Marin Theatre Company is committed to being an anti-racist organization. This commitment is ongoing and represents our desire to cultivate an organizational culture that encourages anti-racism, equity, and belonging throughout the entire MTC community.
Below is an archive of public reports from the MTC Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee. MTC’s EDI Committee provides education training, leadership, oversight, and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming, and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff.
MTC's Staff and Board held their 4th Work Session facilitated by artEquity on June 1, 2022. This Work Session included a review of our working document of internal Community Agreements for the Staff and Board of Marin Theatre Company, inspired by our work with artEquity over the past 18 months. The session focused on working to create, build and sustain a system of trust by demonstrating generosity and extending grace. One outcome of the session is our commitment to reading our agreements aloud in every Staff and Board meeting for the next three months as a step towards implementing the principles and ideals expressed in the agreements. In addition, we as a company will be working throughout the summer months to outline actionable organizational goals for the upcoming season.
The MTC Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee provides education training, leadership, oversight, and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming, and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. That document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments. This report focuses on highlights of our progress in the past 90 days.
We want to celebrate the efforts and talent of the cast, crew, and creative team of MTC’s production of Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu, which concluded on February 27th, 2022. This production brought forward opportunities for meaningful conversations with our community. We particularly want to highlight and thank Piper Dellums, the Drama Therapist & Compassion Consultant for Pass Over, who focused on the well-being of the actors as they worked with a script that included potentially triggering material.
In our continued efforts to make MTC a space accessible to all of our community, assistant box office manager Lindsey Abbott proposed a list of improvements to the lobby and the website for information about MTC’s patron accessibility, including but not limited to clearer information about our accessible entrances and more direct communication to our patrons regarding our accessibility efforts. The website improvements have been made here, and new directional signs have been ordered for the lobby to assist patrons arriving at the theater.
Finally, MTC will be showcasing Pink Spots, a San Francisco-based LGBTQ Directory, in our lobby and on our social media to continue building lasting relationships with our community. Pink Spots' information guides will be available at the box office counter for patrons, and content about their work will be shared across all our social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linked In.
The MTC Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee provides education training, leadership, oversight, and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming, and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. That document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments. This report focuses on highlights of our progress in the past 90 days.
MTC returned with our first live production since the pandemic shutdown with our world premiere of Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley. The production was also made available via video streaming so that it is more accessible to our audiences with concerns around health, mobility or geographic distances.
MTC’s Board and Staff participated in its third Work Session with artEquity in October and are scheduled to hold a fourth Work Session in January, when we will focus on how to continue to operationalize the learnings and values the company has been working on internally and with artEquity over the last year.
MTC has completed its revised Employee Handbook and distributed it to all staff as of December 27, 2021. It serves as a valuable tool for outlining employee and employer expectations regarding policies, procedures, working conditions, and behavioral expectations. Additionally, it will provide new staff members with key knowledge and understanding of MTC’s new vision, mission, and values.
The MTC Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee provides education training, leadership, oversight, and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming, and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. That document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments. This report focuses on highlights of our progress in the past 90 days.
Over the past six months, Marin Theatre Company has been revisiting both the values we uphold as an organization and our shared purpose in the context of our larger local and national communities of artists and audiences. MTC’s Strategic Planning Committee, with members from both Staff and Board, initiated the process in January 2021. At our Board Retreat in April, the Board, along with members of Staff leadership, discussed new Vision, Mission, and Values statements, which are a central focus of MTC’s organizational development. We further honed the Vision, Mission, and Values statements in working sessions involving all Board and Staff over the summer, and the Board approved our new statements in July. Read more about our Vision, Mission, and Values on our website.
The revised expression of our Vision, Mission, and Values is now guiding the development of our strategic plans for the future of the theatre, our organizational structure and everyday behavioral change for all of us involved in living them forward. For example, our new statements of Vision, Mission, and Values were distributed as part of our Artist Welcome & Orientation document at our first workshop back in the theatre, for MTC’s upcoming production of Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley, by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon. The new Artist document offers visiting artists an introduction to MTC, its mission, EDI policies, HR resources, and procedures for how to handle HR issues that may arise. We will continue to update and add to this Artist document and hope that it can help to make the theatre a safer space for artists.
