Young Vic 'Tree' Scandal

The fact that they've dared to go public, though, makes me believe there's something in it, and I wonder if social media could be a gamechanger with regards to this sort of thing. I know many people working in the arts/media, myself included, who have experienced something similar to varying degrees but haven't wanted to complain for fear of harming future prospects and anyway, we didn't have the means in pre-Twitter days.

I don't think it's correct to say that the YV hasn't denied the complaints. The YV statement says "Whilst we appreciate that they were involved in exploring ideas for a project based on Idris’ original concept, the truth of the matter is that MIF and Green Door did not feel their proposed direction was artistically viable. It was decided by these producers that the show needed to go in a very different direction with a new writer attached, using Idris Elba’s original concept as the starting point." They then say that they reached out to the writers about the new direction, but this wasn't accepted. Whether this was done in a fair or legal manner or not may be open to debate, but so far as I can tell, we can't yet be sure which side is correct here.

In any case, my feeling is that you're being slightly unfair in dismissing the rebuttal as 'legalistic and aggressive'. The Young Vic is a formal organisation, which means that their communication, even on ostensibly more informal tools like Twitter is different to two upcoming writers writing something for a website. Not least because any Tweets could presumably form part of legal discussions which may follow. A more friendly tone may be nicer, but if they truly are not at fault, then they may not want to make a statement that could later negatively affect them. Similarly, Kwame is writing from his position in the organisation, not simply as a member of the public. I mean, this is why in most of our jobs we might not be able to speak/email with clients/customers/whatever with the same freedom as you do while with your friends.

Don't get me wrong, I accept that on the whole Twitter allows people with less power to make their grievances heard by the wider public as noted by crowblack . And I accept that it may be in this instance that the YV/Kwame are at fault. However, my point is simply that the stuff we pick up from these things (it's too cold, too legal, they should respond more quickly, etc.) isn't necessarily a reflection of the underlying ethical & legal issues at hand: The tone of a tweet has no real bearing on which side is right here.

Perhaps we're seeing the beginning of something similar to the Harvey Weinstein effect we saw a few years ago; of one voice leading to an outpouring of people speaking out.

Exactly. His status means he will have the mental advantage and being a man gives him a physical advantage.

He won't fight these women on the stage physically (imagine) but he certainly has more power than they do to get the right people on his side in.
I respect his journey but this is a man who has gone out of his way to appear to more ethnic than he really is. I suspect he didn't want this African story told by a white woman and a mixed race woman despite it not being his story to tell either.

I don't think race has anything to do with it. Don't really want to go down that road

I think race is key to this. Key to the production (Toni wrote it from personal experience), key to story Idris and Green Door wanted to tell and yes KKA as one of the leading BME faces of a large theatre.

The expectations on him as a black man in theatre are far greater than on him as a Black AD. If he doesn't play the game or in this case plays the game badly and get a caught that will be far harder to come back from than if he was a white man. I find his response disappointing. He speaks non-specifically about his record with female creatives but I am sure he treats his equals well. His disrespect for these women is apparent; even down to the disregard of their work in his statement.

Will this be his downfall. Not directly but if it causes the floodgates to open then expect a resignation. This is terrible for the YV's image

The YV has come out of scandals unscathed before. It's not been that many years since there were threats of boycotts over staff treatment. People have short memories.

Like clockwork, I’ve head a DM threatening to ban me, KKA is it you?

100% this.

The only 'evidence' in the public domain are the various statements which have been issued today. These indicate that whilst there is clearly disagreement about the events which led to the original concept being jettisoned and replaced by the current incarnation - the only party which has involved been since the original commission to now is Green Door Films aka Idris Elba.

It would seem that the commission was between Tori, Sarah and Green Door Films, though it's unclear exactly what the terms of that commission were - and this may be key to the expectations that each of the parties had about any subsequent reworking of the project.

Somewhere along the line the Manchester International Festival joined Green Door (Idris Elba) as lead producer and together decided that the work was not progressing in the right direction and invited Kwame Kwei-Armah and the Young Vic to help develop the project and become a third lead producer - and presumably a new contract was drawn up. Here's where it gets a bit messy - and without seeing contracts difficult to know where responsibility lies - but lots of one-to-one conversations and three person meetings seemed to take place - but the planned creative get-together of all four leading players never took place. Then people said that they wouldn't meet with each other - and it's almost impossible from the evidence which is out there to actually work out who was the first one to say 'no I'm not meeting'. Then Tori and Sarah were removed from the project. And somewhere in the middle of all of this the MIF and the YV announced the project - billed as "Created by Idris Elba & Kwame Kwei-Armah" - with Idris describing Kwame in the MIF press release as "a writer with such tremendous vision"

So what we're left with is an unholy mess with lots of finger pointing, people who are understandably aggrieved, lawyers making money, a company of actors currently in Manchester fine-tuning a production and finding themselves in the eye of a storm, a leading London theatre looking rather less welcoming than it would like to be and social media going into meltdown - based on potentially unreliable narrators (on all sides).

As noted above this wouldn't be the first time creative teams have changed during the development process (for example, Disney sacked the director of Frozen after a series of workshops) and along the Cut in 2002 the Old Vic announced that Matthew Warchus would be taking over as Artistic Director in due course - only to find himself deleted from that part of the theatre's history when in 2003 Kevin Spacey was introduced in a blaze of fireworks as the new AD.

Of course that doesn't justify any wrongdoing that took place in this instance - I just don't think it's clear (or at least on the information which is out there) what exactly the wrongdoing is, who was responsible and where the buck stops. Is it breach of contract, is it poor communication, is it IPR theft, is it the patriarchy in full swing or is it a lack of human decency? And who made the ultimate call - Idris, John McGrath from MIF, Kwame - or everyone - or no-one and it's an inevitable part of a creative process?

I'm sure the story will continue to run and further details will be revealed. For now it's all rather unsavoury - and counter to the cozy picture theatre likes to paint of being a collaborative, friendly environment - which is clearly a dramatic construct in itself rather than reality - as this, and lots of other recent offstage happenings, seem to suggest.