FaultLine’s Commitment to Anti-Racism
FLT ANTI-RACISM COMMITMENTS
Land Acknowledgement / BIPOC Acknowledgments
We begin each of our digital events with acknowledgment of the native land our theater and staff have resided on and will continue to do so.
Faultline commits to beginning each of our future live events with the acknowledgment of the native land on which our theater and staff reside.
FaultLine commits to having an information board with these acknowledgments displayed in our lobby and on our website.
FaultLine commits to publicly displaying our acknowledgment of the labor of BIPOC artists and correctly crediting BIPOC artists for their work.
Mission Statement
We have adjusted our Mission, Vision, and Value statements reflecting all actions and changes towards BIPOC representation, support, and programming.
EDI Training for Staff
All members of our staff have received EDI training (Art Equity, A.R.T by Nicole Brewer’s, Accountability Work Group Bay Area, Bystander Intervention Training, and Stand Up Against Street Harassment courses)
We are taking steps to ensure that our board is educated by providing resources and check-ins about their learnings.
We will continue to receive Anti-Racism training quarterly through larger organizations that will allow us to join their training.
New Hires / Artists Resources
Hired a BIPOC Director of Artists Resources as a resource for our associate artists.
We will continue to prioritize hiring EDI-trained / BIPOC contract workers.
Creating a Safe Space for BIPOC Artists
We are currently developing intervention and disruption protocols for harmful moments.
We will ensure we have a safe process in place for our associate artists, contract workers, and FaultLine audience members who have been harmed as a result of one of our employees or productions.
We are currently creating an optionally anonymous survey for each show, where individuals can report racist behavior. The cast, crew, creative team, and staff will be reminded of it each week and it will be checked weekly by our Director of Artist Resources.
If we ever use ushers, we will prioritize volunteer ushers with EDI training. If we have a group who does not have this training, we will let them know our expectations.
We will have an anti-racism and No Tolerance Policy created and stated at the top of the 1st Rehearsal and Tech process. We will have signed documents stating each artist's agreement.
We will put up signs in the lobby and in the program about not policing other audience members. We want to let people have their joy!
We will also inform our audiences that we do not police our audiences in the pre-show speech.
All FaultLine staff will be aware of our no policing policy.
FaultLine commits to investing in BIPOC leaders.
We have established a Creative Producer program that will embrace peer mentorship and is committed to employing an intentional and honest effort in establishing consistent, meaningful, long-term relationships with BIPOC artists.
BIPOC Creative Team/Artists Support
BIPOC directors will be allowed the artistic freedom to re-imagine the direction of a white playwright’s work however they see fit. They will have artistic agency due to FaultLine’s nature of producing new work and be able to communicate with the living playwright.
We will provide the necessary hair and makeup products when working with Black artists. We will compensate artists for the costs of hairdressers and barbers if there are costs associated with the show. We will hire costume designers who are knowledgeable in Black hair and products when working with Black artists.
Prioritization of the cultural care and feeding of BIPOC artists
FaultLine is committed to ensuring contracted and associate artists have a BIPOC and Anti-Racism trained resource before, during, and after productions.
FaultLine is committed to ensuring BIPOC artists' work has the audience for which it was intended. We commit to conducting and supporting the marketing of BIPOC work through the hiring of marketing professionals who know how to engage the intended community.
We will provide equal and equitable pay for all artists on a project. We have increased our pay rates and will continue to increase our pay for our artists when funds truly allow.
We commit to valuing the worth of BIPOC artists by providing resources and creating leadership, staffing, and artistic opportunities for BIPOC folx.
We commit to honoring and valuing the lived experiences of BIPOC folx/artists by centering their narratives and creating opportunities for these artists in our seasons.
Working Conditions and Hiring Practices
We commit to encouraging our BIPOC associate artists to create safe affinity spaces.
We commit to reading our anti-racism statement at all first rehearsals, board meetings, and quarterly staff meetings.
We commit to being fully transparent to all hired artists about the artists, associates, and assistants they will be working with or may come in contact with during a production in order to ensure full awareness of who will be in the room.
We commit to proficient and accessible walk-throughs of inventory and spatial configurations to all hired artists.
We commit to eliminating 10 out of 12s and will eliminate the 6-day rehearsal week.
We commit to allocating more time to the creative process.