In addition to welcoming artists back to the theatre to workshop our November play, we are thrilled to welcome three new staff members to MTC.
In our Education department, Education Coordinators & Teaching Artists Daniel Duque-Estrada and Alicia M. P. Nelson have joined our permanent staff. Daniel returns to the Bay Area from serving as a teaching artist and member of the resident acting companies at Dallas Theater Center and Trinity Repertory Company, where he is currently a resident actor. Alicia is an award-winning San Francisco/Bay Area-based actor and arts educator who specializes in working with students in preschool and kindergarten. As these two Bay Area natives work to re-envision the MTC Education department, they will also be continuing their acting careers in the cast of Georgiana and Kitty. Learn more about them and the team’s exciting new initiatives on our Education page.
Joining the Artistic staff to assist in all areas of producing and casting is Richard A. Mosqueda, our NNPN Producer in Residence through the National New Play Network. Richard is one of two national grant recipients placed at NNPN Member Theatres this season. Richard is a queer, Mexican-American theatre producer and director who is committed to adventurous new works by queer artists of color and is the founder of and producer for Epic Party Theatre in San Francisco. All three of our new staff members are working with Associate Artistic Director Nakissa Etemad to expand MTC’s connections to diverse local artists and cultures in the Bay Area theatre community.
The Board and Staff followed up its June Work Session with artEquity with a second Work Session in July. We will participate in a third Work Session with artEquity on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.
The MTC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee provides education training, leadership, oversight and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. This document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments. This report focuses on highlights of our progress in the past 90 days, and responds to questions we received in response to our last 90-day report.
In our March report, we described our search process for a new Managing Director, but could not yet announce our selection.
Now we can. Following a national search led by ALJP Consulting, we are thrilled to report that Meredith Suttles has joined MTC as our new Managing Director, and are especially delighted to announce that Meredith is the newest member of the EDI committee. She is a visionary leader known for her ability to win community support, develop key coalitions and build strong relationships with a shared sense of purpose. Meredith has held senior leadership roles at numerous performing arts organizations, including TheatreWorksUSA, Soho Repertory Theatre, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), and the New York City Opera. She is a Steering Committee Member of the Black Theatre Commons and currently serves on the Board of Directors of viBe Theater Experience. We are confident that with Meredith at the helm, MTC will return to the live stage stronger than ever.
II.
In the last 90 days, MTC also hired a Human Resources consultant firm The HR Manager, a certified woman-owned and certified minority-owned HR firm. The process to interview and select the HR consultant was led by members of the staff within the EDI Committee, along with the Interim Managing Director, with an emphasis on identifying a consultant that staff would feel comfortable turning to as a resource outside the chain of authority within MTC. The HR consultant is working with MTC on a revised employee handbook, which will contain important policies of the organization, including a revised non-carceral policy. We have asked the consultant to identify and communicate best practices so that the organization can incorporate them into our organization’s policies and procedures going forward.
III.
In our December report, we shared that we retained artEquity as our external EDI facilitator to help move the organization towards a more equitable anti-racist future. As part of this engagement, MTC’s Board and Staff came together in two half-day training sessions in April 2021 and another work session in June, facilitated by Carmen Morgan and members of her staff. As part of those sessions, the Board and Staff affirmed their commitment to become an anti-racist organization. Two more work sessions are in process for the coming months. The Board’s Strategic Planning Committee, comprised of Board and Staff members, is currently working with the Board and Staff to update the organization’s vision, mission and values to reflect this commitment and guide our future.
IV.
We received some questions in follow-up to our last 90-day report from Bay Area Artists for Racial Justice, which we want to make sure to address. We thank BAARJ for reading our reports.
