theatre bay area
2013 annual report
letter from the executive director Here in the Bay Area, it seems that good times, with all the opportunities—and hardships—they bring are back. With a vengeance. Four years ago, when we crafted our current strategic plan, the region’s theatre community, and the whole nation, was headed into a historic recession that threatened to shut the pocketbooks of audiences and funders alike, to throw artists out of work and to shutter scores, or more, of theatre companies. Now after years of belt-tightening, the Bay Area is hurtling into another economic boom, one that is building up employment figures as well as new condos and office towers, restoring private and public coffers along with long-blighted neighborhoods, and raising hopes at the same time as it’s sending real estate rates soaring through the roof. Theatre artists and organizations are beginning to feel the benefits and the bloat of another boom. For many, tickets sales, grant dollars and artistic opportunities are up. So are rents—at home and at work—forcing artists out of their apartments and theatre companies out of their offices, rehearsal halls and performance venues. Our current strategic plan was meant to bolster the theatre community through hard times. As the environment changes, so must our strategic trajectory and with it our services and programs. We have spent the past year beginning a new planning process that will finish in 2014 with a new direction for new times. In drafting a new plan, we will build upon our current goals that for three difficult years have led us so well: fostering excellence, furthering audience engagement and diversification, and strengthening the larger arts ecosystem. In good times and bad, Theatre Bay Area’s mission and core beliefs remain our guiding star: To unite, strengthen, promote and advance the theatre community of the Bay Area, working from our conviction that theatre and all the arts are essential—essential!—to our society and to our personal good.
Brad Erickson Executive Director
Cover: The three Weyard Sisters: Julie Douglas, Maria Leigh and Caroline Parsons in We Players’ production of Macbeth at Fort Point, San Francisco. Photo: Tracy Martin
table of contents Letter from the Executive Director............................inside front cover Strategic Plan 2010-2013........................................................................4 Act One: Excellence................................................................... 5 The TBA Awards............................................................................. 7 Annual Conference......................................................................... 7 Performing Arts Assistance Program........................................... 7 Will Glickman Award...................................................................... 7 CA$H Grant...................................................................................... 7 ATLAS............................................................................................... 7 Act Two: Audience....................................................................... 8 TIX Bay Area.................................................................................... 9 Intrinsic Impact............................................................................... 9 Audience Database........................................................................ 9 Leveraging Social Media............................................................... 9 Act Three: Arts-Friendly Ecosystem............................. 11 Theatre Bay Area Magazine .........................................................12 theatrebayarea.org........................................................................12 General Auditions..........................................................................12 Bay Area Performing Arts Spaces (BAPAS)...............................12 Cohort Learning.............................................................................12 Arts Advocacy................................................................................12 Financials..................................................................................................14 Theatre Bay Area staff, board and funders............... inside back cover
Gabriel Marin and Aldo Billingslea in This Is How It Goes at Aurora Theatre Company. Photo: David Allen
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strategic plan 2010-2103 In 2010 we embarked on an ambitious strategic plan that focused our work in three major areas, which we imagined as acts in a play: Act I: Promoting excellence Act II: Furthering audience engagement and diversification Act III: Strengthening the arts ecosystem As 2013 draws to a close, we reflect our many accomplishments and look ahead to the crucial work still to be done. Contained in the pages of this report is a glimpse at the invaluable resources we offer to the creative community. Our Mission Theatre Bay Area’s mission is to unite, strengthen, promote and advance the theatre community in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on behalf of our conviction that the performing arts are an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth. Our Vision Known for its long traditions of cultural and technological innovation, its ethnic and cultural diversity and its commitment to social justice and participatory democracy, the Bay Area is uniquely equipped to tackle critical issues that confront our nation and the globe. It is our vision that the Bay Area become a global model for creating and sustaining a diverse society where the arts and creativity are central to life, democracy and economic prosperity. Our Work: Causing a scene since 1976 The Bay Area is one of the top destinations for live theatre in the world. Each year, thousands of performances are enjoyed by millions of people, generating billions of dollars in revenue for the 13 counties we serve. Our work directly serves thousands of theatre artists and hundreds of theatre companies, from large flagship institutions to small grassroots community groups. We also serve residents and visitors to the Bay Area, artists, audiences and thought leaders throughout the country, making us one of the largest service organizations of our kind in North America.
