Some of the practices Martin mentions wishing to reexamine dovetail with the BIPOC Demands for White American Theatre from We See You W.A.T., such as eliminating “10 out of 12” tech rehearsals (wherein actors work ten hours in a 12-hour day and designers and technical staff can go as long as 14 hours), and six-day rehearsal weeks. (As the BIPOC Demands describes it, “These are long-standing practices that are seeped in capitalist and white supremacist culture. When these practices are in place, the growing and nurturing of the BIPOC family structure is imperiled. Many BIPOC artists have been forced to make a choice not to have families. For Indigenous artists and other peoples recovering from genocide, these practices are extremely detrimental.”)
Harris also notes, “One of the things that was important to me was sort of ceding the decision about who was the best candidate to our search committee. And that search committee was not only made up of people from the board, but it was also made up of many people from the artistic community, including Roxanna. And that was directly in response to what we were hearing from the community about the prior process.” Neither he nor Conner will confirm if she will stay in the managing director’s position permanently. Conner only says, “I’m excited to partner with Ken-Matt no matter my position at the organization once that’s determined. We want to get him in the door and allow him to figure some things out, see how things are working, and then we’ll make some decisions.”