First, BAARJ asks about the status of two new BIPOC commissions that we described in our September 2020 “Community Pledges Status Report.” We are excited to announce these writers, but must finalize contract and award documents before we can do so. We hope to be able to announce these commissions in our next 90-day report.
Second, as BAARJ has recognized, the season selection process for 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 was and is unusual because of the production constraints and uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The 2021-2022 season is a combination of productions that were selected and committed to by the company (under the leadership of Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis and the MTC staff with consultation from outside consultants) prior to the pandemic shutdown and new selections. The prior commitments include an MTC co-commission by Lauren M. Gunderson and Margot Melcon. One of the season's new selections is being chosen by new Associate Artistic Director Nakissa Etemad. The remaining productions are being selected by Jasson and Nakissa along with members of the MTC staff, with input from members of MTC’s EDI Committee and select outside consultants.
Third, the identification of a facilitator and optimal timing for intimate partner violence/rape prevention/sexual safety consent training is under consideration by the new Managing Director. As MTC is rebuilding our staff (presently numbering 8 full-time and 2 part-time people), we believe that such training will have more impact when the company is larger.
Fourth, in addition to retaining the HR consultant described in this report, we have provided consulting through ALJP, the BIPOC-led search firm described in previous 90-day reports, as part of a support network for our new management-level BIPOC hires; and we will continue to consider and develop support networks for BIPOC artists in our upcoming productions. MTC’s formal plans and policies, like the non-carceral policy, will ultimately be part of the revised employee handbook that our new Managing Director is overseeing.
The MTC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee provides education training, leadership, oversight and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. This document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments. This report focuses on two highlights of our progress in the past 90 days.
I.
As discussed in previous 90-day reports, MTC has been engaged in a rigorous search for a new Managing Director. In this report we describe the steps in our search process, which has highlighted EDI concerns throughout.
In the fall of 2020, MTC formed an ad hoc Search Committee composed of Board and Staff members to conduct the search. After interviewing four search firms, MTC retained the services of ALJP Consulting (ALJP), a BIPOC-owned firm established by Al Heartley and Jocelyn Prince that puts artistry and equity at the heart of their practice. ALJP helped to create a job description that would feel welcoming and inviting to all candidates and feature qualitative as well as quantitative qualifications. EDI experience was identified as a core competency for potential candidates. With ALJP’s deep and broad network of theatre professional contacts and as an active member of BIPOC Affinity networks, ALJP assisted in identifying and vetting a diverse slate of preliminary candidates through the advertising and promotion of the job listing to diverse individuals and cultural and ethnic groups across the country.
Following a two-month recruitment plan, ALJP narrowed the preliminary candidates to approximately 10 and forwarded the resumes for those candidates to the MTC Search Committee, which selected five candidates for interviews. Through an interview process with MTC stakeholders, facilitated by ALJP, the five candidates met virtually with members of the Staff, with MTC’s Artistic Director, and with the Search Committee. They also met with members of the EDI Committee so that each candidate could participate in a candid conversation focused on EDI issues. At every step in the process, the interviewers completed surveys regarding each candidate. ALJP compiled and distributed the survey responses anonymously to the Search Committee for review and discussion.
The Search Committee narrowed the five candidates to three. Each of the three finalists gave a 75-minute presentation with Q & A to the Search Committee and members of the Board and Staff. We gave the finalists a short list of questions to address in their presentations, which included as a near-final request: “How would you integrate our EDI work and anti-racism into the work involved in the above tasks?” Members of the Board, Staff, and Search Committee convened after each session for thoughtful and thorough discussion of each presentation and candidate. Final surveys were completed, compiled, and discussed.
The Search Committee met, reached some consensus, and made a recommendation to the full Board, which met in a lengthy special session to discuss and vote on the recommendation. This decision was difficult given the caliber and very different qualities of the two top candidates. Members of the Staff and Board delivered passionate statements in support of their views.
