An update on our DEI and anti-racism actions in the past year

You’re likely to see updates from multiple Bay Area performing arts orgs about the actions they’ve taken in the last year to promote equity and anti-racist practices within their orgs and within the Bay Area performing arts landscape as a whole, in response to the Living Document/BIPOC Equity Action Plan and #WeSeeYouWAT. We encourage you to look out for updates from the orgs you’re connected to. (Crowded Fire Theater Company has assembled an awesome toolkit to help with checking in on orgs, which you can see on their page.)

You can find some of the below mentioned documents if you scroll down this page.

Here are our actions of the past year, in no particular order:

- Introduction of an Artists’ Bill of Rights, to expressly outline and solidify the inalienable rights of artists working on KML projects (viewable on website)

- Introduction of Students’ Bill of Rights, to expressly outline and solidify the inalienable rights of students taking KML classes of any kind (viewable on website)

- Introduction of thorough Equitable Casting Guidelines for use in all casting situations (productions, class reads, etc)

- Introduction of an artists' Needs To Create form, to be filled out before each production by the creative team, so that we have a better understanding of the individual needs of artists before they ever enter our spaces (viewable on website)

- Best practice updates related to the above docs, including the addition of casting decision review process

- An update of our Mission, Vision, and Values (viewable on website)

- A full update of both our Code of Conduct & Employee Handbook

- In addition to a longstanding practice of post-production anonymous surveys, a second open survey so that concerns can be relayed sans any identifying context clues from the base survey

- Creation of guidelines for how to handle harmful incidents in classes (currently in editing process)

- Addition of a line in our annual budgets specifically allocated to DEI and anti-racism work in our org

- A commitment to annual donations to The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust (the first of which was made Jan 18th, 2021)

- Implementation of Land Acknowledgements in board and other meetings

- Creation of a BIPOC Scholarship Program to provide an avenue for classes to be taken at no charge, on a rolling basis, year round (info here: https://www.killingmylobster.com/scholarships)

- Addition of dedicated space on the KML website to post regular updates about these actions: https://www.killingmylobster.com/news-updates

- Hiring of Co-Directors of Writing Education, who have revamped all writing curriculums and supporting materials

- Weekly check-ins about upcoming DEI and anti-racism actions at all operations meetings

- DEI and anti-racism updates about latest actions at each board meeting

- Implementation of annual training for all staff, board, instructors, and TAs on bias and microaggressions, through Mosaic Collaborative (first training occurred on March 18th)

- Instituted performer pay for class reads, thereby eliminating volunteer performance positions

- Regular reexamination of all above listed documents, policies, and actions to make updates as needed

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As the Bay Area engages in more and more conversations about reopening strategies and what live performance looks like when it's safe to return, it's important that all orgs, groups, troupes, and entities ensure that we don't revert to practices that further marginalize and harm the very people who are the beating hearts of our work. We look forward to continuing to examine all our practices and to consistently make changes to create a better environment for the people who come through our doors.