Pothos Arts & Theater House commits to being mindfully inclusive of all artists regardless of gender, race, body type, ability, socioeconomic background, or experience. We strive to give performers of all backgrounds new opportunities while also being conscientious of the significance of our casting.

Intentional inclusivity needs to happen not only onstage, but also behind the scenes, in the offices, and in the inherent structuring of Pothos.

As of its founding, Pothos’ two founding members take on all administrative labor without expectation of financial benefit so that we may allocate our funds towards production efforts. Our staff presently does not reflect the diversity we aspire to champion because we do not have the financial resources to properly compensate additional staff. As our network and more importantly our capacity to properly compensate additional members grows, Pothos will prioritize hiring a more diverse, wider informed staff so that it may better serve trans artists of all backgrounds.

One of the main reasons Pothos was founded was in response to the countless artists who have spoken up about the need for our industry to challenge what have become acceptable norms in how we treat our artists. First and foremost, Pothos commits to respecting the artists it works with, and creating safe, informed spaces for them to artistically express themselves.

Pothos will employ safety practices inspired by Not In Our House’s Chicago Theater Standards to ensure consent, sensitivity to actors’ safety, and assurances against abuses of power are prioritized in rehearsal rooms.

While we are still growing and are operating on limited financial resources, Pothos eventually envisions itself as a theater that can ensure the inclusion of dramaturgs, consultants, sensitivity readers, intimacy coordinators, interpreters, and any other specialists who can boost the accessibility and safety of our work.

Similarly, Pothos will prioritize from day one being able to offer some form of payment to its artists with the eventual goal of being able to pay its artists a livable hourly wage.

Especially considering the vast sprawl of the city we reside in, Pothos also wants to commit to respecting the time and transit troubles of its artists in our scheduling and, hopefully, our pay rates.

Pothos is a small community theater. A part of this reality is that at this time we cannot yet pay our artists the way we’d like to. However, we never want to operate imposing a scarcity mentality that our artists should ever be grateful to us for the work we are doing. Pothos is grateful to the artists for their expression, sharing, and labor. Art can exist without art institutions. Art institutions and art cannot exist without artists. This is why Pothos prioritizes its artists, even above its audiences.

Pothos hopes to provide enriching artistic experiences that expand our artsits’ skillsets, build their resumes with reputable work, and provide a bedrock for their future success. Not only is their artistic development vital to our mission, but also their professional development.

To be able to provide the proper guidance and resources to elevate the platform of all trans artists no matter the stage of their career is paramount to us. Whether this is through courses, workshops, or even providing space for unaffiliated artists to affordably or freely practice and exhibit their art, we want to prioritize artists over profits.

We envision a trans operated theater company that listens to the communities it serves and eventually is in a position to provide mutual aid, enact charitable programming, keep our community off the streets, help our artists with transition surgery funds, and be an example to other arts organizations.

We want to act conscientiously and decisively in the face of social injustice, and eventually be in a position to affect actionable, measurable, or financial change.

The art itself is not activism if the practices of the work stop at the stage door.

The most vital tool in the arsenal of institutional transgressions is the ability to hide its wrongdoings. Pothos hopes to always be able to be transparent and provide information about our structure, practices, and resource allocation. Accountability is an important component in ensuring that artists and people of all backgrounds can trust that we will have their best interest in mind before our own.

We hope to grow to the point where we can become a sustainable resource, not a profitable machine.

Pothos Arts & Theater House always hopes to be inclusive of and serve artists from marginalized communities. As our world and our understanding of ourselves and each other develops, Pothos must similarly be committed to growing along with it.

We are committed to the simple but vital principle of always growing, always being able to admit our shortcomings, and always feeling as if we could be doing more. Our journey of better understanding each other and those who are most impacted in our society should never be one with an end.