the cohort model

As part of The Rising Tide Project, 2nd Story has partnered with arts organizations to imagine and implement the radical changes needed within their own organizations to build a more equitable and exceptional arts ecosystem. Through past cohorts, we worked alongside organizational leaders to examine compensation practices, build shared language around pay, and take meaningful steps toward pay equity and transparency.

We are currently re-envisioning the structure of the Rising Tide cohort, as it takes much time and labor to craft and facilitate. We look forward to reimagining what cohort-based support can look like in the future and invite you to stay tuned as this program evolves. 

In the meantime, we are offering 1:1 and Organizational Coaching. These can be short, one-off meetings, or a longer, multi-session project that we co-develop and execute with your team. Please email info@2ndstory.com if you’re interested in learning more.

the goals

We recognize that organizations begin this work from different places. For some,, engaging with pay equity means starting with pay transparency by being open internally and externally about compensation for artists and administrators. For others, it involves learning the tools needed to build the financial infrastructure required to pay artists and administrators more equitably. 

Regardless of where we begin, participating leaders work towards shared outcomes. By the completion of the cohort, partner organizations:

  • develop a richer understanding of their own goals around pay transparency and pay equity

  • gain tools and language to facilitate internal conversations with staff, artists, and stakeholders

  • create a financially appropriate timeline for implementing pay equity within their organization

Each organization that participated in our cohort program was compensated with a $2,000 micro-grant.

cohort 1

  • A Red Orchid Theatre is an ensemble of artists dedicated to the proliferation of live theatre in the modern world. We believe that theatre is the greatest sustenance for the human spirit and approach our work with a palpable sense of social compassion, aesthetic rigor, and honesty. By presenting new plays from all over the world and by reviving insightful works from the past that bear new relevance today, we aim to seek out and build new audiences for the modern stage. We lead with curiosity and inclusion; leveraging the collective power of ensemble to challenge convention in unexpected, provocative ways. In all we aim to cultivate an artistic home for artist and patron alike where humanity is examined and celebrated in all its extraordinary intersections.

    For more information on A Red Orchid Theatre, visit ARedOrchidTheatre.org.

  • Congo Square Theatre Company is an ensemble dedicated to producing transformative work rooted in the African Diaspora. We are a haven for artists of color to challenge and redefine the theatrical canon by amplifying and creating stories that reflect the reach and complexities of Black Culture.

    For more information on Congo Square Theatre Company, visit CongoSquareTheatre.org.

  • Teatro Vista is a non-profit theatre and production company dedicated to multidisciplinary artists of color whose artistic expression on stage and beyond is rooted in the transformative power of owning and telling our own stories.

    Our artistic collective is what drives the power at Teatro Vista Productions.

    TVP is a space meant to be in service of its artistic collective so that we may support and amplify the artists' goals and aspirations. Whether their goals are to be on stage with us, ideating and developing content with us, or to be amplified within other endeavors by us, we are here to serve our artists. Teatro Vista Productions “powers up” the artists we work with by providing them with an operations department that can serve as their “team of people.” To the best of our abilities and budget, we seek to provide services that level the playing field for independent artists of color.

cohort two

  • ACRE (Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions) is an artist-run non-profit devoted to providing resources to emerging and underrepresented artists and nurturing a nationwide network of cultural producers. ACRE’s programs support this generative community with materials, equipment, expertise, conscientiously produced food, and opportunities to exhibit and share work. 

    For more information on ACRE, visit AcreResidency.org.

  • The Artistic Home creates theatre that explores and celebrates the truth within us.  Through extraordinary acting, we seek to ignite an audience’s imagination, to reach deep into the primal to send tremors through the intellect, to give birth to unforgettable moments by working in an intimate space, to touch audiences who are increasingly distanced from human contact.  We readdress the classics and explore new works with passion. We give artists a home where they can shape, develop and strengthen their artistic voice.

    For more information on The Artistic Home, visit TheArtisticHome.org.

  • Theatre Y is a Chicago-based international incubator that creates connections between diverse artists seeking mutual growth through collaboration. Since 2006, Theatre Y has been a point of convergence for diverse activisms, and all of the uncomfortable conversations that happen as a result. Artistic director Melissa Lorraine and the Theatre Y ensemble are committed to continuously re-thinking the practice of theater as a tool of liberation and a revolutionary practice, bringing Theatre Y to venues ranging from LaMaMa’s historical theater to Illinois prisons. As an organization committed to prison abolition, Theatre Y is in partnership with men serving natural life sentences on arts campaigns towards reparative justice for the incarcerated and continues to innovate in the fight for social justice. Theatre Y, which is now in its 17th year of experimental productions, challenging international content, and a member-based FREE theater model, occupies a unique place in Chicago's theater community.

    For more information on Theatre Y, visit Theatre-Y.com.