Anti-Racism Work and Commitments

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Commitments

Updated December 2024

On May 25, 2020, the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, just three miles from the Guthrie Theater, sparked a global call for justice and reform so significant that it knocked the COVID-19 pandemic off the world’s headlines. While the Guthrie had taken strides prior to 2020 to expand the diversity of our work, we have simply not done enough to include and herald Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) voices. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the Guthrie’s Senior Management Team began gathering insight from Black artists and community leaders, staff, board members, national advisers and industry colleagues on how the theater might work toward becoming a more anti-racist and equitable organization. Concurrent with these ongoing conversations, the entire Guthrie staff began working with Team Dynamics — a Minnesota-based firm selected by the Guthrie’s staff-led Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee — with a focus on anti-racism work.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, the Guthrie’s Senior Management Team engaged in conversation with many key constituents locally and nationally, compiling BIPOC-crafted documents outlining anti-racist recommendations and demands for the theater industry, including Twin Cities Black theater artists, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the Guthrie board of directors and Guthrie staff, as well as We See You, White American Theater and Ten Chimneys Foundation which hosted a summit of representatives from Black Theatre United and League of Resident Theatres (LORT).

After assembling a synthesized document inclusive of all recommendations from the aforementioned entities, Team Dynamics guided staff and board members through a process which organized anti-racism task force groups that each focused on a specific area of the Guthrie: Artistic; Audience, Patrons and Front of House; Board and Governance; Production; Development; Budgets; Hiring and Retention; Community Engagement and Education; Marketing; Facilities; and the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Acting Program.

These groups, each of which had BIPOC representation and were diverse across role, title and department, were tasked to review, discuss and determine three to five aspirational anti-racism commitments within their assigned sections that the Guthrie should make an immediate priority.

Together as a Guthrie community, we have created the following living commitments to create positive change at the Guthrie Theater and shift the organization’s culture in permanent and meaningful ways. These commitments are just the beginning, and we acknowledge that this work is ongoing and regularly benchmarked against an action plan.

The Guthrie Theater strives to reflect and celebrate the cultural diversity of the Twin Cities, Greater Minnesota, the U.S. and the world in the work we do on and off the stage, the people who bring our productions to life and the guests and audiences who visit the theater. We endeavor to illuminate our common humanity in all we do, and we will not tolerate discriminatory behavior from Guthrie Theater staff or our artists, audiences, guests or volunteers.

WE RESPECT ONE ANOTHER

We will conduct annual anti-discrimination and anti-racism training for all full-time staff, part-time staff, contract creative hires, contract workers in the costume shop, contract workers in the scene shop, stage management hires, production crew hires and students. This training will include bystander intervention, de-escalation and conflict resolution training to address racism and harm when it happens.
We will address all incidents of discrimination and harassment that occur at the Guthrie where harm has occurred by focusing on the person who has been harmed and adhering to clear policies and consequences for the person who has caused harm. We will gather contact information from everyone involved, follow up in a timely manner and provide anonymous methods for feedback.
We will provide the necessary hair and makeup products, barbers, and/or hairstylists when working with BIPOC artists. We will hire knowledgeable technicians and provide proper training in the styling and consultation of Black hair and makeup when working with Black artists.
We will not tokenize or objectify BIPOC artists and their work when raising funds, nor will we raise funds exclusively from BIPOC communities to support BIPOC work.
We will fairly compensate all artists for appearances at donor events, talkbacks and other events that fall outside the scope of work detailed in their contracts.

WE HOLD OURSELVES AND OTHERS ACCOUNTABLE

We will build in measures of accountability for progress (or lack thereof) for anyone within a leadership role (including Board, Senior Team and all management) and analyze our bylaws, mission and vision statements, core values, calendar and policies through an anti-racist lens.
We will annually analyze the demographics of our board, staff, volunteers and artists to assess who is present, who has left, who has stayed and who has been promoted as well as to determine why these decisions were made. We will use this data to inform decision-making that results in effective change.
We will build accountability into our recruitment efforts and all performance reviews. We will work diligently to recruit and hire employees across all departments and all levels of the organization who bring a diversity of identity, experience and thought.
We will adopt a Community Agreement, with support from BIPOC staff and artists, and we will ensure prominent and regular communication about the agreement so our expectations are clear and understood.
We will remove audience members who cause harm or do not demonstrate our core values.
We will utilize board members to address problematic behavior with donors or fellow board members.

