The Lilac Players Values Statement

We, the Lilac Players, believe in...

Artistic Expression

We embrace the transformative and healing power of theater, and will continue to create art and try new things in the theatrical space. We believe that the immersive experience of live theater can change people and the world.
As responsible artists, we will respect and confront the history of theater. We must make theater that is appropriate for the present moment, and we must embrace theater’s changing future.
We celebrate the many people who contribute to making theater, including (but not limited to) cast, orchestra, crew, and production staff.
We believe that we can both entertain and challenge our audiences.
We endeavor to be an open space for people to try new art forms without fear of failure.
We will collaborate with other artists and encourage them to actively participate in the creative process.

We use theater to boldly pursue social justice for women and queer people in our own organization and in the greater theater community.
We believe everyone deserves to participate in every part of the theatrical process. We strive to include people of all identities and experiences, including (but not limited to) gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, (dis)ability, size, and age.
We will work to acknowledge our individual privilege, combat it, and redirect it towards achieving social justice.
We recognize that people experience privilege and oppression differently depending on their unique identities and histories.
Black Lives Matter. Black Trans Lives Matter.
We will intentionally strive towards anti-racism.
We understand that women and LGBTQIA+ identities intersect with other identities, and we fight for their liberation as well.
We will purposefully work towards making everything we create as accessible as possible for our community.
We recognize that in all organizations, the cohort with the most privilege is frequently afforded the most attention. We seek to dismantle this.

We prioritize our people and our community over the quality of our productions. While we always try to put out our best work, we’d rather have a happy and fulfilled community than a perfectly polished show.
Our community is expansive, including (but not limited to) our cast, crew, musicians, business partners, supporters, venues, writers, composers, audiences, and auditionees.
We believe that respect for our community is key to our success. We aim to create and maintain a safe space for everyone to be their whole selves, to experiment artistically, to fail, and to grow. To achieve this, we respect our community members’ boundaries, and we actively seek constructive criticism.
We welcome newcomers, both to the Lilac Players and to the performing arts overall.
We will maintain our relationships with our members, auditionees, audiences, and other community members long term.

We will be open about our decision-making process, including financial decisions. We will share with our community when opportunities arise within the organization and when we change our direction.
We will hold ourselves accountable to our community.
We will initiate and encourage open discussion of any issues that arise within our community.

We strive to present new works and old works in new ways to an ever-expanding audience.
We want to take an active hand in shaping the future of theater.
We acknowledge that we will make mistakes, and we will learn from them and continue to become better.
We acknowledge that accessibility, anti-racism and other worthwhile goals will require ongoing attention and hard work. We are committed to making this effort.
We will look outside of ourselves and our organization to find better ways to serve the community. We will resist the inclination to become set in our ways.