We cannot disclose MTC’s selection for the new Managing Director yet, but we hope to do so soon. We are grateful to ALJP and to the Search Committee, led by Board member Kathryn Olson, for spending so many collective hours to identify stellar candidates who embody the values of MTC.
We have retained ALJP to provide coaching and consulting for the new Managing Director over the next 12 months. ALJP will assist with the onboarding and staff preparation for the new hire and ongoing support beyond initial placement as we begin to emerge from a year of living and experiencing the arts (mostly) virtually.
II.
Another accomplishment in these last 90 days is the establishment of the 5-day work week in both administration and production.
MTC is making concerted efforts to prioritize staff and artist wellness, and finding ways to balance the needs of the organization with people needing to take care of themselves. In this spirit, we have shifted from a 6-day rehearsal week to a 5-day rehearsal week and eliminated the practice of 10 out of 12-hour technical rehearsal days, commonly referred to as "10 out of 12" by theatre professionals. We put this new schedule into action in our first on-site rehearsals this season, for The Catastrophist. We plan to continue this scheduling structure for the remainder of our 2021 season as part of our commitment towards a more equitable work environment that prioritizes human needs over productivity.
We remain grateful to the accountability organizations that have engaged with us on EDI issues, and EDI continues to be top of mind for MTC. We plan to continue taking action that will have an impact on both MTC and the greater community.
The March 16 mass shooting in Georgia, resulting in the death of 6 women of Asian descent, and the recent reports of attacks on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) elders in the Bay Area, are horrifying hate crimes. Marin Theatre Company stands in solidarity with the AAPI community now and always. We join our AAPI colleagues, artists, and friends in grief, anger, and action.
As we reflect on how our work as a new play theater can help to center, serve, honor, and protect the AAPI community, we think of our fellow theaters that do this work and encourage you to support them: Theater Mu, Ferocious Lotus, East West Players, Theatre of Yugen, Bindlestiff Studio, Ma-Yi Theater Company, and more, plus The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists (CAATA).
Like us you may wish to get involved in organizations specific to AAPI communities. In the Bay Area, there are several organizations that offer ways to support the AAPI community during this time, including Chinatown Community Development Center and Compassion in Oakland. You may also want to consider learning more about how to intervene as a bystander, and how to talk to your older children about speaking up against xenophobia through Learning For Justice. You can report instances of anti-Asian assaults and crimes to StopAAPIHate.org, and donate to grass-roots organizations fighting anti-AAPI violence, such as Hate is a Virus. A report on the nearly 3800 hate incidents recorded by the Stop AAPI Hate Initiative over the past year may be found here.
In solidarity, The Staff and Board of Marin Theatre Company
The MTC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee provides education training, leadership, oversight and accountability to MTC's EDI work in shifting the organizational culture towards a more diverse, welcoming and safe environment for artists, audiences, board members, and staff. In June 2020, we posted Our Community Pledges on the Accountability page of our website. This document is a detailed outline of our commitments to help guide our organization towards a more equitable and anti-racist future. We have pledged to provide regular status updates on our EDI commitments.
This is our second 90-day status report on the Marin Theatre Company’s efforts to root out systemic inequities and racism within our organization. Please click or tap below on "Show More" to read the status reports for each pledge as of December 18, 2020.
In the past 90 days, through the dedicated efforts of a scaled-down staff and MTC’s volunteer board, MTC has accomplished the following:
In connection with our efforts to prioritize humane and equitable working conditions and reduce undue burden on our dedicated eight full-time and two part-time staff members (most of whom have also been deep in rehearsal and production), this report focuses on highlights of our progress in the past 90 days. We remain grateful to the accountability organizations that have engaged with us on EDI issues, and EDI continues to be top of mind for MTC. We plan to continue taking action that will have an impact on both MTC and the greater community.
This is our first 90-day report out on the Marin Theatre Company’s efforts to root out systemic inequities and racism within our organization.
