BOSTON GLOBE: Thanksgiving: Above all, try to be present

C1 playwright Kirsten Greenidge just penned a wonderful opinion piece over at the Boston Globe.  The link to the article can be found HERE, or you can read the piece in its entirety below:

THANKSGIVING IS a peculiar holiday with a somewhat amorphous focal point. How many of us, in front of our friends and family, truly stop and say aloud what we are thankful for? Posting it on Facebook for a month beforehand does not count.

In any case, Thanksgiving, for those who celebrate it, can still be as joyful as a high school band marching past Macy’s — or as anxiety-inducing as driving to Logan to pick up your great-aunt Cora, who could never really tell you apart from your sisters. Uncle Phil always drinks too much, and cousin Pam should drink more, and it’s not going to be the same without Nana this year, so why bother? Where to go, who to invite, what to make? Not long ago at my children’s playground, I talked to a dad whose responsibility it is to bake the pies and cakes. Each year, he says, it scares the hell out of him.

I am the author of a play called “Splendor,” which was produced recently in Boston. It takes place over a few decades of Thanksgivings in a Massachusetts town like the one where I grew up. What draws me to the holiday is how it makes us see the intricacies and intimacies that make up a family. To me, Thanksgiving will always stir memories of ironing napkins for my mother the Wednesday before, and of seeing our counters covered with bags of flour and sugar, cans of cranberry sauce, piles of potatoes and celery stalks — ingredients so plentiful (even when we couldn’t really afford them) that we couldn’t fit them in the cupboard. My favorite part of the meal was dessert, because that’s when the women — my mother, my grandmother, my aunts — would finally relax. That is when I learned to listen, which was an invaluable part of my childhood.

Even if you are somewhat stripped bare emotionally, the holiday is, or can be, a day of repose. This is a luxury absent from our everyday lives. Rarely do we turn off our phones and turn to our friends, our neighbors, our children and say: I see you, I hear you. In this age of constant e-mail and tweeting, our workdays and our free time are not easily distinguishable. Despite the human cost, we are always open for business. Increasingly, that mindset is creeping into Thanksgiving, but not every family suffers equally.

In “Splendor,” the colorful character Gloria’s teenage daughter questions her whereabouts on Thanksgiving Eve. Gloria, a cashier at a grocery store, retorts, “I got the afternoon off, like the rest of regular people the day before Thanksgiving in these United States of America.” To Gloria, who’s used to working, being able to stay home on the eve of a holiday is a luxury afforded to others — presumably those whom our culture deems more deserving.

My husband works in the restaurant business, where holiday shifts are routine; someone has to work them, and it’s usually not the owner. For us, it is dismaying to read about the current trend in retail of opening for business on Thanksgiving, or at midnight the following day. An additional day of sales is paid for in the time lost with family or friends. That additional day is not made possible by a CEO graciously forgoing her turkey dinner so that we may all buy a new flat-screen TV. It is not made possible by a salaried manager choosing to work a little longer, and deciding to make up lost family time in other ways, while we elbow our way through the mall. Instead, these days are made possible by wage earners for whom a holiday shift is, in practice, hardly optional.

In the course of writing “Splendor,” I talked to a lot of people who shared moving and humorous stories about Thanksgiving in their families — recalling the magic the day held for them as children, or looking forward to handing the recipes and family gravy boats to the next generation.

To many of us consumers, that Thanksgiving night shopping trip might feel like the perfect antidote to unbearable family time. But there is something to be said for resisting the urge to shop and choosing to be present with our friends and family, if just for a short while.

Kirsten Greenidge is a Boston-area playwright.

BOSTON HERALD: Tight quarters in performing arts school

In this Boston Herald article, Erica Moura discusses the lack of space for classrooms, storage, and other necessities at Boston Arts Academy, the only high school in Boston dedicated to the visual and performing arts.  With 420 students, BAA has little room available for rehearsal space, classrooms, or the storage of arts equipment.  Read the article HERE.

KEVIN DEANE PARKER: Minimize Cost, Maximize Art

Company 1’s associate production manager Kevin Parker has himself a blog.

But beyond that, he wrote a highly entertaining and whip-smart post where he talks about theatre production “in terms of industrial engineering.”  Within the article, Parker discusses the fine line he walks as a production manager between helping to achieve art on stage and the costs required to do so.

Very enjoyable, and highly recommendable read can be found at the link HERE.

ArtsFwd: Accountability Through Experimentation

What if funders viewed experimentation as mandatory, and organizations were held accountable for being actively engaged in exploratory practices?

