In 2021, three San Francisco-based organizations (Magic Theatre, Crowded Fire Theater, and Playwrights Foundation), all of which are focused on supporting new theatrical work, partnered together to offer Making Good Trouble (MGT), an anti-racism training program, to members of our organizations and Bay Area artists and cultural workers. Working in deep partnership with consultants Beatrice Thomas and Kyle DeVries of Authentic Arts and Media, leaders from each of our organizations co-created a responsive, comprehensive structure for a training program that engaged 24 artists and cultural workers over two years. 

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Crowded Fire, Magic Theatre, and Playwrights Foundation launched the Making Good Trouble (MGT) program in order to transform our own organizational practices as new play development hubs committed to anti-racism as well as to deepen the longstanding histories of artistic collaboration among our three organizations. Shelter-in-place orders and the cancellation of in-person artistic activities due to COVID-19 revealed yet again how precarious individual artists’ livelihoods are. This “train the trainer” project created a way for artists to build their skills and supplement their income as educators and facilitators and also to meet the growing demand for trained anti-racism facilitators in our field. 

 

Making Good Trouble was supported by funding from the National New Play Network Collaboration Fund Grant program.