StageSource Announces First Phase Of Anti-Racism Community Building

StageSource is offering anti-racism community building to New England theatre artists, organizations, audiences, and boards.

This process will be a two-part, long-term collaboration with Anti-Racism Collaborative (ARC). The first phase of this process will involve a series of Listening Posts beginning in mid-October through early-November. The anti-racism work will be led by facilitators Deidra Montgomery and Stella Panzarella from Anti-Racism Collaborative, a multi-racial collective of anti-oppression educators and activists committed to supporting the movement for racial justice and equity.

This series of Listening Posts will address the unique needs and challenges of the New England theatre sector in regard to racism, white supremacist culture, privilege, power, and oppression. This process will prepare the community to invest in cultural change processes, inform a road map for individual and personal change, and improve impacts for organizations, artists, and theatre lovers in Greater Boston, the New England region, and beyond.

"StageSource is committed to hosting this guidance and instruction because, in order to advance the art of theater in the Greater Boston and New England area, we must prioritize the equity and safety of our work environments and theaters. Our goal is to cultivate accountability and understanding among the local theatre community in order to build an anti-racist and anti-oppressive future for our sector," says StageSource Executive Director, Dawn M. Simmons.

This is a sector-wide effort and aims to hold our entire community accountable, build a stronger sector as a whole, and establish how we can work together. This offering from StageSource and Anti-Racism Collaborative does not take the place of anti-racism efforts being made internally at organizations, but it is a necessary part of that work.

"Anti-Racism Collaborative is honored and excited to be a part of this work with StageSource. Our alignment in the focus on community building is part of what makes us so well matched for this partnership. This work is relational. When we're in right relationship with each other, we tend to do a better job of holding ourselves and each other accountable and making more space together for struggle, learning, and growth. Trust- and relationship building-in addition to establishing shared vocabulary, understandings, and goals-is critical for building a more just theatre community," says Anti-Racism Collaborative Facilitator, Deidra Montgomery.

Phase I: Information Gathering & Facilitation

Each Listening Post will bring together a sub-community of the New England theatrical landscape. The goal of the first phase is to create containers that hold honest and vulnerable conversations, build a shared language and understanding, and gather information about the experiences, knowledge, and commitments related to anti-racism among the New England theatre sector. The next phases will be informed by and curated from the information gathered from Phase 1.

The Listening Posts include:

October 19th, 6pm - StageSource Staff & Board

October 20th, 11am - Organizations' Staff: Any individual who works at a theatre organization

October 24th, 12pm - Independent Artists: Anyone who is a theatre artist in the community

October 26th, 5:30pm - BIPOC Community: Any theatre professional or audience member who identifies as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color

October 27th, 6pm - Audience Members: Anyone who attends theatrical productions in the New England area

November 10th, 5:30pm - Board Members: Anyone who is a member of a theatre's board

Registration is required. To participate in a Listening Post, go to StageSource's website and register for a specific session with your full name and email. Registration is free of charge. Each Listening Post is limited to 20 participants. You will be notified and put on a waitlist if the session is already filled.