 We have a little smaller group of racial and ethnic diversity and production departments. And we're really excited to talk to you about that today. We feel like it's one of the first conversations that is happening at the national level. A lot of us are doing this work in smaller groups and have been starting to work on this or working on it for years and years, depending on their experience. But we're starting to bring this to everyone's, hopefully, everyone's consciousness and get working on it. So today, we're going to be having a conversation somewhat. And then we're going to save a lot of the session for surfacing some of the main reasons why people have a hard time focusing on this at their theater. So we're going to surface some of those reasons and talk about why those aren't really reasons anymore. And we can kind of move past them and get to working. So and then we'll have a good amount of time at the end for questions. We're also going to share some resources at the end. There were also a couple of documents that were shared on the conference 2.0. Feel free to take a look at those. That's some work that is being done among the production managers forum, which is a group of production managers all over the country that are starting to work on this a little bit as well. And again, we are just starting in the production managers group. So that kind of gives you a sense of where we're at in the conversation, whereas, like I said, there's other groups that have been working on this for a long time. So we're starting to try to get on the train and start working on that. So we're going to introduce ourselves. And then we'd love to just hear who's in the room, since this seems like not too many people to try to get introduced. And then we'll start out. So I'm Tiersa Tyler. I'm the director of production at California Shades Theater. And I'm also the co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the production managers forum. Hi. My name is Sharisa Joga. And I work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And I manage the FAIR program, which is their professional development program at the organization. I'm David Stewart. I am the academic production manager at the University of Texas at Austin. I'm also here representing the United States Institute for Theater Technology, where I am the chair for the People of Color Network and the commissioner for the Management Commission. I'm Jim Streeter. I'm the production manager at Princeton University. I'm also here as representative of USITT, where I am one of three vice commissioners for diversity. I'm the vice commissioner for diversity for the Lighting Commission. And I'm also part of the Diversity Initiative. And I was one of the original mentors for the Gateway program, which we'll hear about today. Great. And if you just go ahead and introduce yourself, we're just going to go right around. I'm Jim Adams. I'm the general manager at the University of New York. I'm Rosalind Barber, the administrative chief of staff at the Public Theater. Steve Martin, managing director of Child's Play. Hi. I'm Sarah Clair, corporate managing director of the Chocolate Theater community. Jenna Perwitzer, director of Community. Neal McNeil, marketing assistant, technical theater company. Marzano Locke, patient services manager at the Alliance Theater. Vivian Bennett, artistic director, Chautauqua Theater Company. Bobby Turkelwitz, trustee, student manager in DC. Camille Schencken, program manager for Next Generation Initiatives at Center Theater Group. Clea Shapiro, casting director and intern program manager at California Shakespeare Theater. AJ Allegra, artistic director of the PANOLA Project in New Orleans. I'm Michelle Weathers. I'm the managing director for our Playmaker Shrevetory Company in Chapel Hill. I'm Jen Collins-Ritter. I'm the producer at Children's Theater Company. Hi. I'm David Schmitz, the managing director at Steppenwolf Theater Company. I'm Mike Schleifer. I'm the general manager at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm Florie Seere. I'm the general manager of Manhattan Theater Club. Suzy Evans. I'm the managing editor of American Theater. I'm Annie Gorlin. I'm the national new play network producer and residence at Mixed Blood Theater Company. I'm Keely Hada Null, and I'm the arts leadership fellow at Chicago Shakespeare Theater. I'm Ella Zalon, and I'm a team council member at Berkeley Rep. I'm Chloe Smith, and I'm also a team council member at Berkeley Rep. I'm Rachel Eisner. I'm the education fellow at Berkeley Rep, and will be the director of education at the Berkeley Playhouse. I'm Ashay Bakari, the council member at Berkeley Rep. Glad to be in student ambassador for theater theater. I'm Fepriza Mitchell, an executive assistant at the Guthrie Theater and co-chair of the university and culture committee. Tim Jennings, managing director of Children's Theater Company, and the incoming executive director of Shaw Festival. Laurie Baskin, I'm director of research, policy, and collective action at Theater Communication Center. Tyler DeBrosky, I'm the associate artistic director at Trinity Rep. Hi, I'm Ann Carol Pence. I'm the associate producer at Amor Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. Shawman Cooper, director and residence at William & Emma University. Dawn Chang, lighting designer. Nancy Schaefer, education director and associate artistic director at Dallas Children's Theater. Great. I think there was a couple other people in the back over there. Hi, I'm Melissa Cashion on the associate production manager and co-chair of the diversity and inclusion task force at Denver Center for the Foreign Arts Theater Company. It's changed. Hi, I'm Jeff Gifford. I'm the director of production at Denver Center. I'm Mark Borow, the artistic director at Pacific Conservatory of Theater. Great. Thank you, everyone. Actually, why don't you all come? I think we can make some room for you here. OK, right here. Here. Great. So we're going to get started. Why diversity? The bigger question that most of you are asking yourselves is why now? Does someone higher above him told you that we need to be a more diverse organization? What does that mean? Here's the thing it doesn't mean. Diversity is not a number. Let me say that again. It is not a number. The word quota shouldn't ever cross your mind because it's not. Because if that's how you're thinking, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. I'm going to make everybody in the room a little uncomfortable in the next five minutes, but you know what? It's about time. We need to be able to have this conversation that we need. I've heard people, I'm going to steal something from somebody. Melanie Hobson is the CEO of, I'm not going to scream this out. She's the CEO of Aerial Investments. She did a TED talk two years ago. And I'm going to borrow something she said. She said, we need to stop being color blind and become color-brained. We all go and I've heard this conversation. Oh, I don't see color blind. Because if you can't see color, you don't see me. We have to stop this conversation about being color blind. We have to be color-brained. We have to be willing to reach out to all of our, you use all of our resources to reach out to everyone who wants to do this, what we do for the living. This is fun. This is, you know, I've been doing this now for 35 years. And this is fun. So we need to be able to generate that out to people, let them know that this is something you can do for a living. The other big thing about why we need to be diverse is the ideas that come from it. If the only thing you're doing is dealing with one common idea, you're shortchanging yourself. You are absolutely shortchanging yourself. Everyone in this world has a different life experience. We need to bring those to the table. Look at the plays we're producing. Look at the musicals we're producing. Look at anything we're producing. We are getting more diverse on stage. We're