Tag Archives: community

Link Roundup! – 7/8/16

Link Roundups feature articles and bits of internet goodness that our dramaturgy team digs up. If you find something you want to send our way, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter!

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Photo Chapman’s Homer, Christchurch by Duncan C, published on Flickr, Creative Commons License.***

Photo Chapman’s Homer, Christchurch by Duncan C, published on Flickr, Creative Commons License.***

ArtsJournal has a piece examining the difference between community and consumers when it comes to the arts:

…I argue that in the US arts and culture sector we have for too long ignored or denied the costs of so-called progress in the arts–meaning, for instance, the costs of professionalization, growth, and the adoption of orthodox marketing practices including so-called customer relationship management and I suggest five ways that arts organizations may need to adapt their philosophies and practices in relationship to their communities if their goal is deeper, more meaningful engagement.

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A post on Bitter Gertrude looks at the recent controversy at Profiles Theatre in Chicago and offers some suggestions for how to stop the cycle of abuse in the theatre industry:

Pay close attention to the behavior of the people you have on staff. People will not always be brave enough to come forward about bad behavior. Sometimes people gaslight victims by claiming that the abuse is “just the way he is,” “not a big deal,” or “just because he’s a genius and passionate about his work.” Victims begin to second-guess themselves and worry about the consequences of coming forward when others are minimizing or excusing bad behavior. There could easily be problems, even abuse, in your house without anyone coming forward to tell you about them directly.

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Link Roundup – 11/6/15

Link Roundups feature articles and bits of internet goodness that our dramaturgy team digs up. If you find something you want to send our way, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter!

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Photograph: Mark Douet

Photograph: Mark Douet

The Guardian has an article asking organizations to consider how they impact the local communities that don’t necessarily see their work:

Every theatregoer has an example of a play that changed their life to a greater or lesser extent. However, the real question I reckon theatres need to ask themselves is not whether what they do impacts on those who go to their shows but whether what goes on in their building really has a significant impact for those who have never stepped inside it? This is not about an individual’s response and relationship to a particular show in a particular building, but about a play and a venue’s relationship to the community at large.

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The LA Times has a story summing up the recent stats surrounding theatre donors and attendance:

Theaters are making adjustments by trying new approaches, she said, including more emphasis on shows geared toward children and parents.

The report said that productions for young audiences were “a bright spot” in which attendance grew 12.9% between 2010 and 2014. But childrens’ series accounted for just 3% of total attendance at the 118 theaters surveyed over the five years.

“More theaters would benefit from producing high-quality programming for multigenerational audiences,” Eyring said. “Not only because the numbers tend to be on the rise, but it’s a way of engaging the next generation of theatergoers.”

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Community Partnerships Between Arts & Non-Arts Organizations

We’ve been researching a metric ton of literature on community/arts partnerships for the last few weeks, and we think we’ve finally found some good material.

Here are two reports.

The first one is called Arts & Non-Arts Partnerships: Opportunities, Challenges, and Strategies.
It addresses:
– Mutual Benefits of Community Partnerships
– The Connections of Non-arts Organizations to the Arts
– Partnership Assets Can Also Be Liabilities
– Understanding the Risks
– Types of Partnership Risks

The second item is Partnership as an Art Form: What Works and What Doesn’t in Nonprofit Arts Partnerships. We recommend in particular the section called “Part I: How to Think About Partnerships,” and can be found on numbered pages 9-12 (pages 10-13 of the pdf file).

These readings provide some background to the how and why of arts & community partnerships, and can lend guidance on how theatres might think about possible collaborations for individual plays, or season initiatives.