Nonprofit Theatres Research Articles

Financial Implications of Engagement Between Higher Education Institutions and Professional Nonprofit Theatres in New England

Financial Implications of Engagement Between Higher Education Institutions and Professional Nonprofit Theatres in New England

Outlander Theatre Project: Creating a Non-Profit Theatre Based on Presenting Politically, Socially, and Culturally Diverse Stories

This project illustrates the creation of the Outlander Theatre Company and its inaugural production of Twilight: Los Angeles 1992. Specifically, I document the introduction of the Outlander Theatre Company, the process of creating the production, the obstacles present in the process, and finally the plan for the theatre moving forward. Through this experience, I developed a greater understanding of the idea of building a strong foundation of diversity in theatre, often calledd "power equity," and of how it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in the theatre—all with the ultimate goal of allowing for diverse artists to control the narrative of BIPOC stories being told in theatre today. Finally, I address the statistics of BIPOC theatre professionals in theatre today and how we must address creating true diversity in theatre moving forward.
 

Where do the lines blur Exploring the separation between non-profit and for-profit theatre organisations in India

Where do the lines blur Exploring the separation between non-profit and for-profit theatre organisations in India

Young, Bubbly, and Black: The Affective Performance of Black Girlhood in Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin

In 1999, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin by Kirsten Childs premiered at Playwrights Horizons, a non-profit theatre company in New York City, starring future Tony Award winner LaChanz...

ПЕРВЫЕ РЕГИОНАЛЬНЫЕ ТЕАТРЫ США КАК АЛЬТЕРНАТИВА БРОДВЕЙСКОМУ КОММЕРЦИАЛИЗМУ

The article aims to draw attention to the problem of the emergence and development of creative troupes of a new type. Non-profit theatres became noticeable to the public after a ten-year dominance of Broadway productions played on stages of American the ater. Contrary to Broadway and its commercialism non-profit theatres turned to art, becoming its alternative. The venues mostly performed musicals, uncomplicated comedies, musical shows. Huge halls, high ticket prices led to the fact that the theatre turned to a major business. The desire of theatrical figures to realize their creative powers in the art theatre led many of them to the idea of creating their own companies in opposition to the Broadway theatre in many regions of the United States. It was the nascence of the movement of non-profit theatres that became an alternate to Broadway commercialism, attracted all the new creative forces of the American theatre. Analyzing the activities of number of non-profit theatres such as Cleveland Playhouse, Arena Stage, Alley Theater, the conclusion was made that they all played an important role in the development of the movement of the regional theatres of the United States. The famous “Arena Stage” Theatre, like other regional theaters, developed traditions of non-profit theatres of the USA, including the ideas of “little” and “arti” theatres. The study of non-commercial drama theatres in the United States is relevant for modern Russia. Exploring the process of evolution of noncommercial companies the author concluded that the theatre is primarily a creative, artistic institution, that is to be valued precisely for its contribution and influence on the spiritual life of the audience.

Re-envisioning media literacy education as feminist arts-activism

ABSTRACTThis project interrogates the premises of media literacy education – the predominant approach to equipping K-12 students to navigate the contemporary media environment – by moving it beyond teaching students to critique commercial media toward undermining ideological messages about health, violence, race, and gender embedded in media discourses. This participatory programme evaluation uses mixed-methods to assess the effectiveness of an alternative, performing arts education-based approach to media literacy called The Girl Project (TGP), a feminist artist-activist programme based at a non-profit community theatre in Versailles, Kentucky. The 12–18 high school-aged girls who participate in TGP every year are engaged in workshops by guest artists from around the nation to express what they think is important for their audiences to understand about their lived experiences as girls in a conservative sociopolitical environment.The project employed “youth-adult partnership model” to programme evaluation that involved working with programme alumni as co-researchers to evaluate TGP 2017. In June 2017, a team of eight co-researchers comprising alumni from the 2014, 2015, and 2016 classes met to develop evaluation questions and make data collection decisions. Data collection included surveys and interviews conducted pre- and post-programme with participants, field notes of the co-researchers’ observations of workshops and rehearsals, and feedback from guest artists and audience members. The team met again in January 2018 to collaboratively analyse how the data answered their evaluation questions. The survey data allowed us to see that girls’ statistical scores on mental health and body confidence measurements significantly improved after their participation in TGP, meaning that girls are less vulnerable to depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. In talking with participants and audience members, we learned that TGP participation increases girls’ self-confidence and ability to set boundaries in friendships, family relationships, and romantic relationships.

