Our Mission

Unscripted heals, empowers, and connects our community through improv.

What we do

  • We teach and perform improv to increase access to improv for people who have been historically excluded from improv, specifically BIPOC communities and People of the Global Majority, older adults, disabled communities, youth, and anyone who has encountered a barrier to participate.

  • We teach improv classes and research the impact of improv practice on learning and teaching in education

  • We teach improv classes which leverage the joyful and supportive nature of improv for wellness and therapeutic applications

  • We say yes to bringing classes and performances into spaces which could be positively impacted by improv

Our values

Our core values guide us in all our work - they are directly tied to our improv style, our operational practices, and strategic visioning. Read more about each of these here.

  • PRESENCE

  • PLAY

  • PROCESS

  • CARE

  • DEEP LISTENING

STATEMENT ON CULTURAL EQUITY 

To support a full creative life for all, Unscripted commits to championing practices of cultural equity that empower a just, inclusive, equitable nation.

DEFINITION OF CULTURAL EQUITY

Cultural equity embodies the values, policies, and practices that ensure that all people—including but not limited to those who have been historically underrepresented based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, or religion—are represented in the development of arts policy; the support of artists; the nurturing of accessible, thriving venues for expression; and the fair distribution of programmatic, financial, and informational resources.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS & AFFIRMATIONS

  • In the United States, there are systems of power that grant privilege and access unequally such that inequity and injustice result, and that must be continuously addressed and changed. 

  • Cultural equity is critical to the long-term viability of the arts sector.  

  • We must all hold ourselves accountable, because acknowledging and challenging our inequities and working in partnership is how we will make change happen. 

  • Everyone deserves equal access to a full, vibrant creative life, which is essential to a healthy and democratic society.  

  • The prominent presence of artists challenges inequities and encourages alternatives. 

MODELING THROUGH ACTION

To provide informed, authentic leadership for cultural equity, we strive to…

  • Pursue cultural consciousness throughout our organization through substantive learning and formal, transparent policies.

  • Acknowledge and dismantle any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, and services, and report organization progress.

  • Commit time and resources to expand more diverse leadership within our board, staff, and advisory bodies.

FUELING FIELD PROGRESS

To pursue needed systemic change related to equity, we strive to…

  • Encourage substantive learning to build cultural consciousness and to proliferate pro-equity policies and practices by all of our constituencies and audiences.

  • Improve the cultural leadership pipeline by creating and supporting programs and policies that foster leadership that reflects the full breadth of American society.

  • Generate and aggregate quantitative and qualitative research related to equity to make incremental, measurable progress towards cultural equity more visible.

SETTING OUR INTENTION

There are systems of power that grant privilege and access unequally such that inequity and injustice result. Those systems must be continuously addressed and changed. This statement seeks to address that in the community of Unscripted and improv that operate under the lens of the power structures in the United States. Antiracism and equity are vital for the long-term viability of improv. Everyone deserves equal access to a full and vibrant creative life. And there is something magical that happens when a multitude of voices and lived experiences join together in improv.

BRIEF HISTORY OF UNSCRIPTED’S WORK

In August 2019, Unscripted began a strategic planning process to elevate our programs, infrastructure, and ability to serve our community. Board members, staff, volunteers, and other community stakeholders came together to identify core values and goals for the organization as we embarked on a new time of growth. One word continued to radiate to the top of everyone's priority list: Inclusion. This focus arose because Unscripted, and improv artists in general, have not done enough to combat the white supremacist systems and social structures in which we participate, conditions which continue to exclude and oppress communities of color including Black, Indigenous, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, and Latina/o/x communities, along with other oppressed groups. 

In September 2019, we created a committee on Diversity and Inclusion and began conversations about how to take concrete steps with inclusion in mind to reassess and improve the representation of our staff, the focus of our programs, and the structures and policies of our organization. After the unconscionable murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—and the many other Black lives taken by U.S. law enforcement—and the most recent cultural breaking point over race across the United States, this Committee moved from planning to practice. 

OUR CURRENT PRACTICE

Since June 2020, the Committee has met regularly to determine the ways in which we could contribute to the antiracism movement, beginning by refocusing our intentions as the renamed Antiracism and Equity Committee. We continue to address and implement institutional changes intended to make Unscripted a more equitable and antiracist organization. As a continuation of that work, Unscripted created this pledge and action plan, which the Committee and Unscripted will update and assess. We will be held accountable to this pledge and action plan, and as improvisers we welcome the opportunity to learn and grow.