WE LIVE OUR VALUES

We will champion our core value of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibilty in our job postings and recruitment efforts. We will include a compelling narrative in all recruitment efforts about why diverse talent may consider joining our team and provide recruitment training for all hiring managers.
We will articulate the importance of racial diversity, as well as strategies to achieve equity, at the board level.
We will assess and change design elements in our building (including a holistic examination of all exterior and interior imagery) to ensure a welcoming experience and sense of belonging for all. In our lobbies, we will permanently and prominently display how the land on which the Guthrie stands was acquired, including a history of the land and an acknowledgment honoring the land’s original inhabitants.
We will create a vendor policy that advances the potential to contract with BIPOC-owned businesses.
We will build meaningful, long-term and sustainable partnerships with BIPOC organizations, community partners and local theaters.

In addition to the commitments listed above, we will continue to:

Ensure that creative teams for all productions are diverse in race and gender identity. When appropriate, all members of a creative team may be from the same historically underrepresented group.
Distribute and discuss our Respect in the Workplace policy with each cast at their first rehearsal, as well as with all creative and production team members.
Review on an ongoing basis the demographic make-up of our overall candidate pools and employee population, striving to achieve diversity of identity, experience and thought across the organization.
Offer Affinity Groups for Guthrie employees which create space for employees to connect, learn and find community within the Guthrie.
Collaborate with our unions to promote racial and gender diversity within our production staff.
Invest in Native communities through our partnership with the Native Advisory Council and other Native artists.
Partner with Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA), a nonprofit visual arts center that invests in young artists in North Minneapolis.
Expand our outreach to prospective BIPOC board members to ensure racial diversity within our board of directors.

We are publicly sharing our anti-racism commitments to hold ourselves accountable, and to be held accountable by those we serve. As we continue to share our progress in big and small ways — across every department at the theater — we invite you to share your thoughts with us at commitments@guthrietheater.org.

Previous commitments

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, just a few miles from the Guthrie, sparked a global call for justice and reform so significant that it knocked the COVID-19 pandemic off the world’s headlines. The theater has always had a role to play in creating a more just and equitable society, and we will play our part in the pursuit of justice.

The Guthrie is a historically and predominantly white institution, which means we must first acknowledge that we have participated in systemic racism. While we had taken strides prior to 2020 to expand the diversity of our work on and off the stage, we have simply not done enough to include and herald Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) voices. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the Guthrie’s Senior Management Team began gathering insight from Black artists and community leaders, staff, board members, national advisers and industry colleagues on how the theater might work toward becoming a more anti-racist and equitable organization.

Along with these ongoing conversations, we are proactively and publicly sharing our commitments to anti-racism work at the Guthrie — not only to communicate what we are doing with candor but to hold ourselves accountable and be held accountable by everyone we serve.

There is no completion date for this work.

ARTISTIC

2021–2022 Season programming (in person): Like all Guthrie seasons, we are offering an eclectic mix of classic and contemporary works that present forever-relevant themes and shared human experiences. Our upcoming seven-play season features three BIPOC playwrights and two BIPOC directors, plus five plays written or adapted by women and two plays directed by women, with one play and other credits to be announced. You can learn more about our season lineup here.

2020–2021 Season programming (virtual): After George Floyd was murdered and the Twin Cities became the epicenter of the call for racial justice, Artistic Director Joseph Haj felt compelled to set the microphone down and gather feedback and insight from Black artists and community leaders. Two initial meetings were held on June 9 and 18, 2020, and the group ranged from current students in our B.F.A. acting program to artists who have performed on our stages for decades. We are deeply grateful for their continued time and feedback as well as their intellectual and emotional labor.

Since August 2020, the Guthrie has held many meetings and working sessions with a smaller group of these Black artists and leaders, now known as MN Black Theatre Circle. This collaboration led to a multipart proposal that included a series of new theater works, commissions and co-creations that were presented virtually in partnership with the Guthrie on a monthly basis through April 2021.

