People over projects. Period.

From www.kindness.org

  • Let’s take a case study: refunds.

    It’s normal nowadays to see theatres that say “no refunds” after a ticket is purchased. There are a lot of business reasons for this, but the reality is that most theatres I’ve been a part of are ultimately understanding if the reason for the cancellation feels legitimate and thus will provide a refund; the rule is there to deter the unwanted behavior (not showing up for reasons that the theatre does not consider to be reasonable) and provides a justification for when the theatre doesn’t want to give you a refund, which could be for a number of reasons.

    Refunds (and especially chargebacks, where a customer challenges things with their bank) can actually cost a company money depending on the ticketing and credit card processing systems they use. Constant refunds are not the kindest to the company, making it hard to plan and often less money than if they just hadn’t bought the ticket to begin with. Lack of refund options are not kind to the patrons who may mean well but have life happen, and then see the show as an obligation instead of a celebration.

    So what’s the “reckless kindness” choice? We think it’s a combination of things. The kindest thing we can do is offer refunds and exchanges for any patron unless and until they are present. But the kindest thing we can do for ourselves is to set some boundaries as a company about what that means.

    —We will offer full refunds and exchanges up to one week after the show. We will ask you to consider exchanging for another date first and once, so as not to pressure you, but to make it known that that would be the best option for us as well, because we want you to have the experience. :-)

    —If the show was sold out, we will only offer half-refunds (or full exchanges) for up to one week after the show. This is because we held your seat and thus were not able to re-sell it, and we feel like that’s a fair middle ground.

    —If you disagree or have extenuating circumstances that you feel merit special consideration, just let us know and we will be happy to provide you with a full refund.

    This, then, is reckless kindness.

Theatre has a kindness drought

The theatre world is not known for its kindness. The ubiquitous phrase, "the show must go on,” makes it clear what the theatre industry has valued for a very long time: its projects, its ventures, and its products. Theatre is resource-intensive, costly, and often challenging to pivot quickly in the case of emergencies. In American theatre there is also a distinct sense of scarcity of resources and funding, leaving many theatres focused primarily on continued existence.

This is a lush environment for many common and problematic behaviors in theatre to happen in the name of “what’s best for the show”: Body shaming and judgement, casting white people as the default, exclusion of people with disabilities, verbal (and way too often, physical and sexual) abuse by directors and producers, and more.

The Octarine Accord wants to keep existing, but only if our community is behind us. We aren’t willing to put our survival in front of being kind.

Our goal is to pursue reckless kindness

“Kindness…encompasses acts of altruism, empathy, justice, respect, and more. It is always an action, often done with the intention to benefit, and sometimes (but not always) driven by emotion.” (https://kindness.org/kindlab)

Reckless kindness, then, is the willingness to put kindness first, even when the wisdom of our world (or our industry) suggests that we shouldn’t, including kindness to ourselves. This will affect everything we do: Auditions. Rehearsals. Payment. Marketing. Every single thing that has just “always been that way,” examined through the lens of reckless kindness. That’s our mission.

We’re going to screw up, we’re going to need input and guidance from our community (check out our Board of Accountability for more about this). But this is what we’re here for.

People over projects. Period.