“This feels like a really hostile environment”: Accusations of racism at Theatre Deli
Nathan Geering, former co-artistic director at Theatre Deli, accuses organisation of “nuanced, institutional racism”.
When Nathan Geering was recruited as Theatre Deli’s co-artistic director, he was excited at the opportunity for marginalised and under-represented communities in Sheffield to be represented. He wanted to change the fact that many communities in the city do not feel welcome or safe in artistic spaces and “redefine what an artistic director should be”. He aimed to be more available and forward-facing, and he won an award for impressive work on disabled access.
So many people were shocked when, on 31 May, Nathan resigned from his role citing “nuanced institutional racism” within Theatre Deli. He has received support from organisations like our team here at Opus, as well as Migration Matters Festival, and Sheffield Culture Consortium.
Councillor Abtisam Mohamed also expressed her solidarity with Geering, saying:
In a conversation with Now Then, Nathan describes experiencing racism “literally from day one”, with “an almost hostile reception, lukewarm at the very, very, very best” from some of his new colleagues. Over time, he struggled to get help from the team at Theatre Deli, with technical support not being arranged or provided for performances and events he was running. This led to his first flagship event being accompanied by his portable sound system rather than the professional equipment the Theatre normally used.
Geering believes that some people did not want to be managed by a person of colour, and that other colleagues did not take his complaints about the lack of technical provision or support seriously.
Nathan says he continued to be blanked when he greeted one colleague and he feels that that person’s actions were rewarded rather than addressed by the organisation. When he suggested using Theatre Deli’s grievance procedure, Nathan tells Now Then that he was discouraged from doing so in favour of settling things “at an informal level”.
The lack of support within the organisation continued, Nathan alleges. Essential equipment was not ordered in time, sabotaging a second project of Geering’s, and staff time was not provided when it was promised on other occasions, getting in the way of a third vital Theatre Deli project.
This started to have a significant impact on Nathan’s mental health, he tells me:
He repeatedly impresses on me that the nuanced nature of these experiences makes them very hard to prove and very hard to address.
When Nathan was later told that his line management responsibilities were being taken away from him, he tells me it was argued that this was so that he could focus on artistic visioning, which at first sounded reasonable to him. Looking back, however, it has taken on a more sinister tone to him.
Despite having a role as co-artistic director of both Theatre Deli’s Sheffield and London venues, Nathan reports that he also stopped being consulted about events that were happening in London.
The combination of these occurrences led him to wonder whether he was being treated as more of a figurehead than a true co-artistic director. The build-up of events led to a meeting where Geering ultimately broke down in tears:
In response, he was told that he was shouting - a charge often thrown at people of colour when they are, as he relates it, “speaking passionately”.
As a commissioner for the Race Equality Commission, Geering knew that he could have reported the organisation to them and he brought this up in the meeting in question. He says he was accused of threatening them, something he disputes. He offered to write an anti-racism policy for the organisation that would centre the voices and expertise of people of colour, where people accused of racism wouldn’t go up against a panel of white people without the lived experience that is so vital in assessing such situations.
It got to the point where people of colour attending a Theatre Deli event complained that a member of staff was “disinterested, quite rude and negative towards the Black audience that was there” and other staff members who were people of colour made the same allegations. He explains:
Nathan also had concerns about his hours and his pay. While contracted to work 2.5 days a week, in reality he says he frequently worked full-time hours and felt undervalued. The other co-artistic director left the role because his acting career was taking off, so Nathan was hopeful that he could take on the role full-time, or for four days a week on the condition that a disabled person was hired for the fifth day. Instead, his hours were increased to three days a week.
A further niggling concern for Nathan was that he felt that Theatre Deli were “citing my awards and all the work that I've done with regards to accessibility. They were happy to cite those awards [in funding applications] but they weren't willing to pay me a full-time wage.”
Ultimately, Geering felt undervalued. He felt like there was an undercurrent of institutional racism within Theatre Deli, and he felt he was working within a hostile team. He was torn when writing the anti-racism policy that his colleagues had promised to look at, because “how can I try and employ people of colour at senior management level in an organisation that I felt was already displaying nuanced, institutionalised racism? How can I invite somebody else into that trauma?”
His appeal for more hours was turned down and he handed in his resignation, at which point Geering says that Theatre Deli offered him the opportunity for a grievance procedure. He felt it was too late and that such a procedure was doomed to fail:
David Ralf, CEO and Executive Director for Theatre Deli, told Now Then:
Nathan tells me that he is sceptical of the suggestion that the problem was one of his competence, asking, “why is it then that I'm good enough to do it part-time, but not full-time?”, suggesting also that he could have been offered further training if his skills were lacking.
And Theatre Deli told Now Then:
Councillor Mohamed expresses concerns about this response, saying:
The experience has left Nathan, he says, with trauma (“and I don’t use that word lightly”). He now wants to see a future where funding goes to people and groups with lived experiences.