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Act One: excellence
We hold up excellence as a goal for ourselves and for the field as a whole. To this end we spur vital conversations, offer professional development, conduct and disseminate new research, and provide monetary assistance to theatre-makers, and we are launching an awards program to honor excellence in Bay Area theatre.
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
— Steve Jobs
Cindy Im in Crowded Fire Theater and Playwrights Foundation’s production of The Hundred Flowers Project by Christopher Chen. Photo: Pak Han.
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“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
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— Vince Lombardi
Dan Clegg and Rebekah Brockman in California Shakespeare Theater’s Romeo and Juliet, directed by Shana Cooper. Photo: Kevin Berne
The TBA Awards are designed to honor excellence in professionally oriented theatre through a peer-based, Bay Area-wide awards program. The first awards ceremony is scheduled for Fall 2014. Incorporating the best practices of existing systems in Los Angeles, Chicago and other major theatre centers, the program allows for immediate feedback and annual recognition of outstanding accomplishment in a way that is both credible and representative of the community at large. The Annual Conference brings together hundreds of theatre-makers to address key issues, exchange ideas and recharge for the coming season. The day-long conference offers professional development workshops, roundtables and nationally renowned speakers and thinkers. Again this year, our conference took over the downtown Berkeley theatre district as some 400 attendees engaged in a day of conversation and learning. We explored new ways of making real change in our communities, of moving audiences and challenging assumptions. Conference programming successfully furthered ongoing conversations about increasing impact among theatre artists, administrators and trustees. The Performing Arts Assistance Program (PAAP) provides consulting support for a cohort of small to midsized local performing arts groups drawn from current Zellerbach grantees. Generous funding and a strong cadre of consultants ensure the awardees of the PAAP program reach their goals for increased effectiveness and artistic excellence. In 2013, Theatre Bay Area provided $17,000 in consulting services to performing arts groups through the PAAP program. The program continues to be a powerful tool for local arts groups to acquire new artistic or administrative skills. The Will Glickman Award celebrates excellence in playwriting by selecting the best new play to premiere in the region each year. Named in honor of Bay Area playwright and screenwriter Will Glickman, this award has been presented annually since 1984. The winner is chosen by a panel of leading Bay Area theatre critics. In 2013, the award was presented to Christopher Chen for his play The Hundred Flowers Project, premiered by Crowded Fire (under a coproduction with Playwrights Foundation) in the fall of 2012. CA$H Grants (Creative Assistance for the $mall and Hungry) provides invaluable financial support to individual theatre and dance artists and small professionally oriented companies. Since its inception 12 years ago, the program has granted more than one million dollars. In the past year the CA$H program awarded 12 grants of $2,000 to individual artists and 15 grants of $4,000 to small-budget organizations throughout the Bay Area. ATLAS (Advanced Training Leading Artists to Success) gives actors, directors, designers and playwrights coaching and consultation on career planning, and offers grants for implementation of these career plans. Since the program’s inception four years ago, we have received extraordinarily positive feedback from participants, as well as theatre professionals throughout the region. In 2013, the program offered its first round to playwrights, to complement the existing programming for actors and directors.
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Act Two: audience Seismic changes are underway concerning how individuals engage with the arts. Trends on how to build lifelong arts participants and diversify audiences are emerging. Our audience development work focuses on educating our companies on how to better adopt these trends in technology and audience engagement while remaining true to their own artistic visions.
