In this section, advocates and artists discuss the dangers faced by creative people in different situations around the world, from sexual harassment in rehearsal rooms to retaliation from governments in response to political art, and what we can do to protect them. Consider starting with Jessica Litwak’s 2018 series Artist Rights and Safety.
The Latest
Essay
For Palestinian Theatremakers, the Future Is a Dangerous Question
by Bayan Shbib
31 March 2026
Essay
Guarding the Future of International Artistic Exchange at the 2025 IPC Convening
Visionaries in the theatre field lead a community conversation exploring a range of theatrical practices for engaging communities in conflict resolution, healing, and fostering an environment of empathy and care.
Multi-camera Performance Video of Five Shows Presented for a Limited Time by the Independent Theater Hungary
Wednesday 1 October to Sunday 5 October 2025
Budapest, Hungary
The seventh edition of the Roma Heroes International Theater Festival took place in May 2025 in Budapest, Hungary. For a limited time, multi-camera, full-length performance videos of the five shows in this year's festival will livestream on HowlRound TV. English subtitles are available.
Ada Mukhina sits down with global artists and theatremakers—Kiyo Gutiérrez from Mexico, Teddy Mangawa from Zimbabwe, Dijana Milošević from Serbia, and Trà Nguyễn from Vietnam—to discuss their strategies for incorporating both care and risk in performance.
From a four-mile-long human chain to a torchlight ceremony in the rain—the playful, passionate demonstrations and symbols that arose from Hungary's Freeszfe movement inspired artists globally. Todd London and László Upor discuss the movement’s many examples of how artists can use their talents to stand up to tyranny.
Jelinek’s radical play THE SECOND COMING against autocracy and fascism premiered at the Down to Earth Festival in New York, introduced by a fiery speech by the political artist and director Milo Rau and followed by a discussion with Tania Bruguera and Richard Schechner.
In Russia, “LGBT propaganda” has been banned, forcing artists who want to create work that engages with queerness to do so in secret. Viktor Vilisov shares about the process of their show Birds, an immersive adaptation of the Tarjei Vesaas novel, that they have performed in apartments throughout the country.
A Space for Artists, Technologists, Scholars, and Audiences to Create Agency in the Face of End Times Fascism
Wednesday 4 June to Friday 6 June 2025
Ontario, Canada
FOLDA’s eighth edition continues its mission of uniting audiences through innovative, thought-provoking live performances that challenge conventions and spark conversation.
In this session, we look at how to make long-term plans to fully shift your internet life away from services that track, harvest, and control your information.
In this session we take a look at password managers and virtual private networks (VPNs) with both free and paid options, talk about email masking, discuss some more in-depth habit shifts, and look at security for higher-risk situations.
Although theatres depend on front-of-house workers for a smooth audience experience, these employees are often isolated from the rest of the theatre’s staff and subject to mistreatment by patrons. Taylor Hunsberger advocates for organizational changes to promote respect, dignity, and professional development for front of house.
Theatre Advocay Project (TAP) offers a wealth of tools to create safer and more equitable working conditions for all theatre professionals. Amelia Parenteau discusses the organization with co-founders Caylin Waller and Colette Gregory, who are now TAP’s executive director and director of programs, respectively.
Abbie Anderson provides a list of eight actions that theatres can take to make their work environments more accessible and equitable for physically disabled actors.
Ezra Tozian, Claudia Alick, and Jon Jon Johnson discuss the need to challenge the status quo of ignoring COVID within the theatre industry and the impact that the lack of care is having on them and other disabled theatremakers.
A presentation of key findings from a transnational study on theatre during and after the pandemic.
Wednesday 3 April 2024
Barbara Fuchs and Rhonda Sharrah (UCLA) are the US researchers for a transnational study on the state of theatre post-pandemic, and what key lessons can be learned from the COVID experience. They will present their findings and recommendations in conversation with Corinna Schulenburg, director of communications and research for Theatre Communications Group and Greg Reiner, Theatre & Musical Theatre director in the Performing Arts Division of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Taylor Leigh Lamb argues that building the equitable theatre industry requires robust COVID precautions with steps like masking, air filtration, and advocacy within our theatrical spaces.
Sara Nicole explores the advice for performers within the theatre industry of saying “yes” to everything, how it infringes on the autonomy of theatremakers, and why and how one must learn to say no.
After Russian courts found that Svetlana Petriychuk’s documentary theatre piece Finist the Brave Falcon “justified terrorism” due to its feminist aims, Petriychuk and director Zhenya Berkovich were jailed. Viktor Vilisov discusses the production, clarifying the production’s aims to amplify the experiences of Russian women whose attempts to flea Russian patriarchy has landed them in oppressive marriages to Syrian ISIS fighters.
Playwrights Carlyle Brown, Elaine Romero, and Catherine Filloux come together to discuss their experiences as working theatre artists who also act as caregivers to their spouses.
An Evening to Discuss Findings, Resources, and Questions that Arose from the Research of the Student Anti-Racism Committee
Thursday 18 May 2023
New York City
Join us for an evening with the PhD students from the theatre department and others at the GC CUNY to share, reflect, and discuss findings, resources, and questions that arose in three years of research during the time of COVID for the student anti-racism committee. Topics will include theory and pedagogy, history and practices, plays, anti-racism trainings, CUNY resources, and outside organizations and resources.
Second Hand Dance embarked upon research on support for artists with access needs after artistic director Rosie Heafford had to pull out of a festival that did not provide sufficient accommodations for her invisible disability. She shares takeaways from that research in the form of actionable steps that festivals, showcases, and industry events can implement.
Encounters between artists from different corners of the world are captured in a series of mini documentaries. Safe Havens Freedom Talks (SH|FT) presents Safe edition #2, launched during the Artistic Freedom Conference ("Fri Kunst").
This dynamic summary of a panel co-curated by Rachel Penny and Nikki Shaffeeullah as part of Parallel Tracks 2.0 brings together several artists, producers, and lawyers in a discussion about contracting, how it has been impacted by COVID-19, and interrogating power dynamics within the contracting process.