The series of programming included I AM, curated by ShaVunda Brown in partnership with MN Black Theatre Circle (October 2020); A Breath for George, presented by New Dawn Theatre Company (October 2020); STOOPIDITY, written and performed by Domino D’Lorion, Michael McKitt and Ian McCarthy (November 2020); When Our Joy Matters, presented by The Black Ensemble Players and curated and produced by Ashawnti Sakina Ford (December 2020); Missing Mississippi Moons, written and performed by Antonio Duke and directed by Ellen Fenster (January 2021); The Uprising Volume II: Black HERstory, a Dark Muse Performing Arts production written and directed by Vanessa Brooke Agnes (February 2021); Dining With the Ancestors, conceived by Regina Marie Williams, written by Daaimah Mubashshir and directed by Signe V. Harriday (March 2021); and Tears of a Willow by Oya Mae Duchess and directed by Atlese Robinson (April 2021).

This monthly series culminated in a virtual festival celebrating Black voices and artistry. The Blackness Is… Arts Festival took place May 21–23, 2021, and was intentionally scheduled one year after George Floyd’s death. Minnesota Black artists from all mediums were encouraged to apply, and all selected artists were paid.

Artistic policies: We will continue our policy that creative teams for all productions must be diverse in race and gender identity. When appropriate, all members of a creative team may be from the same historically underrepresented group. We also added anti-racist policies and expectations to our existing Respect in the Workplace policy, which is distributed and discussed with the entire cast and creative team at first rehearsal and again at first technical rehearsal with the cast, creative team and all production areas. In early 2020, the Guthrie hired its first Cultural Consultant for our production of Heather Raffo’s Noura, and this is a practice we will continue as needed to ensure cultural authenticity in the stories we tell onstage.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Anti-racism training: In August 2020, we began working with Team Dynamics — a Minnesota-based firm selected by the Guthrie’s staff-led Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee — with a focus on anti-racism work for a minimum of 18 months. As former staff return from layoff and new staff are hired, they will join these interactive training sessions. We are also working with Team Dynamics to extend this training to part-time staff and volunteers. Mandatory anti-racism training with staff and the board of directors is currently in session.

Core values: Building on the implementation of the four core values that Artistic Director Joseph Haj established when he joined the Guthrie in 2015, we will further define, contextualize and deepen our understanding of and commitment to Artistic Excellence; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Community; and Fiscal Responsibility. These core values are an essential part of our onboarding process and annual performance evaluations so all staff have a clear understanding of how to live them out in their daily work and behaviors. A staff-led Steering Committee and the Senior Management Team are currently collaborating on this work.

Hiring and retention: We continue to update our human resources policies (hiring, recruitment, retention and onboarding) to build a more robust and diverse pool of talent. When hiring, we are continuing our policy of requiring a qualified slate of candidates diverse in race and gender identity before interviewing for an open position.

The Guthrie is currently hiring across the organization and looking for candidates of all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to apply. Browse our current job openings, and check back for more in the months ahead. In addition, a staff-led committee is redesigning our onboarding process to ensure new hires feel welcome, supported and affirmed at the Guthrie.

We recognize that retaining BIPOC employees is a challenge at the Guthrie. With guidance from Team Dynamics, we are redoubling our efforts, not only to recruit BIPOC employees, but to ensure that the Guthrie’s cultural and work environments ensure their safety, fulfilment and professional success.

Affinity Groups: The Guthrie encourages and supports the formation of staff-led Affinity Groups that create space for employees to connect, learn and find community within the Guthrie. Before the pandemic, four groups were meeting regularly: LGBTQIA+ Affinity Group, People of Color Affinity Group, White Allies Learning Group and Women’s Affinity Group. After pausing while the theater was shuttered, these groups will resume meeting when staff return to the building.

Labor unions and production staff: We will collaborate with our union business agent to discuss how to work in partnership to change or expand practices in a way that promotes diversity within our production staff. We are exploring how BIPOC-focused apprenticeships or other new opportunities for paid employment can build and retain a more racially diverse production staff.

