Anti-Racism

Seattle Public Theater is committed to becoming an anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-sexist organization and seeks to uproot and dismantle Industrial white Supremacy within the theatrical arts and our community.

Letter of Commitment: 

Seattle Public Theater is updating its mission and vision statements to reflect our commitment to becoming an anti-racist, anti-ableist, and an anti-sexist organization.  We pledge to an ongoing and transparent effort to this work across all areas of the organization while we seek to understand our past mistakes and take our efforts beyond a specific movement in time or a few scattered statements.

We acknowledge that as a predominately white led organization which has not always been sensitive to the systematic harms prevalent in the theater community that have caused harm and inequitable environments. While we have strived in the past to address some of these inequities, we commit to a sustained practice of examining our own unconscious biases, our past actions in order to undo policies and procedures that contribute to these inequities. We must stay vigilant and actively, not passively, strive to become an anti-racist organization.  

We have committed as a staff and board to the following:

1. An updated vision and mission statement.

   New Mission: Embracing historically excluded identities and emerging artists, Seattle Public Theater produces compelling work that sparks conversation and ignites empathy.

   New Vision: We see an ecosystem of artists that consciously nurtures and celebrates women and diverse identities. 

   To achieve this Vision, Seattle Public Theater is committed to:

   • Promoting Racial Equity 

   • Female Leadership and Artistic Vision

   • Inclusion of all Gender and Sexual Identities

   • Mentoring and sustaining local Emerging Artists      

   • Building a national reputation for high quality, progressive work

   • Accessibility for All

   It is in the Spirit of these that we seek to elicit positive change in our Pacific Northwest Community.

2. While furloughs and shutdowns have greatly challenged our organization, we are continuing take steps to heed feedback given to us so graciously by Black artists and participants from our past. We have held a staff retreat to dissect this feedback and developed Goals and actions we believe are achievable over the next three years. These goals and actions have now been shared with the Board of Directors who are currently crafting our Strategic Plan.

3. The Board of Directors is committing to having one of the main goals of our Strategic Plan centered on Anti-Racist Practices and Policies as well as a line item in the yearly budget to cover the costs of ongoing EDI (Equity/Diversity/Inclusion) training.

4. We are committing to creating new pathways (or systems) for a safe working environment throughout our organization by creating grievance policies, artist liaison positions, and post-mortems for each production as well as revamping our code of conduct and employee handbook to clearly state our positions and create an accountable artistic space.

5. Engaging and remaining pro-active in our own anti-racist work as individuals and an organization accountability by committing to EDI training for all participants including staff, board and volunteers. As well, we want to create a resource list for staff and artists in order to inspire on=going self-education.

6. Investing in BIPOC constituents- time, energy and money-through partnerships, community engagement and promoting individual artist’s work outside of our productions.

7. Making sure all compensation is fair and sustaining, by making hiring practices transparent in all areas of the company and committing to keeping our casting open in terms of race, gender and other identities for all plays.

8. Committing to Indigenous Folx which include but are not limited to Vocalized Land Acknowledgement and permanent land acknowledgements both inside and outside of our building, as well as reaching out to the Indigenous theater community to ask what we can do for them.