Why
TCG is the largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature in North America and TCG Books was founded on the conviction that plays are literature and worthy of the same resources, respect, and critical attention as any other literary form. TCG titles range from a who’s who of contemporary playwrights, anthologies of culturally diverse plays, and resource materials for theatre professionals. As a publisher of new plays and emerging playwrights, TCG Books has a dual objective: to bring new literary voices to public attention and to cultivate individual relationships with its playwrights that nurture their careers. TCG is committed to keeping its playwrights in print.
To that end, the goal of this project is to increase access to dramatic literature for a significant number of individuals and emphasize the play as a rich and contemporary form of literature, as well as to more accurately reflect the diversity of contemporary writers included in drama collections.
In a report published by the National Endowment for the Arts, the number of adults reading plays increased by nearly 1% to 8.8 million in 2017. The NEA attributed these gains to an uptick in the percentage of readers who are women, Hispanic, African American, and in the 35 - 44 year-old age range. The appetite for reading plays is present, and the people reading these works are representing an increasingly diverse public. Furthermore, when theatres and performance spaces were shuttered due to COVID-19, reading plays served as a primary vehicle for the work of playwrights to reach the public.
In 2018, School Library Journal released the results of its diversity survey and confirmed that 81% of school librarians surveyed felt that it was “very important to have a book collection representing different points of view.” Since then, many school librarians have gone through the process of auditing their collections.
In the survey, librarians stressed the importance of providing opportunities for all students to find mirrors and windows in their libraries. In creating a collection that is as diverse as possible, a goal is for Black, Indigenous and all People of Color (BIPOC) students to have access to books where they see themselves and their experiences reflected. At the same time, providing books for white students about experiences different from their own is one of the most effective ways to encourage empathy and develop unbiased attitudes. While the library study focused on race/ethnicity, representation is equally important to those in LGBTQ+, disability, and rural communities.