ARTISTIC AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Continued work with Native communities: We will continue our work with Native communities through our partnership with Indigenous Direction co-founders Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) and Ty Defoe (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations/Anishinaabe Nation), as well as the Native Advisory Group of seven Native artists, educators and enthusiasts who call Minnesota home.

Our work together includes hosting community trainings about decolonizing/indigenizing professional spaces and processes for our staff, board and other arts and culture workers in the Twin Cities; free Native-led classes for Native community members; paid fellowships for emerging Native artists; free Guthrie tickets for members of Native communities; and a continued commitment to evolving together.

We are also developing a script written by FastHorse and Defoe through community conversations with Native people living in the Twin Cities. This project is funded through The Joyce Foundation.

Land acknowledgment: In collaboration with Dakota and Ojibwe consultants as well as non-Natives who have incorporated land acknowledgments into their organizations, we crafted a land acknowledgment and began including it in our pre-show announcements during performances of A Christmas Carol in November 2019. This acknowledgment was also featured and explained in the play program and is currently on display in our Level One lobby. We are now incorporating this practice into more publications and meeting spaces at the Guthrie, including play programs, first rehearsals, board meetings and other events and gatherings.

Youth art commission: We commissioned Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA), a nonprofit visual arts center that invests in young artists in North Minneapolis, to create a public art installation for and with the Guthrie, tentatively scheduled to be installed in fall 2021. We will continue to build on our existing partnership with JXTA and explore other long-term partnership opportunities between the two organizations.

BUILDING

Exterior and interior photography: We are conducting a holistic examination of the large photos of founder Tyrone Guthrie and American playwrights on the exterior of our building as well as the vast series of production images displayed in our lobby lightboxes, walls, ceilings and hallways to ensure our building feels welcoming to and representative of all.

Guthrie Store: The Guthrie Store reopened for online shopping in November 2020 with a focus on featuring new voices and amplifying local BIPOC artisans and vendors. The Guthrie Store also built a new partnership with The Bridge for Youth, a nonprofit serving homeless and runaway youth in the Twin Cities, and gave shoppers the opportunity to purchase and donate a thermos or blanket to The Bridge for Youth during the 2020 holiday season and beyond. Additionally, youth artists from JXTA have been commissioned to design items that will be part of the Guthrie Store’s future merchandise.

NOTE: The Guthrie Store website is temporarily offline through late July as we prepare to reopen the building for in-person sales.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Anti-racism training: The board of directors is participating in anti-racism training with Team Dynamics.

Board diversity: Prior to the pandemic, the board’s Governance Committee established a Board Diversity Task Force to significantly expand our outreach to prospective BIPOC board members. We are continuing to build on this work.

FUTURE COMMITMENTS

Throughout 2020 and 2021, the Guthrie’s Senior Management Team compiled many BIPOC-led documents outlining anti-racist recommendations and demands for the theater industry, including We See You, White American Theater, Ten Chimneys Foundation, Black Theatre United, Twin Cities Black theater artists, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), League of Resident Theatres (LORT), the Guthrie board of directors and Guthrie staff.

After assembling this document of recommendations with guidance from Team Dynamics, staff and board members were placed in anti-racism task force groups that each focused a specific area of the Guthrie: Artistic; Audience, Patrons and Front of House; Board and Governance; Production, Development; Budgets; Hiring and Retention; Community Engagement and Education; Marketing; Facilities; and the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater B.F.A. Actor Training Program.

These groups, which were diverse in role, title and department, were tasked to review, discuss and determine three to five anti-racism initiatives within their assigned sections that the Guthrie should make an immediate priority. The goal is for these priorities to be identified and confirmed by fall 2021 with concrete action steps to follow.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, just a few miles from the Guthrie, sparked a global call for justice and reform so significant that it knocked a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic off the world’s headlines. The theater has always had a role to play in creating a more just and equitable society, and we will play our part in the pursuit of justice.