reaching out to those people and bringing them in. Why aren't we doing that vaccination? That's the bigger question we need to look at. Why are we not doing the vaccination? There's an old proverb that goes, a lot of different flowers make simple sounds. And it is. We're going to talk about in the next 20 minutes or so, we're going to talk about resources. We're going to talk about how to connect with them. We're going to talk about expanding your networks. The last thing I think I've got to say is I'll let these guys do a lot better job than this. We need to start having this conversation with honesty, understanding, and courage. Not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do. And I get fooled. Those of you who are on HowlRound, you've probably seen this infographic. This was posted up the other day. Of course, I did this breakdown of who are designers in workbills by gender. Now, she had wanted to do this by chance, but this was as close as she could get. As a designer of color, under white designers, I am probably a member of a group that is less than 2% of the number of women. I know personally about 30 or 40 designers of color guaranteeing a lot of them are not and let you take over. So just as I mentioned earlier, I manage a program called Fair at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And I can point out that Portia is an alumni of color. And as Jim communicated, she initially wanted to look at, as a person of color, look at the designers of color who happen to be working in the field. And because those records aren't being kept, she was unable to do that. But she was able to look at gender. And those of us who are working in the field, we know. I'm assuming you have similar experiences to mine where we can recognize just my raw, unscientific data that there are more women working in the field than people in color. So if you look at those numbers and see those to be drastic, we can use our imagination of what it would look like if they were looking at people. And those are just the designers. So we're not even talking about us selling production. She just wanted to be able to look at an area that was most relevant to her and something that she can actually track, even though the theaters themselves were not trackable. So through that, we were thinking about what's sort of timely that we can tie this conversation to and really make it put it in a place of time so we can sort of reflect on what's going on, what that's in the field. And looking through the prism of production, I think all of us recognize through our own experiences that that's really challenging. So I work at an organization, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, for those who are not as familiar with the organization. It has, over the past decade, really been successful in its representation and its consistency in presenting people, directors, and designers from a wide range of backgrounds on the stages. But despite all that hard work and real clear articulation and language and rhetoric about the importance of diversity, if we took a magnifying glass and looked at our own production staff, our own staff in general, some of those numbers look drastically different. So we wanted to have an opportunity to sort of look at an institution who is very much in the weeds of the conversation and seeing that we're certainly not talking from a place of authority and high, we're doing it all right, we have significant issues. So with that being said, if you look at sort of our company-wide members, I don't think you can see those numbers showing up. You can look at them. I'll tell them to, so you can look at the colors. I don't get a sense of what the numbers are. So again, the acting company, the directors and the designers are not in this number. So there's about 500 plus people that work at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. So what that number represents is the 376 remaining people that work there. And if you look at the big blue pie, the entire number, that blue number are white and that is coming in at 82%. The smaller pie, which looks like a very sort of burnt orange is 2%, which is Asian. That sort of beige-ish, green-ish olive pie is 4%, and that represents black African-American. That sort of whiter, I don't know, what's that, lighter beige is an 8%, which is Latinos. And what's represented in zeros are native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community came in at zero, and this is a snapshot of 2012. So just recognize, we did some numbers in 2012. So there's been some slight shifts, but we're not too far from these numbers in 2015. So this is what we've got in 2012, April 11th, 2012. And for those who are familiar with the organization, people come and go throughout the season. So that date, at that year, that's a snapshot, all right? The next number, look at it through five departments. And we can see the first step represents administration, the second one is artistic, and the last is production. So we're here to talk about production, right? We're not doing that great in the other areas, but you can see, right? So no one's on a high horse here. This is just recognizing what the challenges are. And this is after doing some very serious work and trying to move the ball down the field. So in production, 92% of our production is back. 139 people are white. What's the average tenure of those employees? So we have people who are in our staff for 20-plus years. We certainly have people who are in our staff for three years. This number represents both our permanent staff and our seasonal staff. So there's a wide range of, you know, longevity and electric. But those numbers are, sorry. And if an organization has made a commitment to diversify its staff, one of the things that we identified in 2012 is we had to look at all of our staff and that we cannot be lulled into a place of complacency because of what's happening on our stages. So fair, very specifically, there was a really quick recognition that fair as a tool had the ability to sort of leverage and open up access points or to OSF through those production fields. So over the course of the fair program in August of 2011, we have hired over 30 people. And many of those people, the overwhelming majority of those people are people of color. So there's a recognition that, okay, if we're gonna change this number and affect this program, how can we actually put together a program that brings in people who are skilled but also allows us to sort of reach our own internal goals? So we're gonna sort of talk about one of the methodologies that we're going to do that. But I just wanted to share with you that despite the hard work, the landscape has really stuck. So if you have not done anything, you still have a tremendous amount of work to do. So part of our charge for you is to get started because that's really the easiest thing. The hardest work is the methodology and the implementation is required to get the work done, which we'll guide you to. Before I do that, I'll turn it over to David. Thank you. How many of you are familiar with US ITT? Excellent. So you're like, well, where are all the technicians? Well, one thing is that I decided to conduct an informal survey on the production manager's forum. We had lost a good friend of ours, Tanisha Jefferson, who's a production manager and stage manager African-American woman, two years ago. And that really kind of kicked some of us in the butt to get moving on her wishes. So I reached out to the PMF, which has 500 plus members. That's all the product of. It's a good representation of the production managers across the United States of America. And I asked, hey, how many of you are people of color? And the results are this. We had 10 that were Hispanic, two of them women. There were six blacks, one of the, or two of them were women. So that means 50% of the black men production managers are sitting at this table. Yeah, to put that in perspective right in front of you. Two Asian women, one Iranian, one Native American, and one Armenian. 