No Book Bans

During the week, The Outsiders will sponsor a book drive and encourage audience members to contact their Congressional representatives regarding the Books Save Lives Act, unveiled by Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley in 2023. Finally, the week will culminate in a post-performance talk back following the evening performance on Saturday, September 28, moderated by the show's Tony Award-winning director Danya Taymor, featuring Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Nick Higgins (Chief Librarian at Brooklyn Public Library), Dan Novack (Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Penguin Random House) and others.

Support the Book Save Lives Act

Broadway Licensing Global is the first theatrical publisher to join No Book Bans with a strong statement against book and play bans, as well as offering resources to their artists and those who license their work.

No Book Bans is proud to endorse Representative Ayanna Pressley’s Books Save Lives Act. Want your theatre or organization to join us in supporting this important legislation? Reach out so we can support you!

Join us and sign our statement:

As members of the Theatre for Young Audiences community, we make works about, with, and for young people – and we must actively oppose any effort to ban that art from young people.

We hold a unique responsibility to our audience members and young artists because we are often their first exposure to live theatre. We know from experience the sparks of joy, creativity, and empowerment that are kindled when we see ourselves authentically reflected on stage.

To pass that power and joy on to the next generation, we make art that both reflects children’s own experiences and art that engages them with experiences they hadn’t previously considered. And sometimes, we make art that helps children imagine paths and worlds they never have before, art that inspires them to take charge of the creation of such new possibilities.

For the sake of young people and the new possibilities they create for our future, we cannot stand by as bans on books spread across the country. Frequently, the books being targeted were created by historically marginalized and oppressed people – sending a message that these stories are unworthy of being included in art AND that their very existence, and thus the existence of the people who tell them, is wrong. Erasing historically marginalized and oppressed people from being seen is an act of violence.

We believe that making space for authentic, diverse stories sends a message of love, whether on the stage or the bookshelf.

We support children’s access to work that rejoices at the exploration and understanding of one’s unique identity – that opens readers’ eyes to a place in a bigger world – that celebrates the joy of all people by including Black joy, the joy of Indigenous people and people of color, the joy of LGBTQIA+ people, Latine joy and Asian joy, Muslim joy and Jewish joy, disabled joy, and immigrant joy. We support children’s access to art that reminds them of their own power.

Some of these stories deal with discrimination and racism – and that may make audience members feel discomfort at the actions of others, their own actions, or the state of the world. However, the acts of creating and experiencing art – as a writer, artist, reader, or audience member – provide a framework for bravely exploring new ideas and processing the discomfort inherent in challenge and growth.

It is in this way that art serves its most noble function: to open our eyes and hearts to other people, other cultures, other perspectives, and to our own identities - and in doing so, lessen the distance between human beings. Inclusive art invites us to be better at caring for each other.

We stand against the banning of art and invite you to join us in opposing these bans. We offer some ideas for how you can do so:

• Sign on to this statement, share it with your networks, or create and share your own version
• Consider your season selection; are members of all of your communities represented in your season? Do the people and stories targeted by book bans have places in your season? Bans target people and their stories; you don’t have to adapt a book that has been targeted by a ban to tell a story by and about people who are being targeted by those bans.
• Consider representation in traditional stories. Can you keep stories from the canon and update them in partnership with the communities you serve, so that everyone is reflected?
• Consider your community; are people from historically marginalized communities welcomed and celebrated in your spaces as leaders, artists, staff, audience members and students?
• Does your community have the tools they need to advocate to their elected officials? Can you support their advocacy with templates, contact information, voting rights information, and information about legislation being drafted and voted on that impacts your community?
• Connect your community with the local non-profits and mutual aid groups that are directly providing aid for people from marginalized backgrounds to care for their physical and mental health, safety, comfort, access to human rights, and advocacy needs.