The Guthrie is a historically and predominantly white institution, which means we must first acknowledge that we have participated in systemic racism. While we have taken strides to expand the diversity of our work on and off the stage, we have simply not done enough to include and herald Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) voices. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, the Guthrie’s Senior Management Team began gathering insight from Black artists and community leaders, staff, board members, national advisers and industry colleagues on how the theater might work toward becoming a more anti-racist and multicultural organization.

Along with these ongoing conversations, we will proactively and publicly share our commitments to anti-racism work at the Guthrie — not only to outline what we are doing with candor but to hold ourselves accountable and be held accountable by everyone we serve.

There is no completion date for this work. Anti-racism is a daily practice that requires constant pursuit, and the list of actions below is far from exhaustive. There is also no room for excuses or merely performative action. To be clear, transparent and accountable, we have outlined, in as much detail as possible, where we are currently focusing our attention. We cannot correct 50+ years of exclusionary practice in a single gesture, program or initiative, but we are committed to staying the course and creating lasting change at the Guthrie and throughout the American theater.

ARTISTIC

Programming: After George Floyd was murdered and the Twin Cities became the epicenter of the call for racial justice, Artistic Director Joseph Haj felt compelled to set the microphone down and gather feedback and insight from Black artists and community leaders. Two initial meetings were held on June 9 and 18, 2020, and the group ranged from current students in our B.F.A. acting program to artists who have performed on our stages for decades. We are deeply grateful for their continued time and feedback as well as their intellectual and emotional labor.

Since August 2020, we have held many meetings and working sessions with this group of Black artists and leaders, which led to a multipart proposal that included a series of new theater works, commissions and cocreations to be presented in partnership with the Guthrie on a monthly basis through April 2021.

This series of programming includes:

I AM
curated by SHAVUNDA BROWN
in partnership with
MINNESOTA BLACK THEATER ARTISTS
October 30, 2020

Presented days before the 2020 presidential election, this collection of two-minute micro commissions by Black artists responded to the importance of voting at a crucial time in U.S. history.

A Breath for George
presented by NEW DAWN THEATRE COMPANY
October 31 and November 1, 2020
After New Dawn Theatre Company initially screened their film A Breath for George in the Guthrie’s service lot on June 29 and 30, 2020, they returned in the fall to screen an evolution of their project honoring the life of George Floyd, which included the addition of three short films that featured artistic expressions of the history and pain of violence against black and brown bodies. A community talkback was held after both screenings.

STOOPIDITY
written and performed by DOMINO D’LORION,
MICHAEL McKITT and IAN McCARTHY
November 16, 2020

In this moving choreopoem written and performed by Guthrie B.F.A. alums, three Black boys sit on a stoop and discuss what it means to love deeply, question tradition, be queer and be unapologetically Black in the world today.

When Our Joy Matters
presented by THE BLACK ENSEMBLE PLAYERS
curated and produced by ASHAWNTI SAKINA FORD
December 1, 2020

Through song, dance, poetry, scenes and monologues, 10 Black artists in the Twin Cities responded to our cultural/political/societal moment and shared what joy currently means to them.

Missing Mississippi Moons
written and performed by ANTONIO DUKE
directed by ELLEN FENSTER
January 14, 2021

Inspired by his grandfather’s story, local actor/playwright Antonio Duke embodies a mosaic of characters struggling to find their power in the Jim Crow era.

The Uprising Volume II: Black HERstory
a DARK MUSE PERFORMING ARTS production
written and directed by VANESSA BROOKE AGNES
February 1, 2021

Building on the peaceful performance protest that honored the memory of George Floyd in summer 2020, Volume II focuses on Black HERstory — the experience and contributions of Black womxn throughout history and today.

Dining With the Ancestors
by REGINA MARIE WILLIAMS
March 2021

In this poignant and humorous one-act play, party host Vivian invites inspirational Black women from the past and present to attend a conference/meeting/dinner/visit. Vivian thinks she is the one who will be asking the questions, but the tables quickly turn as the ancestors question who she is and how she is making her mark in history.

Tears of a Willow
by OYA MAE DUCHESS
April 2021

This powerful play for two actors investigates sexual assault, mental health and police brutality through the metaphor of setting fire to an ancient willow tree. It closely examines Black trauma and how to rise from the ashes.