In the past 90 days, the members of the EDI committee and the staff and board members of MTC have collectively spent hundreds of hours on this focused work. Below is a brief overview of our progress so far, laid out in more detail in the updates to Our Community Pledges further down this page:
Is this everything we had hoped we would be able to accomplish in 90 days? No. But true transformation takes time. We also want to recognize that even without these significant changes, the MTC of 2020 is a different organization from the MTC of 2019. The pandemic has forced us to lay off two thirds of our staff; as of today, we only have seven full-time employees and three part-time employees. Through the combined efforts of a skeleton staff and an engaged volunteer board, we believe we are beginning to make real progress.
The following statement and pledges were originally posted on 06/23/20. Please click or tap below to review the status reports for each pledge as of September 30, 2020.
During and after MTC’s production of Thomas Bradshaw’s Thomas and Sally in the Fall of 2017, we received an overwhelming amount of criticism and feedback from members of our community of all backgrounds. As a predominantly white institution, we have failed to take the care necessary to protect our Black artists and audience members.
In response to the events of Thomas and Sally, the Coalition of Black Women Professional Theatre Makers in the Bay Area formed and penned an open letter asking us to take several action steps to correct our mistakes and enact fundamental and systemic change in our organization. The Coalition met with leaders of our organization several times in the months following, at which point we committed to a transformative process intended to dismantle racism within our organization. Many of the below pledges were made initially to the Coalition in 2018, but until now we have not made them public. We understand the need for transparency in this process, and so we are now sharing this with our community.
We welcome public accountability for each pledge we make and we hope our actions toward becoming an anti-racist organization will serve as an example for other predominantly white institutions to do the same. We recognize that this work is fluid and ongoing, and we pledge to provide regular status updates that are honest about our successes and failures. Those updates will be sent to our community every 90 days, but this page may be updated more regularly to respond to immediate feedback.
Apologize for mistakes made in producing Thomas Bradshaw’s Thomas and Sally, and e-mail corrective information regarding sexual assault to all patrons and student groups who attended the show.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020: We will be sharing a link to the corrective resource information in our Tuesday Weekly eblast on October 6th, which reaches our entire patron base (those who have email addresses on file, and have opted in to receive emails from us).
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: Marin Theatre Company formally apologized for mistakes we made in a statement released on our website and social media channels, just over a week after the initial meeting between MTC and the coalition. That apology can be found here.
MTC recognizes the potential impact our productions can have on our audience’s understanding of the world and the responsibility that entails. In response to criticism that Thomas and Sally depicted real life sexual assault without adequately portraying it as such, we pledged in 2018 to share information and resources on this issue with student groups and audience members who attended the show, and we hired Kyra Jones (bio here) to compile a comprehensive resource guide. We did share this information with the student groups, however we failed at the time to share it with patrons. That resource information is now on our website, where it will live forever, and can be found HERE.
Interrogate and change our methods of commissioning, developing, and producing culturally diverse work through an anti-racist lens. Ensure that those working either on stage or behind the scenes demonstrate an understanding of key social issues affecting those characters and/or subjects, including discrimination, democratic participation, criminal justice, historical oppression, and other issues of racial and economic justice, intersectionality, and equity. Hire artists of color for the positions of power in the room from the inception of the work.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020: In addition to the other efforts described throughout this report, MTC has formed an Artistic Committee comprised of a majority BIPOC Board members and artists to help select the 2020/21 season; a season which has been in creation since August 2019 and remains unfinalized for 2021 due to budget and pandemic uncertainties. Playwrights currently under commission are Ismail Khalidi, Margot Melcon and Playwright in Residence Lauren Gunderson, with two more BIPOC commissions soon to be announced.
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: MTC recognizes that the work of interrogating our artistic processes is vital and never-ending, and that this is perhaps the most crucial one of all for us to be continuously held accountable by our community. MTC is committed to intentionality and color-conscious practices in all aspects of hiring and participation, especially to support equity, diversity, and inclusion. In the years since we initially made this pledge, we have engaged numerous BIPOC artists and cultural consultants who have made invaluable contributions to transforming our artistic processes. Again, we recognize that there is work yet to be done.