“I am a real ham. I love an audience. I work better with an audience. I am dead, in fact, without one.�
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— Lucille Ball The audience joining the cast of The Rocky Horror Show on stage for a musical number at City Lights Theater. Photo: Dihanna Davidson
TIX Bay Area offers discount and premium tickets to events. A cultural concierge for residents and visitors, TIX is most recognized for its iconic booth in Union Square. Our online ticketing offers through tixbayarea.org have steadily increased each of the past five years, and a portion of each ticket sale funds TBA programs. This summer we unveiled an improved TIX program built on creative partnerships, expanded inventory, enhanced service and new visibility. By forging business relationships with the Destination Center and Goldstar, TIX offers robust tourism-directed and ticketing services at many San Francisco locations, including a new location on Pier 39 and six downtown concierge desks. Intrinsic Impact measures the impact of the theatrical experience on the audience. Launched in 2009, this nationwide study aims at helping theatre leaders to deepen the impact of the work on their stages. This past year we expanded the project, enlisting 30 theatres from around the country. Now, having amassed an impressive national cache of data and established a proven method with theatres large and small in cities around the country, we are poised in 2014 to target our efforts on theatres here in the Bay Area, bringing back to our community the deep insights from this groundbreaking research. The audience database (formerly Bay Area Arts and Cultural Census) contains one of the largest and most comprehensive collective audience databases in the country. Now registering 1.8 million households drawn from 100+ participating arts groups, the Audience Database is open to all Bay Area arts nonprofits, helping them to cut costs and market more effectively. In 2013, the Bay Area community originated and shared more list trades than another other community in the country. The Audience Database expanded the reach of local companies and enabled them to build targeted lists of arts consumers for marketing and fundraising campaigns. Leveraging Social Media helps nonprofit arts organizations create and implement effective digital strategies with comprehensive training, peer learning and coaching programs. Its findings are used to develop a revenue-generating model to assist companies across the nation. In March, Theatre Bay Area hosted a three-day intensive Digital Strategies Bootcamp with a small group of invited participants from sister arts services nonprofits. In addition to partnering with program leads Alli Houseworth (founder and chief strategist, Method 121) and social media pioneer Beth Kanter to provide the training, Theatre Bay Area reaped the benefits of participating as a student organization, improving our own social media skills and knowledge while helping other arts organizations nationwide do the same.
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“I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won’t contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That’s what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.”
— Orson Welles
AXIS Dance Company 2012. Dancers: Joel Brown and Sonsherée Giles in choreography by Amy Seiwert. Photo: David DeSilva
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Act Three: arts-friendly ecosystem
We strive to create a Bay Area where theatre artists and organizations are able to thrive and where every resident and visitor enjoys easy and equitable access to all the arts. This means public policy that facilitates theatre making and theatregoing. It means art and drama education being available to students in every school. It means adequate support from public and private funders to ensure affordable access to theatre and the rest of the arts for everyone in the Bay Area.
“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” — Albert Einstein
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Theatre Bay Area Magazine continues to be the flagship of our communications services. By writing about the community’s news, successes, milestones and challenges and by maintaining the highest journalistic standards, we strengthen and unify the thousands of individuals working to make our theatre community thrive. In response to changing consumer preferences and advances in online media, Theatre Bay Area has greatly expanded its editorial coverage by transforming its website, theatrebayarea.org, into a groundbreaking online communications hub. Theatrebayarea.org keeps theatre-makers and theatre-lovers informed, engaged and connected by providing up-to-the-minute coverage, in-depth articles, blog posts, performance listings, audition and job notices and an online talent bank. The website now sits alongside the magazine as the major communication nexus for the Bay Area theatre field. General Auditions have for more than two decades enabled new acting talent to be discovered and veteran actors to reacquaint with scores of local theatres through this popular program. This year almost 400 actors had the opportunity to audition for nearly 100 theatre producers over the course of a single weekend. Bay Area Performing Arts Spaces (BAPAS) helps artists locate spaces, reduces costs for arts organizations without a home, provides publicity for venues, increases rental revenue for unused spaces and provides a map of cultural resources. This year, the free online resource listed more than 400 spaces available to rent for rehearsals, performances, auditions, classes, meetings and events. Cohort Learning engages theatre companies in an intense group learning process. Selected through a competitive application process, participating organizations are matched with consultants who help them to design and complete individualized projects which deepen each organization’s connection to its mission. The innovative nine-month initiative engaged 15 theatre companies. Eighty participants, staff members, artists and trustees from the cohort theatres engaged in a series of intensive convenings to more fully integrate their unique missions throughout their organizations—from artistic leadership to marketing to development to individual artists to the board room—and to leverage renewed focus on mission for strategic advantage. Arts Advocacy creates an arts-friendly ecosystem by rallying people to our cause. Theatre Bay Area works with key advocacy organizations both locally and nationally to secure arts-positive public policy. This year we appeared before governing bodies, at city halls, in Sacramento and in Washington. And we provided research and advocacy tools to empower theatre artists and supporters to make the case for themselves as they engaged their school boards, their city councils, their legislators and their Congressional representatives.
