Mission:

Mirror Stage uses the power of theatre to challenge assumptions, bias and prejudice, while encouraging more thoughtful reflection on today's issues.

Vision:

Mirror Stage reflects the diversity of our community onstage in high-quality, progressive, thought-provoking productions that play it smart without always playing it safe. We nurture unique artistic voices while providing opportunities for newly-emerging artists to work alongside more seasoned professionals. With the goal of increasing equity and inclusion, Mirror Stage opens doors to new ways of seeing and thinkingentertaining while enlightening, and bringing us to a place of common understanding.

Values:

• Challenge: We focus on thought-provoking, relevant, progressive, risky, and inspiring worktheatre that gets people talking as well as thinking.
• Integrity: We practice the highest standards of excellence, ethics, and professionalism in all interactions. We are committed to diversity at all levels: on our stage, in our audience, on our staff, and within our leadership.
• Partnership: We collaborate with artists, audience and community members to find the best path forward and create positive change.
• Respect: We cultivate and nurture an atmosphere of respect and inclusiveness, embracing differing strengths, skill sets, cultures and abilities.

Performance offers unique ways of knowing that can challenge entrenched paradigms, contribute to pluralism and expand the range of meaningful action. Theatre That Gets People Talking, Mirror Stage's innovative staged reading series engage the community in examining and discussing topical issues from different perspectives. Presented without costumes or sets, the emphasis on the text encourages audiences to create their own imagined world inhabited by the play's characters. Following every performance, a moderated discussion with the audience and artists explores the issues raised in more depth.

Over the past 16+ years, more than 40 percent of the actors featured in Mirror Stage productions have been people of color, including African Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders (both South and East Asian), Latinx, and Native American/First Nations-- some, but not all, in ethnically specific stories and roles. Mirror Stage is committed to diversity at all levels: on our stage, in our audience, on our staff, and within our leadership. Mirror Stage invites a larger population to see themselves and their stories represented onstage, instead of being excluded or ignored, affirming a broader range of experiences. Programming that expands our recognition, acceptance, and sense of connection with the diversity of our community, as well as the world at large, is needed today, more than ever.

By providing post-play discussions which are both interactive and educational, Mirror Stage creates the opportunity to increase awareness and understanding of the complexity of contemporary issues-- such as racism, war, sexism in the workplace, capital punishment, immigration, the challenges faced by veterans returning stateside, environmentalism, religious intolerance, media images and body perception--and the far-reaching impact on the lives of us all.