Anti-Racist Theatre Work

Responding to “We See You White American Theatre”

JUNE 8th 2PM-4PM EST via Zoom

Sponsored by Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and part of BRIDGE’s Inclusive Leadership Cohort, this IAH panel discussion, moderated by Gwendolyn VanSant, will feature Dawn Meredith Simmons, Nicole Brewer, and representatives from WAM Theatre and Shakespeare & Company, as well as featured guest Dr. Kimberly Richards from the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond. Panelists will discuss what is required in anti-racism work in theatre, arts and with their sponsors and partners.

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About Dawn Meredith Simmons

Dawn Meredith Simmons is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Front Porch Arts Collective, a new black-led theatre company committed to advancing racial equity in Boston through theater. Ms. Simmons is also a director, playwright and an arts administrator. She has worked with: Brandeis University, Actors’ Shakespeare Project, SpeakEasy Stage Company, Greater Boston Stage Company, Bad Habit Productions, Anthem Theatre, Boston Public Works, Lyric Stage Company, New Exhibition Room, Suffolk University, Fresh Ink Theatre, Dorchester Fringe Festival, GAN-e-meed Theatre Project, The Theatre Offensive, Our Place Theatre Project, Mill 6, Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre, Fort Point Theatre Channel, Boston Theatre Works, and As Yet To Be Theatre. Ms. Simmons is Co-Artistic Director of New Exhibition Room and a founding member of the Small Theatre Alliance Boston, and Executive Director of StageSource.

About Nicole Brewer

Nicole Brewer is a passionate advocate for anti-racist 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.

She is currently on faculty in the acting department at the Yale School of Drama and has worked at Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the National Theater Institute (NTI), the theatre department of Howard University, Northern Virginia Community College, and Montgomery College.Nicole is frequently invited to share her work on CTT and ART at conferences such as ATHE, SETC, TCG, The Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and in the UK at Goldsmith’s University.

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