Here are some of the ways we have strived to live up to this pledge:
Here are some of the ways we intend to immediately build from what we have learned:
Engage facilitators for further mandatory Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training and Anti-Racist training for the entire MTC staff and board.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020: MTC’s EDI Committee has made an EDI consultant recommendation to the Board following a broad solicitation and interview process focusing on BIPOC-led organizations. We anticipate that we will be able to announce the selected consultant shortly. In the meantime, board member Aldo Billingslea will be providing the board and staff with some preliminary, fundamental anti-bias training in October. We have not yet completed the training identified within the pledge above, but recognize that the necessary time was dedicated toward finding and contracting with a consultant that best fits our organization’s needs and goals.
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: MTC has accomplished the following:
Recognizing that this work is ongoing and can always deepen, MTC commits to the following immediately reportable actions:
Develop and release an institutional policy committing to non-carceral (not involving the state or policing) strategies for dealing with any conflict involving community members who statistically face elevated levels of police violence.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020:
Status Report as of August 6, 2020: MTC has had a consistent voice at Mill Valley City Council meetings since early June, 2020 regarding the Mill Valley Police Department's Use of Force training and policies, which has helped lead to a formal report published by the City Council on August 3, 2020. That report can be read in full HERE. Further involvement with the MVPD and future updates regarding our commitment to non-carceral conflict resolution will be published here.
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: MTC formally adopted a non-carceral policy in 2018. We have committed to revisiting that policy each year to ensure it specifically addresses the unique and disproportionate harm that police involvement can bring to BIPOC individuals. MTC staff and board have committed to an ongoing dialogue with the Mill Valley City Council and police department regarding necessary protocols to protect BIPOC artists and patrons.
Provide thoughtful support and safety networks for every BIPOC artist we hire.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020:
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: MTC established the Artist Support Network, an expanding group of artists (most of whom are BIPOC individuals) familiar with our company who have agreed to be responsive to artists employed by MTC who have questions or concerns that they do not feel comfortable bringing to an MTC staff member or executive leader. MTC has also expanded first-day information packets to include the address and contact info for multiple local houses of worship, local counselors, and other wellness resources. MTC has taken steps to introduce the local community to the artists through discussions at the Mill Valley Library and interviews shared via email/on MTC’s website. After receiving feedback about uncomfortable experiences at the local gym, we engaged in a frank and fruitful discussion with the managers of the gym and began providing artist headshots ahead of each production to be kept at the front desk.
After an incident that took place during our production of Noura where actors from the show were participating in an educational event in a local classroom that went on lockdown due to a potential active shooter, the show’s Equity Deputy wrote a letter detailing the resulting traumatic impact and suggesting numerous actions for us to take to protect actors from enduring such trauma when possible and care for them in the instances it does occur. We were in the process of adapting and expanding on those actions when our operations were shut down due to COVID-19, which has also presented us with new challenges for protecting our artists. We pledge to follow up with these additional actions that we have taken and will take in the interest of the health and well-being of our artists.
We recognize that Marin County is a predominantly white and wealthy community and it can feel alienating and occasionally hostile for BIPOC individuals, particularly our artists who exhaust incalculable amounts of emotional labor in the service of creating their work. By September 30, 2020, we pledge to develop and implement a formal plan for protecting BIPOC staff, artists, and board members in our community, especially and crucially regarding potential interaction with the police. At the Mill Valley City Council meeting on June 15, 2020, MTC officially requested to take part in the City Council’s conversations on Mill Valley policing, equitable education policies with Marin City, and equitable housing initiatives.
Diversify our staff through the intentional recruitment of BIPOC individuals.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020:
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: We are committed to diversifying our staff by hiring BIPOC individuals, intentionally seeking out candidates that challenge our status quo for all positions, including positions of power. MTC has never had a BIPOC individual in an executive role, and has rarely had any BIPOC individuals in other positions of power throughout the organization. Several such positions are set to be available as soon as we are able to hire again, and we pledge to make those new hires with intentionality.
