Sweet Tea Shakespeare seeks to be among North Carolina and the region’s most inclusive theatre companies.
Equity Diversity Access Inclusion Theatre | Envisioning a just and inclusive world on all our stages | Leading the idea of inclusive theatre companies in our area and field
Sweet Tea Shakespeare is committed to making theatre accessible and inclusive for everyone. Our approach to making theatre is about uncovering and recovering our humanity as individuals and communities, seeking joy, and gathering around a common table to delight in the magic of story, song, and stagecraft.
We believe everyone is welcome at the table, but extra work is required to help make all feel included.
As a Shakespeare-forward company, we center an approach that allows artists, audience, volunteers, board members, and partners to see their full selves in our productions, educational initiatives, and all our work. This means seeing people as they are. It means thinking of their level of preparation as a gift. It means hearing Shakespeare in their voices and seeing stories in their bodies.
We believe that representation matters, especially because we are a (primarily) Shakespeare company. We believe Shakespeare’s language and our communities’ creative spirits belong to all and all must be included. We have an ethos of what we call “radical hospitality” and have among our vision and goals “to embody a company identity that looks like and reflects the diversity of experience, identity, community, and access of our region.” In practical terms, that means we set a target with every cast, every ensemble of artists, every board class, of looking like our community and reaching our full community. We are not perfect in our efforts, but work faithfully at them.
STS is led by persons among its three leadership groups (Staff/Executive Board/Senior Company Members) who identify as disabled, neurodivergent, Black, Biracial, Hispanic, First Nations, Asian, and Queer. We believe these voices are essential representations of our community and help to steer our organizational efforts towards belonging and inclusion.
We believe strongly in the idea that there are countless invisible factors, from mental health to family life to economic status, that impact the biases, practices, inclusivity, and accessibility of artists and audiences. We are committed to the kind of radical hospitality that accounts for these things so often missed elsewhere.
We welcome you to join us on this journey as we strive to create a more inclusive theatre community for all.
