Sexual Harassment Policy

The Ledge Theatre values our volunteers, students, patrons, artists, and staff. We are committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all. If you have a concern relating to sexual harassment, please email our HR Representatives at hr@theledgetheatre.com
If you prefer, you may also submit an HR concern anonymously with this Form (NEED A FORM ONLINE TO GO TO).
Please see below for further information on The Ledge’s sexual harassment policies and procedures.

Harassment

Harassment based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, creed, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or any characteristic protected by law is a violation of The Ledge Theatre’s policy. The Ledge Theatre recognizes that harassment undermines morale, mental well being and interferes with productivity and will not be tolerated.

This policy applies to and prohibits harassment by everyone at The Ledge Theatre. Violation of The Ledge Theatre’s discrimination and harassment policy by any employee, volunteer, performer, student, teacher or outside contractor will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. No one will be subject to any retaliation for filing a complaint or participating in the investigation of such complaint.

Sexual Harassment

Policy Brief & Purpose
The sexual harassment policy aims to protect all human beings from unwanted sexual advances and give them guidelines to report incidents. The policy will also explain how to handle claims, punish sexual harassment, and help victims recover.
The The Ledge Theatre will not tolerate sexual harassment in any space in our theatre in any shape or form. The Ledge Theatre’s culture is based on mutual respect and collaboration. Sexual harassment is a serious violation of those principles.

Scope

This policy applies to every person at The Ledge Theatre regardless of gender, sexual orientation, level, function, seniority, status or other protected characteristics. The Ledge Theatre is obliged to comply with this policy. Also, The Ledge Theatre won’t tolerate sexual harassment from inside or outside of the company. Employees, investors, contractors, audience members, and everyone interacting with our company are covered by the present policy.

Policy Elements

What is sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment has many forms of variable seriousness. A person sexually harasses someone when they:
• Insinuate, propose, or demand sexual favors of any kind.
• Invade another person’s personal space (e.g. inappropriate touching.)
• Stalk, intimidate, coerce or threaten another person to get them to engage in sexual acts.
• Send or display sexually explicit objects or messages.
• Comment on someone’s looks, dress, sexuality or idenification in a derogatory or objectifying manner or a manner that makes them uncomfortable.
• Make obscene comments, jokes or gestures that humiliate or offend someone.
• Pursue or flirt with another person persistently without the other person’s willing participation. Also, flirting with someone at an inappropriate time (e.g. in a team meeting, behind stage, after shows gatherings) is considered sexual harassment, even when these advances would have been welcome in a different setting. This is because such actions can harm a person’s professional reputation and expose them to further harassment.
The most extreme form of sexual harassment is sexual assault. This is a serious crime and The Ledge Theatre will support anyone who want to press charges against offenders and will go insomuch to testify in court.

The Ledge Theatre’s Rules on Sexual Harassment

No one has the right to commit sexual harassment. Any person in our company who is found guilty of serious harassment will be terminated, whether they are The Founders or an intern. Also, if representatives of our contractors or vendors sexually harass our employees, a volunteer, or another contracted artist, we will demand that the company they work for takes disciplinary action and/or refuse to work with this person in the future.
Sexual harassment is never too minor to be dealt with. Any kind of harassment can wear down a person and create a hostile environment. The Ledge Theatre will hear every claim and punish offenders appropriately.

Sexual harassment is about how we make others feel. Many do not consider behaviors like flirting or sexual comments to be sexual harassment, thinking they are too innocent to be labeled that way. But, if something you do makes your colleagues uncomfortable, or makes them feel unsafe, you must stop.
We assume every sexual harassment claim is legitimate unless proven otherwise. We listen to victims of sexual harassment and always conduct our investigations properly with an outside investigation.

We will not allow further victimization of harassed individuals. We will fully support anyone who is sexually harassed and will not take any adverse action against them. For example, we will not move an employee to a position lower pay or remove the victimized from performing. to retaliate against them.
Those who support or overlook sexual harassment are as much at fault as offenders. Directors, Teachers and Administration especially, are obliged to prevent sexual harassment and act when they have suspicions or receive reports. Letting this behavior go on or encouraging it will bring about disciplinary action. Anyone who witnesses an incident of sexual should report immediately.

Sexual Harassment as it Pertains to The Ledge Theatre

The Goal

We seek to understand sexual harassment as it pertains to our theatre, provide procedures to prevent it, and outline recourse when it occurs. We recognize the potential for harassment in rehearsal, during performance, and outside the theatre among participants, staff, board, and audience members. We acknowledge theatre environments can court confusion about the difference between chemistry, artistic freedom, and harassment; we believe participants can be bold and live “in the moment” of theatrical material while maintaining, fellow participants’ safety, and agreed-upon boundaries.

The Standard

Clear boundaries should be established and agreed upon among all participants involved, both in classes, rehearsals and performance, particularly in scenes depicting violence, sex, intimate contact, abuse, or gestures of intimacy.

For reference, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sexual harassment is described as follows:
• It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person’s sex. Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, request s for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature.
• Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.
• Both victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex. We extend this statement from EEOC to say the victim and harasser can have different sexual/gender identities or the same.
• Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
• The harasser can be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer.
• The EEOC covers “employees” only, not contractors and volunteers. For that reason, this standard seeks to provide a definition for sexual harassment in the theatrical workplace for participants not covered by EEOC laws and other regulations, and to provide an understanding of and sensitivity to the nuances of a theatrical workplace.
Harassment in a broader sense includes, but is not limited to:
• Inappropriate or insulting remarks, gestures, jokes, or innuendoes or taunting about a person’s gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic background, color, place of birth, citizenship, ancestry, creed, or ability;
• Persistent unwanted questions or comments about a participant’s private life outside the boundaries of consent established in rehearsal;
• Posting or displaying materials, articles, graffiti, and so on, which may cause humiliation, offense, or embarrassment on prohibited grounds that are outside the parameters of the production. A production about pornography, violence, or racism may involve such images in the rehearsal space or in a dramaturgy packet, but such images are not appropriate for open display in dressing rooms, bathrooms, or other similar spaces.

