Equity and Inclusion - Shaw Festival Theatre

The Shaw Festival is committed to becoming a place where everyone, no matter who they are, can make and take part in excellent art.

We know that people only do their best work when they can bring their real selves to a place where they feel welcome and looked after. This is why we need to create a more equitable, diverse and inclusive culture.

Some of this work can be done through explicit policies on anti-harassment, anti-bullying and so on; but these tend to deal only with overtly negative behaviour. Just as important is to confront the destructive impact of things that are either so casual or subtle that we call them micro aggressions (though their impact is not at all ‘micro’), or so fundamentally baked in to our ways of thinking that no one questions them. These barriers to excellence will not be removed until there is mutual respect and trust between everyone at The Shaw.

So we shall begin not only by implementing the recommendations of our EDI Taskforce, but also by asking every member of The Shaw’s communities to look within. What can each of us do, and what can we all do together, to take better care of each other and to give each other the courage and support we need?

The last 18 months have shown us that real human connection is both more difficult and more precious than we ever realised. We have the opportunity to provide that connection for an ever-growing number of people; let us first make sure that we have created it among ourselves.

Inset photo: Cast of Trouble in Mind (2021). Photo by Lauren Garbutt.

The work of theatre, and of The Shaw specifically, is to create the communal experience of watching a story unfold.

This is a basic human need, and it is because we fulfil that need (among others) that we are a charity.

Plays can be old or new; tragic or comic; challenging or comforting; earthy or poetic; and so on. The Shaw mixes all these elements in its programming, but there is no doubt that much of our reputation, and audience loyalty, rests on our skill with plays from the past. We have artists and artisans who can bring old plays to life in new and creative ways. Many of those plays are challenging to us now, sometimes in ways that their authors intended, and sometimes not: often the word or idea which stops us in our tracks would have elicited no comment at the play’s premiere. Indeed, almost every play from the traditional canon confronts us with attitudes and customs we perhaps like to think we no longer share. For us, this is not a problem but an opportunity.

Every audience, and every department at The Shaw, contains a multitude of different points of view. When those multiple perspectives meet the sort of plays in which we specialise, the potential for healthy debate is limitless.

Background and Recommendations

In late March of 2021, the Board appointed an EDI Taskforce led by incoming Board Chair Ian Joseph that, having met throughout the fall and winter of 2020 and ‘21, made a series of recommendations, which build upon the (mostly completed) five-year (2017 to 2022) planning recommendations of The Shaw’s previous 2016/17 EDI Taskforce.

Primary among these was the creation of a role within The Shaw mandated to serve as a senior, independent Inclusion and Wellness Facilitator who could act as an advisor and a key intermediary for communication and resolution among all Company members, and working alongside Human Resources, create a truly supportive and respectful workplace.

Throughout the spring, we developed a framework for this position and, in July 2021, implemented the role by hiring Khan Bouba-Dalambaye, a clinical psychologist, EDI consultant and professor of psychology with whom we had worked extensively since early 2020. With that expertise in place, the process started moving ahead more quickly.

The 2021 Taskforce has made these new recommendations for implementation by the end of 2022 (assuming a more normative year in 2022) including the continuation of a successor committee in 2021 that will help on a continuous basis to examine and inform The Shaw on areas relating to inclusion, respect, accessibility and equitable practices. This new successor committee will also help ensure that the current list of recommendations and the topics left for future examination are addressed within the 2022 timeline.

Beyond the creation of the new position and the creation of a successor committee, the recommendations included, but were not limited to, the following items:

• That The Shaw make clearer a statement of its values and commitments to cultivation and support of the organization as an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workplace culture that nurtures and supports everyone working here. This new statement is realized as the Values Statement above and ties into our Programming Statement as well
• That meaningful engagement on the reasoning and intent of The Shaw’s work in these areas be made clear to every department at The Shaw through individual meetings with leadership and through town halls and assemblies and to the public through our website and through onsite activities and outreach
• That workshops, trainings and facilitated discussions become regularly available to staff, volunteers, and our wider community to help foster ever improving understanding and learning toward needed changes.
• That the new EDI committee be equitably created to include representation from staff, board members and artists from a wider cross section of departments and identities and that it meets multiple times per year and reports back on its progress.
• That more cross-departmental interaction and engagement are necessary and helpful in creating understanding of issues, difficulties and the disparate needs and concerns facing each area in order that everyone has greater empathy for their fellow workers and the burdens each person might face.
• That management continue to explore ways with the committee, the Guild, and the town to incentivize or create more opportunities for wider diversification of the workforce, especially as new positions become available. This is particularly important to continue due to the homogenous nature of the local area and the difficulties involved with inter-community transportation, the lack of resources available within a small rural town and lack of resources available to persons of colour or marginalized communities within the Niagara region generally compared to larger urban centres.
• That social media programs be augmented to include more initiatives that support community dialogue and proactively discuss issues of interest to The Shaw’s communities and workforce.
• That specific suggestions for ensuring best practices when working across cultural or identity divisions be created over the coming year in consultation with each department and adhered to by all members of the department and that the Shaw Guild, in conjunction with its IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity in Action) Team do likewise.

Additional departmentally specific ideas, as well as suggestions for new Onboarding/Orientation and simplified HR policies and programs, will also be developed over the coming months.