All In: Equity, Inclusion and Access

We are committed to move beyond introspection to interrogation of our organizational culture, policies, and outcomes and of making organizational and structural changes to disassemble systems that have adversely affected BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) communities. We strongly believe our actions will bind hearts and minds together in a more welcoming and culturally enriched environment where we can celebrate our commonalities and examine our differences.

As a mission-driven organization, North Carolina Theatre is committed to:

• Equality, equity, and inclusion across all aspects of our organization, including on stage, in our audience, and within our leadership and staff.
• Building a creative and dynamic workplace that celebrates individual differences and diversity with fairness and respect.
• Choosing to tell culturally distinct stories but also universal stories where diversity in casting and production teams deepens accessibility of the work to all communities. With these choices, we highlight stories and communities that have been historically misrepresented and under-resourced by the theatre field.
• Providing access to the arts for patrons of all ages, cultural backgrounds, genders and sexual orientations, economic groups, and abilities.

  Live theatre provides a communion, a gift, between artist and audience – this happens best when these gifts are accessible to all. As NCT’s audiences and other stakeholders have tended to under-represent the region’s diversity, we acknowledge how much work is yet to be done to realize our goals. The best artistic outcomes will occur when our audiences are as diverse as the performers on our stage and when our production teams, musicians, backstage and front of house, staff, and board, students, and teachers, too, reflect the region’s diversity. To make that happen, NCT and the arts industry must engage in serious introspection, listening, and learning.  It must invest time and resources and reach out for partnerships and help. All must go “all out” for an All In vision.

In 2017, The North Carolina Theatre established All In, a baseline and action-oriented diversity initiative focused on serving the cultural needs of a growing and diverse Triangle-area population. 

A primary goal of All In is to increase diversity in all NCT stakeholders. Specifically, by 2030, NCT’s goal is to mirror North Carolina’s diversity on its stages, audiences, board, staff, teachers, students, and partnerships. This diversity is measured and represented in Ability, Age, Ethnicity, Gender/Sexual Orientation, and Socio-Economic Status. Over time, All In has provided a framework to engage in mutually beneficial activities supporting NCT and the region’s communities.

In fulfilling our mission, we use the tactics of our All In vision to leverage our professional productions and theatre arts training programs to inspire, educate, evoke emotions, and provoke conversations to create a more equitable and inclusive community with access to the theatre arts for all.

1. Produce culturally relevant mainstage shows. These may be familiar musicals that strongly incorporate diversity in casting; or may be culturally specific shows that celebrate a particular community. This may help reveal universal human values or provide access to values that may be different but are deeply meaningful to a particular culture. Both provide critical pathways to empathy.
2. Provide free related educational and community programs. We wrap our shows up in Encore, a dialogue among community leaders hosted on our stage that examines show themes as they relate to or represent certain communities; and
3. Partner with other organizations serving underrepresented communities in the arts. Build on shared opportunities and outcomes through targeted projects with measurable results.
4. Undertake interrogative introspection, examine the social impact, and learn where, over time, NCT has impeded equitable access to the arts. This involves working at the board, staff, and community level to devise a new equity statement, reframe the institutional mission to reflect equity work and build policies to increase diversity across the organization and increase NCT’s presence in diverse communities.
    
   NCT pledges to go all out to invite all in. 

The North Carolina Theatre sees a specific need for our region to build equitable access to critical community assets, such as cultural assets like theatre. Our company values of humanity and inclusion lead us to support the assertion that equity is a moral imperative that the arts organization must uphold. 

• Diversity also has great economic implications. Beyond the social and artistic reasons for desiring an equitable community, a 2015 report entitled Equitable Growth Profile of the Triangle Region makes staggeringly clear the economic need for the Triangle to improve its racial equality: “The region’s economy,” it reads, “could have been $21.8 billion stronger in 2012 if there were no economic differences by race.”

  This is just one of many powerful messages we’ve seen that prove that unity will make our region more financially secure, a place that will secure a future for our children.

• Critically, we believe equality, inclusion, diversity, and access help us achieve the best artistic outcomes.