We also recognize that hiring BIPOC individuals into positions of power is not enough, we must also make sure that they are protected. In addition to every other action item we list here, all of which are primarily intended to protect the safety of every BIPOC individual engaged as part of our organization and community, we commit to developing an independent HR process for BIPOC staff and artists to address issues of discrimination and safety by September 30, 2020.
Remove barriers to board membership and diversify our board through intentional recruitment of BIPOC community members.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020:
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: MTC has removed the informal minimum donation requirement previously imposed on board members. MTC has removed the requirement for in-person attendance at Board meetings, allowing for a combination of in-person and virtual attendance.
The MTC board is actively exploring other methods of breaking down barriers of access for membership, including ways to expand the membership beyond the boundaries of Marin County. This is an ongoing process that we pledge to continuously report on to our community.
Provide a public accountability plan complete with timelines for completing related action steps.
Status Report as of September 30, 2020: This is our first 90-day update. Our next update will be shared by or before Friday, December 18th (adjusted to account for the holidays).
Status Report as of June 19, 2020: This is the first of what we pledge to be regular updates so that our community can hold us accountable in every aspect of this work.
We know that this represents only the beginning of what it takes to practice active anti-racism in an organization and we will continue to expand upon these pledges as we are prepared to do so. We are providing this information for members of our community in good faith, and hope that you will choose to hold us accountable to our failures and help us build from our successes.
In addition to the pledges we laid out in June, we also asked to be held accountable in the process of becoming an anti-racist organization. In August, we welcomed a response to that ask from the Bay Area Artists for Racial Justice, working in solidarity with the Coalition of Black Women Professional Theatre Makers in the Bay Area.
As we read your statement, we had questions about some of the stated goals and some of the stated methods to achieve those goals, as we consider whether they articulate a path to real equity. We recognize that many of the areas we are about to discuss contain questions about how to achieve meaningful equity that don’t have settled answers. We believe raising these questions transparently for the community to consider is an important part of thinking together about what a healthy path to equity looks like. We welcome your response to this in any format in service of open dialogue.
We value an open dialogue around these topics, and engagement with perspectives outside our own. We intend to discuss these questions in further detail with our hired EDI facilitator/consultant, but would also like to extend an open invitation to the members of BAARJ to have a conversation with us around these topics. Please find our initial thoughts below. We hope to continue to grow these responses and practices with input and collaboration with our community.
Dear Leadership of The Living Document,
On behalf of the Marin Theatre Company, we want to thank the artists and organizers for the tremendous work done to document and issue an action plan for our community. This is an excellent example of how we can move from harm to healing. We also want to recognize the burden of artists to recount traumatizing experiences and the labor of organizers to address change on so many levels of our industry. This is not lost on us. This is real work and we are humbled by it. Thank you.
We have read and are engaging with the demands issued in the BIPOC Equity Action Plan, the "We See You White American Theatre" document, and the testimonies of racism experienced in our Bay Area Theatre community, as recounted in The Living Document.
We hear you. We believe you. We join you in actively working to dismantle racism at every level of engagement at our theatre. We are committed to developing the tools to hold ourselves accountable. We will not place that burden on our BIPOC colleagues. This is our work.
We will do everything in our power to comprehend, acknowledge, and address the inequalities and systemic forces in our nation, in our community and specifically within our theatre where we have direct influence to create meaningful change. We have already begun to take such actions, but we know that the work of actively and continually dismantling oppressive systems is neither easy nor immediate. We are examining all aspects of our company to root out racist practices and behaviors. How do we make theatre where bigotry has no place?