“The rapidly evolving
global economy demands a dynamic and creative workforce. The arts and its related businesses are responsible for billions of dollars in cultural exports for this country. It is imperative that we continue to support the arts and arts education both on the national and local levels. The strength of every democracy is measured by its commitment to the arts.” — Charles Segars, CEO of Ovation
Andrew Durand and Patrycja Kujawska in Kneehigh Theatre’s production of Tristan & Yseult at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Photo: Steve Tanner
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financials
THEATRE BAY AREA STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITY
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REVENUE FY11-12 FY12-13 Membership dues $224,495 $204,552 Ticketing Fees & Commissions $161,319 $174,569 Advertising (Display, Electronic, Classified) $89,442 $98,519 Program Fees & Admissions $38,230 $39,788 Fundraising Events $20,061 $22,822 Fees for Service $89,971 $88,455 Publication Sales $19,675 $14,734 Interest & Other $208 $45,599 TOTAL EARNED REVENUE $643,401 $689,037 PUBLIC SUPPORT Foundation Support $624,063 $405,411 Government Support $179,500 $157,300 Corporate Support $8,975 $11,280 Individual Contributions $44,400 $37,513 In-Kind Contributions $250 $3,289 TOTAL PUBLIC SUPPORT $857,188 $614,794 TOTAL REVENUE & PUBLIC SUPPORT $1,500,589 $1,303,831 EXPENSES Program Services $1,229,431 $1,050,796 Management & General $105,923 $109,200 Development $151,463 $136,938 TOTAL EXPENSES $1,486,817 $1,296,934 Change in Net Assets $13,772 $6,897
theatre bay area staff
Brad Erickson Dana Harrison Dale Albright Argo Thompson
Sam Hurwitt Brandi Brandes Alan Kline Laura Brueckner Lily Janiak Carina Salazar
Kendra Oberhauser Katharine Chin Emma Jaster James Nelson Toni Press-Coffman Robert Sokol
Executive Director Managing Director Director of Field Services Director of Advancement & Communications Editor-in-Chief Development Manager Marketing Resources Coordinator Associate Editor Listings Editor Events Coordinator & Membership Associate Membership & Marketing Associate Marketing Associate Research Coordinator Field Services Associate Grant Writer Awards Program Manager
theatre bay area board of directors
Andrew Smith Beverly Butler David Gluck Janice Sager
President Vice President Treasurer Secretary
Cristian Asher, Gina Baleria, Don-Scott Cooper, Edward H. Davis, Brad Erickson, Mark Jansen, TJ Kitchen, Lisa Mallette, Anne W. Smith, Robert Sweibel, Bruce Williams, Maggie Ziomek
advisory committees Theatre Services Committee
Lisa Mallette, City Lights Theater Company, chair Suzanne Appel, Cutting Ball Theater; Anne Nygren Doherty, New Musical Theater of San Francisco; Robin Dolan, California Shakespeare Theater; Patrick Dooley, Shotgun Players; Rachel L. Fink, Berkeley Rep School of Theatre; Amanda Folena, Broadway by the Bay; Jeanette Harrison, AlterTheater; Melissa Hillman, Impact Theatre; Barbara Hodgen, New Conservatory Theatre Center; Brian Katz, Custom Made Theatre Company; Ken Levin, Berkeley