21 people, out of 500 plus. And we're gonna talk a little bit about this later. But what I wanted to dive into was more about what US ITT is doing. I'm gonna kind of riff off of what Sharif was saying here about fair. What we're working on now is redefining the pipeline. So many times people look at education and say, hey, they're just not coming up. They're not coming up. It's like, all right, you know what? We're gonna poke holes in that in a little bit, but we're gonna really build a great big hole in it right now. Because what we started doing at USHT is we had the people of Color Network. 60 years ago, there were seven of us, three of us are sitting here at this table, sitting around the table having this conversation. And where were we last time? Cincinnati, I'm sorry, I'm mixing my conferences. We were in Cincinnati and we jumped from seven, six or seven of us, to this. These are production people. These are young production people. There were 85 of us. When we were in Fort Worth, there were 45 of us, so they gave us a room a little bit bigger than this. We came in and people just kept coming and coming and coming and they're like, oh, we have to find a different room. So word is getting out. And part of what is getting the word out is a program that I was co-founder of called the Gateway Program at USHT. The gateway started out in honor of Tanisha Jefferson. Monies were coming in from various sources and her mother wanted to have it go to the best use possible. So she got together with David Grindel, who's the executive director for USHT and said, what can we do? I want the money to go and be used through USHT. David Grindel calls me up and goes, David, make me a program. Thanks, I appreciate that. So I called a good friend of mine, Casey, who's the production manager at OU, and we got together and we started crafting out the Gateway Program. And what that was was a mentorship program where we found three candidates who were of color to come in to USHT because one of the hard things about coming to conferences are their expensive access. So with this, we were able to fully fund three students to come to USHT. With that, they got a mentor to walk them through a conference because we have in excess of 5,000 people that attend our conference each year. So it's a daunting conference to go to. So we paired up and we would walk them through a conference. Well, that was just the beta. Last year in Cincinnati, or this year in Cincinnati, we moved that up to 12 mentees and 12 mentors. So we first select the mentees, we go through a process through the Diversity Committee at USHT, select the mentees, and then we handcraft and handpick mentors for each one of those mentees. So they get a person tailored to them. So one of, an example is that we had a young lady that was biracial, Asian and white. Well, I was like, hey, guess what? I have someone that's Asian and white as well. So I'm gonna hook you up with her. And they got together and became fast friends. And the kind of secondary thing that happened out of the gateway program was that all of a sudden, a lot of these young people started glomming on to the group because we weren't exclusive. Just like, come on, join up. So all of a sudden, I'm not just with one mentee. I have five, I have this little pack running with me. And it just came in and we partnered with PMF and again, we'll talk about this in a moment because I think at the center of this is production actors. We do the hiring, all right? And so we have to shift our mindset. But what they did is we had the production managers form come in and do a resume session with these young folks to look at their resume so they can present better. Then we had a coffee session so that any production manager from across the country could come in, have coffee and meet these young people of color and get to know them. Again, poking holes in the excuses that we hear far too often. There's one thing I wanted to add about that photo that I like to point out to people is that that group of individuals represents such a small fraction of practitioners who are out there. So many of us who are in this room who are in sort of the recruitment and outreach game, you may have interacted with many people who aren't familiar with your institution. Well, I certainly have. And many of them have never even heard of you as ITT. So what that number represents is one, the people who are aware that organizations exist. Two, the people who have the ability to get there because they work in their calendar and they have the availability. And then three out of those, that's my group. Who could afford to make that a priority? So when I tell you the small fraction of people that represent, that should not be overlooked. So oftentimes when we talk about the availability of individuals who can be contributors to our organization, it's not mythical for me. It's not sort of theoretical. It's because I've looked into the eyes of people. I've seen their work. I've been to their theaters. I've seen how they implement and create work. And I think at the bottom of all of this, for me, before anything can actually happen, before you can make any movement in them that diverse and qualified pieceings very simple, but you have to actually believe it because it will affect how you do outreach. If you don't believe it, your actions will betray you. It's almost like you lose your keys and you know they're in the living room. You're clear it's in the living room because you use it to open the door. You haven't got anywhere else. You're gonna move the couch. You're gonna go into the carpet. You're gonna move everything because the clarity that you have about where those keys are cannot be denied. When you're not clear about where the keys are, you sort of like, you know, surface look. You go in the bathroom, you might even go out and order another pair. Because we're not saying that the action is to exclude people. We're not accepting racism. We're not accepting institutional barriers. You have to believe that the keys are in the living room and you have to believe they're qualified and diverse people are out there. When you believe that for real, you will change how you do outreach. You won't be able to help yourself because you'll stop blaming the candidate and you'll recognize there's institutional realities that are not making your institution accessible or attractive. One of the two. It'll become self-examination. What can I do? What can I adjust? Have to be modified. It's not about them. It's about my institution. So anything else that we wanna talk about before we go into these reasons? Because I think that that's a really nice thing. Absolutely, I can continue. I'd like to hit a couple more of those points before we maybe head into this. The first one we're dealing with is gonna take it. So I think after you believe that the keys are in the living room, I think number two is candidates are not the problem institution is. And once you sort of take that on, what you begin to look at is what are your processes? What are your systems? What do your job descriptions look like? Does a stitcher need to have an MFA? Really? Are you looking for the skill of stitching? Where do stitchers exist? How is that reality being mirrored in your application and posting process? If you're looking for a producer, those transferable skills who can produce. Who is steering nonprofit organizations around this country with budgets of millions with staffs of 40 to 50? Those are transferable skills. If you continue to demand that someone have specific theatrical experience, when it's not relevant, there are some positions, carpenters need to be able to use certain tools. I get that. They don't have to work in theater. They have to be carpenters. So there's certain skills that you cannot avoid. But when you have positions that really can benefit from the contribution