Youth art commission: We commissioned Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA), a nonprofit visual arts center that invests in young artists in North Minneapolis, to create a public art installation or stage infrastructure for the Guthrie. We are working with JXTA to finalize the project’s design and scope. The Guthrie will continue to build on our existing partnership with JXTA and explore other long-term partnership opportunities between the two organizations.

Policies: We will continue our policy that creative teams for all productions must be diverse in race and gender. When appropriate, all members of a creative team may be from the same historically underrepresented group. We will be adding anti-racist policies and expectations to our existing Respect in the Workplace policy, which is distributed and discussed with the entire cast and creative team at first rehearsal and again at first tech rehearsal with the cast, creative team and all production areas. We will complete this work by the beginning of our next onstage season.

HUMAN RESOURCES

Anti-racism training: We shifted our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training with Team Dynamics — a Minnesota-based firm selected by the Guthrie’s EDI committee — to focus explicitly on anti-racism work for a minimum of 18 months. Mandatory anti-racism training with staff and the board of directors is currently in session. As staff return from layoff, they will join these interactive training sessions. We are working with Team Dynamics to extend this training to part-time staff and volunteers.

Core values: Building on the implementation of the four core values that Joseph Haj established when he joined the Guthrie in 2015, we will further define, contextualize and deepen our understanding of and commitment to Artistic Excellence; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Community; and Fiscal Responsibility. These core values will be an essential part of our onboarding process and annual performance evaluations so all staff have a clear understanding of how to live them out in their daily work and behaviors. A staff-led Steering Committee and the Senior Management Team are currently collaborating on this work.

Policies: We are examining our human resources policies (hiring, recruitment and retention; onboarding; and apprenticeships, fellowships and internships) to build a more robust and diverse pool of talent. When hiring, we will continue our policy of requiring a diverse and qualified slate of candidates.

Retention: We recognize that retention of BIPOC employees is a challenge at the Guthrie. With guidance from Team Dynamics, we are redoubling our efforts, not only to recruit BIPOC employees, but to ensure that the Guthrie’s cultural and work environments ensure their safety, fulfilment and professional success. Labor unions and production staff: We will collaborate with our union business agent to discuss how to work in partnership to change or expand practices in a way that promotes diversity within our production staff. We are exploring how BIPOC-focused apprenticeships or other new opportunities for paid employment can build and retain a more diverse production staff.

ARTISTIC AND COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS

Continued work with Indigenous Direction: We will continue our work with the Native community through our partnership with Indigenous Direction co-founders Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) and Ty Defoe (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations/Anishinaabe Nation), including hosting community trainings about decolonizing/indigenizing professional spaces and processes in winter 2021 for our staff, board and other arts and culture workers in the Twin Cities. To prepare for this work, Indigenous Direction created a summer syllabus, completed by a group of Guthrie staff, which included films, essays and books on the history and present-day experiences of Native people, particularly in the upper Midwest. We are also developing a script written by FastHorse and Defoe through community conversations with Native people living in the Twin Cities and continuing to offer free Native-led classes and paid fellowships for Native artists. Most recently, three Native fellows performed various production roles during the filming of Dickens’ Holiday Classic in November 2020.

Land acknowledgment: In collaboration with Dakota and Ojibwe consultants as well as non-Natives who have incorporated land acknowledgments into their organizations, we crafted a land acknowledgment and began including it in our pre-show announcements during performances of A Christmas Carol in November 2019. This acknowledgment was also featured and explained in the play program and will continue to be displayed in our Level One lobby. We are now incorporating this practice into more publications and meeting spaces at the Guthrie, including play programs, first rehearsals, board meetings and other events and gatherings.

BUILDING

Exterior and interior photography: We are conducting a holistic examination of the large photos of founder Tyrone Guthrie and notable American playwrights on the exterior of our building as well as the vast series of production images displayed in our lobby lightboxes, walls, ceilings and hallways to ensure our building feels welcoming to all.