The sub-heading of this post by Alison Konecki poses an interesting question, one that she attempts to unpack over the course of the article.  She outlines the inherent challenge arts organizations have in embracing “innovation” in an economic landscape where donors want to see measurable outcomes for their limited resources.

Read the entire article HERE.

BAY STATE BANNER: Boston Entrepreneurs Discuss Challenges, Opportunities

While not applicable to the arts community or Boston’s theatre scene, this article written by Yawu Miller outlines the challenges that seven Boston-area entrepreneurs of color face in opening and running their businesses.

An interesting read, courtesy of the Bay State Banner.  Read the article HERE.

HOWLROUND: Latina/o Theatre Commons National Convening

This past weekend, Howlround hosted a conference of early, mid, and established-career latina/o theatre artists.  The event was hailed as the first large-scale formal gathering of the Latina/o theatre community since 1986.  The convening brought theatre artists of all persuasions to share ideas, entire event was chronicled on the Howlround website.  Boston wasn’t the only city that hosted this convening– there were myriad satellite convening sites in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York.  So it was truly a national event.

According to the program for the weekend, the purpose and outcomes of the event were as follows:

Vision: Our vision is to advance a Latina/o theater movement,
based in the philosophy of a commons.

Purpose: Our purpose is to create a Latina/o Theatre commons
that uplifts and energizes Latina/o theater-makers to connect,
collaborate, and create.

Big Objectives:
• Share and evolve our artistic, organizing, and institutional wisdom.
• Develop our voice and identify strategies to lift the power and
potential of Latina/o theater.
• Update the narrative.
• Optimize relationship building among Latina/o theater-makers to
seed a multitude of collaborations and strengthen our burgeoning
network.

Organizing Plan:
• To connect through conocimiento (building knowledge through
conversation).
• To share history, experience, and visions.
• To reveal current initiatives, organizing frameworks, and evolving
partnerships.
• To grow and strengthen existing and new relationships.
• To identify directions and strategies for action.
• To explore technology as a means to facilitate national conversation
both at the convening, and beyond.
• To articulate goals, make commitments, and create a plan of
action for moving forward together as a Latino/a Theatre
Commons.

Desired Outcomes:
• Personal leadership identity.
• Increased understanding of the philosophy of a commons.
• Increased understanding of the Latina/o theater field.
• Increased personal knowledge.
• Create new and stronger relationships.
• Create clear strategies, commitments, and an action plan.

The chronicle of the articles recapping the event can be found HERE.

A compilation of videos from the panels and sessions can be found HERE.

And finally, a Storify composite of the Twitter conversation (#cafeonda), can be found HERE.

TCG Circle: Diversity and Inclusion

Company 1’s very own Shawn LaCount and Summer Williams have been interviewed by Jacqueline Lawton for TCG’s Diversity and Inclusion series.

Read Shawn’s article A Colorful and Complicated World HERE, and Summer’s interview, Stop Talking at Start Doing HERE.

On the Eve of the Government Shutdown

In Washington, there is a gridlock over Obamacare, the universal healthcare plan that was passed along party lines in 2010.  Threats to shut down the government abound.

In an overview of what might happen to arts organizations should this shutdown occur, Kate Ostrander at Artsblog outlines what implications some of the shutdowns of the past have had on arts organizations.

The whole article, in its entirety, here:

Déjà vu: The Federal Government Standstill’s Implications on the Arts

It seems inevitable.  When U.S. Senators take to the Senate floor and immediately follow their words insisting they don’t support a federal government shutdown with, “but if it were to occur,” it conveys a sense of forecasted inevitability.

When Members of Congress note their shutdown “fatigue” but can’t seem to find any rest, and when a White House memorandum planning for a shutdown states that the “Administration does not want a lapse in appropriations to occur,” you know it is coming.  All the while, a real sadness and profound loss surrounds the work of our federal government that is idled, stalled, and delayed—with real implications, especially the longer it lasts without resolution.

The first “shutdown day” may prove similar to a “snow day” – an inconvenience, a loss of productivity, and maybe a respite.  But as it continues, here is how the social and economic impact through arts and cultural policy might be felt throughout the nation and in our local towns.

