Community
Commitments
FOR OUR COMMUNITY
The Acting Company is first and foremost a Company, one comprised of all the performers both past and present. Beyond that, we are a cultural institution, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving the social good. We believe that these are important responsibilities, that we have an obligation to support and protect our members and to champion their views in the larger world.
Part of that responsibility is our duty to shape the present and future by becoming actively anti-racist and pro-BIPOC. For us, that means living up to ever-evolving standards of Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Justice. For more information about these commitments, we’d encourage you to read further.
We also take our responsibility to our larger community seriously. If you have any questions about our work, our policies on the institutional or production level, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We want to hear from you. We want to keep doing better.
We want to let our community know of some of the steps we have been taking.
Acknowledgements
& Agreements
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The Acting Company and the city of New York is located on Lenapehoking, the unceded traditional territory of the Lenni-Lenape people. We acknowledge debts we owe to the Indigenous peoples who have and still live, work, create, and contribute to communities here in Lenapehoking.
The City of New York, where our offices are located, was built by enslaved Africans during the Colonial Era and beyond. We acknowledge the trauma, pain, and suffering that occurred and will acknowledge the contributions of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color past and present in our home base of New York and in communities where our tours play.
AN ONGOING COMMITMENT TO
CHANGE
Last summer, the Company committed to fulfilling our duty as a cultural institution to shape the present and future by becoming pro-BIPOC and actively anti-racist. For us, that means living up to ever-evolving standards of Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity, and Justice. Keeping that evolution in mind, this is an update on how the Company is working to live up to those commitments.
In shaping those initial commitments and in the process of examining our organization, both past and present, we have been guided by the work of a number of organizations: We See You White American Theater, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Black Theatre Coalition, Black Theatre United, and Black Lives Matter to start. These are just some of the organizations shouldering the burden of this enormous and inspiring work. We are grateful to them for leading the community to improve, to grow, and to do the right thing.
Language of Colonization
The harm to members of our community that is caused by continued use of colonial language has been brought to our attention. Titles that include words like “Master”, “Chief”, or “Foreman” can evoke negative responses as they are titles founded on systems of oppression. We are working to decolonize the language the Company uses in both titles and documents.
Time & Resources
Last fall the Company committed to eliminating the “10 out of 12” technical rehearsals and switching to a five-day work week. As we move toward producing again and plan our upcoming season, we have kept to this new schedule.
Casting Announcements
The Acting Company’s mission has always been devoted to the next generation of actors, with a desire that each new generation represents the full breadth of our culture. We know that casting announcements, particularly those for classical texts, are often phrased in ways that discourage actors from auditioning because they maintain cultural assumptions on the identity of the character. We are committed to producing casting announcements that encourage Black, Indigenous, and People of Color to audition for any and every role they feel is appropriate to them. We will also promote and welcome gender diverse, non-binary, and ability conscious casting.
Diversity On & Off Stage
This means that we will actively seek BIPOC artists to lead artistic projects, that artistic teams should not be racially or culturally homogenous, and that diversity is reflected at every level of production.
Chelsea Lee Williams and Jimonn Cole, photo by Charlie T. Erikson
Accountability & Transparency
Accountability and transparency are vital to this process and so, if there are questions, recommendations, adjustments, or comments of any sort, please contact us directly.
Engaging the Community
Part of this process demands that our actions are visible to our community so that we can be held accountable. This website is part of that process. We worked with Isometric Studios to build a site where our community can engage with us directly. The site includes spaces where our evolving commitments can live in full public view, where we can acknowledge those that have come before as well as those that we are learning from now, where we can gather feedback from our community, and where we can lift up and celebrate members of our community. As we move back into production we will include the names, bios, and pics of current staff, production teams, and acting ensembles. We want our community to know who we are and what we do.
Student Loan Debt Relief
Student load debt is a significant challenge for many actors and artists working in the theater today. Many rely on Student Loans to support their education. Upon entering the field they find their options limited as they struggle to pay back those loans while finding their place in the field. This can mean needing to prioritize work in film, tv, or advertising or having to maintain multiple jobs at once. Many are forced out of the field entirely as they need steadier and higher income work to pay back those loans.
The Acting Company is dedicated to centering and empowering the actor and beginning this season we are proud to have found a way to help relieve the debt of the actors that join our Company: the Actor Stability Relief Initiative, underwritten by The Booth Ferris Foundation. This is a small step, but one that we are hoping will make a substantive change in the lives of the artists we work with.