Accountability

SEPTEMBER 2021 UPDATE

New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) strives to empower artists to explore boldly, to create joyfully, to ask challenging questions, and to make the space for audiences to contend with our pasts, our shared present, and to collectively envision our future. Working toward a more diverse, inclusive, equitable, and anti-racist community is the only way to actually achieve this. We cannot truly be the community we aspire to be without these efforts.

We’re grateful to those who’ve called us into difficult conversations to demand that we do better. We understand the vital importance of transparency in our work, and we want to acknowledge the tremendous labor of our colleagues—including Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Everybody Black, American Theatre Statement of Transparency, Broadway for Racial Justice, and many more—who are committed to holding the field and themselves accountable and who have provided perspectives that continue to shape our work.

In an effort to provide greater transparency ourselves, we’re continuing to publish updates with further commitments and the progress of our ongoing work.

ACCOUNTABILITY UPDATES:

• NYTW, in collaboration and consultation with our artistic community, will no longer include 10-out-of-12s in the tech rehearsal schedule. In addition, NYTW will continue to explore new ways to schedule rehearsals to improve the quality of life for our theatre artists and their families.
• NYTW established two new Open Office Hours programs:
• The Development Department offers complimentary 30-minute consultations to discuss fundraising topics including but not limited to giving levels and patron programs, annual appeal campaigns, grant writing, prospect research, special events, and board management.
• In addition, NYTW launched a listserv to notify folks in our community about funding opportunities. If you’d like to be added to this distribution list, please email development@nytw.org.
• The Artistic Department is exploring new ways to meet artists of all disciplines. With individual and group appointments, this program is designed as a free and open exchange of ideas, a space where NYTW Artistic Staff can learn about what you do and who you are—your experiences, visions and dreams as a person and as an artist—and begin the process of introducing ourselves and sharing our philosophies and practices. These meetings are not a place to evaluate work, nor are they auditions or job interviews, but instead a space where we can intentionally welcome transparency into the way we work and further a process of building community and cultivating relationships. Sign-ups are offered on a first-come, first-served basis with priority given to Black artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color.
• NYTW published a redesigned 2019/20 Annual Report to include progress updates on Anti-Racism and EDI work and to increase transparency in our budget, funding and audience reporting. In addition to sharing the annual report with our community, it will continue to be published year-round at NYTW.org.
• NYTW’s Audience Services team hosted conversations with members and donors around our Core Values and the Liz Lerman Critical Response Process. These community conversations are designed to deepen engagement and provide an active space for questions and dialogue.
• In addition, NYTW launched LetsChat@nytw.org to offer audiences a dedicated way to connect with us about our Core Values.
• NYTW implemented a new Applicant Tracking System to continue to enhance the recruitment and application process. This also helps to combat bias with collaborative recruitment.
• NYTW hired a new staff role, Human Resources Manager, who will lead the evaluation and updating of existing HR policies and practices and help to create new systems that lead to a healthy, supportive environment for all employees. The new HR Manager will lead the hiring process and ensure that NYTW is actively recruiting, hiring and supporting its team with Diversity and Inclusion at the forefront and continue to develop on-boarding and off-boarding processes to ensure smooth transitions. With the support of this new position, NYTW will continue to to refine and improve protocols for reporting incidents of racism at all levels of our organization to ensure a transparent chain of accountability and timely administrative responses.

OCTOBER 2020 UPDATE

For the last several years, we have been actively transforming our theatre, working to identify and dismantle White supremacy culture, anti-Blackness, and other forms of oppression. Our progress has not always been in a straight line. We have made mistakes along the way. As we have taken a hard look at our own practices and the systems we have participated in and benefited from as a predominantly White institution, we have seen that through our own actions and inaction, we have failed members of our community. We are grateful to those who have called us into difficult conversations to demand that we do better.

In January, our Core Team—a Staff task force that focuses on anti-racism and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) efforts and that operates outside of the hierarchical structure of the organization—began the work to develop an organization-wide plan of action to push NYTW further towards being a fully anti-racist organization. This summer, a group of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) theatre makers, collectively We See You, White American Theater, issued a “comprehensive but by no means exhaustive” list of demands with the goal of creating a truly anti-racist theatre community. We acknowledge the tremendous labor of our colleagues in gathering and disseminating these demands, and we thank them for it. The We See You demands both accelerated and provided an additional frame for our work over the last several months. In that time, the entire Staff and the Board of Trustees have worked point by point through the demands as we have continued to develop our overall anti-racist action plan.

In an effort to provide greater transparency for our entire community, we share these next steps. We will continue to publish updates in the coming months about further commitments and the progress of our ongoing work.

