My Purple Crayon Advisors is dedicated to anti-racism practices and working toward a more equitable and just society and theater ecology. Our action steps will focus on organizations led by or serving historically marginalized people, artist advocacy groups and organizations that distribute money directly to artists. Our work is not an endpoint but part of an ongoing process of listening, learning and growing.
Read more about Harold Wolpert’s journey, commitment to anti-racism and plan of action for the future below.
land acknowledgement
Our office is on the unceded traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Munsee Lenape. The majority of Lenape descendants now live in Oklahoma—displaced from their original homeland by years of forced migration and war. We acknowledge the long history of broken treaties, genocide and brutality inflicted on Indigenous people and its legacy that is alive today. We thank the Munsee Lenape and their relatives for their care of the land, and we recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to elders both past and present.
To learn more about the Indigenous peoples of the land that is now called Brooklyn, you can read On Native Land and Native Americans in Brooklyn. To discover whose ancestral and contemporary land you occupy, please explore Native Land.
Land acknowledgments are only a starting point. I encourage you to read A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement as a call to action to support Indigenous peoples living now to bring justice today. Here are my initial steps to activate my acknowledgement. Please adopt these or create your own action plan
I made a donation to Native Governance Center and encourage you to match as you are able to this organization or one of your choosing.
Additionally, I contributed to Redhawk Indigenous Arts Council, dedicated to educating the general public about Native American heritage through arts and culture.
I am committed to ongoing research and self-education to learn more about the Indigenous peoples on whose lands I live and beyond, what I have done to perpetuate inequity and what I can do to make changes in the present.
I will read Resource Generation: Land Reparations & Indigenous Solidarity Toolkit to learn more about and share what it means to return land to Indigenous people.
In order to carry through on my commitment to be anti-racist and dismantle white supremacy, I will use my privilege and the power it affords me for people who do not have the advantages that I have inherited through no merit of my own. My power gives me the ability to access other powerful people and spaces that are not open to all. For example, I am able to directly contact other similarly situated or privileged people in my field, which I do on behalf of organizations or people who do not have that access. I apply my time and emotional space that my privilege affords me to volunteer and provide pro bono consulting services. I also make financial contributions to organizations that align with my values. As a mentor told a group of similarly positioned colleagues and me:
“You are all powerful people. You have power, influence and authority. Power is not inherently bad; it’s what you decide to do with it in the places you are called to serve.”
the ground on which i stand:
my personal acknowledgements
One of the founding members of the LORT Diversity Initiative in 2010.
Participation in training sessions led by Nicole Brewer, Carmen Morgan (founder of artEquity) and Donna Walker-Kuhne.
I provide pro bono consulting services for IndieSpace a hub/organization that celebrates and centers independent theater-making in New York City and Breaking the Binary Theatre, a new work development and community building hub for transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+*) artists to come together to reclaim their artistic license and liberty.
Under my leadership at Signature Theatre,
The company created its first Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility Committee, coordinated an all-encompassing EDIA Action Plan and charted a course for the company to become a more inclusive, anti-racist organization.
I raised money to allow the company to continue to provide free access to its lobby
I fought to keep ticket prices affordable for the Signature Ticket Initiative
Signature undertook an extensive research project to explore attitudes around welcome and belonging among BIPOC attendees
Signature employees designed the company’s Anti-Racist, Anti-Discrimination Interactions with Audiences (ARADIA) Committee and published a community agreement for all visitors, to convey and establish anti-racist and nondiscriminatory institutional values when at Signature and/or in community with Signature.
my actions
I have been inspired by one of my mentors, Paul Robinson, who characterized core values as chosen freely, from among alternatives, after consideration of consequences, prized and cherished, publicly affirmed, acted upon and part of a definite pattern of action. A single act alone does not constitute a core value; wishing and acting are not the same. Paul’s reminder stays with me: “It is a lifelong pursuit to arrive at clarity in alignment with your values. If you stand up for your values, they will stand up for you.”
core values
When contemplating values, I often reflect on the Jewish prayer, Unetaneh Tokef, which recites a litany of seemingly deterministic statements–”On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed. And on Yom Kippur it is sealed. How many shall pass away and how many shall be born. Who shall live and who shall die…” On and on it goes. Just when I believe that I am completely powerless and consigned by destiny to a future I cannot control, the prayer ends as follows:
“U-te-shu-vah’ u-te-fi-lah’ u-tze-da-kah”
Repentance, prayer and charity avert this severe decree.
Throughout the year, I remember my power to repair the world (tikkun olam) as well as this ancient Jewish teaching:
“You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”