At the beginning of each class, we review the CO/LAB Pact, which is a list of rules our ensembles must uphold during the class: Respect, Listen, Keep Space, and All Are Welcome.

These guiding principles are at the forefront of our reflection each year as we craft a plan to continue our diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) work as a staff—work that aims to recognize the systemic ways in which people of color and disabled people have been marginalized and oppressed; understand the ways that racism and ableism intersect; listen and respond to the wants and needs of our CO/LAB community; and become a more inclusive, anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-oppressive organization.

As a primarily white-led organization, we know that our work is always ongoing, and it requires dedicated resources of time, energy, and money. CO/LAB is committed to making those resources available each year as we continue this important work. Transparency is key to progress, so we want to share highlights of the work we plan to do this year in order to create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organization.

CO/LAB’s long-term anti-racism and anti-ableism goals are: 

  • Create a racially diverse and disability-inclusive leadership team that is reflective of CO/LAB’s community of actors. 

  • Continue CO/LAB’s leadership’s journey to become actively anti-racist, anti-ableist and focus on moving away from pillars of white dominant culture.

  • Ensure that practices continue to be created, assessed, and interrogated; favoring the most inclusive & equitable option. 

  • Live CO/LAB’s value of being an adaptable organization that learns, grows, and thoughtfully applies our knowledge.

 

Additionally, each season, we craft a DEIJ plan with specific goals.

This year, those goals are:

  1. Learn the principles of disability justice in order to be an advocate for disabled artists and actors, internally within CO/LAB and externally within the NYC cultural community.

  2. Invite actors & families/caregivers into the DEIJ work that CO/LAB is doing in order to (1) understand what is important to them at CO/LAB in regards to these topics and (2) ensure the direction of this work is driven by the folks who are most impacted by the organization. 

  3. Develop organization-wide accountability for harm plan(s) in order to ensure a process is followed when harm, intentionally or unintentionally, occurs.

  4. Unify the understanding about why DEIJ work is essential to CO/LAB’s infrastructure, mission, and values among the Staff, Board, and Associate Board. This will help connect the DEIJ work directly to CO/LAB’s work, and move us toward acting and speaking cohesively as an organization when it comes to the topics of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice.

 
 

Finally, in our ongoing commitment to create equity and inclusion, we will continue to hold ourselves accountable. CO/LAB conducts a Diversity Audit every other year to track our progress on creating greater diversity at our organization. This survey asks our community about their individual identities including race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and disability. We also inquire about who is visible in our classrooms and in our leadership, and we ask for their feedback on our specific plans to further our connection to and understanding of communities of color and populations that have been historically, or are currently, underrepresented or excluded. This holds us accountable to ensure our efforts have a quantitative impact.

Now in our 12th Season, a part of our mission rings truer than ever before: we honor and celebrate the individual. This remains our goal as we continue to build a CO/LAB community where all are truly welcome. Because CO/LAB is about community, we encourage you to reach out if you have other ideas, thoughts, or feelings to contribute to this conversation by emailing our Executive Director, Vincent Iaropoli at vincent.iaropoli@colabtheatergroup.com.