WHAT’S TO CELEBRATE?

I used to love the Sunday Calendar, but I have become totally sick of being fed article after article where artists are grouped according to race, gender or sexual orientation, and then are described as creating their art for a similarly characterized audience. I have read about Latino-based films, black theater, Native American painters and about a lesbian playhouse where the director requires that all playwrights be lesbian (Theater Notes, by Don Shirley, June 5).

My point--and I certainly hope it’s not misunderstood--is that I want to read about Art, in all its manifestations; to be analyzed, praised and criticized by The Times’ critics.

What some see as a celebration of diversity, I view as a particularly divisive implication: that members of a minority group can only appreciate art that is carefully designed to appeal to their specific sensibilities. If that is truly the case, then we are hopelessly divided as a city and nation, unwilling to transcend our personal identities to convey and confront the universal truths that it is Art’s responsibility to express.

WILLIAM PLATT

Sherman Oaks

As a former board member and artistic director of Celebration Theatre, I have a different experience of the theater’s history than that of either Robert Schrock or Marian Jones. My involvement was in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. At that time, the board was gender-balanced and the theater stuck to a strict regimen of alternating gay and lesbian plays. Contrary to the picture being painted, more often than not the lesbian plays were the moneymakers. Other theaters also had successful runs of lesbian plays. This makes it hard to understand why Schrock and Jones feel there is no lesbian audience.

Celebration Theatre came into existence so that gays and lesbians had a place where they could work as artists, and attend theater where their experiences were reflected on stage. Both the Celebration and the Ivy seem more interested in cultivating a mainstream audience. Maybe redirecting their respective missions might loosen up lesbian checkbooks.

MICHELLE MINDLIN

West Hollywood