The School of Medicine Office for Diversity and Inclusion will present Theater Delta on Tuesday, April 3, from 3-5 p.m. at the Edge of Chaos. Delta Theater uses improvisation and audience participation to illustrate how unconscious bias can creep into our daily lives and decision-making. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with and challenge the characters after the performance.
The event is free and open to anyone connected with the School of Medicine. Dr. Victor Darley-Usmar, who organized the presentation, is excited about its potential to help attendees begin to recognize their own unconscious biases. “I encourage everyone to attend, but members of recruitment and search committees will especially benefit from the knowledge shared. Come to this surprising performance and see how your views can change after witnessing unconscious bias from the outside,” he said.
Lyn Dickinson, Executive Director of Theater Delta, shared that her team is eager to return to the UAB campus for another performance; they have previously presented variations of their show to other UAB departments. The 90-minute interactive theater experience is very unique. It is like a conversational workshop and a theater presentation combined. Attendees will experience a hyper realistic exploration of implicit bias—most specifically in relation to hiring faculty members.
“I’m excited to see the ways in which Theater Delta engages the crucial and timely topic of unconscious bias,” said Mona Fouad, MD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Medicine. “Theater can provide new mechanisms for understanding our culture and ourselves, and this is an opportunity for each of us to examine the problem of bias in a different way.”
Theater Delta was formed in 2009 with the purpose of fostering dialogue and implementing solutions that result in palpable change in communities around the globe.
For more information, please contact Dr. Victor Darley-Usmar at vdarleyusmar@uabmc.com.