 Your brains have been, your body has been refreshed and your mind is ready to go again. We've had some really stellar conversations this morning and we want to continue that. This is the Union EDIA Initiatives, Seismic Pressure. I'm Tim Dang, I'm one of the board members of the consortium of the Asian-American Theatre and Artists. And thank you so much for coming. We're thrilled to have our distinguished panel here speak about initiatives at SDC ADA and IOTC, how we call it IOTC, and how we can advance a more diverse membership. So just a few housekeeping things first. Take a look around you for the nearest available emergency exit. Should we need to exit? There you go. Also, if you want to tweet out, tweet out. And let's have some fun. Hashtag Kata OSF. I find it very, very useful in terms of using tweets because then I find out what's happening at the other panels too because there are four other panels, great panels happening at this time. So if you kind of like read the feed, you can find out what other people are thinking. So anyway, we're going to start out with our distinguished guests, giving probably maybe a four minute introduction, name, affiliation, a short description of the work you do as it relates to EDIA initiatives. So I'm going to start first person online. My name is Radar Bateman. I'm an international representative with the IA or IOTC or International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The IA was founded in 1893, so we're over 100 years old. And we are the union that represents the people that work behind entertainment. So designers, stagehands, camera operators in motion picture, all the way up to box office and ticket sellers in front of house staff. So pretty much anybody behind entertainment that makes entertainment happen, we're the union that represents those individuals. Sure. Okay, shall I go ahead? Yes. All right, I'm Gail Gabler and I'm the Western Regional Director of Actors' Equity Association, which is, I think most of you know, the Union for Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the U.S. We have 50,000 members. And if I might, I just wanted to see how many equity members we might have in the audience. Oh, not a ton, but great to see you. So I'll talk a little bit about our work on diversity. Diversity and inclusiveness in theater has been an important part of who equity is from the beginning. And we were founded not quite as early as IOTC, but 1913. So we've been around over 100 years too. And during that time, we fought hard against segregation, against blacklisting, for gay marriage, against yellow face. On most issues dealing with diversity, our union has had a strong position on that. And yet still, the theater is not as diverse as we all want it to be. So the work is not done. I think I might have enough copies for everybody here. Those of you who are members who have already received a copy, but if you get it online and want the hard copy, this is our most recent quarterly magazine, Equity News. And the title of this issue and the focus was Change the Stage. So it's really all about diversity and I just love the cover picture. So I'm going to show it because we've got the camera there. And there are stories in here from many of our members talking about their experiences in getting cast or not getting asked. And stereotypes that they've faced as they've been either asked to take on roles or told they weren't right for a role. And it's really fascinating the stories to hear from our members, which I think is an important part of helping to change the stages by lifting up and bringing those stories to bear and say this is a real experience that people are having in today's America is that they are being typecast and they're being told you're not right for this, you're too ethnic. Just the stories are really, in some cases, heartbreaking. In some cases, really very inspirational of how our members have overcome that to really do outstanding work. So I will share these as maybe we can just pass these or should we wait till the end so people can flip them through. So I also want to share before we turn over to Laura. In terms of our unions continuing to make commitment to this, our National Council of Elected Actors and Stage Managers and our leaders in our union met earlier this year in the plenary a couple of days in New York to get together and talk about where do we see ourselves going and what's our strategic direction for the next few years. And I'm just going to read one part of their resolution on that. The Council met in the plenary session and number one affirmed that promoting equal opportunity, diversity, gender parity and inclusion in our organizing, representation, communication and educational work shall be a top priority of our union. So that statement sort of overlaid all of our other strategic goals for the next couple of years is really based on we want to see a more inclusive theater world. So that's really our goal and we'll have a chance to talk more about that as we go ahead. Great, thank you. I'm Laura Penn. I'm the Executive Director of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, the National Union that represents stage directors working in jurisdictions all around the country from Broadway to dinner theater. We like to think it's hard to find a professional production that doesn't have one of our members on it is what we like to say. It's very dense. We're the young ones on the block. We're about 55 years old. SDC is actually the last labor union representing folks in the entertainment industry. We also have had a long term commitment to trying to advance equity and diversity in theater and it's come in cycles. I think many people in the room have been part of the cycles. Certainly there was the build up in the late 80s that came around following the release of Workforce 2000. Some changes happened then. It goes quiet, comes back up, goes quiet, comes back up. Most recently in the last few years we were challenged by some members of our union. Some of our members came forward and said you need to be doing more. SDC needs to be doing more. They wrote a letter to the board and the board responded. I think what's interesting for this discussion is to just take a moment and talk about the structure of a labor union which is a little different than maybe the non-profit organization that many of us are accustomed to and I came from the non-profit sector into the labor community in that it's not top down, it's bottom up. The members drive the agenda for the union. Certainly there's leadership and leadership has a lot of influence and leadership can make a huge difference but leadership cannot act unilaterally. Some union members came forward about four years ago and said we need more. We need more from our union in terms of diversity. The board responded very positively and we began a process that has included the creation of a statement not unlike equity but also a series of actions that have been taking place over the last couple of years and we can talk more about that in I think my four minutes. I don't want to go too far but it's really been great to see the union feel safe enough to start to ask the questions of its membership. About two years ago we did a survey because we put together a committee. The committee was going to put together a plan. The committee said whoa, we got to ask the membership. We have to make sure we're the diversity and inclusion committee. We know what we want. What do the 3,000 members want? So they sent out a survey that said how important are issues of diversity and inclusion should union resources be spent on issues of diversity and inclusion. And the membership could have said not very important and no, don't spend my money because we're funded by our members due to an assessment. And instead overwhelmingly it was absolutely it is critical that SDC take a leadership role in these issues across the field. And yes, we want resources