September 2006 Field Letter
Written on August 15, 2006
Dear Colleagues,
Is it possible a month has flown by since my arrival at TCG? So the calendar says or I'd scarcely believe it. The last few weeks have been an experience of total immersion—working with TCG's great staff and many programs. I loved the staff meeting on my first morning in the office highlighted by reports from every department relating the plethora of projects underway. And I was fortunate to benefit from Joan Channick's wisdom and counsel prior to her departure for her new job as managing director of Long Wharf Theatre. Every day has been invigorating, and as you know, time flies when you're having fun.
Let me begin by telling you a little about recent and upcoming TCG events and news of interest. Expanding the Theatre Manager's Repertoire, TCG and Target Corporation's human resources training program tailored for theatre managers, was held in early August in Detroit and was once again filled to capacity. Led by Target's senior training consultant, the delightful Robbin Walker, the program explores management principles, or, in the words of TCG's director of management programs Chris Shuff, what it takes to be a true leader. The response from those in attendance has been terrific.
The following week TCG convened a working group of theatre educators in support of our new education initiative, Building a National TEAM: Theatre Education Assessment Models. As is widely recognized, the need for national models of program-specific assessment and evaluation for theatre educators has become increasingly urgent as more funders and schools require quantitative measurements of a program's success. Though a number of theatres have developed sophisticated tools and structures to assess student success, there is little consistency across the field and best practices are evolving quickly. The TEAM project, created with ASSITEJ/USA, will create 10–12 national models for program evaluation and student assessment and provide rubrics for teaching artists to use nationwide. The models will be adaptable to the needs of both TCG and ASSITEJ members that together reach over 8.6 million theatregoers in America each year. The TEAM project will also provide a professional training session to help education directors implement the program. The session is planned as a pre-conference preceding the 2007 TCG National Conference in the Twin Cities in June. We encourage theatres across the country to plan for their education directors to be in attendance to learn about the new assessment models and to participate in project training.
And mark your calendar for two other important fall events. October 19, 2006, will mark the second year of Free Night of Theater, TCG's groundbreaking program to attract new audiences to the theatre. During its pilot year, theatres in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Austin opened their doors to new audiences for free. By the Free Night date, 8,000 tickets to 170 performances by 152 companies were given away in the three cities. The Bay Area program, analyzed by Mark Shugoll of Shugoll Research, was by any measurement an impressive success with 98% of participants confirming that they intend to take advantage of Free Night of Theater 2006. Within the first hour of the campaign, Theatre Bay Area's ticketing website attracted over 100,000 hits. Of the participants, 69% attended a theatre they had not visited previously, and 26% of those attendees returned to purchase tickets at the same theatre within the next nine months. Equally encouraging, a significant number of participants fell into non-traditional categories, and fully 85% of those attending Free Night have attended theatre since the program. The 2005 three-city pilot program will expand this October to fifteen communities. Most Free Night events will be jointly presented by TCG and a local or regional theatre service organization. In some instances, a local government or even an individual theatre is sponsoring the local program with TCG. And some communities, like Atlanta and Seattle, are using the event to anchor week-long city-wide celebrations of theatre or the arts. The national debut of Free Night of Theater, planned for 2007, may be not only the most ambitious audience development program created within the theatre community, but also the program with the most exciting potential to build audiences and expand awareness and appreciation of theatre.
Free Night of Theater 2006 will be followed several weeks later by TCG's annual Fall Forum on November 10–12 in New York City. The Fall Forum brings artistic and management leaders together with trustees for an in-depth discussion of producing and governance issues. This year the programming will center around artistic work with a particular focus on adaptation and design. As a centerpiece for discussion, Forum participants will see Martha Clarke's new work Kaos opening at New York Theatre Workshop. We look forward to an outstanding roster of plenary speakers including Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center; Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater; and Liz Lerman, founding artistic director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Registration materials were emailed to member theatres in mid-August and are available online. We hope you and trustees from your theatre will plan to join us for what promises to be a compelling, exciting gathering.
Those of you who spent last month at your desk rather than in the sun may already have heard that TCG's director of artistic programs, Emilya Cachapero, has assumed additional duties as director of the U. S. Center of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), succeeding Joan Channick who served as director of ITI since 2001. Emilya will oversee TCG's international programs, serve on ITI's executive council and represent TCG on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. Her international credentials are extensive and she brings a wealth of knowledge about the national theatre community to her new role.
TCG's search process to identify its next executive director is now well underway. The search committee, composed of current and former board members and chaired by Timothy Shields, managing director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, is working closely with Greg Kandel of Management Consultants for the Arts (MCA), who is conducting the search. The position profile is available on both TCG's and MCA's websites. TCG and its Board of Directors invite applications from qualified candidates interested in leading TCG and the national field into the next decade. The interview and selection process will take place over the next few months and the new executive director may be named by the end of the year.