of transferable skills, really tease that out. Because why are the artificial barriers? Who are you serving? At the end of the day, garments are being stitched. Wood is being connected to carpentry. People are well-off. You are a place of employment. You are a employer looking for workers. We are in a depressed economy. You cannot tell me that people are not looking for work. And when you begin to see your institution as an employer and not an elitist organization like an only function, if someone has a certain level of theater experience and remind yourself I'm employing people for work, you'll start to look at some of your job screenings. I'd love to add one thing to what you're saying too, because I think I would take it even a step further and say not only should you be looking for those transferable skills because this person over here who works in a different industry can also so consider that, but actually by expanding who is in our departments, we're making our department stronger and better and more creative, right? Because the more voices you have from different backgrounds and different companies that might be in different professions, right? That might have skills that we don't even have in theater that could contribute to what is happening in our costume shops and our seam shops. So it's actually, I see it as a narrowing. Right now we're really narrow, right? In terms of what we're using to problem solve and to create art. And the more that we can open that up to different voices and people from other fields but that have the transferable skills, the better, like those will translate around your department and now you have some extra skills inside that department that you didn't have before. They're just the rule. I also think that's- Yeah, let me take you back on something too. As a technician, when my kids were little, they would come see my shows that I was working on. My in-laws would bring their kids. All of those kids now have Walnut Streets in the room. You're welcome. They all have subscriptions to the Walnut Street Theater. They're your audience. You wanna talk about being able to grab an audience, grab a three-year-old kid and let him watch the light come on. He would love you forever. My daughter, to this day, we kid her about the fact that I could never find all of my swatch books whenever I went to the show. Because my daughter would be in her room under her blanket with a flashlight. Looking at the different colors. You're building an audience member. Not only do you help your production staff, not only are you getting your ideas of becoming a university, you're building an audience. We're not profit, but boy, we're not making money or we're in trouble. I don't say you go beyond your audience. You're building a community as well. You're servicing a community and having good outreach. So I add to that. You know, if any of you have ever had an other experience, you're the only person in an environment, it can be extremely isolated. So from an organizational point of view, studies have shown that diversity is not about spinach. Do it because it makes you feel good. It's actually healthy for an organization and fiscally sound because you have employees who take less sickly, who utilize your healthcare services less. They're more efficient because they're working in a safe environment that does not rely on the services of benefits that oftentimes raise the bottom line of organizations. So even if you're not about this, let's go good about it, like, you can be about this, how can I have a healthy organization life? Which is if my employees are feeling safe, like a safety is more about hard shoes and hats. It's about the environment and the culture that we create. Oftentimes with our words and oftentimes with the presence of other people that reflect who we are to validate our own existence in a space. And when you don't have that, the isolation can be profound and oftentimes it's costing your company. So if you think about it that way, in terms of what is gonna, what's the workforce gonna look like in the future? How am I going to be competitive in this workforce? Because believe it or not, there are people of color who I sit down with, speak to you for hours, talk about the organ of it all, the Shakespeare of it all, and they're like, that is cute, but I have some other options in New York and Chicago, et cetera that I wanna pursue. Oftentimes I am extremely successful. Like that's a margin of people that certainly have a tremendous amount of options, but because of the persistence that I have. I'm often, Let me tell you about her persistence. And I may not get them in year one or year two, but the goal is to bring them to the organization. But I also think about it from a very non-selfish point of view. What I try to articulate is that OSF has a significant amount of resources. And even if you're not gonna come and move and be there permanently, I promise you, you give the organization three years, there's gonna be a significant contribution to your own professional growth. We gain from your contribution and I'm good. I don't need a lifetime commitment, but I assure you there are significant amount of benefits and coming through the OSF process. And when you look at it that way, where you're looking really for the contribution that you bring to the organization, and hopefully they're gonna be walking away with something, that engagement really leads to a different level of interest in who you are and commitment from applicants that translates into people leaving really great opportunities to come to a small town in Ashland, freakin' 40. And commit to three to four months sometimes, sometimes to six months, sometimes eight months and oftentimes come back. So that to me, when I meet theaters across the country, I'm really happy that so many people are here, but you guys have so many advantages in the cities that you're in and the populations who have access to demographics. So when you talk to me about the difficulty, I know the difficulty, but I also know the keys are in the living room. Probably. Engagement is just specific. And if your commitment is real and you believe that the keys are in the living room and you actually see the value and getting those keys, then you're gonna actually have those conversations that yield to a different result. You're also gonna post differently and you're gonna recruit differently. You're gonna speak to people and you're gonna take the time to explain why. So I'd love to shift us into the next section, which we just wanted to surface some of the main reasons that we hear from people why this is difficult for them, difficult work to do. And talk about kind of a lot of holes in them, hopefully, to show that this is an ideal time to be doing this work and that these reasons aren't valid anymore. So we just wanna kind of talk through those. And hopefully that will lead into a question and answer section because these are hopefully gonna kind of take care of some of the bigger questions. The first one, which Jim touched on a little bit earlier was saying, I don't support a quota system. And obviously, Jim kind of gave the answer. Neither do we. Quota systems are what people quote when they don't wanna do this. That's how I usually can tell an organization has no desire to do this. It's when they tell me, oh, I don't support a quota system. Neither do we. Neither does any person of color. I want you to hire me because I'm qualified. I don't want you to hire me because you need a number. Early in my career, I won't out the union, but I was offered my yellow card for one reason only. I'll let you fill that one in. I have a question for the group because I think the reason why this was articulated as our first sort of thing that we hear often is because we do hear it often. And I wanna remind people that I'm not speaking from a place of, you know, I got it all figured out. You saw those numbers, right? We said a lot. So we're