The Green Room
Research shows that 77% of actors and 85% of stage management professionals experience loneliness.
To help address this, Actors’ Trust have partnered with Riptide to introduce The Green Room – a new initiative designed to help actors and stage management professionals build meaningful connections with others in the industry.
What is The Green Room?
Built on research from the Centre for Loneliness Studies at Sheffield Hallam University, The Green Room pairs participants in anonymous one-to-one WhatsApp conversations over a two-week period. Pairs are based on shared interests and values, creating opportunities for genuine connection and mutual support.
The Green Room is about connecting actors and stage management from across the country. Our main aim is to combat isolation, to give people a space to connect and have meaningful interactions with strangers.
We understand that this experience is predicated on how another person chooses to act. With that in mind, please act with care and compassion!
Who is The Green Room for?
The programme is open to all professional actors and stage managers in the UK, regardless of financial circumstances. Loneliness can affect anyone, which is why participation is fully-subsidised and accessible.
Each round of the programme will welcome up to 100 participants, with the first cohort due to begin on 25 November.
To participate, you must:
Be aged 18 or older
Currently live in the UK
What are the ground rules?
Respect others.
Do not share information about your partner with anyone else.
Be mindful. Although we are encouraging connection with a stranger, it is your responsibility to safeguard yourself.
Participants must be 18 years or older.
Abusive or offensive behaviour will not be tolerated and anyone who does experience this can contact Actors’ Trust directly at: support@theactorstrust.org.uk or the Riptide mobile number you receive on Day One for support.
We also ask that you respect Actors’ Trust’s Working With Us Policy.
WhatsApp must be used and participants must hide/change their name and profile picture to keep their anonymity.
FAQs
Actors’ Trust fully subsidises the cost of the Green Room, so there is no fee required to participate.
We have created this experience in good faith, and we are relying on participants to self-police and buy into the shared ground rules and terms and conditions at all times.
On the very rare occasion participants want to stop the experience they will be talked through the blocking process by us.
Riptide are one text or call away from stepping in an helping with whatever your problem might be.
You will receive Riptide’s number on day one of the experience.
You can also email Actors’ Trust directly on: support@actorstrust.org.uk
You are paired based on your questionnaire answers. Participants fill in a pre-experience questionnaire.
We pair you based on how you answer these questions. The method takes into account your preferences for your partner, your reasons for signing up and your shared values and beliefs and shared interests and hobbies.
Yes. Although this is not guaranteed and you won’t know if you have received your preference.
You won’t be able to choose a specific person, but you can choose to be paired with someone with a specific characteristic, for example, someone of the same or different gender.
During the first half of the experience, you will not know anything about your partner.
Everybody participating in the experience will be an actor or stage manager, who has signed up to connect with a stranger.
None of the responses you receive are scripted or from us as a company.
We will ask you for your name, UK phone number, availability and preferences. We will also ask you to complete a questionnaire when you sign up, which we will use to enhance your experience. This questionnaire takes roughly 10 minutes to complete.
The only information we will share with your partner is your phone number. They will need that to make contact with you. We do not want this experience to be about your name, age, gender or appearance.
The answers you give us in the pre-experience questionnaire will be for Riptide only. We use the answers to pair you with the right partner.
Riptide may prompt participants to share some information as the experience progresses.
In the meantime, it is up to you what name to save their number under!
No, The Green Room is about exploring connections with others, it is about combating loneliness and isolation in a world where we are increasingly apart from each other.
To put it plainly, we ask participants to find a platonic connection.
This has happened when we paired two best friends together (shows that our pairing system works at least!)
If you happen to be paired with someone you know and would prefer to be paired with a stranger, please text The Green Room number, and we will look to re-pair you.
This experience will last two weeks. You will be notified of your partner’s number on day one with instructions (around midday).
You will then continue to receive instructions daily throughout the experience.
Riptide will prompt you to contact your partner once per day, although if both participants agree you can have contact more or less often.
All interaction times will vary depending on the availability you set out in your questionnaire response. We will do our best to pair you with someone who has similar availability to you.
There are no specific trigger warnings for the experience, but we would point out that you are agreeing to listen to details about a stranger’s life. We cannot predict what you will both talk about (and that is part of the beauty of this experience).
We would ask participants to think before sharing potentially triggering material.
Riptide will prompt participants by WhatsApp. This will be the form of communication we will start with. You may decide together that another form of communication is preferable over this, and that is fine.
Please contact the Riptide phone number to tell us why you are unhappy.
You can also contact the Actors’ Trust team via support@actorstrust.org.uk.
We will try our best to accommodate your request to find another partner, although this cannot be guaranteed.
Yes, if both participants are willing. We created this project for people to find new friends and connections that they might never have found otherwise.
Many of our previous participants still continue to talk and meet up with each other in person.
Yes, there is nothing stopping people from continuing their connections after the two-week period. And many pairs do. Connection is the aim, after all!
There is a handover done by us to signal the end of the experience.
Please note that participants will no longer receive prompts from Riptide and will be fully responsible for their interactions. It is your decision whether you wish to remain in contact with your partner, and Actors’ Trust is not responsible for the content of any interactions during or following the experience.
Yes and no. Riptide aim to curate the conversations participants will have, we have modelled this on scientific research done into how we make connections with strangers. All participants will receive WhatsApp messages with conversation starters and prompts.
But we will not be in the chat with you so how you answer and whether you discuss things not on the prompts are entirely up to you.
Your data will be stored for the duration of the project on a password-protected Google Spreadsheet, both for the safety and enhancement of the experience.
Your name, email address, and contact preferences (such as if you wish to receive a newsletter) will be shared with Actors’ Trust.
Your data will not be shared with any third-party organisations and will be used strictly for this experience alone. We will delete your data after the dates of your project.
Please complete this questionnaire to sign-up. Spaces are limited, and sign-ups will close at 5pm on Monday 23rd November, if we do not reach capacity before then.