“If life worked like theatre, 4 out of 5 things you had ever heard would have been said by men.”
- M A R S H A N O R M A N
what we stand for
Our mission is to provide a platform for women, trans, and gender non-conforming musical theatre book writers, composers, and lyricists to share their work, so that our industry more accurately reflects all perspectives, stories, and experiences. To be a cis women-led organization in the musical theater industry is a radical act to begin with, but that is just the start. It is of the utmost importance to The Sappho Project to expand in a way that highlights the stories of trans and gender non-conforming artists as well as Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
These steps are a part of our founding goals:
Build a board of individuals who are deeply in alignment with the mission to bring gender equity to musical theater.
Engage in bias trainings - starting specifically with Ericka Hart’s Gender 101 and Racial and Social Justice 101 Webinars.
Prioritize highlighting and hiring BIPOC artists and professionals.
Fully compensate every collaborator for their work.
Create accountable anti-racist work spaces.
Invest in stories and artists who tell stories that have the potential to dismantle oppressive ideas and ideologies.
Revel in the joy of profound musical theater.
Prioritize working as a community to harness the power of the collective over prioritizing individual ideas.
Accountability
The world of musical theater cannot change unless we question the impact of every decision we make. These commitments are a living document, and through rigorous, critical, and empathetic reflection, we will continue to learn as we grow, and act as we are able. We invite members of our community to reach out to us by email at thesapphoproject@gmail.com to keep the conversation going.
meet the team
Meet the Team (slider)
a bit about sappho
Who is Sappho?
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet. She was part of the lyric tradition, which means that her words were written to be sung to the lyre. She is one of the oldest known female musical songwriters in the western tradition, though her work has only survived in fragments.
Sappho was also queer. She lived on the island of Lesbos (where the word “lesbian” derives from), where she ran what many believe was a school for young women. Though Sappho’s poetry spoke of queerness, womanhood, otherhood and visibility, it was not defined solely by these “identities." Sappho wrote freely about the life she lived, and the world she lived in. These themes of queerness, womanhood, otherhood, and visibility are most likely why pop culture, art, and activist movements invoke her as a muse.
Why Sappho?
At The Sappho Project, we wanted to translate Sappho’s existence and importance in her era to whom we consider the modern day “Sapphos.” In an industry that has grown more and more accepting of the diversity of identity onstage, there still remain so many barriers to entry for women, transgender, and gender non-conforming composers, lyricists, and book-writers. The work now is to build the representation into a fundamental transformation of the stories the industry chooses to tell.
While more openly queer and increasingly racially diverse shows have found their way to Broadway over the years, the writing teams behind commercial hits remain overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly cis male.
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality scholars explain to us at length how the work of women, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists have been left out of the narrative. It is the gendered power dynamic in knowledge - in academia - that laid the groundwork for the intentional loss of Sappho’s work, and for the stratification of gender to continue to negatively impact women, transgender, and gender non-conforming writers and creators. In a world where intersectional identities often have to pick between identities, the current system perpetuates the loss of their value to the cause as a whole.
So we support the modern day “Sapphos” – the multi-faceted, smart, creative composers, lyricists, and book-writers who are changing the landscape of musical theatre by writing the world that they see, feel, and live in, into musical existence. Women, transgender, and gender non-conforming artists have always been there. The w*rk has always been there. It’s time we make it seen.
black lives matter.
black trans lives matter.
At The Sappho Project, we stand in solidarity with all those fighting for justice for the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Nina Pop, and countless others. We grieve for all the black and brown lives lost due to the violent, systemic, state sanctioned racism and white supremacy.
We move forward with a strong commitment to building an anti-racist organization.
It is vital to acknowledge that the theatre industry and musical theatre art form were built within systems that privileged white cis male voices, and continue to uphold them. They were created by white people for white audiences. Beyond that, historically and currently, the theatre does so by taking from black voices and leaving those voices out of the narrative. Our art form exists because of the misappropriation of black culture.
It is not the job of the black and brown members of our community to educate white folks on this history that disproportionately affects BIPOC and benefits white folks.
We acknowledge our platform within this system and commit to do better to strive towards being an antiracist organization in the way we function internally and the work we develop by taking the following actions:
Listening to black folks, Indigenous folks, and people of color within our organization and communities.
Holding ourselves and our community accountable as we move forward by continuously educating ourselves and questioning the systems that we operate within and thereby choose to perpetuate.
Continuing to seek ways to dismantle oppressive structures that prioritize white cis male voices, specifically in what work gets the space to be developed and produced.
Committing to anti-racism training internally.
Developing work by BIPOC artists.
Bringing visibility to the BIPOC artists fighting for justice and creating work that needs to be seen.
In order to seek liberation for any one group, we must seek liberation for all.
Black art matters. Black lives matter. Black trans lives matter.
We will not stay silent.
With Solidarity and Love,
The Sappho Project
donors
Founding Donor:
Mark Wilkins
Pillar Donor:
Dick Russell
Steven Cox
Jo and Gary Young
The Goggin Family
Frank & Denise Coco
Base Donor:
Tim Norman
Asha Wills
Nicholas Hammond
Neale Godfrey
John Craig Brinkman
Jody Monson
Douglas Duckett
Mary Madeline DelPonti
Madeleine Spacapan
Ron Baker
Stephanie Campbell
Amy Chiang
Asha Saxena
Fred and Barbara Cummings
The ATTN Center