dedicated to this. So that's a real turning point for us that has sort of fueled the last couple of years and will continue to propel us forward. Hi, my name is Che, I'm the artistic director of Fitzgerald's Theatre in Chicago. I'm also on the executive board of SDC. Or I just filter in on SDC, yes, so I'm done. That's it? Oh my gosh, okay. The unit panel, right? Well, Bremeni, Bremeni is always very into the issues. Yes, yes. So let's get into the issues. So my idea is to go ahead and pose some questions to our panel maybe for the next 15 minutes, but then the rest of the time is from you in terms of having discourse and questions about what the union can do for you and how that relates to diversity, inclusion, access issues. Okay, so, oh, and also just to remind everyone that we are being live streamed. So just to let everyone know if they are okay with being photographed as well. I know that Brad was taking photographs earlier and we are being live streamed. This is going to be recorded for future viewing. Gail has also sent a link to our note taker, Nicholas. Nicholas, raise your hand to our note taker, Nicholas, via Twitter of a similar panel that happened in New York that was hosted by Christine Toy Johnson. That's right. So please feel free to take a look at that video as well. So my first question is, are there statistics made available as to the demographics in your union? Yes. Yes, there are. And this is actually part of the survey. I've been at SDC for nine years. When I arrived at SDC, there were no demographic stats kept. You know, it was kind of an antiquated database. But more than that, the union never really asked. We didn't even ask gender. It was sort of gassed as it was put in the system. So needless to say, if we didn't know if you were a man or a woman, we probably didn't know anything else about you. That's changing. We've upgraded all of our systems. We've surveyed the membership several times. About 45% of our membership has self-identified with demographic information. We have 30% women, 70% men. So the 45% give us enough to be an accurate sampling. So 30% women, 70% men, 11% artists of color. And so if we wanted to call the office, a member wanted to call the office and ask them if there's their way that we could get all the demographics so that they would be able to be shared with them. I just shared it on Alrax. Somebody else? No. Well, yes. Meaning how that artist of color breaks down. Is that what you're getting at, Tim? Like how many African-American, how many Asian? Yeah. And Gail? We put some demographic information in our annual report. I don't have a copy of our annual report here right now. But that annual report is available to all of our members. We are, I think, much more evenly split between women and men in equity. And I think we have a higher number of people of color, but I do not have the students. Great. Wonderful. And for the IA, currently, the information that we collect is through the application for membership. And the question does, it just asks your name, your address and your phone number. It doesn't collect that information currently. So the IA doesn't have that information? Well, I think it's a good point, but I think all of this is self-identifying whether people choose to self-identify or not. We don't have any way to, you know, and none of us have a way to automatically determine that among our memberships. It's what information our membership shares with us. Right. Jay, anything to add to that question? Great. Thank you so much for the quick answers. Oh my gosh. Okay, so next question. What are some very insightful thoughts about how unions can uncover pay inequities and write those situations? Research shows that workers of color and women are paid less. People of color work less. How do we get this data and help unions encourage diversity? I'll go. Okay. So I think one thing that unions do help on pay inequity is the fact that during, say, an organizing process when we're in a group of technicians, I work in the live entertainment department. I don't know if I said that during my introduction, but so I work with primarily stage hands for people backstage, wardrobe. But during the, when we're organizing crew and we collected what's called, we collect cards, we go through a petition with the NLRB, we're able to then, during the negotiation process, we're able to ask for information from the employer. And I think what's important is is the transparency that happens at that point. And how many of you know what, how much your coworker makes? Like you don't, I mean probably. And so that allows employers to discriminate or be unfair because they don't, they don't have to pay everybody the same. When you're able to negotiate a contract, you're able to really make that transparency happen and be able to create a level playing field. And you're also able to look at the way people are promoted within a company or on the job. And so there's non-arbitrary ways that you can do that based on skills or demonstration and it's not based on, do I like you or are you the nice person? Are you coming to work early or such? No, it's, you were on, you performed your job, you had the skills, you've been there. The longest, it's a non-arbitrary. And we're able to put that in a collective Oregon agreement. So I think that that really definitely helps in eliminating the discrimination that happens in the job place. Okay, great, thanks. Kim? Yeah, I'd like to build a little bit on what Radar is saying. I mean the importance of having a labor union. So many studies have shown that in the general population in America, the discrepancy between what you make as a person of color versus what a quacation person makes, the gap there is decreased not based on education, not based on seniority. The biggest determinant of having more equal pay is belonging to a labor union. So that's in all professions across our economy. So belonging to a labor union is what helps to close that gap in addition to making it more transparent. So in our union for on stage, all of our members regardless of their background make the same minimums that they are guaranteed the same minimums in the contract that that employer agreement is under. Now there, we do not govern above the minimum. So there are some of our members who might have just won a Tony award, who might say, you know what, you're going to pay me a little bit more than that, right? Or they're a TV star in addition to their stage work and are the big draw for bringing the audiences in. But in terms of knowing what your coworkers are making in the pasture, you do know that when you're on a union contract, an equity contract, I think that's true for all of us, that it sort of eliminates that bit of disparity. The other issue though, of course, is getting the jobs in the first place. And I think we're going to get back into that issue as well. You know, it truly is the great leveler, right? Because you know nobody's in the room that isn't at least at this baseline. I think what's also maybe less known is in the negotiating process when you're trying to improve conditions and protections. It's the strongest members that are at those tables. And the strongest members often are the ones that are working for above minimum. So when you sit in, whether it's a lower negotiation or a Broadway negotiation or an off-Broadway negotiation, it's Jerry Mitchell that's fighting to increase the minimums. And Jerry Mitchell's fine, but he's working for the next that follows. So it's sort of embedded in the labor negotiation process and the collective bargaining agreements is a kind of, you know, it really is one for all. And it's about lifting. It's about lifting everyone. Okay. I've never seen Chase so silent. I think we belong to the same union. You know, we will just be duplicating. As an artist of color, I mean, when I get an SDC contract, I know I'm not being paid. Because we have fought to make sure that everything