Actors' Equity Association
LORT and NEAT agreements
Services that may alter or harm hair or skin require a licensed and qualified technician, and the theatre pays for color and style changes, their upkeep, and restoration.
The Textured Hair Safety Standard for Stage & Screen
Is your production
Texture Ready™?
Textured hair protections are already in your union agreements. Texture Ready™ helps production teams build the competence, capacity, and infrastructure to deliver them and support performers safely across every hair texture.
Now scoping 2026–27 productions and 2027 seasons
Proven on Hairspray at Umbrella Arts: 25 performers, every hair type, no incident. The best-selling production in the theater's history to date. See the case study →
Black Hair Is Hair · Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge · 2023
The problem
Qualified isn't a person.
It's a production.
You can hire a talented hair professional and still fail. Not because of who is in the chair. Because of what the production did not plan around them.
When any of these are missing, the gap lands on the performer.
- No time in the schedule
- No budget for maintenance
- No performer intake before design decisions
- No way to verify the expertise you actually need
- No plan for understudies and replacements
- No escalation path when something goes wrong
Texture Ready™ moves that work back where it belongs: into the production. See the standard →
The contract-to-production gap
The agreement can set the obligation.
It can't run Tuesday.
Hair protections are written into the agreements most productions already work under. Reading them is the first step. Meeting them takes a system.
SAG-AFTRA
TV/Theatrical and Commercials
Reimbursement, a paid minimum, and consultation for performers who source their own hair and makeup, through June 30, 2030. The word they use: "qualified." Still undefined.
AGMA
Opera and dance employer agreements
Set company by company: hair and makeup handled with awareness of hair color and type, overseen by staff experienced with various hair textures, and grooming changes reimbursed.
Somebody still has to operationalize it.
- Who verifies the technician is qualified?
- When does performer consultation happen?
- Where is consent documented?
- How much time and money go into the production budget?
- Who holds maintenance?
- What happens when casting changes?
- What's the escalation path when the plan isn't working?
- Who knows these lines exist before something breaks?
What production ready looks like
Hairspray at Umbrella Arts.
25 performers. Multiple textures, styles, maintenance needs, and production variables. 30 to 40 hours of design, consultation, fitting, and run support across rehearsal and tech. The first production to run the Texture Ready™ system start to finish.
25 performers.
No incident.
Every hair type, planned before the first hair call
Best-selling
production.
In the theater's history to date · Umbrella Arts
Want this on your next production?
Scope your production →The Standard
Hair is a production department.
Not a specialty. Not an afterthought.
Like lighting. Like costume. Like sound. Every other department has a lead, a budget, a timeline, and documented protocols. Hair doesn't, and the labor falls on Black performers and performers of color to fill that gap.
Texture Ready™ is the Textured Hair Standard for Stage & Screen. A specialist can't produce documented consent, a budget line, a maintenance schedule, or an escalation pathway. The standard builds the infrastructure so textured hair is planned for before the first rehearsal, before casting is complete, before tech week.
A production is Texture Ready™ when the system works. Not when one exceptional person made it work. The system has six domains.
Six domains. One standard:
LiteracyUnderstand textured hair well enough to make responsible production decisions.
FluencyHave the language, and the real costs and feasibility, to communicate clearly with performers and professionals.
ArchitecturePut the real time, labor, products, maintenance, expertise, and vendor pathways into the budget and the schedule.
ConsentLearn what performers need early enough for that information to shape the plan, and document it.
CareCommunication and collaboration that puts performers in chairs, not in the position of educating their own production.
EscalationKnow who holds maintenance and what happens when the plan isn't working, before the first rehearsal.
The differentiator
Without the standard.
With it.
Without the standard
Hair is a side problem.
- Costume designer or ASM informally inherits hair work mid-rehearsal
- Hair budget is leftover from costume. Eaten by week 2
- Performers buy their own products and arrive early to maintain styles
- No intake, no documented consent, no record if something breaks
- The hair obligations in your agreements have no one responsible for them. Nobody reads those lines until something breaks
- "Just let us know" is the escalation plan. There is no plan.
- Performers stay quiet because there are no solutions in place
With the standard
Hair is a department.
- A qualified Hair Lead is named before casting closes
- Hair budget is built before the cast is set, sized for all hair types
- Maintenance time lives on the call sheet, paid and accounted for
- Intake, consent, and escalation are documented before the first hair call
- Contract obligations are known, assigned, and met before first rehearsal
- An escalation pathway is known by every performer at first rehearsal
- Performers perform. The production carries the labor.
"We have costume designers. We have sound and lighting. Hair should be a design too."
Who this is for
Three ways in.