OUR ANTIRACISM PLEDGE

Unscripted stands against racism and the institutional white supremacist structures that perpetuate harm. Using improv as a tool to combat racism everywhere, Unscripted pledges to:

  1. Improve our training and programs on examining privilege and personal bias;

  2. Use our platform to amplify artists, improvisers, and healers from systematically oppressed communities;

  3. Administer our programs, activities, and operations in an actively and intentionally antiracist and anti-oppressive manner;

  4. Listen, see, be open, have hard conversations, lead with empathy, and change course when that is what equity and justice require; 

  5. Value impact over credit; and

  6. Hold ourselves accountable and create systems of accountability to our community and ourselves to maintain this pledge.

WHAT WE’RE DOING RIGHT NOW

  1. Aligning our values and goals: The Committee has been meeting consistently to assess and identify our focus and priorities. This discussion has included research and conversations around what “diversity” and “inclusion” mean and whether those terms accurately reflected the Committee’s goals. As a result of these conversations, we renamed the group the Antiracism and Equity Committee and devoted ourselves to centering both “antiracism” and “racial equity” in the assessment the Committee would take on Unscripted’s programs, policies, and partnerships. This statement also serves as the central tenets that guide the Committee’s work.

  2. Assessing where we are as an organization: We asked whether we had any information about the representation of our community and whether it is reflected in Unscripted leadership, staff, donors, and participants. We recognized that we were not currently collecting that information and set out to create a broad and encompassing demographic survey to collect data and assess gaps in how well the organization represents the community in which we operate in Nashville. We will pilot the survey with our Board with the goal of collecting this type of information from our volunteers, teachers, donors, and program participants.

We also completed an equity assessment to evaluate where we are and how far we have to go as an organization. One of the major lessons learned from this assessment was the lack of data and information to truly analyze the organization’s embodiment of equity.

Creating a baseline of this information was vital so we could set measurable goals for ensuring that our organization better reflects our community. It will also help us assess retention rates so we can see whether our organization is truly a safe place for leadership, staff, and volunteers from oppressed communities.

  1. Training our staff and providing them with tools: We are dedicated to increasing staff capacity related to antiracism and equity with the goal of creating a safe space for employees, volunteers, partners, and participants who are Black, Indigenous, Latina/o/x, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and members of other oppressed groups. We have created a program to apply at all levels of the organization that will include onboarding training and ongoing education for antiracism, implicit bias, microaggressions, white supremacy, tokenism, and bystander intervention, among other topics. This training package will be required for all teachers, volunteers, and leadership within the organization.

    As part of this work, Unscripted has established an organization-wide definition and understanding of microaggressions. We are creating a policy and practice of explaining this term at every Unscripted program. And we are developing tools to help our teachers and staff respond or intervene when they see a microaggression happen during one of Unscripted programs.

  2. Acknowledging our history: We have been researching the history of improv and Unscripted to take stock of how we got here, how we have benefited from white supremacy culture, and how we have failed to serve oppressed communities in the past and in the present. Improv, like all American art forms, has a complicated history with race, class, gender, immigration status, and other forms of oppression. As we work towards more just and equitable ways of playing together, we are collaborating with researchers at Vanderbilt University to investigate the history of improv as a means of reckoning with the way racism, classism, and other forms of discrimination have become embedded in improv. Lessons we learn from this history along with other projects will inform continued research on how improv might contribute to a more just society.

  3. Committing to concrete actions: We have identified a framework of actions on antiracism and equity both within the organization (staff representation, education, policies, and practices) as well as our interaction with the community (partnerships, programs, scholarships, and accountability). Within the coming months, we will set deadlines for these actions and hold ourselves accountable to make sure this work does not lose momentum.

LONG-TERM INITIATIVES

  1. Establish dedicated funding for the Unscripted scholarship, which is geared towards increasing access to the art form. This work will include a survey of the scholarship’s history to identify gaps and shape a better program in the future.

  2. Identify, hire, and develop staff, teachers, and board members from diverse backgrounds and communities of color including Black, Indigenous, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, and Latina/o/x communities, along with other oppressed groups.

  3. Create programming in partnership with communities of color including Black, Indigenous, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, and Latina/o/x communities, along with other oppressed groups.

  4. Develop and expand relationships and partnerships as a means of enhancing existing programming and giving broader access to Unscripted’s tools and resources.