How do we hold arts leaders accountable toward equitable change?
Dear Sonoma, my Transcendence Family, and the Larger Arts Community:
It is with a heavy heart that I share news of my resignation as the Director of Education and Community Engagement at Transcendence Theatre Company. I want to first say that I am incredibly grateful to the Sonoma community for the love and support you have shown me. You have championed and trusted me and my team to collaborate alongside you to create arts education programming that focused on equitable access for underserved communities. In my tenure at Transcendence, the Education Department has grown to serve over 13,000 young people.
While a difficult decision to make, my reason for leaving is in direct response to the Transcendence Executive Team’s ongoing suppression of equity, diversity, and inclusion practices and inaction toward becoming an equitable theater. They created a hostile work environment where I could no longer be successful in serving all of our diverse communities.
I am sharing my experience with you all from a place of love for the Sonoma community. This is not a call out but a call in to the conversation and necessary work needed to truly serve all who call Sonoma home. It is my hope that Transcendence (TTC) and its leaders can live up to a higher standard of inclusivity moving forward.
What I Experienced
For over two+ years I have endured the continued suppression of my efforts toward equity and diversity work within Transcendence. In 2018, I entered this Predominantly White Institution (PWI) in a Director level position after having worked in several contracted positions for the organization beforehand. With an understanding of TTC’s structure and the work necessary to fully realize their mission, I negotiated hiring terms. If I was hired, the Executive Team would support Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (E.D.I.) training as a means to equip the staff with resources to serve ALL the diverse communities within Sonoma. However, after several months of submitting multiple E.D.I. training proposals and excessive back and forth communication with the Executive Team, they did not fulfill their agreement. In response to my repeated efforts, I received emails from the Executive Director stating, “I know this is in your contract but timing might not be best right now,” (10/03/18) and “it challenges us financially on different levels” (2/7/2020).
Through the years, I grappled with the disconnect between the “Theater For All” mantra professed by the Artistic Director and the lack of action supporting these words. I repeatedly observed the lack of attendance by the Executive Team to performances, workshops, and events centering our communities of color. These pivotal events were created by the Education Department at TTC to welcome new communities into the fabric of our organization. They included youth and adult performances, workshops and speaker events at our local Latino Social Services Organization, five weeks of Mobile Unit workshops (free arts workshops for underserved youth), and in-person school programming. All were unattended by TTC’s current Executive Team. Lack of presence and interest in these events which center our communities of color is representative of the Executive Team’s priorities and the value they place in welcoming diverse audiences into Transcendence.
Furthermore, the Artistic Director has been consistently disengaged from Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion conversations and planning over my two+ years pursuing this work. When pressed on issues of E.D.I. in relation to artistic programming, the Artistic Director projects blame/responsibility onto BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) artists and communities — faulting them for their lack of representation at TTC. For example, in relation to casting, she has repeatedly made comments that Transcendence offers “African American” actors contracts but they are all working or uninterested. In a seemingly passive comment that is made with a jest and a quick laugh, she dispels a harmful narrative that presents an exclusive culture while removing culpability in supporting a system of oppression.
Due to the lack of E.D.I. implementation, within my time, I experienced several racialized instances with major donors in which there was no process to protect myself or allow the staff to facilitate conversation/change. For example, after I gave a presentation in one committee meeting, a donor divulged — without shame — that he did not want to allow his funds to be used for Latinx youth. Because there are no processes in place to report racialized encounters at Transcendence, I was forced to respond and engage in that conversation without support from the Executive Team, or board/committee members in the room. I later confided in the Executive Director that a violation had occurred — he dismissed it. Shortly after the meeting, I was approached by a committee member who had observed the incident, confirmed that it had happened before, and suggested that I just ignore it. There was no follow up from any of the TTC leadership present and that person is still an active donor at Transcendence.