June Update

Hello EST family, 

We hope that you are making the most of your summer.We are happy to say that the final edits on all our Job Descriptions are done and we have handed them over to Sharina Martin, who will be leading EST's Search committee.  As stated in our last community Newsletter, the Search committee will be comprised of members from every area of our community. Below you will find the link to our Transition Manager. This is an administrative position designed to help maintain operations while we onboard new leadership. They will also be able to apply for the Managing Director position when that role begins its application process. You will also find our Job Description for the position of Development Manager listed as well

 https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/jobs

Please pass this link on to potential candidates and again, we encourage you, EST members, to apply if you would like to be considered. Once the Managing Director and the Artistic Director job descriptions are posted, we will be sure to pass those links on to you as well so keep an eye out for those. 

If you have any questions about the Search Committee process, please email  jobs@estnyc.org and if you have any questions regarding this community newsletter, please do not hesitate to email the Transition Team at  questions@estnyc.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative.  
 
*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions you may have*

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, EST Membership
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

May Update

Dear EST Family,

We hope that you had a great holiday weekend and that you are holding up the best way that you can with everything that is happening right now around us. 

It has been eight months of hard work following the recommendations for the Transition Team set forth by RKG.  (Please see page 45 of the Equity & Justice Report numbers 1-6 on what the Transition Team has been set up to do)  

We are completing the final edits on our Managing Director &  Artistic Director job descriptions (Please see pages 31 & 32 of the Equity & Justice Report) and once they are finalized and posted, we will make sure to send the links over to you to pass on to potential candidates. We also encourage you, EST Members, to apply if you would like to be considered. Please be advised, our search committee will be comprised of  the Board, Staff, and  EST membership.

As always we will keep you informed of the next steps. Thank you for your patience as we evolve into an EST that walks the walk of its Mission Statement. 

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the reading materials listed above, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@estnyc.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative. 
 
*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions you may have*

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, EST Membership
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

April Update

Hello EST Family,

It has been seven months of hard work following the recommendations for the Transition Team set forth by RKG. (Please see page 45 of the Equity & Justice Report numbers 1-6 on what the Transition Team has been set up to do)
We are happy to report that we are completing the final edits on our Managing Director job description to hand over to the Board and will soon begin our search. The Artistic Director job descriptions will soon follow.
We are also finalizing the finishing touches on a candidate interview questionnaire that we feel will best represent what we as a company are looking for based on the Community feedback in the report from all of you. (Please see pages 31 & 32 of the Equity & Justice Report).
We are almost at the finish line!
Thank you everyone for your patience as we evolve into an EST that walks the walk of its Mission Statement.
If you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the reading materials listed above, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative.
*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions you may have*

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, EST Membership
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

March Update

Dear EST Family,

Spring is in the air and almost here! YAY!

EST is back! And we are Live and in Person! It has been exciting to see our doors open again for our first full production since the pandemic. If you have not had the chance to see what you are now, click on the link below to get more information. But hurry, as the show closes on Sunday April 3rd!
what you are now

Also,

We have some exciting readings coming up in the month of April. Click on the link below to learn more about them, and make your RSVP's
Upcoming Events

These past six months we have put in a lot of work that has been asked of us from the Transition Team list recommended by RKG. (Please see page 45 of the Equity & Justice Report numbers 1-6 on what the Transition Team has been set up to do)

Out of our discussions, we have decided that the best way for EST to move forward is through a shared Leadership of two Artistic Directors and one Managing Director to help see EST move into the future. (Please see pages 39-41 of the Equity & Justice Report to read more on why we decided on the Shared Leadership model.)

After looking at successful shared leadership models, we want to take away hierarchical decision making and have three people talking together on money, art, audience, marketing and fundraising along with putting in anti-racist practices to lead us in our new chapter. We feel that having multiple voices working together helps keep the leadership on equal footing and allows their multiple experiences to come to the table to achieve our goal of being transparent with each other (and to our community), along with working towards a shared vision & goal to help develop healthy new habits and a way of working.

We have included some links below for you to read to help you understand more on why we have made this decision:

1) https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/09/02/oregon-shakespeare-festival-announces-new-leadership-structure/

2) https://www.americantheatre.org/2021/11/22/why-lead-a-theatre-when-you-could-share-one/

3) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/22/theater/steppenwolf-theater-chicago.html

4) https://www.americantheatre.org/2020/02/18/for-the-wilmas-next-chapter-four-artistic-directors-instead-of-one/

You can also click here for more reading materials that are up on our site.

