We believe that art is a public good, and should be available to all.
We are an educational organization that promotes lifelong learning. We are often our audience’s first contact with Shakespeare and the performing arts, and we take that responsibility seriously.
We strive to be an anti-racist, social justice organization. We hope to create a culture of equity and inclusion, recognizing that we are working within longstanding systems that have traditionally privileged white, cisgender, able-bodied, upper-class, straight males. We work to evaluate those systems and what we might do to destroy them.
We recognize that as a company with “Shakespeare” in our name and mission, we are part of a dominant tradition that has privileged European male playwrights over all others. While we value the artistry of Shakespeare’s work, we also problematize his hegemonic place in our culture.
We believe that representation matters, on and offstage. We actively recruit under-represented candidates for all roles and positions within the organization. We believe that a diverse organization is a better organization and that the art itself is greatly improved by collaboration among people with different backgrounds and perspectives.
Our current policy is to cast each production with at least 60% artists of color and at least 60% artists who identify as female, non-binary, genderqueer or trans. We recognize that these policies are not inclusive of all types of difference among people and continue to work toward wider representation.
We strive to create a “brave space,” free from harassment, in which all can expect physical safety. We challenge the notion of “safe space” because we believe expectations of comfort by those who traditionally experience privilege should be challenged. We also believe that when disagreements arise, we should lean into conflict and attempt to find common ground and resolution rather than disengage completely.
We seek to create a timeful mindset rather than a mindset of scarcity or sense of urgency. We strive to fit the task to the time and not push ourselves beyond our capacity. We will regularly revisit our goals and the time allotted to achieve them with a sense of flexibility during this new, iterative process, while also remaining accountable to our external partners and each other.
