Black Lives Matter

mainstages stands in solidarity with the Black community.

Right now, people across the country are protesting not only police violence against Black people, but also the systemic racism that has plagued our country since its inception.

As an educational theater company, we have a responsibility to address head-on the relevant topics that kids are confronting today and help them process uncomfortable emotions in a way that provides a safe context for expression.

Here are some of the actions that we are holding ourselves accountable for moving forward:

• Participants from pre-k through high school in our 12 virtual afterschool programs and 3 weekly fun-inar sessions, will participate in programming addressing racism.
• We will be diligent in making sure our programs and performances provide a secure, safe space for all of our students, especially those students who are a part of marginalized communities.
• We’ve aimed to create a network of staff that reflect the diversity of the New York theater community as to how it relates to gender, race and identity. We can and should do better. We will continue to hire, engage and promote Black Teaching Artists to create coalitions that oppose anti-Blackness and pursue racial equity for Black Americans.
• We will work to ensure that the members of our community, from our directors to our teaching artists and performers, continue to educate ourselves on ways we can combat implicit bias in the spaces we work in.
• We will make clear our expectations in placing camp staff with the intention of representing marginalized communities, particularly members of the Black community.

In a pre-coronavirus world, we would currently be hiring 40+ seasonal employees for the summer, many of whom are placed at summer camps across the country. As the world has shifted and our business has pivoted to stay relevant, we have decided to introduce new values to the mainstages mission: improvisation, connection, character, and imagination. They will not only guide our decisions on how we run our new virtual programming, but how we address social issues. We have incorporated the above actions and thoughts into our new mission statement.