Art & Soul Consulting Introduces New Standards for Textured Hair in Media Production

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May 29, 2026 American Theatre Editors Leave a comment

Art & Soul Consulting Defines Hair Leads With Texture Ready

The first production-side standard for hair in theatre, film, and TV aims to address gaps in standards for treating textured hair with productions that have no hair lead, or unqualified hair leads.

By American Theatre Editors

BOSTON: Art & Soul Consulting has launched Texture Ready, the first production-level competency and readiness standard for texture hair across theatre, film, television, and commercial work. This standard is intended to address gaps when productions have no hair lead or have a hair lead who is not qualified across every hair type, by defining a credentialed hair lead.

“For years, the conversation has stopped at the stylist,” said Art & Soul Consulting founder Kira Troilo said in a statement. “Texture Ready moves it where it needed to go all along, into the production itself. Until hair has a seat at the leadership table, performers will keep paying the price for what no one was responsible for.”

Texture Ready states that a hair lead is the production team role with the same scope of authority as the head of lighting, costume, sound, or cinematography, and qualified across all hair types. The Hair Lead owns scope, budget, timeline, crisis management, and the communication bridge between performer, stylist, and production. The Hair Lead does not perform hands-on services. Hands-on work is referred to qualified stylists, who are vetted by the Hair Lead and treated as professional collaborators.

When productions don’t have a qualified hair lead, or no hair lead at all, the task of working with textured hair often gets left to the performer to manage on top of their job. “This pattern does not exist in any other production department,” Texture Ready representatives said in a statement. “No production hires a lighting designer who handles lighting for some performers but sends the rest outside the building. No production hires a costume designer who fits some performers and tells the others to bring their own clothes. Hair is the only department in which some performers, almost always Black performers and performers of color, are routinely treated as outside the scope of the role.”

They argued that the contractual urgency is unavoidable. A 2023 SAG-AFTRA agreement introduced reimbursement provisions for hair and makeup services using the term “ qualified “ without defining it. This left productions, performers, agents, and attorneys to interpret that gap on shoot day. A recent discrimination lawsuit against American Repertory Theater additionally illustrated the cost of that ambiguity. An unqualified staff member was assigned to braid a Black performer’s hair, with no intake, no consent process, no escalation pathway, and permanent damage to the performer.

“This is not just an added, nice-to-have thing for productions. It’s critically necessary, and easier and more practical to implement than I would have thought,” said Maggie Inc. owner Robert Casey in a statement.

The standard launches following the first Texture Ready Cohort, a private convening of 25 industry leaders held on April 28. Attendees included casting directors, talent agents, producers, employment attorneys, stage managers, union representatives, and a member of the Actors’ Equity Association Eastern Council. The room rated the session 9.7 out of 10 and validated that the standard is overdue.

Texture Ready is currently in active deployment at Umbrella Stage Company ‘s production of Hairspray , which opened April 24. The first published Texture Ready™ case study will follow by the end of May. The standard is also being added to the Actors’ Equity Association employer resources page . Productions and organizations can engage Art & Soul through the public Texture Ready cohort (next convening dates are June 24, July 1, and July 8); private institutional cohorts scoped for a single team or peer group; the Texture Readiness Diagnostic and Toolkit; and Texture Ready implementation coaching. Pricing and details can be found at textureready.com .

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American Repertory Theater Art and Soul Consulting hair lead Kira Troilo Texture Ready

_Originally reported by [American Theatre](https://www.americantheatre.org/2026/05/29/art-soul-consulting-defines-hair-leads-with-texture-ready/)._