HowlRound plus a group of artists, arts administrators, and others from around the US gathered on Monday 16 March 2020 to discuss how COVID-19 is impacting freelance artists (those who identify as independent contractors) from all disciplines and where artists can look for support in this complicated moment. The conversation focused on shared resources (legal, advocacy, how to take your work virtual, finding emergency funding, and financial best practices in crisis) and building and grounding our national community.
Speakers and facilitators include Nicole Brewer (Anti-Racist Theatre Facilitator), Viviana Vargas (Advancing Arts Forward), Vijay Mathew (HowlRound), Ann Marie Lonsdale (Network of Ensemble Theaters and GhostBoat Consulting), Claudia Alick (CALLING UP Justice), Hannah Fenlon (Network of Ensemble Theaters, formerly Theatre Communications Group), Carl Atiya Swanson (Associate Director, Springboard for the Arts), Carrie Cleveland (Education & Outreach Manager, CERF+), Amy Smith (Dance and theater artist, educator, facilitator), Laurie Baskin (Director of Research, Policy & Collective Action, Theatre Communications Group), Avita Delerme, Esq (Senior Counsel, Legal Affairs at The Public Theater), Ouida Maedel, (Musical Theater/Theater Specialist, National Endowment for the Arts), Mark Rossier (Director of NYFA Grants, New York Foundation for the Arts), Brian Eugenio Herrera (Associate Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University), Jan Feldman (Executive Director, Lawyers for the Creative Arts), and more (to be announced as confirmed). This virtual convening is inspired by and connected to a multi-disciplinary resource list shared widely among individual artist communities over the past several days.