Roadmap for Recovery and Resilience for Theater

For theaters around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in existential uncertainty about our future. In response to this crisis, the A.R.T. and the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health collaborated to create The Roadmap for Recovery and Resilience, which first launched on May 27, 2020. Through this process, the A.R.T. has made an ongoing commitment to public health in our practice and programming. Racism in America is both a public health and creative crisis, and A.R.T.’s vision for the future is becoming an organization whose culture and artistry are guided by policies and practices that are anti-racist and anti-oppressive.

In Fall 2021, A.R.T. welcomed audiences back to the Loeb Drama Center for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic. As we enter our third consecutive live season, the A.R.T.’s work continues to be led by our Guiding Principles and is focused now on resilience.

The A.R.T. and the Healthy Buildings Program undertook this roadmap in a spirit of hope and determination that theater will endure. Inspired by the collaboration that defines our field, theater companies around the world have had, and continue to have, the opportunity to share strategies and discoveries with one another. The creativity, imagination, and empathy which have driven our artistic practice for centuries have helped us rise to the challenges of this time.

— Joseph Allen, Director of the Healthy Buildings Program
— Diane Paulus, A.R.T. Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director