getting this together and I just wanna ask if people have had this discussion about quotas or had this thought about how do I work around this quota? Like who's been engaged in this quota conversation and how does that land with you when we talk about that? We get it from our funders, you know? They wanna know percentages of our board who are people of color and of our staff. And so, you know, they're not engaging in a conversation about quality of workmanship or any of that or engagement in community or anything like that. It is, you know, we see that only 8% of your staff are people of color. That's unacceptable to us as a funding agency. You need to get your numbers. And so we get it from another song as far as quotas go. We resist that conversation because we wanna talk about people who want to be engaged with us and we want to engage with us. But it kind of falls on deaf ears sometimes when we get marked down for slots because we're not diverse enough according to the quotas that they've said. Do they, just a question, do they also say that about production staff specifically or is it mostly? Not production staff specifically, but it's the full, the dollar staff. Yeah, that's there, the way they're saying it. It's the dollar staff. Just curious. I doubt that throws up an interesting question which is just when you're met with. That idea of staffing according to quota, what would you recommend as a way to change the conversation? I think it's really important that people understand that goals that you're shifting culture, the goals that you're creating an environment in which bringing my entire self is welcome. And no matter how hard you try, if I'm isolated, you are not, I am self-editing my entire self because I don't see a reflection of the welcome any face or body around me. So what you're hoping for is that you're adjusting culture and the culture of inclusion allows everyone to bring their entire full self to an organization and they're not dodging conversations, they're not being bruised by words because the awareness of the organization is so low. What I find is the awareness increases when you have diverse voices who contribute to conversations. In their absence, the conversation is sort of loopy. And people are being bruised along the way. I say this very common for this group of young people that's in this room. We asked them to stand up and identify themselves and it didn't take about a third of the session. But it was important because the common thread was the word, the phrase I always heard was and I'm the only, and I'm the only, and I'm the only. And it ended with tears in their eyes when they looked around and saw the reflection of themselves and if they could be themselves and not self edit in the group. So I think that speaks a lot to why it's important to change the culture. Oh yeah, and just to clarify it, my question is not, is it important or why is it important? But actually, because I think oftentimes the conversation that we're seeing is actually initiated from this perspective of the program. It feels like part of what we're saying is we wanna change where the conversation is. So like I'm a director person. So if I come to a theater and what I'm met with is, so in the casting of the show, it's important to us that you include at least this number of actors of color, for example. And part of what it feels like we're saying is that's not a useful place to start the conversation. Absolutely not. So the question I would say, after you throw it back to them, is why? Yeah, exactly. Why? Have them actually articulate the reason why it is that they want that. And that's gonna say a lot about the organization. Because if they, if their whole reasoning as well, because we have to, because some, yeah, as you said before, because of funding or whatever, you just gotta ask why? Why are we approaching it this way? I mean, that's it. I mean, that's the only thing I can tell you to do is just ask why. And keep asking why. Do what you have to do to get the show up. But keep asking why. And this is what I can add. I mean, at the end of the day, your aim is to create a culture conclusion so you have the organization that is accurate. That's the aim. So looking at a person's racial identity solely, right, is an old paradigm. If I have a person of color, they're the expertise, they're gonna change everything. There's not a recognition and people of color are also on their own arc of racial identity developments. So you can have a person of color who's mirroring the same racist, sexist, ridiculousness in an organization. If it's not actually, if the culture itself is not prioritized. So what has to happen concurrently, which is my, value, like the real value of those transferable skills and the value of the contribution has to be existing in the organization. Because if you do all that work, you get somebody there and it's drama, they have options, they're out of there. So part of what has to happen is the organization has to be, has to commit to a change of the culture, which oftentimes means creating a process that increases awareness. And for at OSF, it became at the very basic level. What does racism mean? Terminology. What does it mean? You say racism, you say diversity, you say inclusion, getting really clear about terminology. Then understanding privilege, where do we have its privilege to manifest itself? What does power look like? Implied power, unimplied power, things that are structured, things that are not structured, conscious and unconscious by, all of those things have to be part of the lexicon of the organization. So when someone comes into the board, they can smell and sniff it. If it's a problem, they're out of there. They have options are out of there. So you certainly have to till the soil. So all of those seeds have a place to run. So, bringing us to the next reason, because I think we're hitting on some of these points a little, I think it'll surface more questions from all of you as well. Another one that's really common is I can't find anyone. If they applied, I would totally hire somebody. And so, speaks to networking, but do any of you wanna take that on? I do. I might. Yes. As I said earlier, I think it's production managers that are at the center of this, in particular in hiring for production. When I came here last year and I spoke to the group about what USHT was doing, Jaws dropped for artistic directors and managing directors. I was like, I never even thought about my production staff being diverse. They're just the little magic theater folks that take care of everything and get everything going. Well, oftentimes the mindset of a production manager is, I just lost a welder. I have to hire a welder. Who do I know? My network. My network. There was a study on, dang it, I forgot to include that. Remember what we were talking about the study about? Out of 100 people, for a white person, for 100 people, they may know a single black person. So if you put that into white, straight, male production manager, which is dominant, that's their network. So they're never thinking about diversifying their pool. They're thinking about getting the welder. I have to get the show. I have to get the show. Eight o'clock on Friday, the curtain goes up. If I don't get this done. So, very often, production managers don't think long-term in terms of their organization and their culture because it'll touch base on one of those. Why? Why is it important for us? Well, oftentimes like Jim was saying earlier, top-down is said, it's important that you diversify. And if you don't have it, you don't wanna find the keys. You're not gonna find the keys. So I think the production managers have to have an idea of where the culture wants to go, what the bottom line is for the organization, and what is out there. It's not enough to sit there and go up. No students are coming up. Nobody applied. I did my due diligence. They aren't coming to me. Well, what are you doing to go out to