06/02/2020
Friends, artists, and collaborators,
The events of the past week have us, like so many others, looking inward. The amount of suffering and death it takes to stir the white American conscious is appalling. We end our silence. On The Rocks was founded by us, Christopher Ford & Dakota Rose, two white theatre artists in 2009. We feel it important to say our company has benefited from our white privilege. We feel it imperative to say BLACK LIVES MATTER. Looking over the last eleven years we have had the opportunity to collaborate with an amazing group of artists, but the majority of those faces are white. This is a failure. To the black artists we have had the privilege of working with, who have taught and guided us, enhanced and elevated our story telling we want to thank you and stand with you. We vow to stand with you. We apologize for our white silence and acknowledge it is violence. We vow to end our silence. We vow to consciously seek black collaborators not just on stage, but on future design and production teams. And we vow to create rooms where those voices are safe. We vow to listen to those voices. We vow to write and tell anti-racist stories. And we vow to do the work on ourselves, through education and self reflection. Action is love. We vow to love.
To our entire family of artists and collaborators we wish you love and power.
Chris & Dakota