Guthrie Store: The Guthrie Store reopened for online shopping in November 2020 with a focus on featuring new voices and amplifying local BIPOC artisans and vendors. Learn more about these artists and shop their collections, many of which were created exclusively for the Guthrie, at guthriestore.com. The Guthrie Store also built a new partnership with The Bridge for Youth, a nonprofit serving homeless and runaway youth in the Twin Cities, and gave shoppers the opportunity to purchase and donate a thermos or blanket to The Bridge for Youth during the 2020 holiday season. This donation program will continue into 2021, and you may purchase a donation bundle for The Bridge on the website. Additionally, youth artists from JXTA have been commissioned to design items that will be part of the Guthrie Store’s merchandise mix in 2021.

Vendor policies: We are revising our vendor policies to ensure all bids for work done at the Guthrie will actively seek and consider BIPOC-owned businesses. When seeking vendors, we will identify a diverse and qualified slate of vendors, similar to our employee recruiting policy.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Anti-racism training: As previously mentioned, the board of directors is currently participating in anti-racism training with Team Dynamics.

Board diversity: Prior to the pandemic, the board’s Governance Committee established a Board Diversity Task Force to significantly expand our outreach to prospective BIPOC board members. We are continuing to build on this work.

Actions: Our board of directors has committed to working with the Guthrie to effect positive change and develop anti-racist policies at the Guthrie. The board’s Community Engagement Committee provided a forum to generate ideas from board members around future work, and those ideas were shared with the Senior Management Team and included in the discussions around our work toward becoming a more anti-racist and multicultural organization. This outline represents a collective of ideas that emerged from listening to Black artists and community leaders, staff, board members and more. It is evolving and will be updated quarterly.

The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, just a few miles from the Guthrie Theater, sparked a global call for justice and reform so significant that it knocked a once-in-a-hundred-years pandemic off the world’s headlines. The theater has always had a role to play in creating a more just and equitable society, and we will play our part in the pursuit of justice.

Along with these ongoing conversations, we will proactively and publiclyshare our commitments to anti-racism work at the Guthrie — not only to outline what we are doing with candor but to hold ourselves accountable and be held accountable by everyone we serve.

There is no completion date for this work. Anti-racism is a daily practice that requires initiative, but we are committed to staying the course and creating lasting change at the Guthrie and throughout the American theater.

Artistic

After George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis and the Twin Cities became the epicenter of the call for racial justice, Artistic Director Joseph Haj felt compelled to set the microphone down and gather feedback and insight from Black artists and community leaders. Two meetings were held on June 9 and 18, and the group ranged from current students in our B.F.A. acting program to artists who have performed on our stages for decades. We are deeply grateful for their continued time and feedback as well as their intellectual and emotional labor. On August 13, we convened a working session with many of those same artists and are working on an initiative based on these ongoing conversations that will be determined by the local Black artists in collaboration with the Guthrie. The initiative will be directed and produced by Black artists in the Twin Cities community with support from the Guthrie as desired and useful.

Additionally:

Youth art commission: We are commissioning Juxtaposition Arts (JXTA), a nonprofit visual arts center that invests in young artists in North Minneapolis, to create an art installation for the Guthrie. We are working with JXTA to build on our longtime partnership and determine the nature of the project.

Policies: We will continue our policy that creative teams for all productions must be diverse, and we are adding anti-racist policies and expectations to our existing Respectin the Workplace policy, which is distributed and discussed with the entire cast and creative team at first rehearsal and again at first tech rehearsal with the cast, creative team and all production areas. We will complete this work by the beginning of our next onstage season.

Human Resources

Anti-racism training: We shifted our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) training with Team Dynamics — a Minnesota-based firm selected by the Guthrie’s EDI committee — to focus explicitly on anti-racism work for a minimum of 18 months. Mandatory antiracism training with staff is currently in session; training with our board of directors will begin this fall. As staff return from layoff, they will join these interactive training sessions. We are working with Team Dynamics to extend this training to part-time staff and volunteers.

Core values: Building on the implementation of the four core values that Joseph Haj established when he joined the Guthrie in 2015, we will further define, contextualize and deepen our understanding of and commitment to Artistic Excellence; Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; Community; and Fiscal Responsibility. These core values will be an essential part of our onboarding process and annual performance evaluations so all staff have a clear understanding of how to live them out in their daily work and behaviors. A staff-led steering committee and the Senior Management Team are currently collaborating on this work.