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the reading materials listed above, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative. We strongly suggest that you please read through the attached links before sending your questions. Many of the answers may be found in the reading materials.

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have* 

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, EST Membership
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

February Update

Hello EST Family,

It is time for our 6th community newsletter!

So much is happening in the world around us, that we hope you are finding much needed self care during these trying times.

We are continuing our meetings with theatre personnel & having deep conversations on where we are as an organization and where we would like EST to go.

These past five months we have put in a lot of work that has been asked of us from the Transition Team list recommended by RKG. (Please see page 45 of the Equity & Justice Report numbers 1-6 on what the Transition Team has been set up to do) And we are happy to to say that we have started working on:

A) Creating a standardized candidate evaluation Rubric for interview questions.

B) Craft and approve job descriptions for the shared leadership positions that are tailored to the needs of EST.

We would also like to let you know that EST is currently looking for a new Development Manager and we ask that you please share it with people and job sites that you think would be a good fit for this position with our family. *Please note that BIPOC voices are strongly encouraged to apply*

We also want to thank everyone for your patience in our journey of change and transition and our new way of working. We know that it is not easy, but we really think it is important that we combat & dismantle the need for urgency when it comes to important decisions that will affect EST as a whole. (Please click on the urgency link to learn more)

As a reminder, if you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the previous reading materials, or the Equity & Justice report, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative.

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have*

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, EST Membership
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

January Update

Hello EST Family,

Happy January!

After a much needed break and rest, the Transition Team is back to work.

As stated in our last newsletter, we completed our implicit bias training with RKG, and talked through the Equity & Justice Report. Our biggest take away is that it is crucial that we examine how EST has worked in the past and make conscious choices about what to keep and what to change. Our team convened in September of 2021 and for the past four months, we have spent our time sharing our extremely varied perspectives on EST, building a communal understanding of the lessons of the Equity & Justice Report, and researching leadership structures at other theaters along with taking anti-racist hiring training.

In addition to our Implicit Bias Training, we invited two leaders of theatre institutions who have undergone radical structural changes to share their insights about their experiences and what changes they feel are important to support the future of theater. After careful deliberation, the Transition Team has decided to move forward with a Shared Leadership structure.

To further understand our decision, we encourage you to read pages 39-41 of the report. As you read these pages, please remember our purpose is NOT to select candidates for these roles, but to create an equitable and transparent application process that enables every candidate to be evaluated without bias. (Please see the BIPOC Leadership portion of the report on page 41 and section "A" of the BAG proposal.)

Our next steps are to discuss job descriptions and create language specific to EST, as well as conducting an equitable hiring process (Please see page 45, # 1-6 of the report).

In addition to the readings indicated above, please visit the attached links to past EST meetings for a deeper understanding of our community's current status.

Annual Meeting 2020 (Password: 4R*?spLF)
RKG Equity & Justice Report Presentation (Password: F#7Ga&RG)
Annual Meeting 2021 (Password: $DIB18?0)

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the reading material, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative.

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have*

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, Member Council Co-Chair
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Young Blood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, Est Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, Est Membership

December Update

Hello EST Family,

After our Implicit Bias Training with RKG, and sixteen Mondays of meeting and reading and talking through the Equity & Justice report, we decided to take a much needed holiday break and resume our work the first week of 2022.

As a reminder, we would like to encourage you to keep pages 43/& 45-47 of the Equity and Justice Report report as a reference guide. Page 45 of the report numbers 1-6 will give you specifics on what the Transition Team has been set up to do.

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the reading material, please do not hesitate to email us at questionsensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative.

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have*

We wish all of you a safe and HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, Member Council Co-Chair
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

November Update

Hello EST Family,

The holidays are upon us and so is our Third Newsletter!

We hope that all of you had a very Happy Thanksgiving and took some much needed time to reflect.

We are happy to say that after many deep conversations about where we are as an organization and where we would like EST to go, we are now in a place where we feel it is time to move on to the next phase of our work and begin our Implicit Bias Training with Rebecca KellyG (https://www.rebeccakellyg.com/)!