Producing Organizations
Theater. Opera. Film. Television. Commercial work.
You are casting diversely, your agreements already carry hair obligations, and no one on your team is watching for either. The labor is landing on performers and there is no documentation if something goes wrong.
Unions & Industry Organizations
Field staff, members, employers, and industry leaders.
The people enforcing or supporting the standard need the vocabulary and a practical framework to recognize problems earlier, before they become grievances.
Conservatories & Training Programs
Teach the production standard before it has to be unlearned.
Their first job will hand them obligations nobody taught them to meet, and the performers they work with will absorb the gap.
Performer? This standard exists to protect you. Before you sign, you have the right to ask if a production is Texture Ready™. We built the questions for you.
5 Questions to Ask →The Path
How organizations move
through the standard.
1
Train
Your Hair Lead and the people around them train on the standard and earn the Texture Ready™ Standard Credential. They return with the language, knowledge, and authority to lead the work.
2
Equip
We build your production's system with your team: custom toolkit, intake and consent, budget, vendor pathways, escalation. Then we hand it over.
3
Your team runs it
The system is yours. Your Hair Lead leads the work, your production carries the standard, and it travels to every show after this one. We coach. Your team executes. No permanent middleman.
Two ways to get Texture Ready™
Train your people.
Equip your production.
Two parts, one standard. Your people, trained. Your production, built. We coach, your team executes.
Train
Texture Ready™
See the six domains →
Texture Ready™
Cohorts
Train Your People
6 hours. 6 domains. A credential your people carry forward. For producers, general managers, production and stage managers, costume, wig, and hair leadership, faculty, union staff, and the people responsible for making the work possible.
What's included
- The complete curriculum across six competency domains: Literacy, Fluency, Architecture, Consent, Care, Escalation
- Delivered as three 2-hour virtual sessions, two 3-hour sessions, or 1 full in-person day
- Content tailored to your roster, your agreements, and your productions
- Texture Ready™ Standard Credential, valid two years
- Available for institutions, peer organization groups, and pre-production teams
Public Cohort
Now enrollingFor individual professionals who want to learn the Texture Ready™ Standard and earn the credential.
$997/person
Mondays · Nov 30, Dec 7, Dec 14, 2026 · 1:00–3:00 PM EST
Limited to 25 seats
Massachusetts employer? You may be reimbursed up to 100%. See Express funding →
Private Cohort
For organizations that want the cohort delivered for their own team.
$8,500
Bring Training to Your Organization
Equip
Production Readiness
Scope Your Production
What the system includes →
Production Readiness
Engagement
Build Your Production System
We build the infrastructure your production keeps, with your team. Built once. Owned by your organization. Reused production after production.
What's included
- A scoping assessment of your production against the six domains
- Your custom toolkit: performer intake and consent, per-performer hair plans, budget reserve and line build, vendor pathway, scheduling and staffing, dressing room standard, continuity log, escalation card and pathway, post-run debrief
- Three sessions with your team: intake, check-in, handoff
- Film, TV, and commercial configured for that cadence, with documentation suitable for legal and HR sign-off
Investment · Theater
Tier 1 · Emerging (under $250K)
$9,000 to $11,000
Tier 2 · Established ($250K to $750K)
$13,000 to $16,000
Tier 3 · Flagship ($750K+)
From $18,000
Production budget thresholds. Film, TV, and commercial are always scoped to your production.
Train + Equip
Need both? That's the Full Standard.
Your team learns the standard while we build the system underneath it, sequenced so your trained team runs the system you build together. It is the fastest path to Texture Ready™ Equipped, the organizational mark, which requires both the build and trained people on staff. From $19,500 at Tier 2 and from $24,500 at Tier 3, below the cost of buying the two separately. Emerging productions can scope Train and Equip individually.
Theater pricing scales with production budget. Film, TV, and commercial are always scoped in a discovery call. Need to bring this to your organization? The one-page overview and internal case are here.
For Conservatories & Brands
Beyond the single production.
Texture Ready™ in the curriculum.
For conservatories training the next generation before they graduate, and brands funding access to the standard across the field.
The Conservatory Standard
Faculty Cohort, $8,500. The Private Cohort, delivered for your faculty and production staff. Same standard, same credential, no education discount.
Conservatory Embedment, $22,500 per year. Two-year minimum. Faculty Cohort in year one, curriculum integration into existing coursework, advisory on two student productions per year, and a graduating pathway that leaves students credential-eligible. Capped at three partners through 2027.
Brand & Sponsorship Partnership
For brands funding access: sponsored training, full Equip engagements for productions that cannot afford them, or sponsored cohorts that open the standard to practitioners across the field. Specification is merit-based; brands cannot buy default placement.