that you are signing off on is equitable. So that is, like what we've been saying, the union is fighting for all of us. The question then becomes at one point, what is the entry point? And I don't know what the union can do about this, but I'm sure that we're all trying to figure out ways of access and to create equity amongst everyone. Great. So I'm actually going to get back to you, Jay, in a question later on, because there are organizations like Victory Gardens and like OSF that have special policies or a mandate in terms of equity and access and inclusion. And how can other theaters kind of like follow that lead, which would be really great. Let us continue. How can we work with employers as unions to grow the employment for underrepresented groups and support more artists of color, women and other underrepresented groups? I'm hoping that we can have at least a takeaway where we can check back with you in a year and go, did this happen? Sure. You know, and I know it's a working, you know, it's a working issue. The guiding principles of our diversity and inclusion work, the committee, is the idea of connectivity, communication, and jobs. So that we are not, we decide very early on not to replicate the work of others, but to rather connect with allies as a word that's been used in the last few days and I think is apt, whether it's TCG, Florida, whether it's this group, the National Black Theater Festival, you know, the Latina of Commons to be able to make those connections and figure out how to reinforce some of the aspirations of those groups and inform our own work. Communicate, keep communication open at all times and very transparent with the membership and then to focus on jobs. We are a union, fundamentally, it is about jobs. So how do we end up increasing the employment? In an environment, as Michael John Garcesa says, of scarcity, there aren't very many jobs, really, for directors. You know, there are, you know, 2200 contracts a year. You know, 1.8 contract per member that files every year. So, you know, we're talking about just over 1,000 jobs. It's unlike equity or the stagehands, but they are very important, very influential jobs both with respect to the aesthetic and the work and the craft and issues of diversity and inclusion. So just because we have very few jobs doesn't mean we underestimate the influence and the value of those jobs. But our work is beginning sort of internally with the board and the organization itself to understand as much as we can about our membership, who they are, when they work, when they don't work, what the conditions of that employment is in terms of repetition and other things, so that we can then grow the membership, make ourselves more accessible to more artists of color, and we can move our members up through the levels of employment. One of the things we're working on, I don't know if it'll be done in the next year, Tim, but is a convening. It's easy to talk about high school and encouraging young high school students to get interested in theater. We've been talking about that for 30 years, and frankly to some degree it's working. For example, I'll speak with directing students from graduate programs around the country all throughout the year, and they're not homogenous anymore, those groups of directors. There's some success in recruiting. We need to make sure they have jobs that can support lives and families as they start to move up the food chain. It's very clear between the nonprofit and the commercial sector. There's a very, very thick ceiling, and how can we help introduce producers, maybe to established directors of color who are currently working that have not been introduced to that tier of producers? How can we help encourage young producers in the commercial sector of color, women producers? How can we make matches between younger producers and this tier of artists? So our work, yes, we have our foundation programs. We're continuing to increase the numbers of opportunities and shift the demographics of that group, but it's not just about the emerging. For us, it's about the established and it's about having the full complement of directing and choreographing opportunities open to the full breadth of talent. Great, great. Well, I'll just piggyback on Laura says, I mean, on the practical side, because she's telling you stuff that probably is what we do, but on the practical side, one of them probably would be the observation program that we have and I think if you were here earlier, something directors had mentioned that it was an opportunity for them to get an in-road and there's a motive basically to say three or four years later she got a job and I've always been someone who had an observer from the SDC and the 27% of applicants are people of color and 40% of the mentors are actually directors of color and having a few of these young people come through, young artists come through, I finally hired one in Chicago, a young woman who's going to be directing my next season. So one way the union can affect practical things into, I would say, institutional practice is actually the observation program. So let me ask you this question and it seems very appropriate. So you are a director that gets employed in other theaters but you also are the artistic director of your own theater, so you get to employ people, right? So I am just wondering in terms of what is it that, I don't want to say that other theaters need to do, but how does that leadership and I would also say that Bill Rauch is also on that same level in terms of where he directs and also hires, is it the leadership that is open to the philosophy of diversity and inclusion? Were you hired at Victory Gardens for that fact of, because obviously you went in and you said this is my vision for the next five years. I think it's two-fold, right? One is you believe in it and then you open the doors. Sharing power is very difficult for people with power. Number two, if your leadership is of color, automatically you do what you think is most, well, what's second skin. So when they came in to ask for, looking at applicants for artistic directors, obviously they were looking for a change. I was also very surprised that they were thinking of something very out of the box. But the three finalists, two were people of color, and one, and it also took a female headhunter, a female, I would say, a headhunter basically to look for other candidates which are not traditionally white and male. So the question is, what are the ceilings? How do you get to a certain place? And for me once I go into Victory Gardens, you know, if you're getting it, you're getting a whole lot of me. And the whole lot of me means the philosophies in which I believe you're going to do something with practice. And the board has never wavered. The board has changed its makeup. We have, I'm surprised, for theater Chicago, five Asian-Americans on our board. Four or five African-Americans on our board. And more women than I started with because it used to be 85% white men. It's now changed. Same thing with staff. And it gets tricky too. I would say the struggle is always to say, how do you find the best people and also keep diversity at bay? I just don't want to also say, I'm only going for diversity. I want to find the best person for the job. So it's always that question. We look at that through casting. We look at that through everything. And it's been, I would say, complicated. It's been a lot of work, but a lot of great work. And what is interesting about Chicago is, once someone is doing something, everybody wants to do it too. So I'm very proud that even in the city, I hope it's not a trend, but it's a fundamental philosophy, fundamental belief that diversity actually creates a better working environment and better art. So we look at the Goodman. The season is wonderfully diverse. Look at Hippocrates, a white theater company traditionally, Ensemble, who is now open to female directors and