The Joy-Jackson Initiative and Black Theatre Girl Magic Presents A Town Hall for the Live Theatre Community: BIPOC Equity in the Arts

The Joy-Jackson Initiative with Black Theatre Girl Magic presents "A Town Hall for the Live Theatre Community: BIPOC Equity in the Arts."

The Town Hall serves as a resource to the American theatre community to help understand Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) experiences in the theatre, and will also inform JJI's development of their spearhead initiative, The Joy-Jackson Assessment. The Town Hall will be held on tonight, Friday, October 30th, 2020 at 8pm EST/ 5pm PST and will be streamed on Facebook Live.

The Joy-Jackson Assessment is an innovative learning tool that guides theatre organizations through a series of questions to identify oversight (such as tokenism, performative allyship, and complacency) in their inclusion of BIPOC within their organization. The Assessment also allows organizations to measure their structural integrity to support BIPOC artists, as well as formulate and pledge immediate, long-term solutions to repair harm and become the safest spaces for BIPOC theatre makers.

Panelists will include participants from The Joy-Jackson Assessment's second beta cohort. They are Melissa Bernstein (Artistic Director Newton Theater Company), Jenna Esler (Artistic Director Glow Lyric Theater), Evan Hoffman (Producing Artistic Director Next Stop Theater), Tiffany Holmes (Drama Learning Center), and Vanessa Knowles (Executive Director Free to be Me).

This is the second town hall being held, the first being on Friday, July 10th, 2020 that garnered over 2.2k live viewers. All town halls will focus on actionable steps we can take to achieve equity within the live theatre community, host a panelist discussion, and offer room for Q&A participation. Please join us as we welcome all theatre leadership and participants to contribute to healthy dialogue.

For more information about the Live Town Hall, please contact either Marissa or Daphnee. You can find more information on The Joy-Jackson Initiative at www.JoyJackson.org and Black Theatre Girl Magic at www.BlackTheatreGirlMagic.org.

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