YOUR WORKING PRACTICE
Make anti-racism part of your freelance practice
This page focuses on developing your own working practice. If you have experienced or witnessed racism, visit our support and reporting page for practical next steps, confidential advice and specialist services.
BEFORE THE WORK STARTS
Before you accept or begin a job
Where it is safe and practical to ask, get clear answers before the work begins.
- Responsibility: Who is responsible for wellbeing and responding to racism during the job?
- Reporting: Who can you contact with a concern, and who is the alternative contact if that person is involved?
- Standards: What conduct, anti-racism, complaints or dignity-at-work policies apply to freelancers, contractors and visiting teams?
- Working conditions: Are the role, rate, hours, expenses, cancellation terms and credit clear and recorded in writing?
- Practical provision: How will requirements relating to hair, make-up, costume, lighting, religious or cultural practice, travel and accommodation be planned and resourced? Welcome, safe travel, accommodation and clear contacts are all prominent within the Anti-Racism Touring Rider.
- Additional expertise: If cultural knowledge or lived-experience expertise is requested beyond the agreed role, how will that work be scoped, credited and paid?
- Welcome and induction: How will you be introduced to the team and the space, and given the contacts and practical information you need?
A policy is only useful if people know how it works. Ask what happens after a concern is raised and who is accountable for responding.
WHILE YOU ARE WORKING
Put it into everyday practice
- Learn and use people’s names and pronunciations as they ask you to use them. Do not leave one colleague repeatedly having to correct the team.
- Notice who is heard, interrupted, credited, invited into decisions and included in informal conversations. Use your influence to bring people in and attribute their ideas properly.
- Challenge racist language, stereotyping or tokenism when it is safe to do so. Name the specific behaviour rather than waiting for the person affected to respond.
- Do not expect colleagues who experience racism to educate the team, speak for a whole community or provide cultural expertise for free.
- If you influence creative or technical choices, check that lighting, make-up, hair, costume, photography and other provision work properly across different skin tones and hair types.
- Share opportunities, information and contacts transparently. Consider whether relying only on familiar networks keeps excluding the same people.
- Take concerns seriously. Follow the agreed reporting route, keep an appropriate factual record and do not penalise someone for raising a problem.
- Apply the same standards to emails, group chats, remote meetings, work-related social events and online spaces connected to the job.
- If you influence scripts, casting, images, copy, design or marketing, check for stereotypes and consider whose knowledge or perspective may be missing before the work is shared.
Safety comes first. Challenging something immediately is not always the safest or most useful response. You can check in privately, record what happened, seek advice or raise it later.
IF HARM IS CAUSED
If someone tells you that you caused them harm
Being challenged can feel uncomfortable. A useful first response is to focus on the impact of what happened and what needs to change, rather than defending your intention. Lack of intent does not cancel out impact.
- Stop and listen. If the person wants to explain, let them speak without interruption, debate or pressure to reassure you. If they do not want to discuss it further, respect that boundary.
- Acknowledge the impact. Do not make your intention the main focus of the conversation.
- Apologise clearly. Be specific about what you are apologising for and avoid conditional phrases such as “if you were offended”.
- Take practical action. This might mean changing language, correcting a credit, reversing a decision, removing harmful material or raising the issue with someone who has greater authority.
- Do not transfer the work. If appropriate, ask whether there is an immediate practical step the person wants, but do not make them responsible for educating you or designing the whole solution.
- Follow through. Make the agreed change, seek further learning independently and check that the harm is not repeated.
IF HARM IS CAUSED TO YOU
If you experience or witness racism, we have a page of practical first steps, confidential advice and information about reporting, as well as links to rights and specialist support for freelancers across theatre and live performance.
After the job
- Review whether the commitments made before the job were actually followed.
- Record what you have learned and update your own questions, contracts, riders or working practices.
- Give honest feedback through the safest appropriate route, particularly when a problem may affect future freelancers.
- Consider who you recommend, employ, introduce and share opportunities with. Anti-racist practice continues between jobs as well as during them.
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.
ABOUT THIS PAGE
How this page was compiled
This page was compiled using publicly available employment guidance and anti-racism resources developed within the creative and cultural sectors. Several of these resources were shaped through consultation with freelancers, organisations and people with lived experience of racism.
FMTW has brought their practical principles together and adapted them for people freelancing across theatre and live performance. This is a starting point rather than a complete checklist, and external guidance may change. Please check the original sources for their latest information.
Sources and guidance
- Anti-Racism Touring Rider and checklist
- The New Normal: A Manifesto to Create Safe Spaces, Free of Racism, for the Black Artist
- CIISA Standards
- Inc Arts Unlock anti-racism toolkit
- Acas guidance on race discrimination
- Acas witnessing discrimination
- Acas making and handling complaints
Links and guidance last checked: September 2026.