November 11th: Summit on Governance
The first day will welcome TCG Member Theatre leaders and trustees in a working session centering the #WeSeeYouWAT demands through the lens of governance.
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Just and Thriving Governance: From the Roots: Opening Plenary, 12:00-1:00pm ET
As our field responds to the #WeSeeYouWAT demands, we are called to question the business models we’ve inherited, and to get at the root of injustices that have evolved and taken hold within our theatre community. This plenary session will host a conversation featuring BIPOC theatremakers working within those models, and help us collectively envision a more just and thriving governance ecology.
Affinity Spaces: 1:15-3:00pm
- BIPOC Leaders and Trustees Affinity Space
- Anti-Racist Governance Resources for White Trustees and Theatremakers
Concurrent Sessions: 3:30-5:00pm
- Executive searches, Hiring, and Board Recruitment
Participants will hear from peers leading anti-racist search, hiring, and recruitment processes. Together, we’ll address the #WeSeeYouWAT demands focused on transparent hiring practices, salary equity and transparency and the overall ecology of leadership transitions.
- Governance Culture and Policies
Participants will engage with strategies and tactics to build and sustain anti-racist policy and culture at the governance level. We’ll address the #WeSeeYouWAT demands focused on institutional transparency, disrupting racism at the board level; eliminating mandatory financial minimum gifts for trustees; BIPOC artist representation on boards; and more.
- Compensation and Investments: A budget is a moral document, and we’ll take a hard look at how our values do and don’t show up in how we compensate and invest. We’ll focus on the #WeSeeYouWAT demands that include: transparency of board affiliations; vendor audits; publishing organizational budgets; ending contracts with police departments; divesting from oil companies building on native and indigenous lands; and more. We’ll also center the needs of freelance artists who are facing severe economic precarity as well as union challenges.
Summit Closing: 5:15-6:30pm
New BIPOC-led Playbooks: Working through Resources like the #WeSeeYouWAT Demands with Your Board
The Fall Forum Summit on Governance will close by hearing from theatres who are deep in the work of responding to the #WeSeeYouWAT demands. This session will feature trustees and executive/artistic leaders talking about where they are in the process, with a focus on how they’ve catalyzed and organized their staff and boards in the work. Through this conversation, participants will hear first-hand accounts of how building a truly anti-racist approach to governance can happen.
November 12th & 13th:
Centering Joy, Community and Accountability for A Just & Thriving Theatre Ecology
The final two days of the Fall Forum will welcome all practitioners in the field. Amid a divisive election and the ongoing pandemics of COVID-19 and racism, we’ll focus on connecting with and caring for each other. Our four plenary spaces will invite generative and emergent conversations around four themes: Joy, Community, Accountability and finally answering the question, “What do we mean by Just & Thriving?” In each session, we’ll make space to discuss the foundation and practice of these themes, allowing for the smaller group connections and sharing that have always been a beloved part of our in-person gatherings. Through these conversations, we hope to collectively envision our way forward.