Policies: We are examining our human resources policies (hiring, recruitment and retention; onboarding; and apprenticeships, fellowships and internships) to build a more robust and diverse pool of talent. When hiring, we will continue our policy of seeking a diverse and qualified slate of candidates.

Retention: We recognize that retention of BIPOC employees is a challenge at the Guthrie. With guidance from Team Dynamics, we are redoubling our efforts, not only to recruit BIPOC employees, but to ensure that the Guthrie’s cultural and work environments ensure their safety, fulfilment and professional success.

Labor unions and production staff: We will collaborate with our union business agent to discuss how to work in partnership to change or expand practices that hinder diversity within our production staff. We are exploring how BIPOC-focused apprenticeships or other new opportunities for paid employment can build and retain a more diverse production management staff.

Artistic and Community Partnerships

Continued partnerships with BIPOC artists and communities: We will foster current BIPOC relationships and seek to build new ones, ensuring each partnership is mutually beneficial for both parties. Two recent examples include works by BIPOC artists that were presented concurrently and used nontraditional Guthrie spaces to share their art with the community:

New Dawn Theatre Company screened their film A Breath for George in the Guthrie’s service lot on June 29 and 30. The project, which honors the life of George Floyd, was created by New Dawn and featured stories and performances by Twin Cities artists.
Minneapolis-based artist Eric Rieger, known as HOTTEA, approached us about installing his magnet art piece Pure Imagination, which also honored the life of George Floyd, on the exterior of our building. The installation ran from June 24 to July 1.

Continued work with Indigenous Direction: We will continue our work with the Native community through our partnership with Indigenous Direction co-founders Larissa FastHorse (Sicangu Lakota) and Ty Defoe (Haudenosaunee, Six Nations/Anishinaabe Nation), including presenting Indigenous-led works of theater, offering free classes and fellowships for emerging Native artists and hosting community trainings about decolonizing/indigenizing professional spaces and processes.

Land acknowledgment: In collaboration with Dakota and Ojibwe consultants as well as non-Natives who have incorporated land acknowledgments into their organizations, we crafted a land acknowledgment and began including it in our pre-show announcements during performances of A Christmas Carol in November 2019. This acknowledgment was also featured and explained in the play program and will continue to be displayed in our Level One lobby.

Building

Exterior and interior photography: We are conducting a holistic examination of the large photos of founder Tyrone Guthrie and notable American playwrights on the exterior of our building as well as the vast series of production images displayed in our lobby lightboxes, walls, ceilings and hallways to ensure our building feels welcoming to all.

Guthrie Store: We are opening the Guthrie Store for a limited time during the winter holiday season with an intention to feature products from BIPOC artists and vendors. Youth artists from JXTA will design items that will be part of a Guthrie Store bundle that may be purchased and donated to a local charity. Store hours and shopping details are TBD.

Vendor policies: We are revising our vendor policies to ensure all bids for work done at the Guthrie will actively seek and consider BIPOC-owned businesses. When seeking vendors, we will create a diverse and qualified slate of vendors, similar to our employee recruiting policy

Board of Directors

Anti-racism training: As previously mentioned, the board of directors will participate in anti-racism training with Team Dynamics beginning this fall.

Board diversity: Prior to the pandemic, the board’s Governance Committee established a Board Diversity Task Force to significantly expand our outreach to prospective BIPOC board members. We are continuing to build on this work.

Actions: Our board of directors has committed to working with the Guthrie to effect positive change and develop anti-racist policies at the Guthrie. The board’s Community Engagement Committee provided a forum to generate ideas from board members around future work, and those ideas were shared with the Senior Management Team and included in the discussions around our work toward becoming a more anti-racist and multicultural organization.

This outline represents a collective of ideas that emerged from listening to Black artists and community leaders, staff, board members and more. It is evolving and will be updated regularly.

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A Christmas Carol

The Heart Sellers

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Anti-Racism Work and Commitments

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