| After nearly three months on paid
administrative leave, Jacqueline
Moscou has returned to her post as
artistic director of Seattle’s Langston
Hughes Performing Arts Center — a
supposed triumph that one of Moscou’s
many supporters in the arts community
questions.
The Seattle Parks Department, which
oversees the historic Central District theater,
put Moscou on leave back in October,
accusing the Black playwright and director
of creating a racially divided atmosphere
(“Langston Hughes Director Fights for
Theater’s Soul,” Dec. 19-25).
Moscou and her supporters have attributed
the tension, in part, to the Parks
Department’s failure to make Langston’s
artistic and managing directors the equals
they would be at other theaters — with
Moscou still reporting to managing director
Manuel Cawaling. But Parker Wolf, a
stagehand who once worked at Langston,
says it was Cawaling and another staff
member, Naho Shioya, who created the
toxic environment in the first place by
constantly “badmouthing” Moscou.
Cawaling says he has already been
cleared of that charge by a consultant
that Parks hired to investigate the matter
last year.
“This has been a very difficult time for
everyone and there are a lot of hurt feelings
on all sides,” he says. “To single myself or
Naho out is unfair and is not supported by
the process that looked into this,” including
a report issued by the consultant.
In January, the Parks Department hired
a new operations director, Vivian Phillips, to
oversee all of the theater’s staff this year.
Part of her job, says Parks spokesperson
Dewey Potter, will be to address issues of
racism at Langston Hughes, but, for her
part, Wolf isn’t holding out much hope.
“Even though Jackie has returned to the
building, there have been no real changes
and the hostility toward her remains,” Wolf
says. “The Parks Department has not even
attempted to fix the real problems.” |