• During the federal shutdown in 1995, the vast majority of the staff members at the National Endowment for the Arts were sent home, leaving six staff on duty. This means that grants aren’t processed, programs and events are halted and NEA partners, including the 50 state arts agencies, are cut off from their primary federal cultural agency.
• Head Start, a federal program that promotes the school readiness of children ages birth to 5 from low-income families, is reliant on federal dollars.  Look for these programs to shut their doors on critical work incorporating arts education into early childhood development programs.
• The facilities of the Smithsonian Institution, including museums, and zoos will be closed every day the shutdown is in effect, inhibiting tourism, school trips, creative and innovativelearning opportunities, and ongoing preservation of arts and culture. According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) study of the last federal shutdown in 1995, closure of national museums and monuments resulted in a loss of 2 million visitors.
• All national parks will close, including the more than 40 Artist-in-Residence programs throughout the National Park Service system.  The world-renowned Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, although also supported through a private foundation, would likely need to shutter its federally-supported operations. In 1995 there were closures of 368 National Park Service sites—a loss of 7 million visitors and local communities near national parks lost an estimated $14.2 million per day in tourism revenues.
• Tourism and its associated economic driver and tax revenue generator will suffer. One measure of the loss to tourism is to expect visa processing delays. In 1995, 20,000-30,000 applications by foreigners for visas to come to this country went unprocessed each day and 200,000 U.S. applications for passports went unprocessed. Cultural centers receiving federal funds such as Wolf Trap and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (the nation’s busiest arts facility) could face partial closure.

This is just a brief outline of the consequences a federal government shutdown will have on the arts:  Another self-created crisis that unfortunately seems inevitable.

Please add your feedback and perspective regarding the impact to the arts and cultural community, should a shutdown occur.

Update: The White House has posted federal agency contingency plans here, including those for cultural agencies such as the NEA.

ArtsIndex Report: 2011

The Arts Index recently released its annual report which begins to show a full picture of the impact the Great Recession had on the arts.  2011, the nearest year where the financial numbers are available, was the lowest posted.  However, there still seems to be hope, as the drop from 2010 to 2011 was not nearly as precipitous as it had been in the years during and directly after the Great Recession.

The whole study can be downloaded HERE.

And a discussion of the Key Findings, can be viewed on the ArtsIndex website HERE.

TCG: Impact of the Federal Shutdown on the Arts

We are currently on day two of the United States government shutdown.  Laurie Baskin, TCG’s Director of Research, Policy & Collective Action, has compiled a list of the government agencies that have shut down and the impact these programs have on the arts in America.  The link to the article is HERE.

Or, read the entire article below…

As you know, because the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives were unable to reach a deal on funding federal government operations as the new fiscal year started today, the federal government was forced to shutdown for the first time in 17 years. We hope the stalemate is resolved quickly, and in the meanwhile, this is what we know:

National Endowment for the Arts (NEA): The agency is considered closed, with about half a dozen staff approved to hold down the fort. All other employees will be furloughed and most contractors must stop working while a shutdown continues. In most cases, current grantees can continue to expend funds they have already received but should not expect to receive payments during a shutdown. In the very unlikely event that a specific grantee’s work must be disrupted, grantees will be notified and given specific guidance by the NEA’s Grants Office. For more information, see the plan published by the NEA.

Visas for Foreign Guest Artists: If you are in the process of obtaining a visa for a foreign artist, plan for possible delays during the government shutdown. Obtaining a visa is a three part process, starting with approval of a petition by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), followed by processing of a visa application by the State Department at a U.S. Embassy or Consulate abroad, and completed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, on inspection and admission to the U.S.

• USCIS and Petitions:  On the plus side, because USCIS is a fee-based agency that, for the most part, does not depend on Congressional appropriations, USCIS has resources to continue processing visa petitions. However, given the strain of the government shutdown on overall infrastructure, delays are a real possibility.
• State Department and Visa Processing:  Again, the good news is that consular visa processing, too, is supported by fees, not appropriations. Many consular offices thus will continue conducting interviews and issuing visas, so long as their buildings can remain open. The longer the shutdown persists, the more likely it is that consular services will become unavailable. Visit the web site for a specific consulate to determine whether the location is in operation. One major unknown is the fate of any visa applications that might be delayed by “additional administrative processing,” meaning security-related concerns. A number of other U.S. agencies are involved in the clearance process and their ability to continue visa-related clearance operations is unclear.
• Arrival in the U.S.:  Customs and Border Protection officials are considered “essential” personnel.  Entry to the U.S. for visa holders should not be interrupted.

The Smithsonian, the National Gallery of Art and national parks are all closed during a federal government shutdown, which will, of course, have economic impact repercussions as tourism declines.

This is what we know as of today, and we will keep you posted as more information becomes available.