FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 1, 2019
CONTACTS: Gus Schulenburg | gschulenburg@tcg.org | 212-609-5941
TCG Awards Over $900,000 For Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants
New York, NY –Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for U.S. theatre, is pleased to announce the recipients of Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants. Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF), the nationally recognized program will award $75,000 or $150,000 to teams of three or more organizations to implement and refine ways to increase audience engagement and community development in theatre for young and multigenerational audiences. $750,000 will be awarded to six Cohort Grant projects representing 22 partnering organizations with an additional $187,500 for general operating support. To date, the Audience (R)Evolution program has awarded over $2.4 million to performing arts and community organizations through its grant-making, and has dedicated over $800,000 to support research, national convenings and dissemination of program findings.
“The inaugural round of Cohort grants showed the power of collective action, deepening participants’ relationships to their communities and fostering movement-building on a national scale,” said Teresa Eyring, executive director, TCG. “Thanks to renewed support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, we look forward to this next Cohort continuing that work through the lens of theatre for young and multigenerational audiences.”
The recipients of the second cycle of the Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants are:
African-American Shakespeare Company (San Francisco, CA); AfroSolo (San Francisco, CA); SFBATCO (San Francisco, CA); Cultural Odyssey (San Francisco, CA)
The AATAIN cohort (African-American Theater Alliance for Independence) will work as a collective to create experiences specifically designed for youth audience members of color within the San Francisco Bay Area community. The program will enlist a youth committee and set-up a structured season pass that will provide youth of varying ages with different opportunities to engage with theatre performances from four theatre companies in San Francisco Bay Area. Each theatre company has a different style and branding and will create different experiences as gateways to discovering exciting programs for youths of all ages as well as prototypes for models that can be replicated across the nation.
California Shakespeare Theater (Berkeley, CA); RYSE Youth Center (Richmond, CA); Allen Temple Arms (Oakland, CA)
California Shakespeare Theater will partner with RYSE Youth Center and Allen Temple Arms to conduct community-based intergenerational Story Circles contributing to Marcus Gardley’s new play, A Thousand Ships. The 1000 Ships Project will lift up the heroism of the women who, like Marcus’ grandmothers, moved across country to work in the Richmond Shipyards during WWII—crossing race and gender barriers, and sparking the region’s cultural transformation in the process. Throughout the project period, residents at Allen Temple Arms, a low-income senior housing residence, and interns participating in RYSE Youth Centers programming will participate in Story Circles together, develop their own personal artistic responses, and share out at events attended by all participants. Within the project period participants will also engage in audience development programming at California Shakespeare Theater, though the more significant presence of this project at the Theater will take place in 2020, when A Thousand Ships premieres.
COCA-Center of Creative Arts (St. Louis, MO); The Black Rep (University City, MO); Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis (St. Louis, MO)
COCA, The Black Rep, and Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis will launch a unique and robust multi-year collaboration specifically designed to expand the pipeline of opportunities, particularly for students of color, to thrive in the creative industry. This pilot program is designed as a highly-engaging and accessible youth development program built to inspire interest in technical theatre careers, teach practical skills, and provide opportunities for hands-on learning through internship experiences working backstage on both COCA and The Black Rep productions. High school students from around the region will have an opportunity to learn skills in stage management, costume design, makeup design, and set and prop design. These experiences will provide new pathways for potential employment in technical theatre as well as create an affinity for theatre at large, helping to build future audiences. As long-term, local employers of theatre technicians, both COCA and The Black Rep will also be training a more diverse pipeline for their own workforces.
Court Theatre (Chicago, IL); Illinois Humanities (Chicago, IL); Stony Island Arts Bank (Rebuild Foundation) (Chicago, IL); Chicago Public Library Foundation (Chicago, IL)
Cry Hallelujah: Ancient Greece, Gospel, and The Great Migration will build an audience of South Side residents through engagement around three Court productions. A robust series of community-based classes and conversations will invite residents to more fully engage with the plays by providing context and expanding upon their themes, informing the theatre’s approach to the plays. The plays include Oedipus Rex in winter 2019, The Gospel at Colonus in spring 2020, and Antigone in fall 2020. Court, IL Humanities, and two South Side library branches (Greater Grand Crossing and Hall) will begin community-based dialogues and activities starting in Summer 2019. The series encourages participants to relate the Oedipus Cycle to the experience of African Americans during the Great Migration, and to the history of Chicago’s South Side in the 20th and the early 21st Centuries. These programs will include five community-based courses (two for adults and three for youth), five sets of community book discussions, six sets of public discussions in libraries, two sets of youth panel discussions in churches, a music workshop, and two public panels. Admission to all events and plays will be free to participants, as will childcare, transportation, and meals.
