Ethical Transparency

Babes With Blades Theatre Company (BWBTC) is located on the traditional homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi Nations. Many other tribes such as the Miami, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac, and Fox also called this area home. This region that we now commonly refer to as “The Chicagoland Area”,  has long been a center for Indigenous people to gather, trade, and maintain kinship ties. Today, one of the largest urban Native American communities in the United States resides in Chicago. Members of this community continue to contribute to the life of this city and to celebrate their heritage, practice traditions, and care for the land and waterways.  If you are joining us from outside of Chicago, you can discover who’s traditional homelands you inhabit by going to Whose.Land

(Assistance in forming this statement were guided by The Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with the American Indian Center for Chicago. https://www.artic.edu/about-us/identity/land-acknowledgment)

As you are viewing our website as a part of your internet experience, please join us in taking a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within technologies, structures, and ways of thinking we use every day. We are using equipment and high-speed internet not available in many Indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the art we make leave significant carbon footprints, contributing to changing climates that disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples worldwide. Please join BWBTC in acknowledging all of this as well as our shared responsibility to make good of this time, and for each of us to consider our roles in reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship.

(This statement was inspired and adapted from Adrienne Wong, SpiderWebShow https://howlround.com/intersection-digital-technology-and-live-performance)

In 2019 we changed our mission statement specifically to include space for all marginalized voices, not just femme identified, and we endeavor to constantly evaluate our efforts for accountability and Anti-Racist actions. A large portion of our company’s foundation is rooted in the knowledge of stage combat, a skill that is typically associated with higher education or expensive independent training and therefore is directly connected with White privilege. As a demonstration of our commitment to bringing more BIPOC artists to our productions, we established the free Fundamentals of Stage Combat for Folx of Color workshops and our ensemble continues to participate in internal education. Beyond those current actions we are publicly committed to the following:

• Our ensemble will continue to take Anti-Racism training, which [has included] the Me and White Supremacy Workbook by Layla F. Saad
• We will continue to select scripts that provide meaningful roles for BIPOC actors and focus on color conscious casting in our biennial BWBTC Shakespeare production.
• We will continue our internal fundraising and production-based fundraising for local charities that support BIPOC.
• We will continue and expand our free classes for Artists of Color, like our Introduction to Stage Combat class last year and our Folio Method class offered [in early spring of 2020], along with one on one mentorship programs in stage combat, fight choreography, directing and other aspects of theatre arts.
• We are committed to continuing the Anti-Racist education through workshops and trainings for our ensemble members that center the perspectives of BIPOC educators and theatre artists. We began this effort in 2019 and value this as a part of our company’s continuous duty to dismantle the White Supremacy that is entrenched in our individual perspectives and in the field of theatre.

Babes With Blades Theatre Company (BWBTC) has benefitted from White and Trans-exclusionary feminism since the company’s inception and therefore has been complicit in promoting the status quo that we’ve claimed to fight against. Author, feminist, and social activist, bell hooks, wrote about the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to remind us that there are “interlocking systems of domination” that reinforce each other. Our company was founded in an attempt to dismantle the patriarchy through creative action, however we’ve upheld white supremacy and capitalistic measures of training in our hiring practices.  In this way, our actions have not been congruent with our stated values.  We hold ourselves accountable for past mistakes and deeply apologize to all those we have hurt with our actions.  To the folx we have worked with behind the scenes, the artists onstage and the ensemble members of color: we are sorry.

Please note that this is a living document within BWBTC and will be updated as we learn and grow.

BWBTC has spent the past months reviewing our company and our practices. Based on the scope of our company and our work, BWBTC commits to the following actions to address the demands of WeSeeYouWAT.

We will continue the following practices within our organization:

• Ensuring that any Indigenous pronunciations, cultural references, practices or traditions appearing within a production are researched thoroughly to ensure respect for the culture
• Formally adding the responsibility of researching any BIPOC cultural traditions that could/might be used in the rehearsal process to make sure they are executed respectfully and guided by a member of that specific community
• Making our Inclusion Strategies Team (IST) available to all ensemble members for questions, resources and accountability for the work we will continually do for ourselves, our company and our industry
• Including a separate line item for the IST budget within the general operating budget and ensuring the funds are dedicated to IST initiatives
• Continuing to cultivate relationships with BIPOC designers and increasing our budgets for compensation in order to appeal and hire more BIPOC designers
• Having a dialogue with every actor regarding any potential needs they might have regarding their stage appearance. If an actor needs something not initially considered in the costume design, we will discuss with the actor if they would prefer for us to provide the need, or if they would prefer to purchase what is needed and we will reimburse. Either way, the cost will be covered by our theater.