As TCG began its search process, the NEA announced Bill O'Brien, managing director and producer of Deaf West Theatre, as its new director of theatre and musical theatre. An actor, singer and arts advocate as well as a manager and producer, Bill brings a wealth of skills to the position and I'm confident will represent the theatre and musical theatre fields with distinction. I first met Bill several years ago through his work with the National Alliance for Musical Theatre and was immediately impressed by the breadth of his vision. It was also a pleasure to watch his easy and graceful performance as Mark Twain in Deaf West's acclaimed production of Big River. I know he will value, as I did, the remarkable opportunity afforded by the Endowment to serve the field and bring theatre into people's lives across the country. Congratulations, Bill!
I attended my first American Arts Alliance Board meeting in Washington shortly after my arrival at TCG. With support for the Endowment's budget as it moves through Congress at the top of the agenda, it was a fascinating and illuminating experience to be sitting on the other side. The meeting also included discussion of disaster relief resources for performing arts institutions with a particular focus on efforts to amend a FEMA statute that precludes not-for-profit performing arts institutions from eligibility for relief. Happily, only days later, the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee approved an amendment that would in the future qualify not-for-profit performing arts organizations for FEMA funds. The bill may move to the Senate floor this month, but the House has not yet passed a comparable bill.
After eleven years in Washington and with family and friends still there, I'm currently commuting between New York and D.C. It's glorious to be in New York again, my home for many years before leaving to go to the National Endowment, and I'm looking forward to seeing much more work here over the coming season, in particular the many outstanding smaller companies that have emerged in recent years. But I'd like to take this unique opportunity to send a valentine of thanks and appreciation to the Washington, DC, region's vibrant, creative and increasingly exciting theatre community. Of course, thanks to Zelda Fichandler and Arena Stage, Washington has long held a special place in our national theatrical iconography. When I arrived in 1995, a host of terrific theatres were producing lively work—among them the Shakespeare Theatre, Studio Theatre, the Folger, GALA Hispanic Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, the African Continuum Theatre Company, Signature Theatre, Ford's Theatre, Round House Theatre, Theater J, and the Olney Theatre Center as well as a constellation of smaller, emerging companies. However, over the last ten years, I've watched with delight as a notable evolution occurred in the maturity, level of work and ambition of the Washington theatre community as a whole.
Somewhere along the way a new energy and excitement took hold and began to gather strength almost imperceptibly. Observers began to note an increase in the amount of new work and experimentation. Over time the number of small and alternative companies grew and the work became increasingly diverse. The Kennedy Center expanded its theatre and musical theatre programming, contributing a catalytic energy. For the last year or two, a new energy and sense of self confidence has been almost palpable and impossible to ignore.
The expansion and deepening of the artistic work in Washington has been accompanied by a dramatic wave of facility construction and renovation. A number of new theatres have opened and others are planned or under construction. The Studio Theatre, once a lonely anchor on a devastated street, is now producing in an inventive, beautifully designed four-theatre complex. GALA Hispanic Theatre is now at home in the historic, spacious and beautifully renovated Tivoli Theater. Woolly Mammoth moved this past season to its first permanent home—a 265-seat courtyard-style theatre in downtown D.C. that is as inviting to audiences as it is to new work. Round House Theatre now operates two theatres—an engaging new theatre for mainstage work in Bethesda, MD, and a second stage experimental space with a decidedly off-off Broadway feel in nearby Silver Spring. Arena Stage is preparing to begin construction of a new facility designed by Bing Thom to house its three theatres in Southwest Washington. The Olney has been recently refurbished with a new high-tech theatre with 429 seats arranged stadium-style, while Signature Theatre, long in residence in a warehouse space, will open next season in a sparkling new facility in neighboring Shirlington. And the Shakespeare Theatre's plans call for the addition of a second theatre with 776 seats to house both their own work and that of other Washington-based performing arts organizations in need of midsized venues.
But it's the work that counts, and I saw some wonderful productions at these and other theatres in the Washington area in recent months. Taken together they convey something of the range and variety available within the universe of city theatres today. At Arena, I had the pleasure of watching Molly Smith welcome Zelda Fichandler back to direct Awake and Sing, Odets' touching, searing vision of the American dream, with Robert Prosky heading the cast. At Woolly Mammoth, I saw the work of one of our finest young playwrights, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, directed by one of our best young directors, Rebecca Bayla Taichman. The Velvet Sky combines the real and surreal to tell a story about parents and children in the context of today's world. GALA Hispanic Theatre presented a little known Lope de Vega farce relating the adventures of a master trickster. At Theater J, Ari Roth produced Ariel Dorfman's prismatic Picasso's Closet, in which the playwright challenged himself to write a theatrical piece that incorporated Picasso's own aesthetics.
At Ford's Theatre I saw Trying by Joanna McClelland Glass about the final year in the life of Francis Biddle, beautifully performed by James Whitmore and Karron Graves as well as Shenandoah, a timely examination of war, directed by Jeff Calhoun. Signature Theatre presented a conceptually fascinating revival of Sondheim's Assassins under the hand of Joe Calarco, in which the direction and design combined to focus our attention not only on the assassins but on our own struggle for the American dream. Produced with the assistance of its fund for new American plays, the Kennedy Center presented Steppenwolf Theatre Company's production of Don DeLillo's Love-Lies-Bleeding, a meditation on life and the end of life as objects of our own creation. And new theatrical energy in the community was powerfully represented by Synetic Theater and Theater J's movement-based adaptation of The Dybbuk directed by Paata Tsikurishvili and choreographed and performed by Irina Tsikurishvili.