directories of color all season. Even Writers Theatre is doing the first Julius Caesar with a non-traditional cast. So things are happening. But I think in the end, if I were to say, the question then becomes, who is leading the field? Are we grooming leaders for the next generation, who are going to be able to open doors a lot more than what our generation has? There's only one Bill Rausch. I wish there were 100. But it was also Bill Rausch that let me direct the play at Cornerstone, that got me probably sitting here and doing a play, though, he said. It was also Gordon Davidson who passed away. We said, here, here's a door. And it's not a theater fucking table. You know, a theater table, we always can get. But at the end of the meal, you're going home. Otherwise, it's sweeping. It's to determine the menu. It's to determine which guests are you inviting in. And it's on the shoulders of these wonderful leaders that we are here today. And the work is not done. The units are doing their best. The question then becomes, how can we evolve the next generation of leaders? Are you ready? It's not as simple as the doors open to walk in if you're not ready. So I'm hoping that the unions, especially as you see, we're trying to give the next generation of artists and leaders enough experience to lead a theater, to open more doors for different stores to be told. And even today's panel, which I kind of love, they're like, to me, a different generation of directors in the last panel. I see the future. Every theater company, I can't, will not believe that there's the model one in 10 years. The doors will continue to open. Mika, bright shining light. I see big things for her. These are your allies. These are your artists. And this is American theater today and tomorrow. I too would echo that Gordon Davidson had, you know, quite an impact on my career as well as I was operating East West players. And you need to take them? Yes, I'm sorry, Tim. Thank you too. It's a lot of fun and history. I mean, without Tim doing my plays when I was a kid in L.A., I probably wouldn't be sitting here. Tim wanted to do three plays of mine, which were gay, Asian content. Two board members want to walk up. He stood by me. He also let me direct and TCG2 gave me a grant. All these things help. They are ways. Finding your own homes, wonderful things and having people who open those doors. So once you walk through the doors, it is your responsibility at some point to open them up for the next generation. Then we can get a more inclusive, equitable, diverse America on our stages in our theater. Well said, well said. And with that, I'd like to open it up to all of you, but first have Mika actually say something as that next generation that is being groomed by Bill. Hi. Not yet? Not yet? A little later? A little later? Okay. So let's open this up to everyone. Leslie. When I think about the union and my own experience as an actor and now a station director in the union, one of the things that I'm challenged by is bias. How do we keep figuring out how to deal with bias? And Laura, you and I have had a conversation about the observorship is so powerful for folks. But even if the pool has directors of color in it, they don't stay in the pool until they get matched. If you don't get chosen or matched, they start a new round. You're done and you have to reapply. So that leaves such room for bias that I'm sure there's other programs that are similar. That just illuminated that for me. Is there a way that we make sure with those programs, people of color that were nominated until they get a match? And how are we working on the other side on your side to make sure that match happens? And again, I'm sure there's other programs as well where we're trying to figure out matches or pipelines. And it just doesn't quite happen so then, oh well, next round. Do you know what I mean? I see there's bias there that really has to get dealt with. I have bias. The lens, how do we open that up? Really confront our own thoughts if you will. Well, the program that Leslie's speaking of, our Observation Program is an opportunity to get emerging and early career directors into the rehearsal hall with master artists. And we do about 30 of these a year all over the country in all jurisdictions. We have about 400 plus directors, choreographers that apply every year. We have a process where that gets narrowed to about 100 that become the class for that year. The applications are actually the application process has been developing over the last few years and each of those 400 are reviewed by we have like 48 members that review those applications so we're trying to filter those through a real wide variety and it's all done online now. It used to be you had to come into New York sit at the table so who could do that was limited. It's not now because it's online so the 48 Observership Evaluators this year were very eclectic and diverse and the piles went around in a way that made sure that everybody is seen by three people. Then there's a final pass through staff to make sure that somebody hasn't been excluded from the 100 for some reason that doesn't seem appropriate. The pool is 100. Those folks are given opportunities during the year first of all to gather and get help writing artistic statements and some other career development things. These 30 mentors agree to have someone in the reversal hall with them. They say here's what I need. Susan Sturman will say it'd be great if it's somebody who had ballet experience. Somebody else will say it'd be great if it had somebody to tell the 100 Observers you know Che wants somebody who can tap dance. So the or understand the history of tap. You're not a choreographer that didn't make sense but that's okay. So then you write or you say dear Che I want to I want to be with you because and then Che interviews five of those. Now Che may have 35 of the 100 that apply to be with him or Che may have five that apply to be with him but he agrees to at least speak with five of those folks that have come through and consider those five. Now all of those five get a professional experience right because they're all getting interviewed they've already been seen by several other leaders across the country now they're all being interviewed by Che. Only one's going to get in the reversal all so that the experience of being in the pool actually in and of itself is an experience because you're getting training and writing artistic statements you're meeting people you're engaged you may not end up being one of the 30 that's true but we don't place the observer so the mentor hires selects their own person because we can't you know the foundation staff we can't presume to make those decisions because it's a reversal it's a very intimate relationship that a director has to someone who's in the reversal hall and then so that goes on for a year and then we do it again the next year and you're welcome to apply again some people are in the pool multiple years some people don't apply again I don't know that we've ever thought about sort of pulling some folks out of the pool and having them it's an interesting question you ask I think the better the thing we've been working on is making sure that we get rid of those biases at the front end well to that point how do you select the directors that will be the mentors because I would probably venture to guess if it's primarily white directors they may not 40% 40% and how is that growing to be at least 51% well I would say that 8 years ago it was about 10% so it is a particular recruitment there is a foundation committee and the executive board of SDC which actually today is about 35% artist of color on the executive board so I think that the growth has been pretty consistent well I think Leslie is like of all the four observers I had of color the other two I didn't go because I felt whoever I needed in the room for example certain skills you're right not tap dancing could be something