Sexual Harassment in a Theatrical Workplace:

In a theatrical context, harassment can be additionally defined as one or a series of comments or conduct of a gender-related or sexual nature outside the boundaries of consent or production content, which is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome/unwanted, offensive, intimidating, hostile, or inappropriate. It is worth noting that the higher the emotional/sexual risk a production asks of its artists, the greater the diligence of each member of production and artistic staffs is needed to foster an environment of emotional safety.

Sexual harassment includes but is not limited to:

• Unwelcome remarks, jokes, innuendoes, or taunts about a person’s body, attire, gender, or sexual orientation outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Negative stereotyping of race, gender, gender identity, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation, ability, or other status protected by law outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Any unwanted or inappropriate physical contact such as touching, kissing, massaging, patting, hugging, or pinching outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Inquiries or comments about a person’s sex life or sexual orientation outside the boundaries of consent or production content; Leering, whistling, or other suggestive or insulting sounds outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Inappropriate comments about clothing, physical characteristics, or activities outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Posting or displaying materials, articles, or graffiti that is sexually oriented outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Requests or demands for sexual favors, especially those that include, or imply, promises of rewards for complying (e.g., job advancement opportunities) and/or threats of punishment for refusal (e.g., denial of job advancement or opportunities) outside the boundaries of consent related to production content;
• Attempting to engage in sexual behaviors offstage that are choreographed for the stage;
• Suggesting an actor who appears naked onstage or in rehearsal is not allowed physical boundaries and/or privacy backstage or in the dressing room and/or not respecting those boundaries;
• Intentional failure to observe the dressing room standards laid out in this document;
• Inviting an actor to rehearse sexual content outside of scheduled rehearsals;
• Repeated invitation / suggestion to take relationships of a sexual nature beyond the stage;
• Using the text of a production that is sexual, violent, threatening, or offensive in offstage discourse;
• Improvising sexual content without expressed consent.

Participants Have the Right to be Free From:

• Sexual solicitation or advances made by a person in a position to confer, grant, or deny a benefit or advancement outside production content;
• Reprisal or threat of reprisal for the rejection of a sexual solicitation or advance where the reprisal is made by a person in a position to grant, confer, or deny a benefit or advancement outside production content.
• Any of the behaviors outlined here have the potential to create a negative environment for individuals or groups. It should be noted that a person does not have to be a direct target to be adversely affected by a negative environment. It is understood that creative atmospheres are not always “emotionally sanitary” – t hey can safely be bawdy, profane, vulgar, and challenging. We assert that having (a) a practice of building consent and (b) an environment that allows for response to clear boundary violations can broaden our opportunity to be challenging and fearless in our work.
• Concerns about harassment, safety, or a negative environment should be reported using the “harassment complaint procedure (starting with the “informal resolution” wherever possible), and all concerns should be treated with the utmost respect for the safety and wellbeing of all participants.

Harassment Complaint Procedure

We highly encourage all members of The Ledge Theatre to report any lack of mutual respect or harassment immediately to the The Ledge Theatre’s HR Representatives. All allegations of harassment will be promptly and thoroughly investigated, treated in a confidential manner, and information pertaining to the investigation will be shared only with appropriate individuals on a need to know basis. Board members will be notified any time there is an investigation taking place by an outside law firm, but will not receive any details about what the allegations entail, unless deemed necessary to the investigation. 

Reporting Procedure

Anyone who believes they have been discriminated against or sexually harassed should report the alleged act immediately. The Ledge Theatre has two HR Representatives. The current representatives are Stephen Conrad and Pat Heim. Anyone wishing to file a formal complaint may contact the HR Representatives at HR@ledgetheatre.com. Those who wish to remain anonymous may file a complaint using the online complaint form found at theledgetheatre.com

After reviewing the complaint, the HR Representatives will determine the appropriate level of corrective response and partner only with those who have a legitimate business need to know. The HR Representatives will determine the appropriate level of corrective response, which may include, but is not limited to education, an apology, documentation of formal or informal coaching, removal of the alleged perpetrator from involvement at The Ledge Theatre, termination of employment, referral to local authorities, or other corrective action. The complainant and the subject of the investigation will be informed, where appropriate, of the findings of the investigation.

The ledge Theatre conduct and policies

We are transparent about The Ledge.  We want you to have fun at our theatre but also know that our performances, actors, staff and crew will treat you well.  Our code of conduct is for us.  For You:

 Code of Conduct

• Please honor the commitments that you have made to this theatre.
• Be on time and call if you can not be.
• Be respectful of the Board of Directors, employees and other volunteers of this theatre.
• Be respectful of the theatre. Please help keep the theatre’s appearance clean and professional. Pick up and clean up after yourself, discarding trash in appropriate receptacles before leaving the premises.
• Please keep a professional image, limiting horseplay in lobby, front parking lot and administrative areas.
• If you think it is inappropriate?  It is 99% certain that it is.
• Treat the people around you the way you wish to be treated.  If you wish to be treated miserably?  The Ledge Theatre is not the theatre to be at.
• Revel in joy and play.