ATG Entertainment's Anti-Racism Awareness Programme opens doors for the wider industry

At its best, theatre is a place where unheard voices can be heard. But that doesn’t always have to be on stage. For the past 18 months, ATG Entertainment’s culture and anti-racism lead Aamar Butt has run a groundbreaking anti-racism programme within the organisation to ensure everyone has an equal voice.

What started as small-scale sessions at the Apollo Victoria Theatre in London, where Butt worked, has now become a nationwide programme across all the venues in ATG’s portfolio, reaching more than 1,500 participants. Now ATG is making the programme available to other organisations in the industry.

The story of ATG’s Anti-Racism Awareness Programme is deeply intertwined with Butt’s personal and professional journey.

“I’ve been at ATG for years,” he says. “When Covid hit, I was working at the box office of Wicked. Then lockdown came, and everything changed.”

During lockdown, ATG’s leadership was exploring ways to keep furloughed staff connected to the company. Sofia Fleming, ATG’s chief HR officer, explains: “We started using video conferences to connect our workforce. We wanted to hear what was on people’s minds. After the George Floyd murder, staff were talking about how they were feeling. That’s where we met Aamar.”

Butt’s initial participation in the meetings was cautious. “I joined out of curiosity, and I kept my camera off at first,” he admits.

“I thought it might be a box-ticking exercise. But it wasn’t. It was open and sincere. That’s what kept me there – they were doing something, at least. They didn’t know exactly what, but they were in listening mode.”

That led Butt to write a series of articles for ATG about the history of racism, drawing attention to some problematic language and attitudes within society. “The deputy manager at the Apollo Victoria at that time then approached me,” Butt recalls. “He said: ‘Everyone’s reading your articles. Would you like to do some in-person sessions?’ It was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse. I held four sessions over a month with front-of-house staff, and it went amazingly well.”

Butt spent his days off researching the historical root of racism, and the impact mass immigration has had on British society. He created a series of sessions that were conversational, participatory and educational. As Fleming explains: “It wasn’t ATG saying: ‘Hey, let’s do a mandatory training exercise about anti-racism.’ It was us realising Aamar knows about this topic, and is passionate about it, and asking him to open a dialogue.”

Fleming attended a session and was deeply impressed. Those initial sessions quickly turned into a programme across ATG’s London venues, before Butt undertook a nine-month tour of all 38 UK venues, delivering his insights to more than 1,500 staff, including the senior leadership team and chief executive. “It wasn’t patronising or exclusionary,” said one participant. “It was inspiring, illuminating and encouraging.”

A crucial element is the in-depth exploration of history, drawing on centuries of context to frame modern understandings of systemic racism. “I go back to the Elizabethan era,” Butt explains. “When we colonised, we enslaved and we created race as an ideology, as a consequence. I frame it in a way that connects the past to the present, showing how systemic racism sometimes operates invisibly.” 

This historical grounding ensures participants understand the primary source of racism, its ongoing impact and how these dynamics can filter through to the workplace. The feedback from participants has been overwhelmingly positive. One said: “As a middle-aged white man, who has spent his entire working life in the predominantly white theatre industry, Aamar’s engaging presentation asked questions of me – always thoughtful and often uncomfortable – that really opened my eyes to a society I believed I knew, but of which I was, quite clearly, naively unaware.”

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