Past Statement of Actions

January 23, 2024

The Arts Club strives to be kind, clear, and fair employers, creating a home for talented staff whom we value, develop, and retain. We are committed to fostering a welcoming, supportive, and creative place for artists—to be an incubator where artists create exceptional work fully reflective of our community. We seek to have a culture that crackles with positivity, a generosity of spirit, and a willingness to engage with difficult content and conversations.

We want to learn more about people’s experiences at the Arts Club and, with this knowledge, explore where there are barriers to inclusion within the company—including those created by systemic racism. Our job is to take this information and create strategies to improve our working practices so that we can move forward and build bridges for the future.

The Arts Club is committed to these direct actions [2024 report reflected in bold]:

1. Reviewing, updating, and publicly posting our Statement of Actions on an annual basis.


2. Reassessing anti-oppression within our Bullying and Harassment policy every year to make sure that our best practices evolve over time. This policy will be integrated as the guiding principle for staff, volunteers, artists, and all other people with whom we interact.

As this policy is now part of our onboarding and contracting processes for staff, we are consistently looking at whether these policies are up-to-date or need updating, as we believe that it should be always evolving. Artists who work in our spaces are also involved in discussions about our policies as well as Equity’s Not in Our Space program to ensure that these environments are safe and supported by Arts Club staff.


3. Continuing to provide anti-oppression training to our staff in the 2023–2024 season. This training is part of the onboarding process for all staff with opportunities provided to review, discuss, and receive feedback on the concepts and issues presented in order to better integrate anti-oppression best practices into our work environments. This will also include training in decolonization practices and increasing our understanding of truth and reconciliation with Indigenous communities. In order to keep this training active and current, staff will meet regularly throughout the year to have the opportunity to reflect on the training and how it is applied situationally in the workplace.

We will also look at providing more comprehensive training awareness on anti-oppression for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities as well as more of a specific focus on oppression in our Transgender communities.


• In July 2024, staff received training with Hummingbird Rising Consulting; an Indigenous-led consultancy organization. This 3-day training focussed on the effects of colonization and strategies on developing decolonization practices. Our EDIA team routinely meets to explore actions that the Arts Club can implement to decolonize our practices.
• In November 2024, the staff was led through a 2SLGBTQIA+ training session with a focus on oppression in our Transgender and gender non-conforming communities. This training also took a deeper dive into allyship and queer representation on our stages. Our EDIA team will continue meeting to discuss tangible actions and strategies that can be implemented to make our workplace more inclusive and welcoming to the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
• In 2024, the Arts Club’s Accessibility Coordinator led two sighted guide trainings session with our front-line staff to deepen the practice of supporting our blind and partially sighted community. In the spring of 2024, Amy twice led our staff through general accessibility training, exploring current best practices and focussing on disability justice and language.
• EDIA Task Force – We continue to work with our EDIA Task force which is made up of staff members who work in multiple areas at the Arts Club. This group meets to review and brainstorm actionable tactics that come out of our training sessions. The Task Force also meets to review and update our Statement of Actions and holds the Arts club accountable for these actions.


4. Working with IBPOC/BIPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+, Indigenous, and Disability communities, organizations that work with these communities, and artists from these communities to develop relationships, opportunities, and practices that lead to better and more authentic representation in our artists, staff, teachers, students, programming choices, and audiences.
   
   
   • We will regularly review the groups that we’re working with to see what communities we may be missing and where intersectionality may lie amongst them.
   • We will seek opportunities within our existing programs to amplify the voices of artists from equity-deserving communities to create platforms for under-represented stories and experiences.
   • Continue developing our Land Acknowledgments that include actions that can directly uplift/support Indigenous artists and communities.
   
   In September 2024, the Arts Club collaborated with Promethean Theatre, Bramble Theatre Collective, and YVR Fat Clothing Swap to produce the inaugural Fates Fest, a theatre festival dedicated to the advancement of femme and non-binary voices. The festival included a free workshop series, aimed to bridge the gap in professional development for equity-deserving artists.
   
   VCC Workshop Series
   
   Workshops offered to VCC students from the CAP program. These students are looking for work experience opportunities. These workshops are designed to use the basis of theatre to build confidence and skills, through games and roleplaying, that can be utilized in the workplace and in real life situations
   
   DABC workshop Series
   
   In the summer of 2024, the Arts Club provided workshops for Artists with D/disabilities who were experiencing gaps to getting work in the film/TV industry and on Stage, by providing skills, tools of the trade, information, and services that have been a barrier to many in the past. These workshops included topics such as professional headshots, auditioning for the stage and screen, understanding Equity, UBCP/ACTRA membership, and the business side of acting as a career.
   
