Cultural Equity & Inclusion

Representation matters.

Celebration Theatre has called Los Angeles home since 1982. While social progress has undoubtedly been made since, the racist and violent foundations upon which the area grew—stolen Indigenous lands, lynchings, redlining, Japanese internment, Indigenous oppression through Catholic missions, and anti-queer hate crimes, to name only a few—remain grim realities that continue to permeate life in Los Angeles, impacting safety, well-being, and socio-economic opportunity for too many. Anti-Black police brutality remains a daily occurrence. The religious intolerance that fueled Mormon churches to a successful Prop 8 campaign in 2008 looks like anti-trans and anti-drag legislation writ nationally in 2023. There are many more examples to share.

Because our establishment by gay rights pioneer and Mattachine Society co-founder Chuck Rowland demands it, the principles of cultural equity and inclusion are paramount in our mission to create impactful theatre by, about, and for our unique community and its allies.

Because of who we are and all that we represent to so many, we must go further. To create belonging that endures, we must be a firebrand, an intentional leader in creating opportunities that help dissolve long-standing racist and white supremacist, misogynist, anti-semitic, and other oppressive practices in programming, casting, hiring, and audience development.

Hence, our commitment to a Culture of Belonging. To celebrate the individual and embrace the All. All races, ethnicities, national origins, gender variants, sexual identities + orientations, ages, disabilities, sizes, faiths/secular beliefs,  and socio-economic classes. All working together to make theatre a transformative experience for both the makers and the audience.

Guided by the Los Angeles Anti-Racism Theatre Standards as its adopted footprint, Celebration Theatre has embarked on an ongoing, iterative journey of self-reflection, accountability, and action to always do better.  Celebration Theatre is also a member of the Queer Theatre Alliance, a consortium of LGBTQIA+ theatres across the nation joining hands as a community to strengthen our cause. We are building channels for idea sharing and best practices to better inform how Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) flows throughout the many intersections of our LGBTQIA+ community.

We aim to consistently engage with communities in a meaningful way and not just on a show-by-show basis. Through living documents, increasingly transparent processes, and pushes towards power sharing and collaborative leadership, the theatre can do its part within the Greater Los Angeles community to reduce harm and build more equitable practices.

Our Commitments

Last updated February 2024

Creating an Environment of Physical & Psychological Safety

  • Every worker, volunteer, and Board member must agree to our Policy on Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment to enter our spaces.  The policy defines acceptable behavior, rights and responsibilities, and multiple paths for reporting/conflict resolution.
  • All production workers agree to (and discuss as a group) our Code of Care document, which seeks to establish a creative and collaborative culture of consent, courage, accountability, and empathy.
  • We are committed to ongoing training for all theatre stakeholders, but particularly those of influence (positional power) like Board & Staff, that reduces emotional labor and harm to folks from marginalized lived experiences.
  • We start each rehearsal process with a Community Agreements exercise to establish meaningful boundaries and accommodations for our artists and production team.
  • In January 2024, we launched a specialized EDI Committee at the board level that includes co-faciliation from both a Board and Company member, as well as stipended members of the community. The purpose is to meet quarterly to discuss justice issues of importance and how the organization can meaningfully address and integrate them into working practices and formal policies.

In Planning:

  • A 2024 calendar of EDI and Consent trainings for Board, staff, and members with outside facilitators to include bystander intervention and de-escalation tools.
  • Audit/review of our Employee and Volunteer Handbooks, and to continue annually.
  • Member-driven affinity groups to create brave spaces for healing and open conversation.

 

A Focus on Data Metrics

We like facts and figures. Lyrical language can inspire, but only action based on data creates community trust. Creating benchmarks is never a process without some level of bias, but we are committed to defining our goals based on existing data, and remaining open to revising data based on new information and/or methods. For the most part, our baseline metrics will lean into local data for Los Angeles County, and track our representation across Race/Ethnicity, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Disability, and HIV Status. We are currently studying which data sources should lead this strategy as well as best practices for the ethical gathering of data. As of January 2024, we are undergoing a 6-month process with a pro bono statistician to build a framework for impact data, which critically includes EDI-based data.

 

Equitable Representation Among Board & Operating Staff

  • 58% BIPOC - Board, 60% BIPOC - Staff
  • 83% LGBTQIA+ - Board (known/visible), 100% Staff
  • Our Board and Staff are majority cisgender male. There remains few known/visible representation from the TGNC (transgender, gender non-conforming), Intersex, and Nonbinary communities, an area of priority concern as we grow.
  • There is currently no known/visible representation from the HIV Positive and Disability communities.

In Planning:

  • In 2023, we added 4 additional BIPOC board members and 1 nonbinary member. Our EDI Committee will discuss benchmarking for future Board member nominations to help bring us closer to our ideal makeup.

 

Equitable Representation Among Artists & Company Membership

As we revitalize our Company Member experience and working artist onboarding procedures, we will be surveying everyone with optional demographics questions to update our in-house data. The following statistics represent 68 artists hired during 2021/22 Season:

  • 38% BIPOC
  • 47% Women
  • 41% TGNC

 

Justice-Driven Approaches to Artistic Programming

  • Publicly and regularly acknowledge the Native Land on which we operate and perform, and the oppressive impact that colonization continues to have. But this needs to go further to include ongoing, regular engagement of local Native communities to give back and aid in their healing. In 2021, the theatre established Indigiqueer programming to employ and support its community’s storytelling and empowerment. We are pursuing ongoing funding and partnerships to deepen this commitment.
  • Among our LGBTQIA+ community, those of TGNC, Intersex, and Non-Binary identities have historically been among the least represented in queer and allied spaces. In 2021, we piloted new programming that not only centers these non-dominant narratives, but seeks to employ writers, performers, designers, and producers of these lived experiences. We continue to pursue ongoing funding and partnerships to deepen this commitment.
  • Ongoing accountability and efforts to approach equitable representation in the hiring of artists, creatives, and production team members to accurately reflect the ethnic, racial, gender, and disability makeup of the Greater Los Angeles Area. Annual benchmarks will be set to help us approach this goal.
  • Commit to parity in women-produced works and women-identifying playwrights.
  • Partner with other arts organizations that showcase BIPOC artists and who are committed to fostering these types of partnerships.

 

Accessibility

  • Each production includes ASL Interpretation for at least one performance and/or captioning for digital presentations, as well as assisted listening devices.
  • All venues in which we work provide wheelchair accessibility.
  • Each production includes "Pay What You Like" performances for the public and $5 TeenTix tickets for youth.

 

Transparency & Accountability

  • Every program and event offers the opportunity to provide survey feedback from working artists, volunteer Company members, and our patron community.
  • Annual audit of our efforts conducted by staff, in collaboration with EDI Committee (based on July-Jun fiscal year).
  • Board Liaison nominated and elected by Company membership present at all quarterly board meetings to bring concerns and ideas to the Board on behalf of membership.
  • Bi-weekly virtual "office hours" for company members and production team members to access staff.
  • Regularly share our EDI goals and actions as appropriate on our website and communications channels, as well as submit bi-annual audits to BLKLST.

In Planning:

  • Accountability Checklists:
    • Annual Board Review
    • Pre-Production Planning
    • Post-Production Debrief
    • Company Gatherings
  • Create and restructure Company member communication channels and processes directly with leadership to ensure important issues will be sufficiently heard and addressed.

This is a living document, which we will continue to examine and refine as part of the theatre’s commitment to substantive change. If you would like to reach the theatre to share ideas, concerns, or resources to aid us in this work, send a message below.