them? Have you inquired at US ITT? Have you gone to the historically black universities to their theater department to say, hey, who do you have in the pipeline? Have you gone to FAIR and see what they're doing? Have you reached out to TCG and see what they're doing? Have you used everything that is at your disposal? And the answer, more often than not, is no. When I stepped foot in the production managers for, I'm sorry, 13 years ago for the first time, I was one of two groundfaces in the room. When I stepped into the production managers forum in Cincinnati, I saw two groundfaces in the room. I wasn't one. You were not one, because I warned him about the room. Because oftentimes I would bring up an idea and it would just get off to the side, but one of my counterparts would bring up the same idea and it was like the best thing ever is because my experience was not valid because of this. So that conversation is starting to shift from the production managers. But I think it lies there. You have to have that conversation with your production managers about why is it important and what resources are out there. I'd love to add real quick to what you're saying because the other thing that's important as a production manager is that the other conversation that's happening around that table every year with the production managers is that we can't find anybody. Like they're starting to, because their networks are so narrow, they're starting to actually need more places to look at all of it. And all I wanna say is especially in the USHT because PMF meets at USHT, I'm like, you go down the hallway, around the corner, to room two C, there's eight to five of them in the room right there. Can I just ask, who feel like this is a real issue for you? It's like, look, I can't find anybody, which is why I'm in this room. Like who, what is that land? Yes. I don't know that it's an issue that a question I have and if you're charged with the educational outreach arm of my organization and I'm wondering how I can bring this to my production manager in a very... Okay, I play? Yes. That's what I'm saying. No, Frank. Yeah, but it really, so suggestions on this for the folks that are charged with this task, because the production manager of World is a tough one to do it on the hallway. You're coming from a different department, but that is charged with this. No, I actually, I'm gonna disagree. Being a production manager in the room, which there's only a few of us, I don't agree with you. I think it's actually very easy. I think the institution that you're working for has to decide that diversity inclusion is a way of life for that company. And then they set policy when you have a job available, then it goes out to this network of places. That's where it gets advertised, period. Then you take it out of... I mean, I imagine what Dave is expressing about my own circle is probably very true. But when an institution takes on the idea that we are going to try and break down that situation and change the color of our staff, then you don't let the production manager decide, well, I'm only gonna send this announcement to this one place. You set, you know, there becomes policy that any job that's available goes to this array of places. It just, it gets pushed out to all those places. And then we see what happens. I hear that, I wanna disagree though. I manage an internship program. I'm not gonna turn the shift of my giant organization and I've had the same experience. And often it's also worry about the unions and how that's gonna apply with the unions. So I totally understand. Are you bringing in production interns? Yes. The union should care. The union should not care. I worked in Philadelphia, I worked in Philadelphia for two summers as an intern. Local 15 didn't care because I wasn't taking a job away from one of theirs. The unions won't mind. The internships won't say. And for designers as well, because that's, I so admire fair and we have not been able to get design interns because there's, I feel like I always get the, you know. I am like, don't you want to check it on that? I'm a very ex-unit gardener, so there is no walk. Yeah. If you advertise for a design intern. The keys are in the room. You probably will get in on data. But it again, we're gonna talk about this later. Where do you go? Like we were talking about the little network. Go on Facebook. Honestly, go in and type, and I'm a member of it, of USITT, USITT, PEOC, right? Queer nation, queer nation, and women in theater. Go on to, there's a black theater network that should still be on Facebook. There isn't any, the annual biannual biannual conference in North Carolina, which is coming up soon. There are places to look. If the only thing you're doing is putting it in Playbill, Art Search, The New York Times, or Backstage, you have limited your pool. Don't be reactive, just be proactive. Yeah. I'm gonna pick up on what you said and what he said. And I think that this idea of, you know, how can I affect the hiring manager, essentially what the hiring manager or whoever it is, because I think, when I look at my organization, it's also our decent staff and administration. So I think that one of the things that I just wanna underscore is that it'll be ideal if anyone who is willing, any ally in the conversation takes on the responsibility of reaching out, identifying particular actors. If you become known as the person who's like, you know, meeting people, et cetera, people will start sending stuff to you, okay? I have people now who don't hire anyone, but they know that I will go to the ends of the earth to find people. So I have emails coming to me from stitchers, from carpenters, you name it. Truth, I'm like this person, literally, you're gonna like them. Truth, it comes from everywhere. Once you're identified as a receiver of people who might come to the organization, people will start sending stuff to you. I think you're absolutely right. The institution has to absolutely institutionalize the process. It'll be ideal if there's a baseline of where things are posted, that gives you maximum exposure. But I also think another step is needed. Every position should be curated in terms of what are the transferable skills that we can tease out? Where do those transferable skills exist? Because those places need to receive postings too. So it's both and. And just know that you have a lot of power and influence just by having the information of who's out there. So if a posting is put out there through your company, email it to your network that you've created and just you care about it. And all they have to do is apply. And if they're qualified, Hallelujah, you have affected that hire. There are many people working at OSF right now. The hiring manager has no idea. I emailed that person. I called that person. I begged them to apply. They will have to know that I was involved. What's the goal? I just want them to be hired. That's all that you have to care about. How it happens, who cares? If you're committed, you have power and influence in the process. Because Evangeline Liddler, she called me and said, I'm trying to diversify our state contract. How do I do this? She was proactive in reaching out and trying to figure out how she could do it in her organization. So I don't think it's just enough to lean on your organization and hope that those policies carry it through. But you have to be invested in this conversation in your own heart because if you're not, you're not. I wasn't invested in this conversation 10 years ago. For real. I wasn't invested in it. You didn't believe the keys were there? I did not believe the keys were there. They were keys. But if I had to become invested in it, I had to have that desire and I made it happen with my allies and my friends that I sit around at this table. It was all me, like nobody's business. So this is what's going to happen next. I've already booked you plenty of tickets to OSM and we will be building a pipeline in