Recruitment and Selection of Teaching Artists of Color in Nonprofit Theatre Arts Education

ABSTRACTStudents in P-12 schools are losing access to the benefits of arts education. As more students identify as minority, the predominantly White teachers are not keeping pace to reflect students. Communities partner with nonprofit theatres, who staff programs with teaching artists. Teaching artists of color are necessary to reflect today's classrooms. This study focuses on how nonprofit theatre education departments can recruit and hire teaching artists of color. The method used was structured qualitative interviews focused on large regional theatres. The results demonstrate how organizations must prioritize diversity and expand diversity practices into recruitment and selection.

Determinants of Demand for Theatre Tickets in Austria and Switzerland

This paper presents a short, comparative analysis of the determinants of theatre attendance using a novel panel data set for Austrian and Swiss non-profit theatres. The results of the econometric analysis suggest that price and income have significant effects on theatre attendance, the first effect being negative and the second positive. However, both price and income elasticities are not greater than one in absolute values. This reinforces the findings of previous studies on the determinants of demand for theatre. Furthermore, the results indicate that total theatre capacity and in some cases objective output characteristics are also important determinants of attendance, in line withsome previous studies.

“I’ll Huff, and I’ll Puff, and I’ll Blow Your House Down”: Building the Resiliency of Education Departments in Nonprofit Theatre Organizations

This study identifies five indicators that reveal the relationships between nonprofit theatres and their education departments. These indicators are: (1) the education department's founding story; (2) the ability of the education director to connect with other departments within the organization; (3) the capability of the education department to find and foster contributions; (4) the capacity of the education programs to earn an income; and (5) the use of data to link the education department with a positive future of the organization. These indicators provide a way to increase educational advocacy within theatre organizations and protect the future of the education departments.

Columbia College Chicago's Symposium: "Chicago: Theatre Capital of America. Past. Present. Future." A Report from the Field

Columbia College Chicago's Symposium:"Chicago: Theatre Capital of America. Past. Present. Future." A Report from the Field Arvid Sponberg (bio) There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature. . . . Perhaps a thing is simple if you can describe it fully in several different ways without immediately knowing that you are describing the same thing. —Richard Feynman1 In It, Roach claims that theatre-making is part of the service economy, a product that is expended as it is consumed yet can endure in other forms. He writes: "Theater historians need to complicate that definition because they know that the experience of attending a performance is not a thing; it is a service of a very dynamic and labile kind." This service exists not as goods, but essentially as time spent in pursuit of something internal (aesthetic delight, emotional purgation, distraction from one's own woes, and so forth.) I made a similar point in The Economics of the British Stage: 1800-1914, expanding upon the ontology of what theatre artists make as distinct from what playgoers consume. The critical issues remain time and durability. —Tracy Davis2 It is possible to believe what we do not understand. It is not possible to reason about what we do not understand. —S. H. Burbury3 [End Page 125] When is it proper, advisable, or preferable for scholars to "complicate our understanding" and when to "simplify"? When new ground opens for scholarly exploitation, should the first surveyors choose one goal or the other, or take steps to achieve both? If so, what steps would those be—in 1911, 2011 or 2111? These questions, among many, underlie the work of the organizing committee (OC) of the first-ever Chicago theatre symposium.4 "Chicago: Theatre Capital of America: Past. Present. Future." occurred 18-22 May 2011 at the Film Center of Columbia College Chicago. The following paragraphs present a sampling of the first fruits of the Symposium, describe the prospects for future work in this site, and open for discussion two theoretical questions. Given the climates in which dramatic theory, praxis, criticism, and historiography live, move, and have their being, the OC keenly understood the risks of adding the terms "Past. Present. Future." to the symposium's title. The simplicity of the words only magnified the complexity of the subjects signified. Barely submerged beneath the placid surface of these ordinary words seethe powerful artistic, academic, and cultural currents. Which pasts? What presents? Whose futures? We believed that we steered in less hazardous waters with the phrase "Theatre Capital of America." We sought safe harbor from stormy criticism by deploying the words of a critic, and not just any critic—nonAmerican, nonaffiliated, nonacademic Michael Billington. He conferred the title on Chicago—not us! (What simpleness is this, indeed!) Yet our simple tactics to draw the gaze of theatre makers and theatre scholars alike never masked our astonishment at an abyss in the historiography of modern theater: In a half-century, Chicago has transformed itself from a theatrical dead zone into interlocking networks of performative ecosystems. Where once no creative performers sustained themselves, now hundreds of creative lives flourished with even greater numbers emerging. How could we account both for these profound changes in Chicago's performative ecology and the sparse commentaries about them in the historical and historiographical records? Circumstances cried for action of some kind. Some Background During 18-22 May 2011, over 350 theatre scholars and theatre makers convened at Columbia College's Film Row Center in Chicago's south Loop to celebrate, analyze, and discuss the evolution of professional nonprofit theatre in Chicago since 1950. The support of the Mid-America Theatre Conference for the symposium was essential to its development and success. A goodly number of MATC members participated, including Rhona Justice-Malloy, Rosemarie Bank, and Harvey Young, a featured speaker who gave the second-day keynote address. [End Page 126] Speculating about what moved each person to attend the sessions and related events would...

