Narratives, Practices, and People will guide TCG’s work and lay the groundwork for field-wide innovation and impact.

New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, has announced new strategic visioning that will focus its work in the years ahead, grounded in three core approaches: Narratives, Practices, and People. Developed in partnership with Creative Evolutions, these approaches reflect TCG’s evolving role as a field-wide connector and catalyst, positioning the organization to more intentionally support a theatre ecology that is just and thriving.

 

At the heart of this visioning is a clearer articulation of TCG’s role in an evolving theatre landscape. “TCG’s role is to care for the theatre ecology as a whole. To do this, we must understand deeply how it functions, nurture its growth by investing in the full field through its people, and work through relationships and coalition-building to engage the wider world that both shapes and is shaped by theatre and theatre makers,” said Alisha Tonsic, Co-Executive Director of National Operations and Business Development at TCG.

 

These approaches will serve as the primary lenses through which TCG designs and delivers its programs, partnerships, products, and field-wide initiatives.

 

 

 

This strategic direction will begin to take form at TCG’s 2026 National Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where the organization will introduce a multi-year leading-edge initiative designed to translate these approaches into field-facing action.

 

With a focus on innovation priorities and emerging practices the initiative will include learning labs and related activities that explore artistic process, test new and hybrid business models, and generate practical frameworks and case studies that can be adapted across theatres of varying sizes and missions. The initiative aims to strengthen both artistic and organizational sustainability across the ecology.

 

As an early example of this work and as part of a broader commitment to advancing actionable innovation across the field, TCG is exploring new ways of gathering, including a partnership with Creative Evolutions on its MOMENTUM Rolling Convening. Launching at TCG’s 2026 National Conference, MOMENTUM will continue as a series of two-day convenings this Summer and Fall centered around expanding choices for nonprofit board structures and governance models beyond traditional approaches.

 

With events at university host sites in four regions, MOMENTUM will provide an activation space for ideas surfaced during TCG’s conference and carried forward from prior events such as the 2025 Fall Forum. The events will bring theatre leaders, practitioners, trustees, funders, and artists together alongside other innovative systems thinkers from the broader arts and culture, education, civic, commercial, and creative sectors to drive cross-industry and cross-sector dialogue, moving these ideas to their next stage of development and advancing practices that can be tested, refined, shared, and activated across the theatre ecology. 

 

Over the next year, TCG will share additional details and opportunities for engagement, with milestones to deepen field connection, surface new ideas, and demonstrate tangible impact.

 

 

For 65 years now, TCG has worked to strengthen the national theatre community. This next phase builds on this legacy while responding to a rapidly shifting cultural, economic, political, and social landscape. By visioning forward through Narratives, Practices, and People, TCG hopes to continue its history as a convener of the theatre ecology while growing its role as a cultivator of conditions that allow theatre to thrive.

 

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Co-Executive Directors, Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson, and Alisha Tonsic.