   We were also excited to start working with the Tsleil-Waututh Cultural and Recreation Centre to explore drama education programming in their own spaces with youth that attend the centre with our August Summer Camps.


5. Incorporating EDIA practices in our hiring processes to support anti-oppressive working environments.
   
   
   • We will provide onboarding training and seek out partnerships with organizations who work with equity-deserving communities to help diversify our workforce.
   
   As part of our onboarding process, our new staff are asked to watch training videos around anti-racism, Accessibility practices, and Truth and Reconciliation awareness. We also make sure postings go through sites that work with Equity-Deserving communities such as Culture Brew.
   
   
   • We will create clear expectations at hiring that the Arts Club is a safe workspace, and our teams align to this commitment. We are very transparent during the hiring process about our Bullying and harassment policy. This is reinforced through our onboarding training videos.
   
   We will work with organizations to ensure that we are aware of and are following best practices when engaging with various equity-deserving communities.
   
   
   • Continue adding accessible entry points into our spaces including accessible auditions for each show and in our hiring practices. We consistently make sure to ask every applicant if they have any accessibility needs for our interviews. Our job postings have a statement about enhancing accessibility during the selection process.
   
   
6. Continuing our work with our Indigenous Engagement Coordinator and Accessibility Coordinator to ensure that our EDIA work is influenced and informed through lived experience. We will work to deepen our connections and develop new relationships with our Indigenous host nations. We will also develop our initiatives around working with our disability communities.
   
   In 2024, we were honoured to be working with our Indigenous Engagement Coordinator, River Ironeagle-Mindel. River led several initiatives to deepen our connections with Indigenous communities and culture. These included….
   
   
   • Surveying Indigenous staff and artists who engage with the Arts Club to get feedback on roadblocks and potential building blocks in our work with Indigenous communities, and storytelling.
   
   
   • Researching and developing placement plaques in all three of our theatres to identify the history behind the lands they are on.
   
   
   • Working to support our Indigenous cast and creative team for our production of Father Tartuffe.
   
   
   • Worked on identifying Indigenous consultants who can support our journey towards embracing decolonizing practices at the Arts Club
   
   Through working with River, we get closer to understanding that this work is ongoing, and it has inspired us to keep self-examining our practices on a regular and continual basis.
   
   Amy Amantea continues to work as the Arts Club’s Accessibility Coordinator. For 2024, she has been leading our work with making our theatres more accessible for our D/disability and Deaf, deaf, HoH communities from a lived-experience perspective. This work included…
   
   
   • Developing Open Captioned performances for multiple shows in 2024
   
   
   • Amy led our work with long-time partners VocalEye to help deliver audio description for our blind and partially sighted communities.
   
   
   • Working with our Guest Experience team to implement the use of Access 2 cards for members of our disability community; helping remove financial barriers to accessing tickets to our shows.
   
   
   • Amy also leads our work with providing relaxed performance to select shows throughout the season. From reaching out to our disability communities to get input on which shows would be the best fit to the actual relaxed performances themselves the Arts Club has been following the lead from our communities.
   
   
7. Continuing our work to make the Arts Club’s venues and environments physically accessible for patrons, staff, contractors, and artists. This will include fundraising to make improvements to our venues and continuing to offer staff training.
   
   We are continuing to raise the funding that will help us add accessibility features to the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage lobby. These renovations are part of our current 5-year strategic plan.
   
   We have added 2 styles of body positive chairs for our patrons who may require sturdier seating options.


8. Building the Denis Simpson Fund, our endowment dedicated to long-term sustainable and systemic change on the Arts Club’s journey toward decolonization, through an annual fundraising campaign. This fund focusses on supporting employment opportunities for emerging BIPOC artists.
   
   The DSF now sits at $192,748.17 and distributes approximately $5,500 each season to IBPOC/BIPOC artists. Each August, we continue to dedicate the month for growing this fund.


9. Formalizing a robust and effective company-wide mentorship/internship program that includes providing entry points for members of equity-deserving communities. This will include paid opportunities for emerging or mid-career theatre practitioners to collaborate in every element of working for a theatre company.

As the Arts Club's leadership team, we stand by these actions, we believe in forward movement, and we will continue to work closely with outside organizations as well as our EDIA group, comprised of a diverse selection of our dedicated staff, to ensure that this work remains at the forefront of our minds.

Sincerely,

Ashlie Corcoran, Artistic Director
Peter Cathie White, Executive Director