We commit to connecting with community wide EDI training and resources such as the Anti-Racist Trainer Program: Making Good Trouble and the Accountability Work Group Bay Area.
We commit to assigning a designated EDI person for each FaultLine production.
We commit to ensuring FaultLine puts an immediate end to harmful and oppressive hiring practices by learning about the history of these practices and understanding the harm they cause.
FaultLine commits to removing experience or education barriers and creating a transparent hiring process that is dedicated to recruiting a diverse pool of BIPOC candidates for all leadership positions.
We commit to having a transparent hiring process and to recruiting a diverse pool of BIPOC candidates for all leadership positions.
We commit to building strong relationships within the BIPOC community and continuing to seek to build a BIPOC production staff.
We commit to removing experience or education barriers from our job postings and will eliminate the use of the terms “most favored nation” and the “Rooney Rule”
We commit to BIPOC candidates comprising the majority of the final candidate pool for all positions.
We commit to not clumping BIPOC artists in with white women and white LGBTQ+ artists.
BIPOC in the majority of leadership positions
We commit to put an end to having a predominately white leadership and commit to developing the careers of each BIPOC member on our staff.
We commit to having BIPOC in Literary Departments
We commit to hiring BIPOC leaders in our literary department and giving them agency to inform season selection and empower them to disagree.
Faultline Commits to Equitable Season, Curation, Programming, Casting and Marketing
We do not abide by the “mainstage” and “second stage” construct that consistently relegates work by BIPOC artists to a secondary position.
We commit to investing in a power-sharing model for curation and beyond in-season programming, including but not limited to having at least one show that is credited to BIPOC staff and community members beyond the Co-Artistic Directors.
We commit to having BIPOC plays represent no less than 60% of mainstage programming with salaries and royalties equitable to the institution’s highest tier.
We commit to casting processes that reflect the cultural specificity of the shows being cast.
We commit to, if the casting director is white, hiring an additional BIPOC casting director to work alongside the in-house casting office to cast BIPOC shows and we commit to paying this individual or individuals a competitive rate for their work.
We commit to giving BIPOC marketers and press priority for covering ALL shows, including those featuring BIPOC artists.
We commit to opening up channels of contact between our marketing efforts and creative teams so that they may more directly communicate around marketing decisions for a project or production. Involving playwrights, directors, and designers.
If we grow as a company, we commit to filling open positions with BIPOC marketing talent.
We will Hire Cultural Consultants for ethnically specific shows in the season programming.
We will hire dramaturgs of color for culturally specific shows in the season programming.
We will hire Creative Designers and Technicians to make up 60% BIPOC, queer, trans, womxn of color, and/or non-binary of a production’s team.
We will offer Director positions in the company’s season to 60% BIPOC, queer, trans, womxn of color, non-binary, and/or disabled artists.
BIPOC Audiences
We commit to making BIPOC audiences a priority for all future FaultLine productions.
We commit to investing in and fostering reciprocal relationships in BIPOC communities with a concentrated focus & investment in long-term BIPOC audience development.
We commit to ensuring an effective time schedule for the execution of marketing and promotional campaigns.
BIPOC Equitable Access
FaultLine commits to ensuring the practice of maintaining donors, subscribers, and board members is also applied to creating relationships with BIPOC audiences for all FaultLine productions.
We commit to developing affordable ticket price initiatives including reduced price ticketing.
We commit to holding ticket blocks for later and single ticket buyers.
We commit to reserving early ticket sales exclusively for BIPOC audiences.
We commit to providing exclusive access to readings, openings, and other curated benefit programs that are usually only offered to donors, subscribers, and board members.
We commit to ensuring our newsletters and mailings prioritize BIPOC audiences.
We commit to abolishing the practice of limiting BIPOC ticket buyers to the periphery of audiences and instead promote policies that give them access to the best seat selections before tickets go on sale to the general public.
We commit to offering free tickets to members of the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian tribal community on whose traditional homelands your theatre sits.
Artistic and Curatorial Practices
We commit to develop, commission, program, and produce a majority of BIPOC artists, and will not move forward with producing these shows without the appropriate BIPOC voices on the creative team and in the room.
We commit to including a diversity of BIPOC artists’ voices in our programming and not producing BIPOC plays solely center on trauma and pain. No more trauma porn!
