Arts on the Horizon would like to express its gratitude to the individuals who drafted the We See You, White American Theater demands. By illuminating our weaknesses and demanding change, this document presents indispensable guidance on the steps we need to take toward growth and inclusivity. Arts on the Horizon strives to provide intelligent, innovative, and original work for children ages 0–6 that is accessible, inspiring, and joyful, and we want to ensure our organization is welcoming not only to artists, staff members, and volunteers, but also to the young audience members we serve.
To serve our community, we recognize that we must actively seek out information, tools, and resources to identify our shortcomings. By listening to artists in the DC Metro area and participating in conversations with the national BIPOC TYA artist community, we have learned that the act of implementing positive change is never complete. We want to navigate this change purposefully, but also urgently and voraciously, doing the work, while ensuring lasting and ongoing positive change.
We have established several committees, composed of various board members, staff members, company members, and artists. Each group has been tasked with focusing on a specific goal including but not limited to: examining Equity, Diversity, and Access within our organization; setting the foundation for our EDIJ plan; studying the We See You, White American Theater document; collectively work through the document “Anti-Racist & Anti-Oppressive Futures for Theatre for Young Audiences: An Interactive Guide; and crafting action steps to support emerging BIPOC artists.
We have established several committees, composed of various board members, staff members, company members, and artists. Each group has been tasked with focusing on a specific goal including but not limited to: examining Equity, Diversity, and Access within our organization; setting the foundation for our EDIJ plan; studying the We See You, White American Theater document; collectively work through the document “Anti-Racist & Anti-Oppressive Futures for Theatre for Young Audiences: An Interactive Guide; and crafting action steps to support emerging BIPOC artists.
While we move forward to realize the goals of these committees, we recognize that our work is not done, and we commit to stay vigilant in our growth. Here is a selection of the new initiatives that we are currently actively implementing:
- Invest in and champion more Black artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color (BIPOC artists) both onstage and off, especially in creator, playwright, designer, and director roles. We recognize that in the past we have filled the roles of directors, playwrights, and designer roles predominately with white artists. We commit to ensuring that more than half of these roles will be filled by BIPOC artists each season. At this time, we have engaged BIPOC artists to create and direct all our digital programming in 2020 and planned digital programming for 2021. All of our designers and 75 percent of the actors for our digital programming in 2020 are BIPOC artists.
- Examine, identify, and implement new ways to bring BIPOC artists into our organization. To provide an avenue to the world of Theater for the Very Young for emerging artists who might not otherwise discover it, we will create a new voices program, which provides paid opportunities, access to our work, and resources for emerging artists.
- Reexamine the programming selection process. We will create a rotating committee of company members and artists to discuss programming ideas and options for future seasons. It is important to us that a majority of this team is represented by BIPOC artists, to ensure that our programming is not built through a lens that is primarily white. In order to prevent any conflicts of interest, committee members will not be directly involved in the development of said programming.
- Expanding our reporting structure to ensure that individuals have multiple safe avenues to report incidents of racism, harassment, oppression, and discrimination, including an anonymous form.
- Commit to supporting our artists in a humane work environment by hiring understudies for all live productions, drafting actionable policies to allow for substitute stage managers, and providing access to stipends for hair and skin-care products for Black artists. We will also continue our commitment to artists by never scheduling 10 out of 12 technical rehearsals, maintaining short rehearsal days, and never scheduling more than five workdays per week.
- Recognize the importance of and provide anti-racism resources and training to existing staff, board, company members, and artists.
- Our producing artistic director has participated in several anti-racism trainings, including the 11-week anti-racism webinar series Listen, Learn, Lead produced by TYA/USA and Arts in Color. She and our board chair will also be participating in the Community of Practice – Abolishing Racism in the Workplace Initiative workshops February–July of 2021 facilitated by YPT’s AROW program, which will build a community of practice committed to addressing racism and oppression within each of the participating organizations and within the larger DMV theater community. Anti-racism resources and webinars have been provided to members of the board and company members. Our company members are actively participating in the anti-racism conversation within the DC Metro theater community to learn of additional resources or ideas that can be applied to our organization.
- Along with our EDI committee, the organization is creating a specific schedule for mandatory anti-racism trainings and additional anti-racism resources for the board, staff, and company members for the future.
- Prioritize the telling of BIPOC stories in our arts education classes and on our stages.
- We require that at least 50 percent of the books used in our education programs feature BIPOC characters and are written by BIPOC authors.
- We have created a list of books for ages 0–6 on our website, written by authors of color and featuring stories about children of color, in an effort to expand the resources available to families and teachers. This will continue to be updated periodically.
- We have provided anti-racism resources and tools (including, but not limited to, videos, articles, and books) via our website and newsletter for parents and families of children ages 0–6. This list of resources will continue to be updated.
This list is not a comprehensive one. While we actively engage with the work, we understand that this is just the beginning of a never-ending journey for our organization. There is always room for improvement — and our promise is to continue to strive for positive, meaningful progress to fulfill our mission to serve our community. We plan to update the community with transparency about the work that we do.
