TOOLS AND LEARNING
Practical anti-racism resources
Practical tools, sector guidance and deeper learning for freelancers, creative teams and organisations across theatre and live performance.
USE ON A JOB OR PROJECT
Practical tools for productions and workplaces
Use these resources to agree expectations, make responsibilities visible and strengthen how a workplace prevents and responds to racism.
PRACTICAL TOOL
Use the Anti-Racism Touring Rider
The Anti-Racism Touring Rider was developed with organisations and freelancers to establish baseline expectations between touring companies, venues and artists.
It covers preparation and communication, hair, make-up and lighting requirements, welcomes, travel and accommodation, wellbeing, marketing and complaints. The website provides the rider, accessible versions and an editable checklist.
Use it at contracting stage or as early as possible to agree who is responsible for each action. Even if you are not part of a formal tour, many of its questions can be adapted for other productions, projects and venues.
SHARED WORKPLACE STANDARDS
10 Principles for Safe and Inclusive Workspaces
Developed by SOLT and UK Theatre with sector partners, the 10 Principles set shared expectations for safer and more inclusive theatre workplaces. They cover responsibility, reporting, protection from reprisals, respect regardless of seniority, and payment for lived experience or specialist expertise.
FMTW is one of the organisations that publicly supports the Principles. The current version was updated in 2021. They can be used to brief teams, communicate expected behaviour and check whether clear reporting processes are in place.
WORKPLACE ACTION
Inc Arts Unlock
Inc Arts Unlock is a confidential, step-by-step anti-racism toolkit for arts and cultural organisations. It contains more than 100 suggested actions and helps a workplace choose and measure the changes it will make.
Use it when a team or organisation needs to move from a general commitment to a practical plan.
BUILD FAIRER SYSTEMS
Recruitment, research and organisational change
Anti-racist practice needs to shape who hears about opportunities, how people are selected, whose knowledge informs decisions and what an organisation does with what it learns.
RECRUITMENT
Inclusive Recruitment Guide
Published by SOLT and UK Theatre in 2021, this guide breaks recruitment into five areas, from writing job packs and advertising opportunities to shortlisting, selection and finding further support.
It is designed for theatre employers, producers, venues, touring companies and creative teams. Use it to review the whole recruitment process, not simply the wording of a job advert.
Read and download the Inclusive Recruitment Guide
AUDIENCES AND COMMUNITIES
How to approach anti-racist audience and community research
Written by Dr Roaa Ali and published by the Centre for Cultural Value in 2023, this guide examines how assumptions, language, research design and unequal power can reproduce inequality.
It offers practical guidance on transparency, positionality, co-creation, paying contributors, using specific language, taking an intersectional approach and avoiding the burden of representation. It is particularly useful before a research brief, consultation or engagement process has been fixed.
Read the anti-racist audience and community research guide
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
How to amplify diverse voices in research and evaluation
Written by Dr Karen Patel and published by the Centre for Cultural Value in 2023, this guide provides practical advice for involving people from minoritised and marginalised communities in research and evaluation.
It covers co-creation, creating safer environments, recognising emotional labour, gathering experiences respectfully and involving participants in how their stories and the findings are shared. It is useful for anyone collecting testimonies, feedback or evaluation data.
Read the guide to amplifying diverse voices
WORKFORCE CHANGE
Bectu race equality resources and action plans
Bectu’s collection brings together its Race Equality resource pack, Race Action Plan, Theatre Diversity Action Plan and further workplace guidance.
The Theatre Diversity Action Plan was launched in 2018 and should be read with its publication date in mind. It still provides practical prompts for assessing a workforce, setting objectives and improving recruitment, while Bectu’s wider collection provides access to more recent material.
Explore Bectu’s race equality resources and action plans
ORGANISING WORKBOOK
Solidarity Knows No Borders
Solidarity Knows No Borders is a migrant justice community working to end hostility and racism against migrants and refugees. Its Organising Workbook covers power mapping, one-to-one conversations and other tools for building collective action against the UK’s hostile immigration system.
The original workbook grew from a 2021 week of action involving more than 60 groups. It was redesigned during 2023 by Solidarity Knows No Borders, Migrants Organise and Migrants in Culture, and published in its current interactive form in 2024. It is described as a living resource and is also available in an easy-to-print version.
Although it was created for migrant justice organising, its approaches can help theatre freelancers, collectives and organisations think about power, relationships, campaigning and meaningful solidarity.
The wider SKNB library also includes films and resources exploring radical listening, hope and the building of communities of solidarity.
Open the Solidarity Knows No Borders Organising Workbook
Explore the wider SKNB organising resource library
REFLECTION AND DEEPER LEARNING
Manifestos and deeper learning
Anti-racist learning does not end with a checklist. The resources below include essays, manifestos and creative projects developed by artists, cultural workers, researchers and organisers.
They offer lived experience, arguments, provocations and demands rather than one agreed framework. Some reflect a particular community, country or moment in time. Read them critically, follow their sources and consider how their ideas relate to your own role, influence and responsibilities.
