This workshop offers an overview of “Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion” (EDI) specifically seen in the U.S. American Theatre and the difference between an EDI and an Anti-Racist approach. Students will be given tools to create their own action plans towards enacting anti-racist practices in their theatrical careers and lives.

This workshop is an opportunity for you to take active control over your own career, worklife path, next steps, and overall personal-professional goals guided through anti-racist action.

In this workshop, we will be using concepts including equality vs. equity, diversity, inclusion, justice, liberation, anti-racist, anti-ableist, accessible, “EDI approach" vs “Anti-Racist approach," privilege, mission, vision, values, SWOT analysis, and strategic planning applied to your own artistic path. This will be a decolonized and liberated space.

These sessions will be recorded and available for asynchronous, though registration is required to access the recording.

1st Session - Fri 10/16 - 12:30-1:30PM ET:
• Terms & Concepts
• Problems and Solutions

2nd Session: Fri 10/30 - 12:30-1:30PM ET:
• Mission, Vision & Values Exercises
• Privilege Assessment & SWOT (Strengths/Weakness/Opportunities/Threats) Analysis

3rd Session: Fri 11/13 - 12:30-1:30PM ET:
• Creating Your Anti-Racist Strategic Plan

Presenter Bios:
Viviana Vargas, “Yura Sapi" (they/them), is an artist, activist, arts manager, educator, facilitator, and entrepreneur. After finishing two degrees in the performing arts and spending time in the “diversity and inclusion” field of the U.S. American Theatre, Viviana founded Advancing Arts Forward, a movement to advance equity, inclusion, and justice through the arts by creating liberated spaces that uplift, heal, and encourage us to explore our vast potential to change the world. Advancing Arts Forward hosts and consults for in person and online workshops, university classes, gatherings, discussions, and resource sharings across the country and worldwide. Viviana also runs Balistikal, a healing and arts space that centers LGBTQ+ community in Latin America. As a citizen of Ecuador, Colombia, and the United States, Viviana activelyconsiders their role in the fight for liberation beyond the U.S. borders thinking specifically about anti-racism, decolonization, and collective liberation. Viviana is also a member of the Latinx Theatre Commons steering committee and is co-championing a 2023 summit on celebrating Blackness and combating colorism within the Latinx community. Viviana is currently developing restorative justice based processes to repair relations affected by racism and white supremacy with various activist initiatives and collectives.

Nicole Brewer is a passionate advocate for anti-racist theatre and in 2019 launched reportracisttheatre.com as tool for reporting racism when it occurs in theatre. She has spent the last seven years refining and practicing an inclusive method of theatre training and practices which she calls Conscientious Theatre Training (CTT). She has authored four articles about the need for the theatre industry to shift from racist and oppressive models to anti-racist and anti-oppressive. Why Equity Diversity and Inclusion Are Obsolete was reported by American Theatre as one of their top ten most read stories of 2019.

Nicole is invited all over the US to teach and speak about CTT and facilitate anti-racist theatre (ART) workshops. She’s also facilitated ART workshops in the UK providing workshops for The Globe and Cambridge University.
Nicole is full time faculty atThe Yale School of Drama and recently became a board member of Parent Artist Advocacy League (PAAL) where she works to shift how the industry can become more proactive to the needs of caregivers.
Nicole is one of the four producers of the COVID19 freelance artist resource website, freelanceartistresource.com. The producing collective also partnered with HowlRound to produce six weekly webinars that centered the needs of freelance artists impacted by the pandemic.

Ms. Brewer has worked at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a premier performing arts high school in Washington D.C. as visiting faculty (acting). Nicole was visiting faculty at the National Theater Institute (NTI). She worked as faculty in the theatre department of Howard University for seven and half years. Nicole has also workedas faculty at Northern Virginia Community College and Montgomery College teaching acting and introduction to communications courses.

Nicole is frequently invited to share her work on CTT and ART at conferences such asATHE, SETC, TCG, The Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and in the UK at Goldsmith’s University. Nicole is a member ofthe 2018 artEquity cohort and Black Theatre Network. Directing credits: The Ties That Bind, Catholic University, Milk Like Sugar at The Black Rep, Jonkonnu at Howard University, and Hair Chronicles DC Fringe Festival. Acting Theater Credits include: White Rabbit Red Rabbit Theater Alliance, For Colored Girls Colored Peoples Theater, In The Blood The Hegira, Tartuffe & Taming of the Shrew African American Shakespeare Company, Antonin Show Business Spreckels, and Gypsy and the Bully Door by Nina Mercer.

Nicole Brewer earned her M.F.A. in Acting from Northern Illinois University and her B.F.A. from Howard University. She's worked professionallyas an actor, director and educator.