Like the theatres we serve, TCG received a crash course in the art of the pivot this year. As the needs of theatres and theatre-makers have changed this year, so has TCG – but our commitment to providing low-cost opportunities and timely resources to the theatre field remains. Here are a few of our favorite TCG memories from 2020:
Weeks before the pandemic forced theatres around the country to go dark and in-person gatherings to be cancelled, TCG hosted our annual OUR STORES Gala, honoring the National Black Theatre Festival and Tony Award Winning playwright, David Henry Hwang. We also gathered for a TCG Books event, co-produced by the Vilcek Foundation, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director Nilo Cruz, in a reading and discussion of his latest work, Exquisite Agony.
As the COVID-19 crisis began to hit the United States, TCG organized quickly to produce a series of pandemic preparedness webinars in early March and April, helping our members navigate new CDC guidelines and the CARES Act. Through our ongoing federal advocacy efforts, TCG Action Alerts have generated over 11,400 constituent emails to Capitol Hill since March, advocating for additional relief for the theatre sector.
(Right: David Henry Hwang at the 2020 OUR STORES Gala, Photo by Ryan Bourque)
Due to the pandemic and the economic crisis it spurred in our field, TCG made the values-based decision to automatically renew Member Theatres, regardless of their ability to pay membership dues. In an effort to harness peer-to-peer support during this challenging time, we introduced free weekly Zoom calls bringing leaders from theatres with similar budgets together for connection and conversation. To get involved with these discussions, please contact director of membership, Jen Cleary.
In March, AmericanTheatre.org began publishing the first Dispatches from Quarantine, of which there are now nearly 40 entries to date. Later in the year, we kicked off bi-weekly AT: Offscript conversations featuring the AT Editors and special guests on Facebook Live. In the fall, we produced our first virtual AT Live: Artist Activist Table Talk in conjunction with the special magazine issue on trans and gender non-conforming theatre artists and their challenges and triumphs in the field. (Above: Merrique Jenson, Nyla Foster, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, and Lila Star Escada from AT Live: Artist Activist Table Talk)
With in-person gatherings no longer being possible, TCG instead convened the field in our first ever, two-part Virtual National Conference - Re: Emergence. This free-to-attend conference brought together over 2,000 theatre professionals from all over the world - making it our largest national conference to date. But the online learning didn’t stop in June! We produced a series of Summer Remote Learning Sessions, offering skills-building work for development and management professionals, as well as an introduction to the growing use of actual reality and virtual reality in theatre.
(Above: Aleshea Harris and Whitney White from their plenary conversation at Re:Emergence.)
In the midst of on-going uprisings across the country protesting the unequal treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color at the hands of the U.S. criminal justice system, TCG has doubled down our anti-racism work. In response to the #WeSeeYou White American Theatre Demands released this summer, we launched the White Theatre-makers Acting On BIPOC Demands Affinity Space which has met regularly since September to discuss and respond to the demands. To join these discussions, please contact director of communications, Corinna Schulenburg.
In October, we announced that our online job database, ARTSEARCH, would now be free & equitable for all. Most recently, in December, we partnered with TheFrontOffice to create the Freelancers Relief Fund: Theatre Designers , which is distributing 45x $1,000 rapid response grants to scenic, lighting, costume, sound and projection designers right now.
Throughout it all, TCG Books has continued its commitment to bringing new literary voices to public attention, and cultivating career-long relationships that keep playwrights in print. Among the near-dozen titles published this year were A Strange Loop, the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Michael R. Jackson, and Adrienne Kennedy’s first new work in over a decade, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box and Other Plays.
We closed the programmatic year with our virtual Fall Forum: A Just and Thriving Theatre Ecology, asking and answering as a community the question: "What do we mean by Just and Thriving?". This is a question near and dear to our hearts at TCG, because it speaks to perhaps the biggest TCG news of the year: our strategic plan and new mission.
When TCG began our strategic planning process with Yancey Consulting late last year, we had no idea the end product would be forged in the fires of a global pandemic and an uprising against white supremacy. As we interrogated what our vision of “a better world for theatre and a better world because of theatre” means now, we fortified and clarified TCG’s mission: to lead for a just and thriving theatre ecology.
In 2021, TCG will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of our founding, and we have big birthday aspirations – but with so much uncertainty still ahead, it’s hard to guess what we’ll be recapping this time next year. One thing is certain: with this new mission at the center, 2021 is shaping up to be an even brighter year.
Help build next year’s TCG memories by donating today: https://www.tcg.org/AboutUs/DonateNow.aspx
(Below: the TCG Staff at our annual Holiday Party)
