Gloucester Stage Theater Standards
Safety in the Creative WorkplaceIndepth Theater Standards
This comprehensive document, based on the Chicago Theater Standards, has been adopted by Gloucester Stage Company to serve as a detailed guide for how we approach creating safe work spaces. From audition call notices to after performance social events, many situations are outlined within.
Conflict Resolution Guide
This one page document offers two key resources for any artists, contractors, staff, or volunteers working in some capacity with Gloucester Stage. One is encouragement for open dialogue around moments of harm (accidental or intentional) – creating space to communicate a resolution – and a framework for indicating inappropriate behavior quickly and finding a way forward.
Employee Handbook
Gloucester Stage is committed to supporting our artists and employees with a professional wage and a professional workplace. This handbook has been prepared for employees of the Company to provide a transparent understanding of policy and a guide to workplace expectations.
The CTS is a comprehensive document providing theater companies with procedures and protocols designed to prevent and respond to “unsafe events, environments or individuals,” with particular attention to the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Procedures for integrating these policies in the rehearsal process, daily operations, and orientation for new staff and apprentices, are already being enacted. We are already putting in place safeguards to support the artists.
So much of the work we do in the theater demands that we be open and vulnerable. This happens at all levels of the enterprise: playwrights, designers, directors, producers, all take risks daily. Actors, of course, must make themselves emotionally available in rehearsal and then in front of an audience. That’s why it is essential that we provide a safe space for that work to unfold.
We intend for Gloucester Stage, by our actions and example, to help change the culture that, for so long, has allowed such things to take place. Implementing the CTS this season will help ensure that Gloucester Stage is a place where people feel safe, free to do their best work, and to speak out without fear of reprisal.
Theaters across New England are reevaluating procedures, asking what policies are already in place and what can we do better? Collectively, there is momentum to adopt a common standard. We look forward to measuring our efforts and sharing our progress with our colleagues and sister companies.
