Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

QUITE SIMPLY ... IT'S THE BEST BUSINESS MODEL
Dr. Myrton Running Wolf's practice-based research demystifies the creative process of film, television, and theater production. Often, artistic creativity is celebrated as elusive god-given talent. This romantic mindset ignores education and hard work and preserves Broadway's and Hollywood's exclusive corporate environments that reject minority inclusion and participation.

Recent studies prove the opposite. Film, television, and theater made by multi-racial creative teams (actors, directors, writers, producers, etc.) generate larger audiences, ticket sales, and returns-on-investment. Minorities purchase more media content than any other demographic. Since these are our nation's fastest growing populations, it simply makes better business sense to produce films, television shows, and live theater aimed at including ethnic diversity.

Don't we have enough "politically correct" diverse mainstream media production? Sadly, no. Those same recent studies also prove that after decades of calling for diversity in Hollywood, media content is more segregated and in need of better racial and gender inclusion. These are deep ethical and moral challenges that require balancing comedy and drama, character and story, artistic intention and audience impact.

So how can we accomplish this? How can mainstream media makers access these new audiences and shifting demographics? 
PEOPLE LIKE TO SEE THEMSELVES IN MOVIES, ON TELEVISION, AND ON STAGE. Audiences enjoy watching original content that reflects their families, life experiences, and neighborhoods. Leaning on practice-based research and professional experience, Myrton's revolutionary creative model utilizes teams of talented professional artists who know these minority populations intimately, who come from these cultures. They talk-the-talk because they've walked-the-walk. Myrton's "Design Thinking: Radical Collaboration" methodology transcends race and gender divisions using intense cross-cultural and interdisciplinary brainstorming sessions. Unconventional ideas are built on, nurtured, and pushed in revolutionary directions. This systematic and time-tested approach is easy to understand and currently being implemented throughout our nation's growing technology sectors. 
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Brainstorming flowchart for the award-winning ALCATRAZ: ART BEHIND BARS
Difficult social issues often make growing audiences across racial boundaries seem impossible. Myrton sees these challenges as strengths - fertile ground for story creation. He believes that time and talent are too valuable to waste learning obsolete production practices still used by old-fashioned Hollywood studios.

ALCATRAZ: ART BEHIND BARS

Co-Directed, Produced, and Written by Myrton Running Wolf
Dining Hall - Choreographed by Dexandro "D" Montalvo.
Hospital Ward - Choreographed by Mary Carbonaro.

Film/Television/Theater Production - "Design Thinking" & Performance Studies

"Design Thinking" is more than computer science and engineering. "Performance Studies" is more than leisure entertainment. Both of these fields impact our world in profound ways that push the human race forward. This is our new reality. Myrton's work integrates emerging technologies with advanced performance theory to create brilliant theater events and film/television productions that tackle big issues using gusty showmanship.

Cross-Cultural/
​Interdisciplinary Theory

"Well, okay, so we have a severe lack of diversity in mainstream media production ... but aren't there more important problems in the world?" 

Actually, Black Lives Matter, Covid-19, 911, the Civil Rights Movement, Baltimore, Ferguson, immigration, and Middle East conflicts prove the opposite - cultural and racial clashes have been with us for generations. The stories we tell on film, television, and theater stages dramatically impact the ways we see ourselves, the ways we see others, and the ways others see us. These stories can be ambitious "Creative Solutions" or they can be bitter "Negative Reactions." Myrton's research spells out exactly how entertainment and storytelling can repair our conflicted world. 

Publications

Clear, Concise, and Intelligent Straight-Talk: Myrton's acclaimed academic writings on Native American, African American Asian American, and Latino/a cultural performance looks at our world's most complicated race issues. By asking the difficult questions that go to the heart of the problem, his work generates real-world workable solutions and effective results.
Select Bibliography:
  • "Loose Production but great cause!" - Review of Communication
  • "Real Indians Don't Do Shakespeare" - The Stanford Global  Shakespeare Encyclopedia
  • "Taurie Kinoshita's 'One Comedy of Erras'" - The Stanford Global Shakespeare Encyclopedia
  • "Thank you, Adam Sadler & Co., for giving us a Native American Rosa Parks moment" - Native Apparitions: Critical Perspectives on Hollywood's Indians 

Teaching

Myrton's award-winning classroom instruction is strong coffee. On the first day of classes he tells students, "I hate teaching because I'm not a good teacher but I love sharing knowledge, growing in understanding, and geeking out." Students love it.

Read Some Samples

Thank you, Adam Sandler & Co., For Giving Us A Native American Rosa Parks Moment

Dr. Running Wolf's response to celebrity actor/producer Adam Sandler's creation of female American Indian characters named "No Bra," "Sits-On-Face," and "Squats-While-Pissing" that spurred several indigenous actors to walk off the set. This essay included in Native Apparitions: Critical Perspectives on Hollywood's Indians, Eds. Steve Pavlik, Tom Holm, and M. Elise Marubbio.

Classes Include:

Actor/Director Dialogue
Acting for the Camera
Acting for Non-Majors
Human Centered Design: Cross-Cultural Collaboration
Independent Black Cinema
Introduction to Narrative Filmmaking
Race, Gender, and Media
ReDesigning Theater
Theater Diversity

The Eradication of the Lakota Heyoka (and other American Indian Sacred Clowns)

Comedy and humor are sacred traits of many Native American cultures. Non-Native imagines have erased these revered practices.
WINNER
Stanford's 18th Annual John Milton Oskison Academic Essay Writing Competition.