An analysis of technical efficiency and efficiency factors for Austrian and Swiss non-profit theatres

SummaryThis article explores the measurement of the production technology and efficiency of the performing arts sector. The stochastic frontier analysis has been used to estimate the technical efficiency scores for 20 Austrian and 30 Swiss non-profit theatres over 36 and 26 years, respectively. The number of visitors and tickets on offer are considered as two alternative measures of artistic output. The results indicate that individual efficiency estimates are very sensitive to the econometric specification of the unobserved heterogeneity of theatres. In particular, econometric techniques which do not account for this heterogeneity produce much lower efficiency levels. The indefinable dimension of artistic output such as theatre-specific quality may also have an important influence on efficiency estimates. The empirical analysis also delivers the first insights into the impact of exogenous factors on technical efficiency such as the number of theatres in the local area, regional differences and the level of public subsidies.

Directors and the new musical drama: British and American musical theatre in the 1980s and 90s

Challenge from Within: Harold Prince in Context * The Prince Legacy: Musical Drama on Broadway * Cultural Barricades: British Musicals in the Eighties and Nineties * Beyond the Logos: West End Musical Drama * New Horizons: Musical Drama in the Non-Profit Theatre * Expanding Boundaries: Non-profit Directors in the Nineties * British Directors and the Classic American Musicals * Afterlife: Reinterpreting the Canon

Where Do New Plays Come From?

Working in new play development for the past 15 years, I have observed a marginalizing of new playwrights in nonprofit regional theatres. This is because theatre managers think that plays are worthy of development funding but not necessarily worthy of production.1 The regional nonprofit theatre began in the 1950s and ’60s with the avowed purpose of bringing compelling stage work—both new and classic—to the fore, regardless of profit margins. Now it is more than a half-century later and the American regional theatre has lost its sense of purpose.

Willingness to Pay for Local Public Goods: Some Evidence From the Nonprofit Theatre Sector

It is clearly the case that many people may derive option benefits from the embodiment of creativity in cultural products. This article describes a method that can be used to offer more support for a local public good—namely local theatre. This is the application of willingness to pay (WTP) pricing. Survey evidence from two nonprofit regional theatres in the UK were used to examine determinants of the WTP function for local theatre. A WTP equation was estimated and showed the following: Female respondents offered much lower prices; there was a positive influence of income on willingness to pay with a small elasticity; loyalty to the theatre contributed to higher price offers and perceived characteristics poverty of the theatre productions was so strong that it would cancel this out where a person has such feelings. The price terms show that the offered price is linked positively to perceptions of the normal price at the theatre and reasonable prices for other events.

Do public grants to American theatres crowd-out private donations?

This paper examines the relationship between public support and private donations by disaggregating the crowding effect into two components: one determined by level of public support and one determined by changes in public support levels. The analysis of a panel of American non-profit theatres shows that the crowding effect induced by the level of public support takes an inverted U shape: at low levels public support crowds-in private donations while at higher levels it displaces them. The change in total public support in the past year produces a constant crowding-in effect on the level of private donations. The paper finally illustrates how federal and state support have a crowding-in effect at all levels, while local support has a similar impact to total public support.

