COLLEGE PARK, MD.: In October, University of Maryland’s DeVos Institute of Arts Management released its “Diversity in the Arts” study, which compared the economics of African-American and Latino theatres, museums, and dance companies to mainstream ones. Among the findings, pictured below, was that mainstream theatres have substantially higher revenue relative to expenses. The study goes on posit that when mainstream arts theatres program diverse plays, they effectively siphon funding and audiences away from theatres of color.

“Funders would rather give money to a white theatre doing a black play than a black theatre doing a multiracial play,” said Michael Dinwiddie, president of the Black Theatre Network, in the study. He attributed this tendency to the “perverse notion we have in this country that people are being reverse-racist by creating their own cultural institutions.”

Read the “Diversity in the Arts” study here.