As the BIPOC Equity Action Plan recognizes, we can start by producing plays by BIPOC, queer, trans, womxn of color, non-binary, and disabled playwrights. Over the last five seasons, 61% of the plays we have produced were by underrepresented writers. We will continue to seek out and produce the best new American plays reflecting underrepresented voices in our community every season. We know, however, that this is just one thread in the fabric we are weaving together. For the future we are committed to hiring more underrepresented directors and designers, hiring cultural consultants for BIPOC plays, hiring BIPOC directors for BIPOC plays, and creating an affirming and safe space for all artists, staff, and patrons for every play we rehearse, read, workshop and produce. We have committed to releasing updates about our EDI actions every three months (find the latest update on our accountability page here. Currently, we’re working to address the individual demands from the BIPOC Equity Action Plan and will convey details of our anti-racist practices as well as transparency of our process in the coming months. Our next report is due September 30th.
To our colleagues across the nation who are bringing racial justice to the forefront in the American theater, we applaud you. We believe in the power of story to transform lives and live art to create empathy and understanding. This collective reckoning will not only make us a better theatre company. It will also make us better people. From all of us at Marin Theatre Company, thank you for your service and for the opportunity to create deep radical inclusivity at every level of our organization. The work has begun.
With respect,
Marin Theatre Company Staff & Board
Dear Marin Theatre Company Community,
On May 31st we shared a statement condemning racist violence, demanding justice for the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Arbery, among countless others, and voicing our solidarity with Black artists and community members. But we know as a predominantly White institution, that this statement is not enough. We want to share with you how we are going to take action.
Over the past few weeks our staff and board have engaged in deep conversation about our power and privilege and our moral imperative for anti-racist action. On Saturday June 13, 2020 the Coalition of Black Women Professional Theatre Makers in the Bay Area released a statement which accurately states that we failed to engage in a public accountability process after the harm caused to members of our artistic community and the public by our production of Thomas Bradshaw’s Thomas and Sally in 2017. We apologize for our lack of communication and follow-through. We are still working to repair the faith and trust that we lost with our community as a result of that production and our responses to the concerns that were raised. The Coalition’s statement is evidence of the actions that we still need to take.
In 2018, we made numerous pledges of action to the Coalition to dismantle systemic forms of racism in our organization, but we have not communicated the changes we made towards honoring these commitments. We have now posted a full report on our website with status updates (see below).
We want to clearly state that the MTC staff and board are committed to the following actions, accountability, and an ongoing process of identifying and dismantling systems of white supremacy and privilege that harm and oppress people of color, and reward whiteness or affinity to whiteness. We are committed to being an anti-racist organization. Moving forward, we will report on our actions publicly every 90 days.
Marin Theatre Company pledges to do the following by the end of September 2020:
We are asking our community members to join us in this work, and to hold us accountable. If you would like to continue the conversation with us, you can e-mail feedback@marintheatre.org, message us on Facebook, or leave a comment on any of our social media channels.
Last week, BIPOC theatremakers from around the country released an open letter to White American theaters. We acknowledge that our institution has been part of the problem of perpetuating white fragility, silence and supremacy in the field. It is our responsibility to listen, engage, and take action.
Thank you for your support,
Marin Theatre Company Staff & Board
To the Marin Theatre Company Community -
Theater is an important tool that builds empathy and creates change in our world. That is what we strive for with every production we mount. But speaking through art alone is not enough - we cannot just be passive protesters.
Racist violence that is itself a pandemic in our country and in our world must end. The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, among the countless others who have been victimized by racist violence in our nation's history must not be forgotten or ignored. We must all demand justice. We must all continue to fight against white supremacy and racism in all its forms.
While we, as a nation and a world, have been forced to pause from what was our “normal” to create a safer world, we must ensure that “safer” includes safety for all Americans and all global citizens. We must move from passivity to action in seeking safety, justice, and respect for every person.
We stand with all of our black artists and black community members during this time, and always. #blacklivesmatter.
For more resources on how to be active in the fight, please see links below.
Anti Racism Resources
Resources for White Allies Against Racism
In solidarity,
Jasson Minadakis, Artistic Director
Jenna Deja, Interim Managing Director
Marin Theatre Company Staff & Board