else but if that certain director could actually help in the room and also for me to help that person for example if it could be an Asian-American director with classical training I don't know what I can do except that if it's an Asian-American director who wanted to be made more specifically that's a great match then I can help more so sometimes there are these variables I'm not sure I think numbers are great but in the end if 40% of the mentors are of color and 27 were chosen there was some of the directors probably were choosing outside of their cultural group I just want to say we were talking earlier like if you're a stagehand you can be tested on your rigging skills and you can kind of pass it's skill-based you have to be measurable so it is much different than artistic there is artistic craft to it but it is skill-based Everett? I guess from it feels like there are things being done at SDC that was really clear at least with equity we got the sense that you had some numbers and you were paying attention and what I got from the technical union was that you don't even have the numbers so I'm curious about what kind of programs you're doing because as a freelance director I get dropped into very white technical spaces all the time I know my designer friends feel very similarly so we're actually have as we're talking about leadership change and artist change we've sort of the container the people who are making it happen are not actually of those backgrounds but also are not culturally competent in that way in terms of how some of those conversations get led so I'm curious about some of your programs I can tell you that currently we have a young workers program that focuses in on young workers under 35 in the industry at our conference that we just had diversity in that room was huge I mean you can see it it was not just white men in that room the upper leadership of the IA and they have the skills they've been there but they're not always going to be there so change is coming it may not be as fast as one may want to see but it is happening Gail, you wanted to add this? Sorry, what? Gail, would you want to add something? Well I wanted to actually touch a little bit on that issue because I think the issue of we have an EEO committee that's very very active I think originally really wanted to be here to speak to this and was delighted that it would be represented and so they work a lot on access and kind of dealing with this bias that isn't always so obvious but is there and that people definitely experience when they go and get cast as an actor or get hired as a stage manager but then your point also calls on well what happens afterwards when you actually do have the job and I think that's another place where having a union is very important because fighting discrimination on your own when you don't have a union is a lot harder if you're actually experiencing some kind of discrimination unions do not sort of have our fingers and make it go away or it would be gone and that's some rights and one of the stories that was really moving to me in this issue on the change the stage was one of our stage managers who said when I am offered a job and it's outside my city I will ask tell me what the experience is going to be like for me as a gay black man in your town and he said if the answer is um then that's all I need to know so that's even beyond just the workplace is it going to be like in the place that you are going because sometimes you can have a theater that is very committed to diversity and you can have a director who is hiring a diverse cast and doing plays that have diverse have diverse characters and hopefully the audiences are coming in but if the community is not a place where the artists feel safe that's an issue that we want to address as a union to help our members to do their best work so there are so many layers of issues that we have to deal with but I do want to say one other one other piece of how we tackle the bias thing as equity is we have we have access to for equity theaters for those theaters that actually have an agreement a seasonal agreement with Actors Equity they are required to post their audition notices so at least for hiring actors and stage managers right for casting and hiring stage managers they are required to put those notices out so if they are putting a notice out saying do occasion white men need to apply it's like eh no no no so we can filter out some of that obvious bias in terms of what the audition notices are putting out there and we do not allow that to sort of pass muster so that's one layer of trying to cut back that bias but it's one thing to say everybody can apply and we're looking for anyone it's another thing to actually say yeah you've auditioned but are you going to get the job so one thing Christine Toy Johnson that the Yale community actually worked on is going beyond non-discrimination to embracing non-traditional casting and a number of our agreements actually now include a proactive positive statement about non-traditional casting which sort of goes beyond just we won't not hire you because you're a person of color or a woman or have a disability it actually says you will here I'll just read a couple pieces of it if I can I always affirm their commitment to an inclusive casting policy known as non-traditional casting for the purpose of increasing employment for actors of color, women, seniors and performers with disabilities and is defined as the casting of such performers in roles where a race, gender, age, ethnicity or the presence or absence of a disability is not germane to either the play or the character's development so if Martin Luther King has to be an African-American man there's a lot of divergence of plays about Martin Luther King but in other plays you don't necessarily need to have what maybe even the play right thought maybe you don't need to have that on stage so actually producers asking producers in terms of what their overall policy is going to be to overcome that bias to sort of conceptually agree to non-traditional casting is part of where we're trying to go the difficulty is that individual producer makes about well this show I kind of had a certain type in mind and that is much harder to root out so programs like what SDC is doing and the kinds of conversations like we're having right here is really important to continue that conversation Mika and then Lily I have a couple of questions as a producer but before I get to those a couple things so I think it's really important for you all as unions to have an analysis on the ways that bias presents itself, right so white supremacy for example it shapeshifts and if the leadership of the unions are white and they don't have an anti-bias or anti-racist analysis you can't begin to think of ways in which you can employ different practices and policies, right to dismantle those things so I guess that's a a ploy for some kind of development and training for the leadership of the unions and also just an observation that the leadership is often predominantly white or predominantly male or predominantly something that the city is important so I have two issues as a producer and I want to talk about casting I'm so glad that you talked about non-traditional casting and I want to say that I think that that committee that you're talking about should revise its language because I think that non-traditional is actually not very inclusive but oftentimes I hear from directors and I hear from writers that they're frustrated that they are unable to cast individuals from their ethnicity in their plays and what I mean by that is Asians for example are not monolithic, right and so I have Korean playwrights who say to me I have never had Koreans in my play about Koreans I've always had Japanese people or right so it's very challenging for me because as a producer I can't lead with that kind of specificity precisely because of the practices of the procedures