August. I'll see you then. Goodbye. But there was no buts. It was this is what's going to happen. The other thing that I'd say just to kind of go back to your question is that we're trying to, that is the point of the Diversity Inclusion Committee that's inside the PMF itself is to try to figure out how to make it like give the tools for how to go about doing the change in culture, which is what we're really talking about here. And I think that some of them who are on that committee are actually in organizations that don't support it and they're still trying to do that work. So there's also just a way in which feel free to connect with me or with anybody here about it, but we can also help connect that person to tools and ideas and maybe for me it's those one-on-one conversations that's been really useful where someone comes to me and says either it's come down from on high, my managing director says I have to do X. And they say but I don't have any ways of doing that. And when all it is is a conversation at the end of the conversation they're like, oh wow I actually have opportunities, I have some network ideas. Like it's really, again we're surfacing why these reasons are not reasons anymore. Like there really are ways of doing this. And I think it's just a matter of spreading the word in a way. So I would love to connect with your production manager for nothing else, let's give him my. So I'd love to move us on to the next one, save a little bit of time here. We said I don't have time and why don't I just put it together with why isn't my job changing recently? Because it's a little bit, we've been talking about all that right now. Right. And then just give whatever points were. So one of the questions that we were talking this morning about is why? Why is this important? And why is it my job? Like I said 10 years ago, I was a stage manager in a room and my job was to make sure that the actors were taken care of. I didn't understand what my impact of the person in the room and nationally could be or is now. So going back to why is it important I think a lot about how I interact with my boss at University of Texas. She brings me in oftentimes on things that are not necessarily in my purview but she brings me in because I have a very different lens to look at things through. She's like oh I didn't think of it that way. I didn't think of that approach. I have a diverse opinion on that. So we were able to play devil's advocate with one another and come up with a better solution whereas it doesn't become just a singular lens that we're looking at this one issue. So that's why it's important to me again as a production manager to try to be as diverse as possible. Just recently at UT we hired an African American technical director and that was important for us especially in Texas to be able to show folks that we are here and that there is work that can be had and to see examples of that professional work that can be done. Was that person right out of school or did you steal it from someone else? He was actually a student of mine from the University of Wisconsin when I was there. And I track a lot of through Facebook from the University of Wisconsin sometimes. I would track a lot of my students progress. We have the people of color network. We have the gateway folks and I track a lot of these students in where they're going and much like Sharif I get a lot of these phone calls like, hey, I need, I need and then the first thing I do is I go to the people of color network, we're a nation or wherever and post these jobs and actually heard a fair amount of folks at this last conference saying we are actually able to get candidates from that pool. I just wanna speak to the whole I don't have time issue because I certainly recognize that at OSF it's an institution that can afford a position to run a program and there are other theaters who have smaller staff, we don't have a dedicated person and how the hell can we do all this with the workload that we have. So I think that there's certainly a difference in terms of the speed that the work can get done when we have someone in a position but it doesn't eliminate the ability to actually get it done. So I think what has to happen is what are some of the small steps identified? Really clearly. First, do you believe that the candidates are out there? You can't skip any of those steps because your actions will betray you. So once you get past all of that and you believe and you're invested and everything's ready you can think about the small things like where are we posting work that really don't require another staff person. It just really requires intentionality about what pools of people, what pools of eyes do you want to have the gains over your application. And after you tease out your job descriptions making tweaks between do I need an M&M for this? Do I need a degree at all for this position? I'm looking for the experience. Do I care where that experience comes from? Looking at each individual access point to your organization that will increase someone's ability to one, know that you exist. Sometimes the problem is, I don't know, I'm sure you have great thoughts about your institution. People give you all kinds of accolades and you assume people know about you. Trust me, there's a lot of talented people who don't even know you exist. And if they, one thing know that you exist their contributions can be phenomenal. So first take the time and think about how can I increase the awareness of my existence? It's great that many people in theater know about you. But we've already identified that people solely in this theater category are not generating the applicant pool that you need. But you have to be outside of the theater category particularly when it's an institution in the field that historically has been white. You can't look to a field that's historically been white and then require that historical experience to be part of the application process that you are saying you want to be diverse. Do you see the contradiction in that? You have to be able to go outside of that historical reality and tap into the qualified people who have tremendous amount of skills but have been historically outside of this institution or this institution. Well, I'm one of those people. I've been at Princeton University for 25 years. I've been a master electrician. I've been the technical director of the shop supervisor. I'm now the production manager. I don't live in BFA. I don't. I'm a year short. I'm a lighting designer with 125 credits. I don't have an MFA. Got to look, you got to look. To open it up for these last few minutes to talk about any other kind of questions that have been on your mind during this and of course feel free to talk with us afterwards and we're gonna share some resources right at the very end. So what are some questions that are coming up? So I totally agree that the key is the question that I'm a little more worried about is how do we support people? The reality is we're not good at that and when you're in war three or four people you bring on into your organization of color very commonly look around and go, man, this is not good. So we're having, I mean at my theater I would say we've done some good work on that occasionally and some sort of work on that the reality of trying to find ways like I love when Paul, way back when when we even before the DNI Institute we started that Eliminating Races in the Theater workshop that one of the things that really jumped out at me was the conversation about like there weren't any hairdressers in Ashland, Oregon for black women, right, so like it just wasn't a thing and so why would you move to Ashland, Oregon? You can't get your hair done. I mean that's a reality, right? How do we support, what are the advice you'd have for supporting people as they lead and not saying and not getting into the situation saying you're the only representative of your race, of your gender, of your in this role. How do, that's