Stage Door News

Toronto: The Stratford Festival is among the first five signers of The Black Pledge

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Greetings from Black Pledge Collective (BPC)! We’re a group of Black artist-activists who have authored The Black Pledge: an open invitation to theatre, opera, and dance organizations to make a three-year renewable commitment for positive, lasting change in the treatment of Black artists, technicians, arts workers, and audiences. Eventually, we hope to become a full-scale Black Arts Service Organization, equipped with a mutual aid fund for professional development and mental health services.

We're happy to announce the first five organizations to sign the Black Pledge! We've been working with them over the past year and look forward to sharing how our work evolves. We are also in contact with other organizations and more announcements to come.

2b theatre company is a Kjipuktuk/Halifax-based, internationally renowned theatre company bringing innovative works of great ambition, rigor, care, and impact tot the world stage. We create works that are accessible to both new and artistically seasoned audiences. Our shows have been performed in 65 cities in 13 countries on 5 continents.

Neworld Theatre creates, produces, and tours new plays, performance events and digital works. Our work centers stories and perspectives that challenge systems of oppression. Our motto is ‘plays well with others' which means that collaboration and working across perceptions of difference are vital to the way we work. We deliver community-engaged programs and are at the forefront of developing cultural infrastructure and sectoral capacity in Vancouver and across the country.

As Canada’s foremost feminist theatre, Nightwood Theatre is driven by artistic excellence, advocacy, and the successful training and development of artists of equity-owed genders – this includes but is not limited to trans folks, cis women, Two-Spirit and non-binary folks.

Shakespeare in the Ruff is a collectively run not-for-profit theatre company building a community & cultural hub in Toronto's East End. 

Located in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, The Stratford Festival is North America’s largest classical repertory theatre company. Each season, we present a dozen or more productions in four distinctive venues. We produce classics, contemporary dramas and musicals, with special emphasis on the plays of Shakespeare.

Statement from the Stratford Festival:

The Stratford Festival will use our efforts in EDI to dismantle the history of white supremacy that has been upheld in the past to move toward to a more equitable future. We do this by showcasing stories, artists and audiences that make up the whole of who we are.