Bag&Baggage’s Anti-Racism Response & Action Plan

This is a living document, providing a summary of our most immediate work and priorities in our journey towards anti-racism within our organization. It will be updated approximately every six months, shared throughout our company and our community, and posted on our website. This is crucial and challenging work, and we strive to stay accountable; to take tangible, meaningful steps towards repairing relationships with our BIPOC community; to re-educate our current audience base as we ourselves learn; and to improve our culture throughout every area of Bag&Baggage in a way that centers the BIPOC experience.

 

Report on our work, priorities, and action steps for July-December 2021:

 

• Our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee continued regular weekly meetings, in which we: 
  • completed a review and audit of the Employee and Actor/Designer/Crew Handbooks, making adjustments to oppressive language; 
  • discussed and calendared annual days of cultural and social significance to observe with intention; 
  • initiated an ongoing discussion about psychological safety in the workplace, and new structures and practices that this requires; 
  • defined our approach to BIPOC affinity spaces and (i.e. listen to what is needed, offer space, and then get out of the way); 
  • agreed, similarly, to offer our Unpacking the Baggage series as a space for stories that need a platform, listening to and compensating those that share and give of themselves; 
  • completed an audit of our full vendor list and discussed adjustments we can make to redistribute resources towards business that are BIPOC- or woman-led, and as local as possible; 
  • and established a plan to move our committee to shared-leadership model, in addition to sharing weekly reminders and offerings from our conversations with the rest of our company. 
  • As a committee, we also attended a Social Justice Through Artistic Expression hosted by the Hillsboro Arts and Culture Council.

• We continued to refine our staff hiring processes, prioritizing BIPOC representation, access, and a hire-by-committee structure as we interviewed and hired a new Marketing & Communications Associate.

 

• We began the work of recruiting new BIPOC-identifying members for our Board of Directors, and continue to foster these relationships and look for new opportunities to make connections.

 

• We made progress toward our goal of achieving greater diversity and gender representation on our casts and production teams, in addition to fairly compensating artists for additional labor:
  • We produced a virtual production of Troy, USA by Black playwright Don Wilson Glenn and AAPI playwright Dmae Roberts, directed and edited by AAPI director Lawrence Siulagi, and featuring a cast of 7 BIPOC artists and 2 white artists. The team working on Troy, USA was 35% women, 55% men, 10% nonbinary.
  • We produced, in person, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] assistant directed by Latina director Yasmin Ruvalcaba, and featuring cast of 2 BIPOC actors and 1 white actor. The team working on Complete Works was 50% women, 40% men, 10% nonbinary.
  • We produced, in person, the world premiere of Bluebeard, a piece by Kailey Rhodes and AAPI artist Samson Syharath, featuring 1 BIPOC designer and a cast of 2 BIPOC artists and 6 white artists. The team working on Bluebeard was 47% women, 40% men, 13% nonbinary.
  • For both Complete Works and Bluebeard, we compensated artists for social media takeovers that assisted promotional efforts. 
  • We are currently workshopping a new play by Cuban-American playwright Carlos-Zenen Trujillo, and are planning a 2022/23 theatre season featuring 50% BIPOC playwrights and 50% women playwrights.

• We continued to include the following line items in the 2022/23 Season Budget, after initially including them in 2021/22: culturally competent talk-back facilitators; a trained counselor to be made available to artists and crew members of programming dealing with racialized experiences; BIPOC marketing consultation on all show promotion materials; and stipends for artists who assist in marketing efforts such as social media takeovers, interviews, and public promotional appearances. We will appropriately credit the artists and professionals providing this labor, and will continue to consider additional items that need to be added in the interest of creating a necessary support structure for the success of all staff and artists, and particularly BIPOC. 

• Staff leadership attended ongoing Climate Action Monthly Meetings hosted by the Theatre Communications Group, as well as Bystander Intervention trainings with Hollaback!; a DEI Summit hosted by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce; and a workshop on Racial Healing and Theatre Making with Sarah Bellamy of Penumbra Theatre and Center for Racial Healing. We aim to use this learning as the groundwork for creating more sustainable practices and safer spaces at Bag&Baggage.

• We are realigning staff roles in the interest of best supporting this work, seeking to build stronger ongoing relationships with BIPOC artists, consultants, and community members, and develop timelines and practices that empower these artists.  

Our work, priorities, and action steps for January-June 2022:

 

• Our EDI Committee will continue to meet weekly to discuss Bag&Baggage’s work towards collective liberation. Our most immediate goals are: 
  • to cultivate authentic relationships with the descendants of the indigenous communities that were displaced from the land now occupied by The Vault Theater; 
  • to identify individuals, organizations, or groups to whom we will offer our Unpacking the Baggage platform; 
  • and to create a training for front-of-house volunteers as we prioritize the safety of the Vault Theater space for everyone. 

In all of this work, we continue to prioritize the idea of “moving at the speed of trust” knowing that there is always enough time for the right work.

 

• We will identify intentional steps that our production department can take towards greater environmental sustainability, guided by the Sustainable Production Toolkit. We will work to implement these steps in the remainder of our 2021/22 Season productions.  
• We will implement our plan to share the work and conversations of the EDI Committee with the greater company through weekly email offerings, as well as our plan to move the Committee to a shared leadership model. 
• We will work with Matthew Reynolds Consulting on a company-wide refocus of our EDI efforts, and provide the Equity Lens Workshop experience to board, artists, staff, and volunteers who are either new to B&B or were unable to participate last spring. 

Work that remains constant from our previous action steps:

• Our Artistic and Managing Directors will continue the work of recruiting two new BIPOC-identifying members for our Board of Directors, and exploring ways (a) for Company Artists to have greater representation at the board level, and (b) to have greater BIPOC representation in the Company Artist pool. 
• We will continue our work to intentionally include BIPOC voices, stories, and experiences in all areas of the company where policy is being created and decisions are being made - including a cessation of the practice of hiring entirely homogeneous, white casts and design teams. This includes a continued commitment to fairly compensate all artists - and particularly BIPOC artists - for their appearance and involvement at donor events, or other public-facing events that fall outside the scope of their Artist Agreements. We continue to actively seek to build long-term relationships with BIPOC artists and community members.

 

This is a living document, and updates will be posted whenever changes or revisions are made. We will review and update this action plan and assessment at least every six months, as transparency with our community is a necessary part of our work in becoming a more anti-racist institution.

To read B&B's previous response to the We See You White American Theatre movement click here.