When producing/programming BIPOC stories, we commit fully to honoring the cultural specificity of those stories.
When producing/programming BIPOC stories, we commit that, if it is being directed by someone from outside of the cultural context of the story itself (especially if the director is white), a cultural consultant will be hired at the expense of FaultLine.
We commit to ensuring that FaultLine design teams and principal designers (costumes, lighting, sound, scenic, projections) are more than 50% BIPOC.
We commit to ensuring that Individual directors commit to hiring majority BIPOC design teams.
We commit that FaultLine’s artistic directors ensure the same at the curatorial level.
We commit to centering BIPOC cultural specificity in the creation of BIPOC art -- in pre-production, the rehearsal process, marketing, literary management, and in-house dramaturgy, community engagement, audience development, and audience engagement.
We commit to protecting, honoring, properly compensating, and insuring the artistic continuance of BIPOC bodies and our creations in the development of new work and the reinterpretation of existing work.
We plan to establish local partnerships with Black and Brown businesses near the organization/company.
Transparency, Compensation, Accountability, and Boards
FaultLine commits to transparency.
FaultLine commits to complete transparency about policies, procedures, compensation, and relationships from artistic/executive leadership and boards of directors.
We commit to having published and transparent listings of board member affiliations with corporations and other nonprofits.
If FaultLine ever acquires a theater space, we commit to permanently and prominently publishing a description of how the theatre’s land was acquired and the history of the land with acknowledgments of the land’s Tribal Nations.
We commit to conducting transparent hiring practices (including clear salary recommendations for postings) throughout the entire organization, particularly executive leadership and junior to mid-level positions.
We commit to conducting vendor audits and commit to publishing total dollars spent with BIPOC-owned businesses versus white-owned.
We commit to transparency around institutional expectations, logistics, and requirements, and are prepared to embrace the possibility of the BIPOC artists in the boardroom asking for amendments and changes to those institutional expectations.
FaultLine commits to transparency in fundraising and the distribution of funds as it relates to BIPOC artists’ work.
FaultLine commits to ceasing the practice of raising money to engage BIPOC artistic work but using most of the funds raised for institutional overhead.
We commit to publishing total dollars earned by white artists and staff in a season versus total dollars earned by BIPOC artists and staff, according to titles and positions.
We will not and do not exclusively fundraise from BIPOC communities to support the development of BIPOC work.
We commit to stop asking Tribal Nations to fund FaultLine projects with American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Indigenous artists and communities;
Publish an organizational budget showing how dollars are allocated every 6 months.
Compensation:
We will pay all artists the same rates.
If we pay FaultLine staff for their work, we will make sure that it is at the same rate for all staff members.
We will all be paid the same rate for our work or not be paid at all!
We will post our budget online every 6 months, so there is transparency about where our money is going.
If BIPOC artists are asked to attend a fundraiser, gala, audience talkbacks, or donor event they will be compensated for this work.
We will compensate our staff who will attend and aid in events.
There will be no apprenticeship programs at FaultLine.
We will send out a survey after each show asking for feedback on the company to act as our “performance evaluations”.
Accountability and Boards:
We commit to overhauling our board of directors so that memberships are more inclusive.
We commit to deprioritizing outsized monetary influence in board decisions and prioritize valuing the voices and skills of BIPOC board members. We commit to honoring cultural competency, relationship building, and lived experiences.
We commit to recognizing that artists are essential to boards, amend bylaws to require that executive committees must include BIPOC artists.
We commit to establishing institutionalized board access for production staff.
We commit to instituting an in-house BIPOC Alliance Committee made up of BIPOC staff, artists, and community members to evaluate the mission and vision of the theater and collaborate with executive leadership and the board to build a strategic plan designed to move the theatre toward anti-racist practices. Members of the BIPOC Alliance should be voting board members.
We commit to being transparent about how FaultLine is adhering to its obligation as a 501(c)3 to be in service of the public good.
We commit to giving back dollars to BIPOC communities impacted by or represented in stories at FaultLine.
We commit to equitable partnerships and collaborations with BIPOC theatres.
We commit to a 360 annual review process for executive leadership, including artists, staff, and community stakeholders.
We commit that all executive leaders must develop a succession plan within 5 years of service.
We commit to FaultLine’s Co-Artistic Directors and leadership serving a term of no longer than 3-5 years.