and policies that you're talking about but I do need help in terms of being able to find the artist so that we can produce the work as authentically as possible and that is that's working toward a high level of specificity and inclusion so any remarks you have about that would be great and then Radar I'd love to hear I think we have to acknowledge in this room that both of those unions were founded during Jim Crow, right so institutions that were founded during that time if you don't have active anti-racism policies in place they're not just going to change over time they're not just going to change because of population shifts in America so you have to dismantle the foundation of that organization something on to that because I think this issue of language is really important the non-traditional and also when we talk about emergent I think these really smart pipelines are wonderful and the mentoring is really wonderful but it also just reinforces a kind of infantilism less than a kind of second class citizenship in terms of the arts community and for me having been on panels where people were trying to identify an emerging early career director for certain fellowships there was always a bias towards institutionally trained MFA directors oftentimes who had very little actual body of work but had assisted this person, this person, this person and an exclusion of other directors who may not have been through that type of training system but actually had done plays do you know what I mean so I think that those issues of bias work in many different ways and the language is really important but also the approach so that we're not always emergent last January we made an equality statement so we have a statement out there and at that board meeting the president two vice presidents retired and the president appointed for the IA appointed two women one of color so we're working on trying to include diversity at the IA at the upper management level and that is definitely a focus of the current president the current leadership if I could respond to the question about if you were talking about the was it the playwright who was looking for his or her play to be performed by Korean artists was it the playwright? so there's a difference between between a casting notice talking about a character talking about an actor and what our union's practice is to not want you to specify who the actor has to be but you can say who the character is so if the character is a Korean middle aged woman that's fine in the breakdown to specify that that's who the character is as opposed to saying we're looking for ex kind of people to play that role so if a white person walk in and have played Asian in the past and they will audition so that's actually not sufficient well the interesting thing is I will tell you that we have seen casting notices where people will say exactly that we'll say we're looking for Asian or Caucasian so you're basically inviting Caucasian that is something that we don't like to see here's who we'll take to play this so in other words say who the character is and then when people come in and say yeah I'm going to audition for that part then you're going to decide whether or not you're going to cast that person yeah but I think you're missing my point that person could come in I have no way of knowing what ethnicity they are they could not be Korean they could be white it doesn't matter if you put it in the character breakdown because of the history all Asians have been portrayed in various art forms so unless as a producer I'm able to say I want Korean actors and actresses for these parts anybody in their mama could come in and play those roles right and then I'm put in a very awkward position where I am determining what people's ethnic identity is and that's problematic right folks need to be able to well but I have to assume like I can't ask the white person who wants to come in and play that role are you actually Korean and if I decide that they're Korean you know it's just it's complicated so being able to lead with a high level of specificity I think is important it is complicated I agree with you on that there's a slippery slope if you want to start specifying that I really want to have a Korean actor play this role because we don't want you to come in this is a Caucasian role and we want a Caucasian to play it and we are really trying to sort of break down that wall so that's the difficulty there but I agree it's a complicated situation as we're trying to get more diverse and inclusive performances on stage so I have a couple of questions I'm an equity actor and namely for Gail my first question is in terms of the numbers the statistics of how many people of color or a certain ethnicity of actors are hired under equity contracts is that the numbers you're saying are in your annual report or is that the statistics of the membership yeah and because I don't have this I'm sorry because I the preparation for this was a little truncated I don't have all those information so I can't tell you exactly what the annual report says I don't think it's the number of hire I think it's the number of members I ask because I feel like for many years different people in the community have tried to get those numbers from a gender standpoint and how many contracts a year go out to women and also how many contracts a year go out to certain ethnic actors and that's been no one has been able to get the numbers like equity just won't release them even though those questions are asked when you sign your contract you know what actors are given that information equity so I'm wondering why those statistics will be really really helpful amongst the groups of us who are activists in equity in theater and I'm wondering why we can't get access to those numbers and I've tried to get them as an actor I've tried to get them as a journalist because I was an arts journalist for many years and both of those positions I've not been able to get them and other people that I know who fight for gender parity or who are African-American theater activists they also have not been able to get them Are you talking about gender issues particularly or ethnic breakdowns or what are you Any of those statistics of how many contracts if you look to the contracts at large for the year what percentage are going to men what percentage are going to women that's one question and then if you look at the contracts for a year what percentage are going to Caucasian actors what percentage are going to African-American actors because those questions are asked by equity of their actors when they we have to we don't have to give the information we ask that like what do you identify as and I put Asian-American or I'm a woman you know so if that information is out there and it seems like from my conversations with equity or the administration there that there's some coalition of that data I for many years I would say for the last like more than five years between five and ten years I and other people in the community both in the Bay Area where I'm from and nationally have tried to get those numbers and equity has always said no I'm not sure of the reason for that I do know that particularly although we've had really a hundred years of working on these kinds of issues including against Jim Crow sort of historically but it is something that's such a high priority for our union right now and you heard me read sort of our plenary statement on that so part of what actually the EDO committee is doing right now is a series of focus groups across the country and talking with our members in all three regions of the country and particularly talking with you know artists of color and finding out more than sort of the anecdotes that we have in the news magazine which is great but more in-depth conversations with groups of members to talk about sort of what their experiences are and I have no doubt that this issue will come up but we want to know