Playhouse; Clark Lewis, Roustabout Theater; Seth Macari, Aurora Theatre Company; Leslie Martinson, TheatreWorks; Joanie McBrien, Shotgun Players; Nina Meehan, Bay Area Children’s Theatre; Michelle Mulholland, Golden Thread Productions; Karen Altree Piemme, San Jose Repertory Theatre; Alan Quismorio, Bindlestiff Studio; Julie Saltzman, Aurora Theatre Company; Jonathan Spector, Just Theater; Randy Taradash, American Conservatory Theater; Lily Tung Crystal, Ferocious Lotus; Lorna Velasco, Magic Theatre; Marissa Wolf, Crowded Fire Theater
funders of theatre bay area Anonymous California Arts Council Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Fleishhacker Foundation Grants for the Arts/Hotel Tax Fund The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation James Irvine Foundation Kenneth Rainin Foundation Landisman Family Endowment Napa Valley Community Foundation National Endowment for the Arts San Francisco Arts Commission The San Francisco Foundation The Shubert Foundation Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation Zellerbach Family Foundation
Individual Services Committee Maggie Ziomek, chair Stuart Bousel, Megan Briggs, Megan Cohen, Marjorie Crump-Shears, Leon Goertzen, Sylvia Hathaway, Marissa Keltie, Jeffrey Lo, Lily Yang, Dana Zook
Pictured: Janelle Ayon in Theatre of Yugen’s Mystical Abyss. Photo: Charline Formenty
Dakota Dry, Lucy Urbano, Bella Coles and Sarah Marlin in A Little Princess with Berkeley Playhouse. Photo: Ken Levin. Tomas Theriot in Cabaret with Broadway by the Bay. Photo: Mark Kitaoka. Sharon Washington and Colman Domingo in Wild with Happy with TheatreWorks. Photo: Mark Kitaoka. Amara Tabor-Smith. Photo: Alan Kimara Dixon. Martina Rampulla and Gianna Benvenuto in Stadium Teatralne’s production of The King of Hearts Is Off Again with San Francisco International Arts Festival. Photo: Kazik Rolbiecki. The UC Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies’s production From the Field to the Table. Photo: Anna Marie Panlilio. Sonoma State University students Adam Burkholder and Clint Campbell. Photo: David Papas. Alex Crowther and Anthony Nemirovsky in Woyzeck with Shotgun Players. Photo: Jessica Palopoli. Amanda Mornado and Melissa Claire in Marin Onstage and Curtain Theatre’s Return to the Forbidden Planet. Photo: Sarah Nelson. Anne Darragh and Julia Brothers in Our Practical Heaven at Aurora Theatre Company. Photo: David Allen. David Scott, Kayleigh Larner, Kim Burns and Victor Velasquez in Twelfth Night at San Jose State University. Photo: Amber Baldwin. Carina Lastimosa Salazar, Manny Cabrera and Wes Cabrillo in A Kind of Sad Love Story at Bindlestiff Studios. Photo: Mark Kitaoka. Omozé Idehenre and Shinelle Azoroh in Marcus; or, The Secret of Sweet at American Conservatory Theater. Photo: Kevin Berne. Mark Farrell and Ben Johnson in The 39 Steps with Center Repertory Company. Photo: Kevin Berne. Dohee Lee in Mago with CounterPulse. Photo: Eduardo Hirose. Sharon Rietkerk and Tim Homsley in A Minister’s Wife at San Jose Repertory Theatre. Photo: Kevin Berne.
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