ONGOING THEATRE LIBRARY
Anti-Racist Theatre from HowlRound Theatre Commons
HowlRound’s Anti-Racist Theatre collection brings together essays, conversations, podcasts and videos about challenging racist power structures and working practices within theatre.
Topics include stage management, training, leadership, intimacy practice, parent-artists, community engagement and Black, Indigenous, Latinx, MENA and other historically excluded theatre communities.
HowlRound is based in the United States, so some terminology, institutions and legal contexts differ from those in the UK. Its collection is best used for reflection, shared learning and exploring approaches that might be adapted thoughtfully.
Explore the Anti-Racist Theatre collection
BLACK ARTISTS AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE
The New Normal: A Manifesto to Create a Safe Space, Free of Racism, for the Black Artist
This manifesto grew from conversations involving more than 40 freelancers during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, facilitated by Fuel. It was assembled by poet and playwright Nick Makoha and developed through collective editing and consultation with theatre practitioners.
It describes experiences of racism in British theatre and calls for changes to leadership, accountability, grievance processes, touring, wellbeing, organisational policy and the support given to Black artists.
The manifesto is written from a specifically Black experience and acknowledges that no single document can represent every Black person or every experience of racism. It remains an important record of artists collectively demanding structural change from the theatre industry.
GLOBAL MAJORITY-LED PERFORMANCE
Big Village Digital: A Manifesto for Action
Big Village Digital brought together six Global Majority-led companies from the UK and Australia working across circus, cabaret and live performance.
Following four months of exchange, the companies created a manifesto asking institutions to build genuine, long-term relationships with Global Majority-led organisations and provide better support for their work.
The accompanying page includes the manifesto, films from the participating companies and a recorded conversation about the experiences and ideas that shaped it.
Explore the Big Village Digital manifesto and films
ARTISTS, POWER AND INSTITUTIONS
RESHAPE: Value of Art in Social Fabric
Published in 2021, this collaborative project uses the metaphors of a Home and a Suitcase to explore the position of artists, cultural workers, activists and small organisations within the cultural sector.
Its imagined rooms contain questions and provocations for institutions, funders and organisations with power. These explore working conditions, exhaustion, safety, fairness, inclusion and the systems that make cultural workers vulnerable.
The project is broader than anti-racism, and its creators explicitly acknowledge the limitations of their own perspectives. It is included as a resource for thinking about power, responsibility and how cultural systems might be reshaped.
Explore RESHAPE: Value of Art in Social Fabric
WIDER SOCIAL JUSTICE LEARNING
shado Knowledge Pages
shado is an independent magazine and community of artists, activists and journalists. Its Knowledge Pages provide accessible introductions to social justice issues, often developed with people and organisations working directly on those issues.
Topics include the hostile environment, colonialism, Gypsy and Traveller resistance, health justice, trade unions, borders, abolition and collective organising.
These are editorial resources written from an explicitly activist perspective rather than neutral or exhaustive reference works. Follow the sources provided and use them alongside specialist guidance and perspectives from affected communities.
Explore the shado Knowledge Pages
Visit FMTW’s Global Conflict hub
ABOUT THIS RESOURCE
How this page was compiled
This page was compiled by Freelancers Make Theatre Work using resources created by artists, freelancers, anti-racism practitioners, researchers, unions, theatre organisations and community organisers.
Wherever possible, we reviewed each resource on the original publisher’s website. We considered who created it, what it was designed to do and when it was published or last updated. Older resources have been retained where they remain useful or form an important part of the sector’s anti-racism work, but their dates and context are made clear.
The summaries on this page were prepared by FMTW to help readers understand what each resource contains and decide whether it may be useful. They are not substitutes for reading the original material.
Sources used
The page draws on:
• Workplace and production resources from the Anti-Racism Touring Rider, Inc Arts Unlock, SOLT and UK Theatre.
• Recruitment, research and organisational guidance from SOLT and UK Theatre, the Centre for Cultural Value, CultureHive and Bectu.
• Organising resources created by Solidarity Knows No Borders, Migrants Organise and Migrants in Culture.
• Theatre and cultural-sector manifestos and projects published by Fuel, Upswing and RESHAPE.
• Further learning and editorial resources from HowlRound Theatre Commons and shado.
These resources do not all take the same approach, use the same language or represent every experience of racism. Inclusion on this page does not mean that FMTW presents any single resource as definitive or endorses every statement it contains.
This page provides general information and signposting. It is not legal advice, formal anti-racism training or a substitute for listening to people affected by racism and commissioning appropriate paid specialist support.
Last reviewed and links checked: September 2026.
Help us keep this page useful
Resources, organisations and links can change. If you know of an important resource we have missed, represent an organisation that should be considered for inclusion, or find a broken or outdated link, please email hello@freelancersmaketheatrework.com.
Please include the page address and a short explanation of the addition or correction you are suggesting. We cannot include every resource, but we will review suggestions for relevance, reliability and usefulness.