what the results are like how many are our of us and how many of us are getting jobs and where are we getting jobs etc so I think that's probably something that our council will be looking at in terms of you know both what do we need to be doing and what's the data that we need to be looking at because I mean just from a like General Perry's point I mean just that data for how many contracts we're actually getting from people in that fight to get general parity on stage so that was so if that could be communicated to you know leadership that would be great the other question I have is like for example in SAG I'm also a member of SAG after there are contracts in SAG like for I mean not I don't know about the large contracts but for independent films and such there are contracts which say you can do a film under this contract but you have a certain percentage of actors of color in this production and I'm wondering if that's something that equity can do well you can work under any contract with performers of color no no no I'm saying like there are certain contracts that are available to filmmakers that they can only get they can only get this better contract like a lower paying contract you know maybe they can have a higher budget if I don't know the exact I don't have it in front of me but there's it's an incentive to hire actors of color because or I'm not sure I only notice the ones that are relevant to actors of color there may be some relevant to gender parity as well but there are some smaller contracts for independent films where you can have access to this type of contract as a producer if you have a certain percentage of actors of color in your film so it's incentivizes producers to hire actors of color because then they can pay less I'm not sure if it's paying less though it may just be the budgetary limit who's giving the incentive though I mean so like in film work a lot of incentives come through state initiatives and state gives kickbacks whether it be that they have to hire local hires in order to get a tax break or whether it so it may not necessarily be the union that has control over that incentive the incentive that you're talking about so I'm wondering about that because really from my standpoint they're trying to make sure everybody's getting paid the same I was just set through negotiations I had and I was able to look at the payroll sheets and see that somebody on that sheet was paid $2 an hour less an hour for their work doing the same work but I could see that they weren't the same because they didn't have a Caucasian name like you could tell that the name was not a white name a non-white name and so through the negotiation process though we were able to make the rate for everybody the same at the end of the day well I think all the actors in that film have the same rate okay whether the producer has access to that contract so it's not that the film actors who are people of color are making less that's not what the contract says so it's not a contract that pays less it's not a contract they wouldn't have access to because the budget is too high for example I can look it in the next 20 minutes we have but essentially if I was going to make a parallel to the theater world it's like saying the theater in San Francisco they don't have access to the bat because they're like a million dollar budget that's their annual budget so this is like that's kind of an extreme case say there was a theater who had a $500,000 budget but they only access the bat if they have a $300,000 budget but if they met if their actors for a certain show or over whatever percentage actors of color they could have access to that to that contract I mean everyone on the contract would still pay the same but it's yeah I hear what you're saying and I think that's another complicated issue because I understand what you're trying to achieve which is you're trying to achieve more diversity and sort of incentivize it for producers who are just looking at the bottom line and who are maybe saying like yeah I'm going to do Mary Poppins or something I'm going to do it with an all white cast that's what I'm going to be doing in my next season that's what I'm going to put in there instead of something else that might be a little bit more diverse and so how do you incentivize that well if you can say you have this other contract so your point is that all the members on it would be making the same amount but that contract might be itself at a lower rate than the contract they should be on so it's still a tricky issue I hear what you're trying to get I mean your goal is good but it's a tricky thing and frankly as equity we have not done that we have not said you're going to be able to sort of get this good deal for our members as long as it's the members of color because I think that sends messages other than the one you're trying to send but I will say we do have like four different awards that are given out throughout the US to theater practitioners sometimes it's to a whole theater company recognizing diversity and so that's one way we do try to sort of incentivize at least and sort of shine a spotlight on those who are doing a good job and hopefully they PR the heck out of that to say we're being recognized for our work and that's something that we can do that actually is helpful to the goal as opposed to maybe a little bit tricky I want to try to wrap this up because I feel like we all need a drink right now so let's go to Lydia and then to Jennifer Thank you So before I ask the question I also want to as a literature major I'm very conscious of language and I will echo Mika's point and Roberta's point about non-traditional in that kind of language and the ways in which it is a dictionary I also want to caution us against confusing equity with equality those are two very different things equity presupposes from each according to their means and to each according to their needs and recognizing that artists are not starting from the same position so while it's admirable that once folks make it into your unions that you make every effort to treat them equitably to try and eliminate as much explicit bias as you possibly can by trying to be transparent among your membership I also want to recognize that sometimes that presupposes that your artists are starting from the same position and that can actually sustain inequality in the long run so I want to encourage you to look at don't ignore history and don't ignore that folks are not starting from an equal starting point to that end earlier you spoke about the systems that you have in place to ensure that your members have as much information among the membership to be able to know what the actor next to you is making but to have that sense of solidarity within your unions can you speak to the systems that you have in place to get through that gate into a system that is more equitable because while we were talking about bias in the sense of what happens when you have a casting breakdown that specifies we want only white actors how are your unions preparing yourselves internally to be able to break down implicit biases to be able to examine your structures to train yourselves to be able to see the ways in which the structures are actually replicating in equitable systems and to look at the systems of biases that are often underground and sometimes internalized by people of color so sometimes it's not enough to have people of color at your tables but also complicit in sustaining problematic systems so are you having those dialogues internally about how you're preparing yourselves for this conversation yeah I have to you know some of us have been doing this work for a very long time and you know have seen some successes and some shortfalls have had our own lessons learned our own lessons been in some very difficult discussions so although I've been at SDC for nine years I've been doing this work since the early 80s and have been blessed to