• All production staff will have access to contact info as it is a living document once hiring is confirmed. Once hired, contracts and welcome packets are sent, which include a Complaint Path (As outlined by Chicago’s NIOH) pending any questions or concerns about production staff
• All designers are provided with inventory and ground plans of performance space upon being hired; Space walk-thru will be incorporated into first design mtg as well from now on and we will request to video the walk thru or have one provided for us for all members of the production to view
• Work with directors to be mindful when creating calendars to maintain a general respect for time for actors and staff. This includes a hard end of the rehearsal day as well as knowing which actors require public transportation, who have day gigs, etc so as to ensure they arrive home safely and at a reasonable hour. We no longer have 10 out of 12s, but this policy also applies to tech rehearsals.
• Continue to bring more BIPOC representation within our ensemble
• No longer have exclusively white faces making decisions behind the casting table.
• Continue inclusive casting efforts (prioritizing our BIPOC Ensemble members)
• When programming a BIPOC centric story, we will still provide the same amount of administrative support as other productions, and any additional creative BIPOC support that we are not able to provide; we will cultivate a culture of give and take and communication so that all opinions are heard

• Vetting potential board members to guarantee that no person who has exhibited racist / bigoted / prejudicial / etc behavior to serve on our board
• Prioritizing BIPOC voices and needs well-above financial incentives when considering programing

In addition to those practices currently in place, BWBTC commits to:

• Having the land acknowledgement statement above appear as a permanent part of our website and be included in our production programs and lobby displays. This statement will also be included in all production welcome packets, read at the first production meeting and first rehearsal for each production as well as the first board meeting of our fiscal year.
• Research specific neighborhood surrounding the theatre where we are producing to include any additional BIPOC land acknowledgements that are unique to that area to be shared in lobby display and with all production staff in the same manners as previously listed.
• Serving as a resource for our patrons and community by including additional information regarding the Indigenous cultures in the Chicagoland area. Those resources can be found on our EDIA page (Make a hotlink, EDIA page will be explained below***)
• Donating 5% of our ticket sales from every production to a Chicago based 501c3 with an Indigenous focused mission
  Adjusting our pre-production duties and script development process to ensure we are utilizing practices that will create a safe and open space for our BIPOC artists
• Adding EDIA and Anti-Racist training to our calendar on a monthly basis, be it a seminar, book club, discussion, etc on different topics
• Training at least two ensemble members to serve as EDI representatives who will be trained in de-escalation training that will be available to any actor or member of the production staff at any time, day or night
• When revisiting an established work of a white playwright, we will approach the playwright regarding any adjustments or changes that are either presented under a white gaze / BIPOC stereotypes /not really the BIPOC experience /etc. If the playwright is not willing to make those adjustments as needed, we will no longer consider the script for production
• Creating “Character Exit Strategies” for actors. Due to our mission and the nature of our scripts, we acknowledge our responsibility to provide actors with resources for their mental and emotional health. As it is not financially feasible for us to have a mental health professional on our staff (either as regular staff or a member of the production team) we will develop this tool as a way for us to offer assistance to any artist who works with in, in addition to information about potential triggers in audition notices, at auditions, and a list of sliding scale mental and emotional health resources provided to actors who chose to work with us on a project.
• Continuing to make space in production process for BIPOC artists to bring in all aspects of relevant personal experience, especially when it brings discomfort to white artists
• The white ensemble members of BWBTC commit to learning more about the BIPOC artists and history within our industry
• Having all production welcome packets will include our commitment to the Dear WAT demands and standards, with multiple options for any person to connect with leadership if we are not upholding our commitment
• Our Anti-Racist and Inclusion statement will be included in all contracts and welcome packets moving forward, as well as reading at first rehearsal, first production mtg, first board meeting of season
• Adding a hotlink to our Transparency Page to our quarterly e-newsletter as well as providing a link to a rotating external Anti-Racist / EDIA resource
• Showing and equitable balance of white and BIPOC artists in marketing materials
• Working with our external PR firm to make sure BIPOC news outlets, publishing houses, etc are included when sending out promotional information on our company and our productions
• Work with our promotional distribution company regarding the neighborhoods our materials are placed to include more predominantly BIPOC neighborhoods
• Offering complimentary tickets to Indigenous American Community members provided a performance is not already sold out

• Preventing/countering White Gaze in the rehearsal room, the leadership of every production (Artistic Director, Production Director, Production Manager, Dramaturg and Stage Manager) will never be all-white
• Including EDI and Anti-Racist awareness conversations during any potential production staff interview
• Lengthening our pre-production time to allow for more staffing options, more time for said staff and for production meetings to be built into rehearsal schedule out of respect for staff who need to be at both
• Expanding compensation and design budgets to be more appealing and competitive for BIPOC artists and production people
• Explore more BIPOC stories and more intersectional stories
• Find more roles for older actors, especially older BIPOC actors
• Connecting with more BIPOC playwrights, as a majority of our scripts are original works
• Continue to hire BIPOC designers and cultivate relationships with them
• Making full production budgets available to designers

• Publishing up to date bios of our Board Members on our website, asking them to include any organizational affiliations
• Expanding our board while maintaining our current 50% BIPOC ratio or higher
• Continuing to own our participation in a supremacist culture through our accountability statement (above) and will display our land acknowledgments as described above
• Maintaining our company’s financial transparency on our website
• As we are a stipend based company, all actors are paid the same, regardless of personal identification or size of role, therefore in lieu of increasing compensation, we will offer our BIPOC artists more comp tickets to the production they are involved in
• Offer lower program advertising rates for BIPOC businesses
• Providing access to all board meetings and minutes for any ensemble member who wishes to attend or review