Kwame Kwei-Armah, Sue Emmas and Despina Tsatsas
Young Vic

The Young Vic shifted its Directors Programme online. Since March, it has engaged with more than 3,000 participants and paid more than 120 freelancers to run online workshops and discussions. This provided work for established and mid-career directors when many had few other avenues for income generation. At the beginning of 2020, the Young Vic embarked on a year-long project to form in-depth creative relationships with the community, which resulted in three films being created.

Kate McGrath
Fuel Theatre

Alongside Fuel’s theatre work, McGrath dreamed up the Freelance Task Force. This group has allowed freelancers in the performing arts to have a voice in industry conversations they are normally shut out of and ensure they are represented. More than 100 theatre companies signed up to support a freelancer joining the task force.

Kerry Michael
MENA Arts

Theatre Royal Stratford East’s former artistic director set up not-for-profit organisation MENA Arts UK to focus on raising the profile and access of UK-based arts professionals from the Middle East, North Africa and the surrounding area. It has staged its first town-hall meeting online with 200 people and created a structure for those able to volunteer.

Andrew Miller, Jenny Sealey and Michèle Taylor
#WeShallNotBeRemoved

The #WeShallNotBeRemoved campaign was set up to support disabled people to keep working in the arts, and build a different narrative during Covid, other than people who were just ‘extremely vulnerable’. Campaign founders Miller and Sealey drove it to great success, with support from Taylor. All three have worked tirelessly in their other roles to support and create work.

David Mumeni
Open Door

Open Door continues to unearth and nurture diverse talent who would not otherwise have access to drama training. The organisation adapted to continue during the pandemic by moving courses online, increasing mental health support – particularly following the death of George Floyd – and sourcing food donations. However, perhaps its biggest impact was via its decision to pause some of its work until drama schools address racism accusations levelled against them.

Francesca Murray-Fuentes and Molly Sharpe
Exchange Project

During lockdown, Murray-Fuentes and Sharpe created the Exchange Project to connect freelance creatives and furloughed staff to share knowledge, ideas and skills. This led to more than 160 furloughed theatre staff offering 400 hours of in-kind mentorship to 340 emerging and mid-career freelance artists. It is being developed into a larger peer-to-peer industry support project.

Amanda Parker
Inc Arts

Inc Arts, founded by Parker, made a big impact in 2020. The charity, which campaigns for greater inclusion in the arts, teamed up with SOLT / UK Theatre last year, carrying out important research into the cultural sector and putting on anti-racism conference Speak – Listen – Reset – Heal. It also launched a fund to provide support to people affected by racism in the arts, supported by Arts Council England.

James Phillips, Kim Grant and Lizzie Melbourne
National Student Drama Festival

NSDF was the first organisation to create a fully online festival in response to the pandemic, opening two weeks after the first lockdown with a full programme of workshops, debates and mentoring. It attracted more than 10,000 attendees from around the world. It also set up a series of programmes to increase its reach and the diversity of the young artists as well as offer education opportunities, masterclasses, mentoring and exposure. All of it has been open to everyone and offered free of charge.

Spotlight on... Elizabeth Lawal

West Midlands-based theatremaker and producer Elizabeth Lawal is fast becoming one of the region’s busiest arts figures, as both a creative and a change maker.

She is a producer for Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 and sits on the boards of Black Country Touring and Culture Central, the development agency for the area’s arts sector.

A passionate advocate for young people – at Coventry 2021 her work focuses on young adults at risk of exploitation – Lawal is a well-respected figure among the region’s arts community. After the killing of George Floyd, she spearheaded a swift, effective response, galvanising – and challenging – the cultural sector in the West Midlands. This led to months of conversation and action that culminated in the More Than a Moment pledge.

Published in October, it is a commitment to make change with and for black creatives that will materially improve their opportunities and experiences of working in the arts and foster an anti-racist culture.

Overseen by Culture Central, the pledge’s development was led by a collective of local black creatives and organisations. Lawal’s intervention began the process, in the form of a frank open letter, which laid bare the hurt felt by black artists and black communities in the West Midlands, and posed important questions to the sector.

It demanded that organisations ask hard questions of themselves: why black and minority ethnic artists and arts workers are so often prevented from achieving their potential, what structures perpetuate this and, crucially, what can be done to dismantle those systems and make inclusive change.

The resulting More Than a Moment pledge is a far-reaching and comprehensive promise of “radical, bold and immediate action”, inspired by a desire to enact positive and meaningful change within the sector, in direct response to the Black Lives Matter movement but also capitalising on the potential to rebuild better after the pandemic.

More than 75 Midlands-based organisations have already signed up, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, Birmingham Hippodrome and Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre. It has the potential to be transformative not only for the arts in the West Midlands, but nationally. Lawal’s vision and leadership undoubtedly drove this mightily impressive and important undertaking, yet, as she told The Stage last year, her work on this is not finished.

Writing the pledge was the easy bit, she said. Ensuring organisations remain motivated and committed to addressing the systemic issues it exposes will be the real challenge. She is just getting started.