ACCOUNTABILITY UPDATES:

• NYTW is committed to disrupting harmful interactions in every context and to maintaining and expanding avenues for our community to share feedback on where we have fallen short. We will continue the process of sharing our Core Values with every member of our community and holding ourselves and our community accountable for acting in accordance with them. We will incorporate our Core Values—which include our commitment to anti-racism—into every first rehearsal and first technical rehearsal as well as at all full Board meetings, and we will publish them widely so they remain ever-present in our work. We will also expand existing group agreements for all meetings, talkbacks, and classes.
• NYTW redoubles its commitment to centering the needs of BIPOC generative artists, including hiring BIPOC casting directors, dialect coaches, dramaturgs, intimacy directors, and cultural consultants. In addition, we will ensure transparency for all of our collaborators by sharing the full existing list of creative and production team members when engaging anyone for a role on a production.
• NYTW is actively reviewing our artistic initiatives and will work in tandem with members of our artistic community to ensure that programs are serving artists equitably. As part of this process, we will host a series of roundtable discussions this winter.
• NYTW is committed to understanding, acknowledging, and addressing the violent history of the land on which we make our art. Beginning this season, we will incorporate a formal Native Land Acknowledgement into all of our public programming and Board meetings, and we will investigate and share an accounting of enslaved Africans who have lived and were forced into labor on the lands we now occupy.
• NYTW is committed to developing long-term, authentic relationships with BIPOC communities across New York City. In 2019, we added a full-time position dedicated to Community Engagement, and we will continue to increase the resources for this work in each annual budget, invest significant resources into outreach to BIPOC audiences for every production, and partner with BIPOC marketing and press consultants all year long.
• NYTW will continue to center BIPOC youth, their voices, and their leadership in all of our existing and future educational programs. We will continue to invest in these programs while we support and uplift the work of local civic leaders and activist artists who have been engaging and supporting communities of color for decades.
• NYTW commits to embracing a culture of abundance, supporting our fellow theatre makers in seeking funding opportunities, advocating for BIPOC theatres and theatres dedicated to centering marginalized voices, and offering the counsel of our Development Staff to help support the fundraising efforts of members of our community who have been systemically underfunded for generations.
• NYTW commits to reinvigorating our existing Company-in-Residence initiative to offer sustained resources inclusive of space, mentorship, and administrative support, prioritizing independent BIPOC theatre companies.
• NYTW commits to hiring culturally competent designers and wardrobe personnel and providing proper training around styling of Black hair, makeup, and costumes. In addition, NYTW commits to always actively engaging BIPOC actors in conversations around the styling of their characters’ wardrobe, hair, and makeup.
• In order to create a welcoming environment for our audiences and those who interact with them, NYTW has created a cross-departmental Audience Services Committee. The group is developing intervention and disruption protocols to mitigate harmful encounters and expand modes of feedback—modeled on existing internal feedback loops that invite feedback both direct and anonymous—for audience members.
• NYTW commits to paying artists for their participation in fundraising events, for their contributions to fundraising proposals, and for work that falls outside the scope of their creative endeavor.
• NYTW commits to transparent discussions with our artists about how their projects are funded and to transparency around the financial priorities of the institution for our entire community. We will work to revamp our annual report to more clearly detail our finances and create opportunities for discussion annually.
• NYTW is committed to ensuring a diverse pool of candidates and greater transparency in hiring. Over the last three years, NYTW has begun publishing salary ranges, removing years of experience and educational attainment requirements, broadening the network of people and places with whom we share job postings, and including members of our Core Team in the hiring process. NYTW will continue to expand these efforts at every level of recruiting, including committing to transparent and equitable searches for executive leadership.
• NYTW is committed to establishing a clear picture of the demographic makeup of our collaborators. In the next year, through means of voluntary self-identification, we will implement methods of tracking the makeup of candidate pools for all positions as well as the ethnic and racial composition of our full and part-time Staff, artists, technicians, teaching artists, and our front of house and box office teams. We will also begin a vendor audit to fully understand where we are spending our dollars and identify greater opportunities to support businesses owned and run by BIPOC community members.
• NYTW is committed to continually building greater cultural competency. We have already engaged our full Staff and Board of Trustees in anti-racism and EDI trainings. We will create a standard on-boarding training for all new Staff and Trustees and continue to engage regularly throughout the year in exercises around micro-aggressions, conflict-resolution, and de-escalation training. NYTW will expand this work to find ways to include the rest of our collaborators and our broader community.
• In 2019, NYTW’s Board established an EDI Committee that has primary responsibility for Board trainings and education as well as Board accountability in these efforts. The Board EDI Committee will collaborate with the Staff’s Core Team to refine existing modes of feedback and avenues for communication and to create new ones for our entire community.
• NYTW will continue to support both the Staff’s Core Team and the Board’s EDI Committee, including continuing to provide a significant budget for their efforts and increasing those resources in the years ahead. NYTW’s existing Staff BIPOC and Multiracial Affinity Group will continue to be encouraged to meet during office hours and continue to be provided with an annual budget. Building on these commitments, when we return to full productions, NYTW will provide EDI resources in every production budget in addition to the institutional allocation.

We will conduct quarterly evaluations of our progress, refining these commitments, and building out others along the way. You can expect to hear from us in this space regularly as we have new developments to share. In the meantime, we are committed to addressing fear of open conflict, listening to those who share their experiences, and learning from the conversations to build a better Workshop. If you have thoughts about how we’re doing or would like to begin a dialogue, we invite you to reach out to us by email at LetsChat@nytw.org.

JUNE 2020 UPDATE