Our Anti-Racism work is ongoing. Here are our commitments to ensure a safe and equitable environment for our community of employees, artists, patrons, and other guests.
Internal Accountability
Establish and publicize anti-racism policies.
Include anti-racism policies as part of visiting companies’ license agreements.
Uphold employee accountability to Anti-Racism practices, which will also be reviewed in annual performance evaluations.
Create a Community Code of Conduct for our staff, visiting artists and patrons.
Implement our Community Code of Conduct with a proactive and corrective approach to address racially charged and insensitive behaviors in regards to BIPOC artists/staff.
Ensure our Community Code of Conduct is adhered to by acknowledging harm, holding ourselves accountable and learning from our mistakes.
Read our Community Code of Conduct at quarterly staff meetings and distribute to our board.
Educate visiting companies on our Community Code of Conduct, requiring they be distributed to and acknowledged by all personnel.
Annually audit and adjust our Community Code of Conduct and policies to ensure they align with our Anti-Racist commitments.
Transparency
Conduct and publish a vendor audit of all existing service and purchasing relationships.
Publicly state the composition of visiting companies artistic, creative, and administrative staff.
Create goals toward and annually publish an audit of the makeup of visiting companies.
Publicly posting our policies for visiting companies to understand our commitment to our anti-racism action plan.
Training
Quarterly Anti-Racism and Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility (IDEA) training, including bystander intervention, de-escalation, and conflict resolution training provided to theatre personnel (including ushers, front of house, box office, bar staff, etc.) with emphasis on Anti-Racism, Implicit Bias, and Anti-Oppression
Provide funds, space and time for staff to continue the development of staff-led IDEA education (affinity groups, anti-racism book club, etc.).
Introduce agenda items to our staff meeting/monthly department meetings/board meetings related to IDEA/anti-racist check-ins and updates.
Implement a clear onboarding and training period for all new hires, with time to review the employee handbook.
Recruitment
Hiring practices will foster true and honest intersectionality, meeting our IDEA commitments.
Continue to practice transparent hiring practices including posting salary for all positions in the organization.
Commit to widen the candidate pools to include a greater percentage of BIPOC candidates by:
Working with search firms or recruiters that have a proven track record in finding and recruiting BIPOC talent to replace all open positions.
Reviewing job descriptions to pinpoint and mitigate the potential for harmful bias; ensuring that descriptions exclude language, such as “years of experience” and “higher education” and focuses on required skills for specific positions.
Advertising outside of traditional arts employment boards to attract candidates with skills from a variety of backgrounds.
Commit to expand the network of BIPOC overhire staff, crew, and stage managers available for seasonal hiring.
Recognition/Marketing
Prioritize resources to support long-term community engagement and audience development strategies to expand our patron base to better reflect the diverse population of our city, including , but not limited to, hiring BIPOC consultants or audience development professionals who know how to engage with the desired community the work seeks to serve.
Continue to provide press and marketing resources to ensure that BIPOC driven shows reach their intended audience.
Hire culturally competent facilitators for BIPOC stories at talkbacks.
Continue to properly credit BIPOC marketing consultants, PR teams and theatremakers in all marketing collateral (print, electronic, etc.) on individual shows.
Programming
Commit to new programs that will expand our network of BIPOC theater companies with whom we will partner to develop and present work in our theaters.
Require that visiting companies publicly identify their administrative, artistic and creative staffing.
Ensure that visiting companies understand how to manage and report IDEA centered tensions. It is the collective obligation of 59E59 to address and resolve any concerns raised in the reporting process.