Theatre Advocacy Project Believes Human Resources Makes Accountable Theatre and Braver Art Possible

Amelia: I facilitate sessions using the TAP curriculum you designed, Colette. I’m curious, how did you develop that curriculum and the self-guided online courses? What methodologies, schools of thought, and parts of your own background are you pulling from?

Colette: I have my master’s in counseling psychology, and I used to be the director of the Violence Prevention Research Team at DePaul University. My background is in behavioral interventions that are rooted in evidence or can be repeatable.

I pulled from a number of things in developing the workshops we offer, including harm reduction, which comes from the substance use world; restorative justice, which comes from the world of the legal system; and intersectionality. I pulled from my work at my Master’s program, which came from the world of what used to be called cultural competence, but now we’re looking at it as cultural humility. I studied under Derald Wing Sue, who coined the term microaggressions, and I look at a lot of his work in the things we do.

TAP’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Theater (EDIT) training pulls from the HR and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) world, but through a theatre lens. Caylin brought in some great research about the entertainment world and how historically people who are marginalized have been specifically disenfranchised in theatre. In EDIT, we look at the social identity wheel and have people unpack the various groups in which they have membership. From there, we examine how, from a dominant culture standpoint, you can see how everyone who does not fit into the dominant culture is marginalized and has been historically disenfranchised in theatre.

Our course that pulls from harm reduction and restorative justice has a lot of practical tools. I also looked at conflict resolution and theatrical intimacy education. We work with experts in subjects like disability justice, and with transgender and non-binary artists, to develop workshops on subjects I don’t have expertise in and for identities I don’t belong to.

I’m looking at what the best practices are in these fields, drawing from the literature and research, and developing behavioral interventions rooted in those things.

Our work is twofold: supporting organizations to create accountability as well as supporting individuals to know their rights and advocate for them.

Amelia: How do you hope artists and administrators will grow with information learned through their interactions with TAP? I recognize every theatre’s needs are different, but could you share best practices TAP is hoping to foster in the field?

Colette: I hope those who interact with TAP come away with the tools to start unpacking their own roles in upholding and now dismantling white dominant culture in the theatre. Best practices include auditing their people, policies, and practices to determine whether they are truly giving equitable access across the spectrum of identities.

Amelia: What are the different ways people can interact with TAP’s resources? Since you two are based in different cities, New York and Chicago, and members of the facilitation team live across the country, what are the various entry points for people to work with us?

Caylin: Our work is twofold: supporting organizations to create accountability as well as supporting individuals to know their rights and advocate for them. And while our organization was founded in New York City, much of our work takes place virtually to ensure as much accessibility nationwide as possible.

For organizations, we offer TAP House membership. When an organization becomes a TAP House, they engage with us through our suite of HR and DEI tools. This includes workshops, consulting sessions, rehearsal packages, our reporting hotline, production surveys to measure workplace culture and provide feedback, access to our handbook and online learning platform, and our TAP House badge. Being able to say you are a TAP House and have our TAP House badge is an indicator to folks within the industry that this is an organization that is committed to upholding safe and equitable theatre practices. These practices include providing both artists and administrators with clear reporting structures; ensuring folks know to make reports to us at TAP to ensure there is an external, neutral party available if an issue needs to be escalated; establishing community agreements for each production; tooling folks with shared language and frameworks like bystander intervention training; and communication tactics.

Organizations are walking a tightrope for their financial decisions. Often, the first thing to go is HR and DEI work, because of the cost factor.

We recognize this industry has a lot of financial constraints, particularly for nonprofit organizations, so this year we began two new programs for small budget organizations.

The first is our sponsorship program. One small budget organization was selected through a weighted lottery system to receive a free year of TAP House membership. Our second is our consortium TAP House membership. For this we partnered with IndieSpace in New York to provide four small budget theatres with shared access to membership. Together we are working as a cohort to build community and create HR and DEI policies and practices relevant to small budget theatre companies.

For artists we provide several opportunities for learning and community building: once a quarter, we offer a free community event called Wine and Conversation. For these, we gather in person in New York City and lead conversations about pressing industry topics such as creating accountability in American theatre, anti-oppressive theatre practices, pay equity, and more, as we work to build community and collective knowledge. We also offer free, introductory workshops virtually, once a quarter, as well as Broadway Advocacy Coalition’s Change Agent Training curriculum that we recently took over.

In addition, we offer sliding-scale ticket prices for artists to our membership workshops and partner with organizations like ART/New York and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance to offer workshops to their membership bases as well.

Finally, our online learning platform, outfitted with learning modules on anti-oppression in theatre, bystander intervention training, and social identity, is available to individuals to begin building a shared language and framework no matter where an artist is working.