Dear Stakeholder,

First of all, thank you so much for your support and signatures. The response has been overwhelming. Because of you, we have been able to organize and start the work of affecting true change at The Public Theatre of San Antonio and eventually all over San Antonio. We are writing to you with an important update. 

Yesterday, The Board of Directors at The Public Theater of San Antonio posted a carefully crafted statement trying to assuage our concerns by suggesting that they “strive to create an atmosphere that fosters relationships where each individual feels valued, respected, and included…” amongst other engineered PR fodder. The entire statement can be read here. We reject these attempts as a last ditch effort to clear the board members of any wrongdoing since it has become clear through multiple testimonials that they have been made aware of these issues and chose to do nothing. Even more concerning, we fear that an internal investigation with no internal accountability, and no external consultant or unbiased third party will lead to dismissing all claims out right and will start the cycle of abuse over again.   

Included in the statement is a survey requesting feedback on the current Artistic Director and CEO, George Green. Many accounts of his abuse can be found on social media (posts that require much more courage than an anonymous survey), therefore we are disappointed that the board has thought this action as appropriate. This is unacceptable, performative, too late, and adds to the abuse our community has already had to endure. By requesting victims of abuse to recount their stories again, and directly to the group that was complicit to the abuse in the first place, is in and of itself an abuse tactic. We will not stand for the board to seek out information that was already given to them (both internally and on social media) and subsequently ignored. 

This shallow attempt to collect, as they say, “white noise” (Chairman Vernon Haney) from the community, has forced our hand earlier than we had planned or hoped. While our initial response was a "last straw" act in response to The Public's AEA standing, we have taken this opportunity to organize our grievances and provide the board with an actionable list of what we demand as WE are the community. This petition update will act as a view into where we are in our demands at this moment in time. We expect our appeal for equity, inclusivity, and diversity will show the board that the issues we hold go far deeper than the most recent AEA debacle. 

We consider these statements to be living documents. It will change as we continue to grow, diversify, and understand what our community really needs to achieve our goals of safety (both on and off stage), diversity, equity, inclusion, equality, and collaboration.

The theatre should be a haven. It is time to face the facts; our community has been toxic and traumatic for far too many, for far too long. 

To learn more about who we are, what we are hoping to achieve, and how we want to do it, please read more below. If this is important to you we ask that you please take the time to share this petition and update with anyone who is a stakeholder in our community or wants to have their voice lend to the spark of change. 

We are an unnamed collective of stakeholders who wish to foster a systemic change at The Public Theatre of San Antonio, and the San Antonio arts community as a whole, by creating a grass-roots movement and composing an actionable agenda to achieve our goals. Through collective organizing we can examine the root of the many problems we face and try to affect true solutions rather than feed into an echo chamber of emotion and shared trauma. While we seek to validate these feelings and experiences, we are also working to be goal oriented, forward thinking, and legitimate in the eyes of leadership throughout the arts community of San Antonio.

MISSION

Our nameless collective seeks to reshape the current toxic culture of The Public Theatre of San Antonio and the larger San Antonio arts community, into an environment of respect, integrity, and inclusivity. 

VISION

We demand the adoption of Equity, Anti-Racism, Inclusivity, Diversity, and Empathic practices and bylaws immediately; and the removal and replacement of any leadership that does not actively work towards these goals. We will work to lift suppressed, discarded, and marginalized voices in our community in an attempt to create an environment of meaningful healing, inclusivity, and action. 

OBJECTIVES

• We demand the removal and replacement of George Green, Artistic Director and CEO, and changes in board leadership by exposing pervasive abuse, (including but not limited to misogyny, sexism, racism, and ableism) and woeful mismanagement, while also providing viable solutions for the future of the organization
• We will do whatever we can to enable a renewed relationship with AEA, not because we believe that AEA status is the only indicator of quality or professionalism, rather, it is because we value the protections, standards, and wages that it offers its members
• We seek updated internal policies and bylaws that fosters an environment of inclusivity and actively scrutinizes all practices within the lens of equality. These policies should undergo a periodical review and be updated accordingly 
• We wish to break down the hierarchical power structures of an arts community built on white supremacist traditions in order to reimagine what the creative space of the future can be. Thus, becoming a model for all arts organizations in our community as many attempt to navigate a national call for inclusivity and a higher code of ethics
• We will work to expose power speaking to power, pervasive abuse tactics practiced intently, and systemic toxic leadership left unquestioned. Such has directly caused the alienation of so many from our beloved art (especially BIPOC)
• We seek to create a community of healing so that the many theatre artists in this city can work to overcome their trauma. 
• We will continually evaluate our own effectiveness and biases, abiding in the pursuit of constant, dynamic improvement, aiming always to facilitate better service (accessibility, translations, closed captioning, etc.) to our community and every member of it
• We will work to ensure a proactive focus on the establishment and watchful preservation of a healthy, fully-inclusive, inspiring, and universally beneficial artistic environment for all in our community
• We will think to the future by rethinking how we create theater going forward in a way that prefers collaborative horizontal organization rather than any unnecessary hierarchy and power structures

RESOURCES TO REFERENCE

- Broadway for Black Lives Matter

- We See You White American Theatre

- Theatre Horizon

- Not In Our House

- The Team