Building on its successful 10 years of Vermont Pride Theater, Chandler Center for the Arts will reinvent our LGBTQ-themed festival to include all contemporary Social Justice Issues. The Vermont Social Justice Festival (VSJF) will include multiple performing arts events each year: theatrical productions, musical performers, a film screening series, artist residencies, community art-ins, and many advocacy/collaboration components and prompts focusing on social justice.

Social Justice is a term that has risen in importance in the past decade, as it serves to unite all those in the struggle for equality in our society. Social Justice advocacy and art-making contain the premise that everyone deserves equal opportunity in education, health care, career advancement, and income. It also emphasizes that issues such as the climate crisis since a climate in chaos disproportionately affects poor and marginalized communities.

Some themes that VSJF will explore are: Poverty and the growing Income Gap; Racial Injustice, the BLM movement; Native American/First Nation Rights and Sovereignty; Gender Equality and Women's Rights; Food Insecurity; Gun Violence; Immigration Reform and Refugee Rights; LGBTQ ongoing struggles; Anti-Semitism and Hate crimes, Lack of Healthcare Access; Voting Rights and the Preservation of Democracy; Educational Access and Reform, the social/economic impact of the Climate Crisis.