Solidarity Statement
Dear Road Theatre Company members, family, and friends:
Black Lives Matter.
These last few years have been a time of grieving, but also of awakening. Systemic racism runs deep through our own theatrical community, our country, and the world. We want to and must do better, as artists, as leaders, and as an organization.
We are inspired by our company’s willingness – over 160 members strong – to have uncomfortable yet necessary conversations and to approach the work of dismantling racism with boldness and transparency. We call white and non-BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) company members to action, asking them to embrace humility, to begin the work of identifying their privilege and implicit bias, and to stand up in protest against the injustices working at large in our society, and within the American theatre.
- We commit to engage in difficult conversations within our company, to hold ourselves accountable to being a safe and empowering space for BIPOC artists and theatremakers, and to ensure that BIPOC members feel valued and heard. This includes protecting BIPOC company members from the emotional labor of having to educate white peers or to speak for their communities.
- We commit to continue our education as anti-racists, both personally and collectively, as we want this moment to not be just a flashpoint but a turning point for real and actionable change.
- We commit to use our stage as a platform to produce socially and politically relevant theatre to serve our diverse community, to amplify unheard voices, and additionally to lift up BIPOC playwrights and stories on our stages.
- We commit to publicly and regularly acknowledge the native land on which our theatres stand.
- We commit to being more inclusive in how we staff, cast, and program our seasons, and to ensure more authentic representation of the stories we choose to tell.
We’re listening, we’re learning, and we will do better.