   The All In vision was further developed and ratified by the Board in a strategic planning retreat focused on elevating All In from a project to an institutional vision in the summer of 2018. Within a few months of this action, NCT hired a full-time Producing Artistic Director with a passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Eric Woodall, originally from the region but now with decades under his belt in NYC casting major Broadway shows and directing nationally, was the perfect fit. Profiled that year in American Theatre Magazine, Eric was regarded in the industry for “pushing the needle forward on diversity.”

  As our long-time audiences have experienced Eric’s work curating and directing our shows, they have written to us that they’ve felt our shows are more “fresh,” “exciting,” “energized,” and “the best” we’ve produced. They’ve noticed the quality of talent on the stage, but they’ve also seen the increase in diversity in casting.

  Over the past five years, most of our shows have had 50% or greater representation of BIPOC artists on the stage. We’ve also chosen culturally specific titles, engaging communities like Latinx, African-American, LGBTQ+, and women through shows that share their stories. Audiences have let us know they enjoy the enriching experience of discovering universal humanity through diversity, and the overall experience is greatly improved. Artists have let us know they’ve been seeking more diverse stages for a long time, and they feel safe to unleash their most powerful self-expression in a carefully crafted space with diversity in mind. This leads to a higher quality theatrical adventure for audiences and artists.

The arts have been widely studied and proven to strengthen common values while disarming racial prejudices – but due to exclusionary practices in programming, high cost of entry to shows and training programs, and lack of outreach, arts organizations often isolate communities from critical cultural assets. NCT recognizes the profound impact that it can make in addressing equitable access to the arts. It wishes to invest in solutions like All In that can positively impact underserved communities, fulfill a moral imperative, create economic sustainability, and provide the best artistic outcomes, and do all of this in a region that will be defined by diversity by 2030. Securing investment by diverse communities will ensure NCT’s long-term sustainability.

We at NC Theatre consider this a living webpage that expresses our commitment to, current engagement in, and aspirational hopes for equality, inclusion, equity, and access. This is by no means complete in scope at this time, and we want to be quite clear that 1) it will dynamically change over time; and 2) it should attempt to express best the cultural expectations of our arts organization, which in turn represents over 60,000 patrons, students, artists, staff and board who annually invest in our shared outcomes. Like any great organization of that many people, NCT hosts multiple points of view – but despite this, a forward trajectory is clear. As we strengthen through introspection, interrogation, training, and listening, we will put one foot in front of the other as we push toward unified, aspirational goals.

Anti-Racism

• We pledge to leverage our positional power to amplify the voices of those historically underrepresented in our communities, particularly by the theatre industry, while incorporating anti-racist practices in every aspect of our work.
• We pledge to enrich our staff and volunteers with anti-racism and community engagement training.

Gender and Sexual Identity Equity

We are examining and seeking to improve our balance of representation of gender and sexual identity in our hiring, especially in senior roles both on and off the stage.

Equity in Hiring

• Equity in Artist Hiring: We affirm that our seasons will continue to shine with shows that reflect North Carolina’s cultural diversity. We aim to maintain at least 50% BIPOC artistic representation each season.
• Equity in Production and Teacher Hiring: We will achieve diversity in our production artists, crew, and teaching artists. We will engage our field and help initiate change in this inequitable arena.
• Equity in Administrative Hiring Practices: We mandate that all vacant off-stage roles must be advertised in outlets that have a diverse target market to ensure it is seen by the broadest range of applicants.

Career Opportunities for BIPOC Artists in Professional Theatre

We will create a year-long, part-time fellowship opportunity to support BIPOC, who seek to pursue a career as a theatre professional. Fellowship opportunities will be available in administration and production.

Equality, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

While we affirm that a successful DE&I initiative must have buy-in from all company members, we pledge to establish by September 2020 an internal committee that will champion equality, equity, and inclusion efforts, making recommendations, setting goals, and evaluating progress.

Unconscious Bias and Disability Training

We pledge to train all full-time staff in unconscious bias and disability awareness by January 2021 and curate a list of anti-racism resources for our team as a living document to encourage ongoing discussion and development.

Evaluating the Workforce Environment

We pledge to establish an anonymous survey inviting contributions from our workforce during each production to understand better their experiences working with NC Theatre.