BALTIMORE: Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE) has announced its Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Intimacy Initiative (EDIII) for theatrical training spaces and programs. The EDIII has been developed by TIE affiliate faculty member Kaja Dunn, an assistant professor of theatre at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, and by Brian Eugenio Herrera, an associate professor of theatre at the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

The purpose of the EDIII is to examine systemic inequities in the theatre industry in order to change who is in the room for conversations about theatrical intimacy. By teaching anti-racist intimacy pedagogy, the EDIII will empower all artists to create and maintain culturally competent and non-traumatic rehearsal spaces and classrooms.

TIE has announced four key components of the first stage of the EDIII:

• The EDIII Summit, scheduled for March 2020 at Princeton University, will gather invited scholars to collaborate on an interdisciplinary strategy for developing anti-racist intimacy pedagogy;
• The creation of an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion scholarship for future TIE workshops;
• Developing relationships with historically Black colleges and universities, and with professional Latinx, Asian American, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, and Black theatre companies nationwide;
• Intimacy Training Workshops designed for people of color to work and learn in a safe, racially conscious space.

Theatrical Intimacy Education is a consulting group founded in 2017 that specializes in researching, developing, and teaching best practices for staging theatrical intimacy. TIE empowers artists with tools to ethically, efficiently, and effectively stage intimacy, nudity, and sexual violence.