Old Vic Vows to Hire Diversity Specialists and Take Steps Toward Diversity and Equality

The Old Vic Theatre in London is vowing to hire diversity specialists, after revealing that the theatre has no black staff and 89% of its workers are white.

The company is calling the campaign #pulluporshutup, and has released a list of things they will do to draw on 'the culture of openness, collaboration, compassion, healing and respect we have worked hard to instil more broadly at The Old Vic.'

The Old Vic's immediate commitments are:

1. To share data regarding their workforce in response to the #pulluporshutup campaign.

2. To more robustly collate and interrogate data across the whole organisation including creative teams.

3. To appoint diversity specialists to support the company in their work.

4. To hold open forum sessions with their people and creative colleagues to hear directly from them about how they can work together to create positive change.

5. To work with their people to explore ways of giving equal access to The Old Vic, be that on stage, back of house or in the audience.

6. To shape and implement a thoughtful, meaningful and robust equality and diversity strategy.

7. To reaffirm that the company has zero tolerance of harassment and bullying for any reason, and continue to enshrine this in our culture through training and support structures.

8. To redouble their efforts to further diversify the workforce and Board, supporting career progression and training schemes where relevant.

The company published data showing that 0% of their staff is black, but it is worth noting that only 45% of staff took the survey, as it was optional.

Read all of the data, and the company's full statement, at https://www.oldvictheatre.com/news/2020/07/pulluporshutup.