Dallas Children's Theater (Dallas, TX); Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts (Dallas, TX); First Unitarian Church of Dallas (Dallas, TX)
The 2020 production of the new Bruce Coleman play, ANDI BOI, along with associated community-building activities, will address the many challenges and opportunities of transgender youth. With creative use of teen-focused social media channels, partner pre-show readings, and an online town hall, discussions after each performance, and follow-up learning and advocacy opportunities, this project’s goal is to build a community from a cross section of people who want to support teens and their parents in raising a collective voice that advocates understanding and acceptance of transgender youth. Furthermore, a detailed written, photographic, and video documentation package will support future productions and/or study of the issues in the play. As more and more brave young people come to terms with their gender identity and make their presence known, their stories need to be seen and heard as a vehicle to promote understanding and awareness. Yet the increasing visibility of transgender individuals has been accompanied by increasing anti-trans rhetoric and violence, including a heated school bathroom debate in Texas. Collaborative partners are Texas Instruments, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Southwest Airlines, and Capital One.
TeAda Productions (Santa Monica, CA); University of Hawai’i, Hawaiian Theatre Program (Honolulu, HI); Alliance for Drama Education - T-Shirt Theatre (Honolulu, HI); Lili'uokalani Trust (Honolulu, HI); Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (New York, NY)
This partnership will produce a series of convenings over 12 months with the aim to raise visibility and develop audiences for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander theater practitioners, artists, cross-sector partnerships, and to expand programming. Engagement strategies will be shared with partner organizations and attendees, connecting a broad sector of community groups that will bring diverse audiences to performances and high-quality artistic experiences directly to underserved communities, both in Hawai’i and nationally through targeted engagement. Cohort regional gatherings will connect youth theaters on continent and cohort activities will culminate at the 7th National Asian American Theater Conference and Festival (CONFEST) to be hosted at UHM’s Theater Department on ‘Oahu in June 2020 featuring over 500 intergenerational participants, 50+ local artists and 50+ community organizations. This community-based gathering will celebrate the vibrant cultural history of Native Hawaiian arts and the national field of Asian and Pacific Islander American theater. Fellowships will be offered to youth ambassadors who will be integrated into the regional convenings, the planning of CONFEST, and who will receive educational and professional development.
“The most successful audience engagement efforts are built on a foundation of authentic and meaningful relationships from which all parties might benefit,” said Maurine Knighton, program director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “TCG’s Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants help theaters move beyond their walls to connect with youth, families, and community-serving organizations. This funding will undoubtedly help participants not only grow their audiences, but also grow their contributions to the neighborhoods and communities they intend to benefit.”
To date, the Audience (R)Evolution program has supported two national and two regional learning convenings; an online Research & Resources Hub that includes newly updated case studies and research commissioned by AMS Planning & Research; a podcast series of American Theatre; and the publication of Audience (R)evolution: Dispatches from the Field, a collection of essays edited by Caridad Svich, with a foreword by Bill Rauch and Alison Carey from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, on how theatre practitioners think about and engage with audiences as well as define and explore sites for performance. In addition, the program has distributed over $2,000,000 in grants to 49 projects in 22 states across the country. Audience (R)Evolution supports risk-taking, reflection, experimentation, and collective action toward implementing new strategies that will help theatres sustain and grow attendance and demand. Learn more here.
The Audience (R)Evolution Cohort Grants panel included: Stan Foote, artistic director, Oregon Children's Theatre; Hallie Gordon, artistic producer at Steppenwolf Theatre and artistic director of Steppenwolf for Young Adults; Jane Jung, director of planning and operations, Ping Chong + Company; Dayron J. Miles, director of Public Works Dallas, Dallas Theater Center; Chandra Stephens-Albright, managing director, Kenny Leon's True Colors Theatre Company.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s mission is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Arts Program of DDCF focuses its support on contemporary dance, jazz and theatre artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. For more information, please visit ddcf.org.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG) exists to strengthen, nurture, and promote professional theatre in the U.S. and globally. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 700 Member Theatres and affiliate organizations and nearly 10,000 Individual Members. Through its Core Values of Activism, Artistry, Diversity, and Global Citizenship, TCG advances a better world for theatre and a better world because of theatre. TCG offers its members 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, approximately $2 million per year, 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 17 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. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its 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.www.tcg.org.