Theatres, Metaphors, and E-Collaboration

A metaphor methodology was used to understand and interpret the Web presences of 15 nonprofit theatres that comprise the regional theatre of Southern New Jersey that is present on the Web. In addition, findings from our earlier studies of off-Broadway and regional theatre festivals were extended to analyze the Web presence of the theatres in Southern New Jersey. The contribution of the work resides in its systematic and intense consideration of the strategic importance of the Web for nonprofit theatre arts groups in the Southern New Jersey region and in its use of the metaphor methodology in order to facilitate a fully developed picture of the Web and nonprofit organizations. This is intended to help administrators become aware of the need for strategic use of e-collaboration via creation of a regional theatre Web presence for South Jersey that enacts a more evolutionary metaphor, perhaps that of the organism. Theatres are encouraged to practice collaborating on the Web by creating reciprocal links and thus cooperating as a region.

State Subsidies and Repertoire Conventionality in the Non-Profit English Theatre Sector: An Econometric Analysis

This paper examines the impact of financial and socio-economic factors on repertoire decisions of the grant-aided, non-profit theatre sector in England using cross-sectional regression analysis for the seasons 1996/97 to 1998/99. The dependent variable, a conventionality index, a variant of the DiMaggio/Stenberg conformity index, is calculated first. This shows a very considerable variation in repertoire conventionality, so measured, in the non-profit English theatre sector. A model is then constructed to assess the impact of the above-mentioned factors in determining variations in this index using a dataset hitherto not analysed in this way. The empirical results show that public subsidy, the size and the location of a theatre as well as the local average income have an impact on conventionality, which confirms existing empirical findings.

Linking Organizational Values to Relationships with External Constituents: A Study of Nonprofit Professional Theatres

This study explores the organizational values that characterize firms in the nonprofit professional theatre industry, and examines the links between firms' organizational values and their relationships with external constituents. Using grounded research methods, we uncover five value dimensions that are relevant to arts organizations: prosocial, artistic, financial, market, and achievement. Using a sample of 97 nonprofit theatres, we extend our qualitative inquiry with an empirical investigation of how firms enact their organizational values to build and maintain relationships with external constituents. Results from a two-wave survey design indicate consistent patterns of association between organizational values and (1) perceptions of values congruence with external constituents, (2) human resource allocation and programming decisions that firms make to support relationships with external constituents, and (3) the level of financial resources that firms obtain from their relationships with different external constituents. Interestingly, results from both investigations hint at underlying tensions between competing values in cultural firms, such as pressures to be both artistic- and market-oriented.

Art and Culture as Central Place Functions

Data on artists by location in 1970 and 1980, and on the non-profit theatre sector in 1988-89, indicate that art and culture are pre-eminently central place functions. The concentration of performing artists into large metropolitan areas increased from 1970 to 1980, while that of painters and sculptors diminished. New York and Los Angeles are the top locations for performing artists, although Los Angeles is largely a centre for mass media production rather than live production. Other studies cited in this paper indicate that local market structure in the non-profit theatre strongly affects artistic policy, supporting Chinitz's emphasis on the importance of supply-side factors in urban studies.

Adding Style to Substance: the American Actor Finds a Voice

Slowly, the focus of creative and critical interest in American theatre has shifted from Broadway ‘product’ to the work presented by the non-profit theatres of the regional centres – work which has not only continued and developed the native naturalistic tradition, but embraced the best of the world repertoire, past and present. Method acting, adapted from Stanislavski to produce a distinctive but limited school of interiorized performance, proved inadequate to meet the increased demands of this range of work; and in this essay John Harrop examines the process by which university and conservatory training has come to accept that ‘style’ is not a sort of applied veneer, but a matter of finding the appropriate response to the linguistic and physical requirements of any play. Presently Head of the Professional Training Programme for the BFA in Drama at the University of California, Santa Barbara, John Harrop is himself a professional actor on the regional theatre circuit. An advisory editor of NTQ, and a frequent contributor to the old Theatre Quarterly, he is also the author (with Robert Cohen) of Creative Play Direction and (with Sabin Epstein) of Acting with Style.