From the cohorts
Three cohorts in.
The room keeps agreeing.
Cohort 1 convened in April 2026: producers, casting directors, agents, employment attorneys, union leaders, theater critics, conservatory leaders, and performers. Cohort 2 followed in June and July. In September, Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston University hosted our first in-person cohort. Here is what the rooms said.
25
Industry Leaders
Convened in Cohort 1
Convened in Cohort 1
9.7/10
Cohort 1 Average Rating
From Feedback Respondents
From Feedback Respondents
8
Sectors Represented
Theater · Film · Casting · Education · Legal · Union · Press · Tech
Theater · Film · Casting · Education · Legal · Union · Press · Tech
The Cohort 2 Room · June & July 2026
Commonwealth Shakespeare Company · Stratford Festival · IATSE Local 798 leadership · professional freelance Hair Leads and stylists
"This is not just an added, nice-to-have thing for productions, but actually critically necessary, and easier and more practical to implement than I would have thought."
"Texture Ready™ has shown the skills and experience needed to move things forward in the entertainment space. These conversations have gone in circles for years. It's great to see an executable framework and a standard."
"There is so much I need to understand, and Kira's presentation was an honest, knowledgeable, and passionate way for me to learn about this important topic that affects so many actors in our community."
"The level of intention required is important, but it is not hard if people do just a little of the work they would do for anything else critical to a production."
"The shift is action. It's encouraging and empowering to witness the work happening for textured hair. It's not just a conversation."
"I'm much more tuned into nuanced issues around Black hair, and how NOT mainstreamed this topic is, but how 'othered' it is."
About Kira
Built from what performers
said they needed.
Kira Troilo is the founder of Texture Ready™ and the architect of the standard. It grew from research with Black artists about their experiences with hair on stage and set, and from years inside production rooms where performers were routinely asked to absorb labor the production had never planned.
In 2023, the Black Hair Is Hair workshop gathered Boston regional theater leaders for a single afternoon. That afternoon became an eBook. The eBook became a toolkit. The toolkit became a standard.
She's led hair departments herself, most recently as Hair Lead on Hairspray at The Umbrella Arts Center, the production that tested every piece of this system start to finish. The conclusion wasn't find nicer people. It was build a better production.
Read the field notes →2023 Workshop"Black Hair Is Hair." Boston regional theater leaders, Multicultural Arts Center
2024 eBookBlack Hair on Stage. Practical guide adopted by theaters and conservatories
2026 StandardTexture Ready™, the Textured Hair Standard for Stage & Screen
May 2026American Theatre Magazine. National feature on the Texture Ready™ standard
April to July 2026Cohorts 1 & 2. Producers, unions, conservatories, and casting trained to the standard
PressThe Boston Globe. "Prevention is not mysterious. It's operational."
September 2026Wheelock Family Theatre at Boston University. First in-person cohort
October 2026Lincoln Center Day of Learning. "Textured Hair Is a Safety Issue"
Live EngagementUmbrella Arts · Hairspray (case study)
Build it before you need it
Tell us where your production is.
We'll tell you what's missing.
If you're planning a season, a production, a training program, or an industry initiative, one scoping call determines what is already in place, what's missing, and the right level of support. Bring your agreements, your cast size, and your current hair plan (or the honest absence of one).
Scope Your Production →
30 minutes with the Texture Ready™ team. You leave with the gaps named and a scoped path to close them. Not sure where to start? Bring what you have.
Ready to join the next cohort?
Fall 2026 Public Cohort
The complete Texture Ready™ curriculum, open to individual participants.
$997/person
Register for the Fall 2026 Public Cohort →Training your team this season?
Private cohorts. Custom-scheduled.
The full curriculum, delivered exclusively for your organization: three 2-hour virtual sessions, two 3-hour sessions, or 1 full in-person day, scheduled around your production calendar. $8,500 for up to 10 people, $750 per additional seat.
Bring training to your organization →Can't make the fall cohort?
Join the list for future public, sponsored, and partner cohorts. Plus contract updates, new Field Notes, and new Texture Ready™ resources.
Notify Me About Future Cohorts →Questions answered
Before you book.
What do our union agreements actually require around hair?
More than most productions have read. The AEA LORT and NEAT agreements require a licensed and qualified technician for services that may alter or harm hair or skin, with notice or mutual agreement, and consultation on upkeep. The SAG-AFTRA hair and makeup equity provisions, carried into the ratified 2026 TV/Theatrical agreement through 2030, add reimbursement and consultation for performers who source their own hair services and use "qualified" without defining it. The 2025 Commercials contracts require producers to make reasonable efforts to connect performers with the qualified stylist for consulting before the first work day. AGMA employer agreements increasingly require awareness of hair texture and experienced oversight.
