frustration, disappointment, and even anger in the scarcity of women's voices in the upcoming seasons," the group wrote to Twitter. "Although we have assembled a lineup featuring voices from many standpoints and identities, we acknowledge that we have fallen short of your expectations (and our own) in regards to gender equity, and for that, we apologize. We can and will do better. We will follow up with a more expansive statement from Michael Ritchie."

Ritchie is the outgoing artistic director of Center Theatre Group, set to retire at the end of the year.

On Monday Sarah Schulman, a noted writer and AIDS historian tweeted about the exclusion.

"I emerged as a playwright decades ago into a world of all-male, all-white seasons -- with all-male, all-white critics who were hostile to women writers who had perspectives different from the men who ran the world," she wrote in a thread. "Because we were initially dismissed by an inequitable system we have clouds hanging over our work."

"There are hundreds of women my age who never had a fair chance yet still create because we are playwrights in our souls," she wrote. "Today the Mark Taper Forum announced their new ten-play season in which the great Pearl Cleage is the only [woman] included. How can this still be? It is so depressing, stupid, and enraging. When is this going to end?"