Mission & Values
ETC’s Call to Action
Expand the Canon uncovers and uplifts classic plays by women & underrepresented genders– and is a call to action to produce them.
Expand the Canon champions women and gender-expansive playwrights whose works should have always been considered classics. For over a decade, our partnerships with theaters, educators, and advocates have established a legacy of storytelling with gender equity at its core.
By curating a collection of excellent historic plays, we’re building a more inclusive and accurate theatrical canon.
Formerly Hedgepig Ensemble Theatre, founded in 2012, the organization re-structured and rebranded to focus on this initiative full-time. You can hear more about the origin of the project and its aims in our podcast.
Inclusion & Diversity Statement
We continually seek to expand our imagining of how to be inclusive — of individuals and of communities. For Hedgepig in this moment, diversity means inclusivity of all races, gender, religion, age, sexuality, ability, health, wealth, height, weight, education, housing, past trauma, citizenship or lack thereof. Though diversity cannot always be worn or recognized, we seek to welcome the invisible just as we do the seen.
We particularly work to include and elevate the voices of anyone who identifies either always or some of the time as a woman, as well as non-binary and gender-expansive individuals. As a company with predominantly white female leadership, we acknowledge that white feminism has often left out the voices and values of women of color, and actively seek to expand and honor those voices within our community. Throughout all aspects of our work, we joyfully include men as key allies in the search for equality and equity. Men’s investment in ending oppression is crucial, as patriarchy limits men as well as women and femmes.
Antiracism Statement & Actions
To quote Angela Davis, “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”
Our specific anti-racist actions and commitments include:
A requirement for all ensemble and Board members to engage in anti-racism and anti-bias training at least once a year.
An audit of our vendors to ensure they follow antiracist policies.
A re-dedication to Expand the Canon and including plays by BIPOC writers.
As an industry, community, and ensemble, we must be luminary in the fight against racism. As an organization, we must re-examine our inner-workings and assumptions. If you have thoughts, we invite that connection through email, Facebook, Instagram, or anonymously.
Land Acknowledgement
We honor and acknowledge that much of our work is based in New York City, the ancestral lands and unceded territory of the Lenape Nation.
As we come together to rebuild the legacies of forgotten or under-recognized playwrights, whose work lays part of the invisible basis on which we all stand, it is only right to expand our view and acknowledge others on whose shoulders we stand. Please take a moment to consider the many legacies of violence, displacement, migration, and settlement that bring us together here today.
We use this as a reminder to continue to commit to dismantling structures of a colonization in our practices.