ADDRESS BIAS IN SYSTEMS

Ensure Diversity at Decision-Making Tables:

and 50% women & non-binary representation by the 2024-2025 theatre season.

Actively seeking out diversity in our board of directors (2020: 50% IBPOC, Gender Equity)
Hosting of The 3.7% Initiative YEG+ Chapter. Created for the express purpose of helping women and non-binary folks who self-identify as ethnically and culturally diverse find greater success in their arts practice and build artistic leadership skills.

Focusing on new play development, and the commissioning of plays from diverse perspectives and communities including IBPOC, D/deaf artists and community, people with disabilities and the neurodiverse.
Focusing on stories from diverse cultural backgrounds, and developing emerging diverse artists for the Sprouts New Play Festival For Kids
Development of First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) Programming with Indigenous artists and community partners.

Ensuring annual anti-racism group training for staff, board members and key artists.
Financially supporting and encouraging staff, board members and key artists to use paid work time to attend additional local and online one-off anti-racism workshops and presentations.
In-service training for all artists and team members touring issue-based plays to prepare them for discussions, disclosures and for their own education and learning around topics of the plays.

Holding general auditions every year and publicizing them widely.
Including 2-3 auditors at general auditions to ensure a variety of opinions and address bias.
Encouraging artists that we have already worked with or know their work to send in updated resumes and photos, and to let us know about upcoming work in the community.
Accepting unsolicited scripts.

In-School Workshops: developing and creating material by artists and students working together.
Participatory Plays: guiding and facilitating conversations between artists and students.
Teacher Advisory: helping us reach students and educators in the best ways that we can.

Our work is held up by four critical pillars: excellence, diversity, relevance and inclusion.

Develop Mentorship Infrastructure:

Internships and Assistant positions: the hosting of intern students from post-secondary institutions, and opportunities for work for artists in roles like assistant directors and shadow teachers. This is done on productions on a per-project basis.
The 3.7% Initiative YEG+: mentorship is a huge part of this Initiative’s focus and success.

We proudly support the 35//50 Initiative and are committed to reporting our employment statistics annually. Employment Statistics for 2015-2019 can be found at: https://www.concretetheatre.ca/employment-statistics/
We are currently completing a comprehensive data collection that spans our company from founding to the present (31 years).

We value staff and artists as humans first by doing our best to support them so that they can accomplish their tasks well.
We use contracts to outline expectations, timelines, the scope of work and payment.
We pay for health insurance and vacation time for all staff.
We have a Respectful Workplace Policy.
We abide by the rules of the Not In Our Space Program (jointly created by CAEA and PACT).
We have a Board Handbook which lays out expectations, policies & procedures for the board.
We have an HR document that lays out our expectations, policies & procedures for staff.
We have a Company Handbook which lays out expectations, policies & procedures for touring and production team members.