not your burden, that's my burden or our burden, how do we help you, you know? I think that's such a great point you bring up and I talked about it's not the can issue as your institution, it's a look at the institution and that hair thing is a really big deal, right? So the more people are part of the comes to the organization the more the institution learns about the needs of the various communities and for African American women, black women hair was like you were on your own, right? So what do you do if you recognize that you're in a community, I explained it, so we were five hours from Portland, five hours from the Bay Area, so you're not going to sprout up a population out of nowhere. So you have to decide is this an equitable issue? What do we do? You hire an African, you create a position so that's what happens. A position was created and a person was hired. So that required a tremendous amount of conversation because we have a hair and wood department, right? So if there's a hair and wood department that exists there there's 10 people every season that wig and style people's hair. They, many of them were required to be cosmetologists because they're literally just running shows, right? So we said, listen we have a department that's doing this. Why can't we out of those 10 decisions think about defining one of them, just one. As a cosmetologist who has the expertise to do black women's hair, that we will teach how to run a show. Now I'm not saying fix somebody off the street, I'm talking about a cosmetologist who has two, three years of training on how to do hair. All we have to do is teach them the necessary steps you can take to run a show. And we learned for us that was a three week process. We had a 75 year institution that eliminated a group of people because of a three week process because they come with hair skills, hair care skills. They just never had to run a show. And to go to your kind of culture question too, I think that that change of culture is, for me it's the next conversation like that needs a whole session, right? That's what I imagined that because it was too hard to cram that in here as well but I think figuring out what you need to do and this does come from us production managers, is how do we create a culture among our staff that is more open and allows for different voices to be heard because who you have there already? The question is are their voices even being heard? So how can you first change that internal culture to create a place that is... And I do think there's an answer that can be taken away out of this room, right? So there are resources that are available to you just as members of TCG, right? So TCG has created a DNI Institute where they have taken theaters who have opted in to go through this very long-term process. For those of you who are not in the Institute, those member theaters have a certain level of learning and understanding that they can share with various people. But ultimately, the goal is to increase the awareness in the organization and tap into people who are actually doing the work with you. It's a phone call, it's a... Hey, what was your first step? Well, we did this terminology thing and we're gonna do this and then you organize that internally? Well, that didn't really work. Just what do we do next? Whatever, you pick up the phone or if you have the privilege of having the resources to have your own consultant, then you bring your own consultant in to have those conversations. But depending on what resources you have, those are the steps that you take. But TCG has those resources available to share with anyone who's willing to get started. You just have to ask. Other questions? Well, let's go ahead. This is kind of going back to the basics, but if you do not have the institutional support and I never had someone say to me, no, I don't believe in diversity or no, I'm not gonna... Everyone verbally agrees to it, but if you in reality don't have the institutional support, do you have suggestions for either working from the bottom up or to other ways of convincing the organization? One thing I can say is that part of what we found really valuable in the diversity inclusion committee that we created for the PMF is that we have monthly conference calls where all we do is share the small things that we're doing in our cultures, right? In our cultures and expanding networks and hey, I tried this one program where I brought in someone who had worked in construction and brought them into the shop and this is how it went. You know, there's like this sort of sharing that I think is really good and we have no resources in the PMF. We are just a network of people. So that is how like, and it's been incredibly valuable. Like people really, of all the things that the committee has been able to do so far. We've only, by the way, we started in March of 2014. So it's a short amount of time that we feel like that's been a really valuable resource is just sharing like what's been happening. So I think reaching out to people so that's one piece of sugar. Anybody else? I would just add that you look for the other ally in your org. I don't care who it is. And you guys begin to meet on a regular basis and you share your observations. You share your concerns. Initially, there might be a lot of tears and a lot of woe. But then what happens is you get through the pain of it all. You guys begin to start strategizing about steps and you continue to add a person to the service. Sometimes it might just be two people. If you're lucky, you might have five, right? And then if you find other people and other organizations who are like-minded, you expand that out. You put together one thing on your top. You get the confidence to take this first step. You might get beat down. Okay, Bob? Don't give up. Racism is not an option. Racism is not an option. So you go back in, but you have a cohort. Working in isolation is a death knell. You're alone. You're just fatigued. You have no one to bounce things off of. You need to find at least one ally and take that information out. Keep bringing it up. So, yeah, go ahead and then we need to- I think one thing too, really important to remember is that at Children's Theater, we started getting a lot more into this work in lots of different areas of our theater. And one really valuable thing that's been said to me recently was you're gonna make a mistake. You're gonna say something wrong. You're gonna have found somebody. You're gonna do something wrong. And what you need to do is learn from it and do better next time. These are hard conversations to have. And you're not gonna hit a home run right away. So that was really liberating for me to just then be able to have the conversation at least and not feel like, oh, I'm gonna say something wrong and I can't have this conversation because what if I say something wrong? And so just that little nugget made it a huge difference in the way that I approach what I do every day and support other areas of organization as well. I think- I see. Yeah, just what I think and I wonder is what's great, one that's been great for me, I have been at Playmakers with Joe Hodge for about eight months. And what has been great is, can you call it a plurality of voices? Right, so we don't talk so much about diversity and inclusion, what we're talking about is a plurality of voices. And that means women, that means of any gender, gender identification or color. So you can have those difficult conversations and make those mistakes and use words that help you feel better about it. And so I have discovered that when you say plurality of voices, that means so many things. It makes it easier to then say, I said this plurality of voices thing, but then I'm probably gonna say something that's good. You may not be right, but I know that that's what we're looking for. Thank you everybody. So we're actually out of time and they're gonna kick us out. If there's other questions or online conversations-