As part of a long weekend of community engagement, TCG Staff, Board and National Council members traveled to San Diego CA for a weekend of events and performance. We partnered with The Old Globe to bring together theatre leaders, trustees and artists from throughout the city and surrounding area, and celebrated all that has come out of TCG's 2014 National Conference in San Diego. Adrian outlined what is up next for TCG, and Barry Edelstein and Timothy Shields offered their view of San Diego theatre today.
We then opened the floor to a "Town Hall" discussion on the challenges and opportunities facing the community, and how TCG can help. With over a dozen theatres and numerous education and industry affiliates in attendance, TCG was thrilled to have this opportunity to (re)connect with San Diego's vibrant theatre community, and reflect on where we were and where we're going as a local and international theatre field.
Below are the notes from that discussion:
Community Engagement and Collaboration
- San Diego is a vibrant theatre community that is generously supported by an active philanthropic sector. Theatres of all sizes offer enormous range and cross pollination. Many present felt that this was a moment where San Diego stories are coming to the stages, and that the community is an active partner in what is being created.
- Representatives from member theatres discussed intergenerational arts engagement programs for seniors and students, prisoners, the homeless, the military, new writers and previously untold stories, culturally specific and over-the-border work.
- Some named the importance of building sustainable relationships between large, well-funded institutions and smaller organizations’ bourgeoning new work, finding collaborative ways of sharing resources, and training smaller organizations to be more sustainable.
- Others discussed the importance of programming as a vital educational tool in communities, specifically in building empathy and battling discrimination and a marked rise in anti-Semitism.
Communication and Criticism
- Many expressed the importance of communicating the value of theatre and the public good it provides to San Diego, and finding the best way to make that case. In an attention economy, a major challenge is getting people to notice theatre, and articulating the value it has to the public.
- Arts coverage is vital to the health of our theatre ecology, and as arts journalism continues to be a challenge facing many communities, San Diego still has a full-time theatre critic. Preserving a steady voice of critical review in the community gets the word out about productions and helps the public form opinions about what we do.
- TCG has prioritized ensuring the vitality of arts journalism, both through highlighting exceptional journalism in American Theatre magazine and creating dedicated spaces for journalists in our grantmaking and convenings.
Climate Change
- Integrating green policies and practices into our organizations is a common concern in San Diego and beyond.
- At TCG, we have implemented staff ‘no waste’ days each week, and included an exploration of theatre in the era of climate change in the 2019 National Conference in Miami.
Living Wage & Work-Life Balance
- Students are entering the workforce with a lot of debt. Larger institutional theatres are for the most part able to pay people well, while smaller theatres face more challenges. Further, many in the industry work long hours, sometimes in unhealthy work environments. Sometimes it’s just about making work-life balance a priority, but it’s an ongoing conversation.
- TCG has created dedicated spaces for both gathering staff input on work-life balance and implementing strategies in response. These spaces help maintain an ongoing conversation, and include a staff work group and regular anonymous staff surveys.
Youth Programming and Partnership
- The group discussed shifting ticket buying patterns and the difficulty in successfully getting individuals to purchase subscriptions or individual tickets in advance. Many named the importance of engaging young people as serious partners in the art, and getting children excited about theatre from a young age through TYA, in-school and community programs.
- TCG continues to develop resources surrounding audience engagement and multi-generational programming, including our Audience (R)Evolution resources, our recent Theatre for Young Audiences post-Conference in Miami, and coverage in American Theatre magazine.
While there, we also took in five productions at local theatres, went on backstage tours of the Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse campus', connected with many local theatre-makers and trustees, celebrated with our National Council members based in San Diego, and fed the giraffes at the San Diego Zoo! We're so thankful to those who traveled with us on this journey West, and the brilliant San Diego/La Jolla theatre community for being such gracious, fabulous hosts all weekend.