EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION AT ENCOMPASS

For our productions, Encompass New Opera Theatre is dedicated to the creation, development and production of adventurous new music theatre and contemporary opera, as well as the revival of important musical works by American and international composers. We host concerts featuring young singing talent and the new music of new composers, and consistently strive to create an equitable space that includes underserved artists or composers who have had their work and voices neglected.

In casting, Encompass believes strongly in presenting the vast tapestry of musical artists which the United States represents, and has an impressive track record in multicultural casting for the past 47 years. In practice, we have hired singers, some of whom whose first performing opportunity in New York City were with Encompass. Opera is traditionally seen as exclusive, but Encompass chooses to break down these barriers and stereotypes of opera by telling stories of underserved communities and casting/hiring BIPOC artists.

In marketing, Encompass strives to develop marketing strategies that target a diverse range of races/ethnicities, ages, physical abilities, and socio-economic backgrounds to draw more people to theatre and opera. In order to draw a diverse audience, we have to reflect that effort in our own team, so we have hired marketing specialists with diverse experiences, genders, races, physical abilities and socio-economic backgrounds so we can draw from different perspectives whenever we promote our work.

In our production team, Encompass requires all collaborators to be aligned with our EDI principles to promote a productively anti-racist working environment.