Radical Parent-Inclusion Project
The Radical Parent-Inclusion Project (RPI) aims to confront the challenges of working parents in the performing arts by applying best practices of support.
Since the 2021-22 Season, RPI support provides caretaking reimbursements for all artists working on our season and audience members participating in our programming!
First rehearsal of Anna Moench's Mothers (Photo credit: Daniel J. Vasquez Productions).
Obstacles for
Parents in
Theatre Arts
Overwhelming financial and logistical burden of childcare over the course of auditions, rehearsals, and performances.
Adherence to six-day work weeks that restrict contributors’ work-life balance while on contract.
Lack of employer transparency on caregiver policies or available provisions for parent needs within a professional context.
Challenging access to networking opportunities such as opening night, special events, and talkbacks.
Impossibility of attending theatre due to lack of childcare.
From left to right: Producing Director Roberta Pereira, PAAL Founder and Executive Director Rachel Spencer Hewitt, and playwrights Anna Moench and Lauren Yee, with their children.
“[RPI] was the most groundbreaking experience in my career since becoming a parent. From the beginning of the process, I was made to feel comfortable asking for things that would make my involvement in the process easier on my family and myself. This had the unexpected effect of empowering me to have a stronger voice as an artist as well.”
ANNA MOENCH, playwright of Mothers & parent to Hank (pictured) and Mei
Read about the Radical Parent-Inclusion Project on American Theatre Magazine!
Why Now?
The arts (and theatre specifically) have not truly engaged with the problem of parent-artist access, which is also an issue of equity and inclusion.
As we seek to lift up the voices and communities that have not been fairly represented in the past, our process must engage with the socio-economic realities for parents, and our work must engage in unique and theatrical explorations of the experience.
More than ever, mainstream media has spotlighted the burdens placed on parents in our country:
Taking Your Child to Work, When Your Job Is Making Theater | New York Times
Pack and Play: Theatre Parents Find Strength in Numbers | American Theatre Magazine
Challenges We Tackled
Many parent contributors are early and mid-career artists at the crux of elevating their professional trajectory and need additional support not to drop off the path.
The majority of caregivers in our society are women, and the motherhood penalty socially and professionally exists in the performing arts world as well.
Fathers are often overlooked for support when they attempt to take on caregiver responsibilities because institutions don’t consider them in caregiver benefits.
The socio-economic impact of caregiving increases exponentially when other factors are involved, such as for artists who are single parents and/or people of color.
RPI Partners
The Realm partnered with Parent Artist Advocacy League for the Performing Arts (PAAL), a national resource hub and network for individual parent-artists, caregivers, and institutions to create points of parent-access and implement RPI. The Realm’s Producing Director Roberta Pereira and PAAL Founder Rachel Spencer Hewitt acted as Project Leaders.
Parent Artist Advocacy League for the Performing Arts (PAAL)
A national resource hub and network for individual parent-artists, caregivers, and institutions to create points of parent-access.
Broadway Babysitters
A referral-only boutique sitter service with mobile liability coverage, individual, audition, and special/theatrical event caregiver services based in New York City.
What We Offered
In our pilot of the program, during Anna Moench’s Mothers, PAAL and The Realm collaborated with parent-artists involved in the production to identify the best ways to support them, including:
Free childcare at auditions, including EPA auditions and callbacks.
Family-friendly scheduling: including five-day, six-hour work weeks; rehearsal plan released by week versus by day; holiday childcare provided for as applicable (when children are out of school). This also resulted in an increase of per hour payment for the entire team during rehearsal.
Intentional hiring of parent-artists in lead positions.
Family-friendly housing for early-career playwright Anna Moench (who is a mother-artist and woman of color).
Flexibility of on-site expectations for creative staff with children, welcoming children in the space at specific moments (first rehearsal, opening night)
Increased support for parent-artists during high-demand episodes such as tech week and opening night, including childcare provision options.
Childcare-accessible matinee available to all ticket-holders.
Results
We successfully hired caregivers across all production disciplines, including producer, playwright, director, stage manager, 2 out of 5 actors, and 3 out of 4 designers.
Of participating caregivers, 71% were female identifying, and over half were women of color. All reported both an ease in financial burden working in the performing arts as well as increased ability to focus on their work
The childcare matinee was sold out, and surpassed the maximum registration with 22 children. 50% of the children at the matinee were under 1, showing a great need for new parents.
“I can’t stress enough how the explicitly family positive nature of this project made every decision easier and ultimately made the whole experience an unqualified joy.”
MAX GORDON MOORE
Actor in Mothers & dad to Lucía
Photo credit: Amaya Rivera.
Final Thoughts
The Radical Parent-Inclusion Project aims to model the kind of world in which we aspire to be living in. As an organization dedicated to nurturing the next generation of extraordinary early-career playwrights, we see extraordinary potential in achieving our mission through dismantling the barriers preventing parent-artists from receiving support in the theatre by creating, tracking, and illuminating new pathways of access and approaches to production through immersive and radical parent-inclusion.
The Playwrights Realm’s Radical Parent-Inclusion Project was underwritten with special support from the Howard Gilman Foundation, the James S. & Meryl H. Tisch Fund, Lynn & Stephan Solomon, The New 42nd Street, and Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