Reading the lines is not the same as being able to meet them. That is the gap Texture Ready™ closes: Train builds the knowledge. Equip builds the system. Read the current protections in plain language, then bring your agreements to a scoping call.
Our season is already underway. Is it too late?
No. The best time is before the season budget is locked, so hair gets planned as a department. The second-best time is now. A mid-season Equip engagement is built around your production calendar instead of ahead of it, and the system you leave with runs on every production after this one.
For 2027 seasons: scope now, train and build before first rehearsal, and your team runs the system from day one.
What is the difference between Train, Equip, and the Full Standard?
Train is the Texture Ready™ Cohort. Individuals can join a Public Cohort for $997/person, delivered as 3 live 2-hour virtual sessions. Organizations can book a Private Cohort for $8,500 for up to 10 people, with additional seats available. Both use the same 6-domain curriculum, assessment, and Texture Ready™ Standard Credential.
Equip is the build, in three sessions with your team: an intake that scores your current state against the six domains, a mid-build check-in, and a handoff where every artifact is walked through and an implementation plan is signed. The toolkit (intake and consent, hair plans, budget reserve and line build, vendor pathway, scheduling and staffing, dressing room standard, continuity log, escalation card and pathway, post-run debrief) is yours and runs on every production after. Theater pricing: Tier 1 (production budget under $250K) $9,000 to $11,000; Tier 2 ($250K to $750K) $13,000 to $16,000; Tier 3 ($750K+) from $18,000, scoped. Film, TV, and commercial are always scoped.
The Full Standard is both together, sequenced so your trained team runs the system you build together: from $19,500 at Tier 2, scoped from $24,500 at Tier 3. It costs more than either floor because it is both offers: at Tier 2, bought separately, Train plus Equip runs $21,500 or more.
A core principle across all three: we coach, your team executes. We are not the labor in the room, and you do not need us there once the system is yours.
What is the credential, and what does it actually mean?
The Texture Ready™ Standard Credential is issued to individuals who complete the full curriculum and the assessment. Holders are Texture Ready™ Credential Holders. It is a defined professional standard, not a certificate of attendance, built around six named competency domains: Literacy, Fluency, Architecture, Consent, Care, and Escalation. The credential is valid for two years, with a renewal pathway in the third year.
It is the language productions can use to say: this person has been trained to the standard. Where an agreement uses "qualified" without defining it, the credential is the answer a production can point to.
The credential verifies completion of the curriculum and demonstrated knowledge across the six domains. It does not independently certify hands-on hairstyling proficiency, and it is not meant to. The credential travels with the individual. It does not, on its own, make any production Equipped. Organizations earn a separate mark, Texture Ready™ Equipped.
What is Texture Ready™ Equipped?
It is the organizational mark. The Standard Credential is held by people. Equipped is held by organizations, and it says your production has both the system and the trained staff to run it. Equip alone does not earn it. A system nobody on staff is trained to run is not a system, so the mark requires both the build and the people.
Six requirements: completion of Equip or the Full Standard, an accepted toolkit and implementation plan, a named internal system lead, at least 2 active Texture Ready™ Credential Holders on staff (1 minimum for organizations under 10 staff), a published scope, and annual attestation with a full review every 2 years.
I'm a stylist. Can I get the credential?
Yes. Hair professionals and other individual industry practitioners can now enroll directly in a Texture Ready™ Public Cohort. The fall cohort is $997/person and includes the same curriculum, assessment, and credential as the Private Cohort.
The credential verifies the Texture Ready™ production-environment competencies. It does not certify hands-on styling proficiency.
Sponsored seats and sponsored cohorts may also be offered separately.
Is there sponsored or funded access?
Yes. Brand and institutional sponsors fund access across the standard: sponsored training for teams that could not otherwise afford it, full Equip engagements for emerging productions, and sponsored cohorts that open the standard to practitioners. If your organization wants the work and the budget is the barrier, email us with a short note about who you are and we will tell you honestly what is possible.
Do you work outside the Boston / Providence region?
Yes. Public Cohorts are virtual and open beyond the Boston / Providence region. Private Cohorts can also be delivered virtually for distributed teams. Equip engagements are delivered remotely with the option of in-person presence for tech week, production meetings, or pre-production planning.
Build it before you need it.
Tell us where your production is and we will tell you where the gaps are, including the ones already written into your agreements.
Questions? hello@textureready.com
Need to make the case internally? Bring Texture Ready™ to your organization →