I won't shout, but I feel something needs to be said: I have worked in NYC for 17 years and I hear over and over about "the Broadway community." But I'm not convinced such a thing exists, except perhaps among producers. There is, however, a "theatre community" that I love.

There are very few people who make their living exclusively from their work on Broadway. There are people who, in normal times, eke out a life in the theatre community. They may get Broadway shows, but they do Off-Broadway and regional, TV and film.

Those who speak of "the Broadway community" reinforce the idea that it is the work that plays in 40 theatres in NYC that is the most important or the best. Anyone who goes to theatre regularly knows that this isn't true.

Where a work of theatre plays is not an assurance of quality or integrity. Long-running Broadway shows may ultimately reach the most people and make those involved the most money, but those are economic statistics – they don't speak to forming "a community."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way bashing Broadway here. I'm just saying that there is a very wide-ranging discipline called theatre and it's actually bigger than Broadway. By saying charitable works are done by "The Broadway community" is a means of reinforcing branding.

I have never worked on Broadway, but I have made my life in the theatre. I got into this field because I loved it and I wanted to spend my life with the people who make it happen. It has been profoundly rewarding and I celebrate achievements on stages everywhere.

But I will not accept that there should be a particular prestige that attaches only to work on Broadway, and that once you have worked in those theatres you are somehow distinct from everyone who hasn't. At a time when the entire live performing arts field is in crisis...

...it benefits no one to lift one segment of workers above others. Our audiences come from high school shows and community theatres, our artists come from colleges and universities. Those arenas are essential. And regional theatre and Off-Broadway (and Off-Off)?

Without the work of our not-for-profit/institutional theatres Broadway would be an infinitely less varied place. For decades, some of the best work on Broadway has been created elsewhere and, by luck, effort, and money, reached Broadway.

How we make theatre is fundamentally the same at every level: a script, a company, design, an audience. The main difference is economics. But the people of theatre? They are all bound together by the art, by their passion, and by love for the work and for each other.

The field has a great deal of work to do, in terms of gender equity, racial, ethnic, age & disability equity and diversity. Every level of theatre has to change. While there is certainly an economic value to that, it has more to do with becoming and being a better community.

That work can't be defined by real estate or it will falter. It requires a collective consent by everyone in "the theatre community" to address its systemic failings. Let's focus less on glamour and the supposed glory it reflects. Let's be a better theatre community.

And for goodness sakes, let's stop creating divisions among ourselves. All Broadway is theatre, but there's plenty of theatre that isn't Broadway. Shouldn't we focus on, and define ourselves, by the one which is most inclusive? We are all in this together.