Blog #4

Hello to all my followers! I have new and fun updates for you guys on what has been occurring here in the AP Research world.

SUMMARY: To give a little refresher to my project, I thought I would summarize the last couple of months for you! I initially began this project due to personal experiences I've encountered as an actress with the idea known as typecasting. Typecasting is basically the process of casting for a role because the actor or actress fits the type. This can cause misconceptions about theater and drive people of different races away. Therefore, I believed that researching high school productions, the location where many begin their journey finding their passion, would be the most beneficial. I decided to look at Douglas County District, El Paso County, and Cherry Creek County to see if different districts with different diversity statistics have any correlation to how diverse a cast is. Mountain Vista, Castle View, Vista Ridge, Cheyenne Mountain, Grandview, and Overland high schools were the schools I chose to receive cast lists and cast images of one past production from. Keep reading to see my results!

To continue with my last blog post, I had one major change I wanted to bring to attention before continuing. I decided to delete Cherry Creek High School as it wasn't beneficial data for my project. I had already received great collections with Overland and Grandview high school, and Cherry Creek high school ended up actually being a part of Arapahoe county, not Cherry Creek County. Therefore, I decided to delete it from my study.

RESULTS:

The moment you have all been waiting for...

The hypothesis I created going into the study was that districts with any percentage of POC/ethnic population would still end up producing theater productions that contained Caucasian casts. This is because I believe our society is concentrated on bias' leading us to stray away from many things. For theater, some individuals see it as a "white" thing, therefore, pushing POC individuals away. Whether it's because of conformity or a lack of diversity in Broadway/Hollywood, high school productions need to push towards bringing different ethnicities together.

To organize my data and analyze it in the most effective matter, I chose to conduct a visual assay. This uncommon statistical analysis is the best for comparing images to one another by creating your own scale to rate those images. In Figure 1, I have displayed my data table. As it is hard to see the scale I created, I will restate it:

0 = NO diversity 1 = < 50% diversity 2 = > 50% diversity

My data basically shows that Douglas County has very little to NO diversity included in its productions. El Paso County received a score of 1 meaning it has less than 50% of diversity in its productions, but still more than Douglas County. Cherry Creek County was ranked between 1 and 2 as Grandview high school had less than 50% diversity but Overland high school had more than 50% as it was the most diverse school I observed.

This data basically represents that my hypothesis was correct until I reached Overland high school. Looking back at the district shown in Figure 2, it is clear to see why Overland high school has a greater ethnic population included in its cast: there simply is more diversity to include.

CONCLUSION:

Ultimately, I have to reject my hypothesis as it was incorrect. In most cases, majority of high school shows do have a Caucasian cast, however, some schools with great percentages of diversities, will produce shows to accommodate those populations. I also found that Overland high school made sure to produce shows that are in fact written for a more black cast such as their 2022 production of Sister Act. Therefore, some schools, such as Overland high school, make sure to include a diverse range of shows to bring everyone together while other schools, like schools in Douglas County District, struggle to bring those communities together.

We have a lot of progress to make before we can reach a point where POC individuals are attracted to the theater industry instead of turned away.

I just recently was able to present my work and it went really well! Let's just say, I am beyond grateful to have been able to research a project I am passionate about and enjoy doing. I can't wait to finish this year strong. My next steps are to start working on my paper and preparing for the Research Symposium on April 27th which you are all welcome to come to. I hope to see you there, stay tuned! :)