The synergy and artistry of Washington theatres will be on vivid display in 2007 when its stages are given over to a community-wide festival of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-inspired productions. More than 40 arts organizations from Washington and around the world will come together for Shakespeare in Washington, conceived by Michael Kaiser. Under the aegis of the Kennedy Center and the curation of Michael Kahn, the collaborative initiative will showcase a theatrical community come of age that is now one of the liveliest in the country. In the past, many artists worked in D.C. prior to moving on to New York or elsewhere. Now, more and more frequently, artists are choosing to move to Washington to build a career—just as the visionaries of the regional theatre movement had imagined four short decades ago.
Moving beyond the beltway, several signal events occurred around the country this summer. Asian American theatre artists gathered in Los Angeles in June for "Next Big Bang: The Explosion of Asian American Theatre." Hosted by East West Players, the three-day conference united the field's visionary leaders and artists with a new generation of practitioners. Sessions focused on cultural mapping, visioning Asian-American theatre in the 21st Century, how Asian-American cultural production can connect to larger global movements of social change and a consideration of who's talking and who's listening among the many voices of Asian America. The conference will be followed by a national festival next June in New York to be hosted by Pan Asian Rep and Ma-Yi Theatre Company.
From August 4–20, the Goodman Theatre hosted the third Latino Theatre Festival, expanded this year in both physical and artistic scope. Curated by festival director Henry Godinez, the festival featured U.S. Latino playwrights as well as international companies. Also included were panels on new Latino plays and playwrights, and on Latino theatre around the world, as well as a reading of The Crossing, the true story of 18 undocumented Mexicans who suffocated in a boxcar and the one young man who survived. The reading was followed by a town hall-style discussion about U.S. immigration policies.
By all accounts both "Next Big Bang" and the Latino Theatre Festival generated tremendous energy for the future.
June 25th was a momentous day that resonated throughout Minneapolis and the national theatre community as the Guthrie Theater celebrated the opening of its dramatic new building for the next millennium. David Hawkanson, a Duluth native who returned to serve as managing director of the Guthrie from 1996 to 2001, described the significance of the event: "Theatre put Minneapolis on the map post-WWII—a theatre company did it—and became an international force. Now once again the Guthrie will be contributing to the revival of Minnesota and the river and spearheading the energy of the city to move the community forward." The opening events were a grand celebration of the Guthrie's history with many of its family of artists and founders present. Among the guests were the family of Peter Zeisler, former executive director of TCG and the Guthrie's founding managing director and producer; George Grizzard, the Guthrie's original Hamlet; and Len Cariou and Helen Carey, long-time members of the Guthrie company.
In July, LMDA (Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America) held its annual conference in Minneapolis, hosted by the Guthrie, with sessions covering dramaturg/board relationships, funding and international projects. The conference was scheduled to coincide with the Playwrights Center's PlayLabs new play festival.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company recently concluded its 30th anniversary season, consisting entirely of world premieres, with its second First Look Festival of New Works showcasing three plays by women playwrights in rotating rep, as well as readings and special events focusing on new work.
As I am writing, the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) in Portland, OR is in the midst of "TBA:06," its ambitious time-based arts festival described as "a mix of community, challenging art and full-out fun".
And finally, TCG is delighted by the success of J.T. Rogers' play The Overwhelming, which recently premiered at the National Theatre in London, directed by Max Stafford-Clark. The playwright, the recipient of an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights award, developed The Overwhelming during a residency at the Salt Lake Acting Company.
There's so much to celebrate and the season hasn't even begun! What a remarkable and fortunate thing it is to know that invigorating debate, delight and spiritual balm are as close as a theatre down the road.
But I can't conclude this letter without a word about other realities, ones that pain the heart. News came this week of the loss of Larry Sacharow—until his death, theatre department chair at Fordham University and a major contributor to off-off Broadway and the development of new work. Please read the upcoming article about his life and work in American Theatre. For those of you who weren't fortunate enough to know him, this was a brilliant, good and gentle man.
There are moments when it's hard to reconcile these sunny, gentle days of August with the sorrow of troubled times around the world. The impending anniversary of September 11 lingers in the mind as we contemplate a global era of complexity, uncertainty and struggle. One thing, however, is certain—the way forward will require tolerance, empathy, understanding and courage—each at the heart of theatre. With hopes of peace for all, and with appreciation of the light you bestow in good times and bad, I'll close this missive.
I've followed Ben Cameron's lead in other ways, but had not anticipated drafting an epistle of some length. Count on less to strain the eye in the future. I hope you've had a chance for a little well-earned rest before beginning what I know will be a rich and rewarding '06-'07 season!
Best regards,
Gigi Bolt
Interim Executive Director