have been diversity and inclusion work and making theater so it's not like this like four years ago when a dozen SDC members said you should do it was like the first time I learned how to spell anything I mean this has been part of my own personal journey which I think you can't it's a life long journey you know of understanding ourselves and where we're from our own bias being able to recognize them and others being able to try to figure out how to transform an organization that is from the bottom up as I said earlier and the bottom is predominantly the dominant culture and it's predominantly white men and it's predominantly in the organization I'm in it's a commercial theater I mean our SDC make no mistake about it we represent directors and choreographers across the country and we're doing all of this work because of 75 contracts that happen in a 10 block radius in Manhattan so it's a very complicated you know system to navigate and to try to figure out how to move it along we have our staff which is a fantastic staff and continues to learn and is a more diverse staff than I've ever been blessed to work with in my life and so I learn lessons every day from many of those folks you know the board you know I can let Chase be to this but it's a the board has become much more diverse and inclusive and it's a I've got a board of 34 directors and choreographers like it is and these are people working in every jurisdiction across the country at the top of their game and they are filled with all the gifts and all the challenges that you can imagine that brings and they are all certain they will never get hired again the life of a director in this country and a choreographer is just like that regardless and yet within that there are layers right so it's like I may think I'm never going to get another job but that's a lot different than you thinking you're never going to get another job or radar because we're coming from different places so I guess the first my first impulse my response to you is initially that this isn't a beginning this is an end process this isn't something that just started Lloyd Richards was the president of SDC 30 years ago so SDC has been in this game for a long time and has been under fire because directors can make terrible mistakes or be perceived as the person that made the terrible mistake and directors are advancing this as much as anyone else in the country so we have our staff training we have our board training we're trying to figure out how to deal with a membership that has to change if you recognize that the voices around those tables where you are having are more diverse that has been happening for 30 years it's been happening a long time and yet what I'm carrying is the demographics of all of these organizations of SDC of equity of IOT have remained stubbornly persistent we're not the employers we're the workers we can perhaps mark successes that some numbers are shifting and that there's been some problems and yet the progress that is made seems to be not going to be slow so are we looking at the structure in which we're operating but we're not hiring we're not hiring what's really an important piece there is we're not the we're not the hirers we are the workforce I mean I do know we've discovered for example here's something we've discovered recently where Boyd is on our our associate membership pool is 50% women 50% men about 35% artists of color our full membership is 30% women, 70% men 11% artists of color they drop off you know why? the breakpoint between associate and full member is getting a contract so we know that but we're not a dispatch union so I can't I can't say we need this associate and hire them you must so what we have to do is we have to build the membership up and put the pressure from the top all sort of simultaneously so it's not a it's a yes and but yes too much it's a very it's a confluence of events that take place I'm participating in the universal qualifying candidate pool which is largely what you all do you represent the members as a producer there are certain spaces I can only hire SDC folks or I have to have a certain number of equity contracts or we are an IOTC house now so I rely on you to create those diverse and qualified candidate pools so it's not I don't think it's as benign as I don't think you can just say we're not the employer so I would argue that we have see this is where when somebody says we should start high school and I say we have a diverse and qualified candidate pool of artists of color directors and choreographers and they don't get the same jobs and they don't hit the next break points so if you want to find some more directors or choreographers of color and you feel that you're not able to find them through your own networks give us a call give us a call give us a call just way too easy for everybody because I get somebody will put pressure on an employer an employer will call me and say how many women are in and it's like oh well we hire 30% women that's all the women you have so I don't have to hire I don't have to do 50-50 because your membership is only 30-70 and I say whoa wait a minute no that's not what it is you can look at the women they're working at SDC and you can hire 50% to 50% so the I think it's way too easy to say it's like actors I can't find a black actor to play that role which is what we were saying 25 years ago yes you can you have to look but they're there we've got them and they've been coming up through our Observership and Fellowship program you know for the last 20 years let's close it up with Jennifer I'm going to add complication to this conversation because I think it's been too simple I think it's a vital component to the challenges of being a young woman early career I am an SDC associate member I'm an actor's equity member I'm a SAG member I have worked at Tim's theater I'm now a professor at UC San Diego but I have children and I cannot do those fellowships everywhere and I can't you know and the support system that's not in place nationally in the United States at large in the conversation for families and women having children it's reflected down and even more complicated here in the artistic setting even the idea I wanted to bring my infant son with me and even bringing him here there's not a system or support system in place and I think that's something that the union can really like you don't have to be an employer to help provide a support system for that and maybe then get gender parity because then women can who are in that age range of the early career and also in the childbearing years can figure out a way because we want to have the career to go through even more stress and trouble to do the work but I can't reproduce myself before time is over I just want to say on this issue on all of these issues one part is like what can we do as unions as organizations that represent pieces of the theater but a big part of it is the unions that are made up of members so having people who individually are raising these issues with us but also with their employers and with others in the community is so important and Lily the torch that you were carrying in the Bay Area around some of the issues recently it's just having members who are willing to speak out about these issues is so important and so I really I thank Tim for having this panel I think it's great that you all came up with these issues because we're not done we've got to keep fighting on these and it is going to take all of us so I'd like to thank Radar, Gail Laura and Shay thank you so much for broadening our perspective about the unions you know race is always a very robust dialogue very passionate one and I think we can continue the conversation over why so the bus is picking us up at the bricks and it's going to come every 15 minutes 50 at a time we're going to go to Grizzly Peak Winery you'll get two free drinks each then we'll come back for a hot Asian everything at 8 o'clock thank you