Theatre Communications Group

Our Mission

To strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre.

Over the last 45 years, TCG’s constituency has grown from a tiny network of groundbreaking theatres to over 460 members across the country, as well as over 17,000 individuals nationwide. Today, our programs further our core values of fostering connection, embracing diversity and supporting artistry in the American theatre. In all our endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of our member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field, and promote a larger public understanding of and appreciation for the theatre. TCG is led by executive director Teresa Eyring and is governed by a national board of directors representing the theatre field.

In 2005, TCG received the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in recognition of our impact on the national field. TCG and our member theatres are major contributors to the American theatre sector, which employs more than 113,000 artists, administrators and production staff, and produces over 172,000 performances each year, reaching 30 million people. The sector contributes over $1.6 billion annually to the U.S. economy.

Our Programs and Services

Increase the organizational efficiency of our member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of and appreciation for the theatre field.

Artistic Programs awards grants to theatres and theatre artists (approximately $3 million in 2005-2006), and offers career development programs for artists.

Management Programs provides professional development opportunities for theatre leaders through conferences and teleconferences, forums, publications, and workshops, as well as through industry research on the finances and practices of the American not-for-profit theatre.

Advocacy guides lobbying efforts and provides member theatres with timely alerts about legislative developments.

Publications produces American Theatre magazine, the ARTSEARCH employment bulletin, and publishes plays, translations and theatre reference books. TCG is the nation's largest not-for-profit publisher of dramatic literature, with ten Pulitzer-prize winning plays on our booklist.

Our Membership

TCG has more than 400 theatre members in 47 states, 17,000 individual members, 100 Trustee Leadership Network members and a growing number of University, Funder and Business Affiliates. TCG represents a wide array of institutional sizes and structures. Thirty-six percent of members have budgets under $500,000; 21% in the $500,000-1 million range; 25% in the $1-3 million range; 6% in the $3-5 million range; 8% in the $5-10 million range; and 4% have budgets in the $10 million or more range. Learn more.

Our Philosophy

TCG believes that our diversity as a field is our greatest strength. We celebrate differences in aesthetics, culture, organizational structure and geography. Indeed, we believe that every theatre makes a contribution to the greater field as a whole, that every performance expands the artistic vocabulary for us all, and that we all benefit from one another's presence.

Please consider joining us in our efforts by becoming a member of TCG. We welcome your response to our work and wish you much success in yours.

Our History

As regional theatres throughout America began to proliferate in the 1950s and '60s, W. McNeil Lowry, director of the Ford Foundation's Program in Humanities and Arts, noted a lack of communication and cooperation that seemed to impede the movement's growth. Lowry convened a group of theatre professionals and educators to discuss the possibility of a central office that could be run by representatives from the field. In 1961, the Ford Foundation set aside $244,000 over a four-year period to meet this goal, and Theatre Communications Group was established. It was originally headquartered in Pittsburgh, under the administrative and financial supervision of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and Pat Brown, the founding artistic director of Magnolia Theatre in Long Beach, CA served as director.

Over its first decade, TCG was led by Michael Mabry, Joseph Zeigler and Hartney Arthur. In 1972 Lowry asked Peter Zeisler, co-founder of Minneapolis's Guthrie Theater and founder of the League of Resident Theatres, who had been serving as president of TCG's board of directors, to become executive director. Zeisler remained in that post for 23 years and under his leadership, along with that of deputy director Lindy Zesch, many of TCG's current programs and services were created, including the American Arts Alliance, TCG Books and American Theatre magazine.

Zeisler retired in 1995, and John Sullivan served as executive director until 1997. Ben Cameron was executive director from 1998 to 2006, serving with managing director Joan Channick. In 1999 TCG became the U.S. Center of UNESCO's International Theatre Institute. The organization was the recipient of a 2005 Tony Honor for Excellence in Theatre.

More on the regional theatre's history and TCG can be found in the DVD series Preserving the Legacy, available from TCG Books.

Back to top