We will have our training with RKG on Monday November 29th & Monday December 6th and then will begin our work of putting together the Job Descriptions for EST's new Leadership. (Please see page 45 of the Equity & Justice Report numbers 1-6 on what the Transition Team has been set up to do)

Lastly,

We would like to remind you of EST's Annual Meeting that will take place on Sunday December 12th 6-8pm EST so please save the date. We would like to encourage all of you to attend because you will be updated on EST's overall status. (More information on Annual meeting to come soon)

A reminder, that if you have any questions regarding this newsletter or any section of the previous reading materials, or the Equity & Justice report, please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org  or you can reach out and email your individual representative. 

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have* 
 

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, Member Council Co-Chair
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

October Update

Hello EST Family,

Fall is here and so is our second Community Newsletter!

The Transition Team has spent these past few weeks reading parts of RKG's EST's Equity & Justice Report out loud together.

Please see our list below:

The Community Feedback portions (Pages 23/29-32, & 44)
Along with the Artistic Director and Executive Director Leadership portion of the report (Pages 28-30/Pages 30-33).

We have started to engage in deep conversations about where EST is and where we would like EST to go, and our goal as a collective is to provide a vision for the Artistic Director and Executive Director Leadership, and then create Job Descriptions that we feel will best reflect where we would like to go as a company. We are beginning to talk about how we can best serve EST's needs for these positions, and to help deepen our conversations, we will be reading & discussing the Shared Leadership portion of the report (Pages 39-41).

In addition to these discussions, we have put together a collection of links that we would like to share with you, to help give you some insight on where our conversations are headed. It is important that we let everyone know that EST is not the only one going through a transition period. There are several theatres across the country wanting to make change for a more equitable, inclusive, healthier organization. To read up on the links that we have collected, please click here.

We would also like to encourage you to read the PDF titled "Making (Or Taking) Space:" It is an article that talks about Initial Themes on Nonprofit Transitions from White to BIPOC Leaders and it is written by the Building Movement Project on behalf of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation. Please click here to read.

Lastly, 

We would like to ask you to please keep pages 43/& 45-47 of the Equity and Justice Report as a reference guide so you can get an understanding of what the Transition Team has been set up to do. 

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter, or any section of the reading material, please do not hesitate to email us at  questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative. 

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have* 

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, Member Council Co-Chair
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership

September Update

Hello EST Family,

The Transition Team is excited to send out our first newsletter to update you on where we are during this time of change with our company. We want you to know that we are still in the process of organizing as a team, and in order to make sure that the sharing of information is equitable, across the community, we as a team have agreed to not have side conversations about our meetings, and in the interest of transparency, we as a team have agreed to release all information together in a uniform way. We are in the process of organizing ourselves (as recommended by Rebecca Kelly G), and we are in the early stages of reading and talking through pages of EST's Equity & Justice Report.

We would like to share with you the pages of  RKG’s report that we will be reading and talking through as a team, and we encourage you to follow along. 

Please see our list below: 

1. We have as a collective started to read the Transition Team Section of the Report (Pages 43-47 & Bottom of 48 & Bottom of 49-50)

2. We are reading and will be discussing over the Community Feedback (Page 44)

3. We are also reading the Artistic Director section (pages 28-30) and the Executive Director Section (pages 30-33) *The goal here is to provide a vision for the AD & ED so that we can as a team create job descriptions that are tailored to the needs of EST.

4. We are also reading the shared leadership section (pages 38-41)

Due to the enormous responsibility of the list above, we as a team have decided to meet weekly.

We would like to acknowledge that a draft of our Newsletter was preemptively sent out to some of the members of EST before it was finalized by the group, and we would like to assure everyone that moving forward everyone will receive all correspondences monthly at the same time. 

If you have any questions regarding this newsletter, or any section of the reading material,  please do not hesitate to email us at questions@ensemblestudiotheatre.org or you can reach out and email your individual representative. 

*Please note that your questions will be brought to the Transition Team and the Team together as a whole will answer any questions that you may have* 

Sincerely,

Eliza Beckwith, Focus Group 
France-Luce Benson, Playwrights Unit
Erin Cherry, Member Council Co-Chair
Bjorn Dupaty, Black Affinity Group
Jahna-Ferron Smith, Youngblood
Linsay Firman, Staff
Lynnette R. Freeman, EST Membership
Russell G. Jones, Board 
Lou Liberatore, Members Council 
Mariel Sanchez, Staff Affinity Group
Elizabeth Van Dyke, EST Membership