 All right, hi everyone. We can publish a book. We're gonna go ahead and get started. We're gonna go ahead and get started. Thanks everybody for being here. Welcome to Art New York's Fall Forum for those of you who are here in the room, for those joining us on live stream by HowlRound. We're so happy that you're here and we're so very excited to be having this conversation today with an amazing group of funders here in New York City. Before we begin, I'd like to take the time to acknowledge that wherever we are located on Turtle Island, otherwise known as North America, we are on occupied territory. Art New York's membership in the five boroughs of New York City operates on the unceded ancestral land of the Lenape, Wappinger, Canarsie, Rockaway, and Matinacoc communities. I want to honor and celebrate all of these indigenous communities that are elders past and present, as well as future generations. I also want to take this time to acknowledge that after there was stolen land, there were stolen people, and we want to honor the generations of displaced and enslaved people that built and continue to build the country we occupy today. We're so happy to be here. Thank you so much. We have a lot to talk about. We were connecting before we sat down. There's so much that we could say in this conversation, but we're also committed to respecting everybody's time today. So without much more further ado, we're gonna dive in. We'll start out by doing introductions. We'll share our names, pronouns, a brief visual description of ourselves, and the institutions that we represent. So good morning. My name is Talia Coran. I am the co-executive director here at Art New York. I use she or her pronouns. I am a white woman with light brown curly hair, green eyes, and I'm wearing a black and red floral blouse. Passing it down. Good morning, I'm Chelsea Smith. I'm a program officer at the Altman Foundation. I use she or her pronouns. I am a woman wearing light colors and red accessories. Hi, I'm Amy Wine. I'm the senior program director at the Schumer Foundation. My pronouns are she, her, and a white woman with dark brown hair, wearing a bright orange blazer and black blouse. Hi, I'm Emily Sprock. I'm a program officer at the Howard Gilman Foundation. She, her, I'm a long brown hair, bangs, mid 40s, and a sweater with geometric black and white and green sheets. Hi, I'm Stephanie Ibarra. I am seven and a half months old as the program officer at the Mellon Foundation. And I am a Mexican-American woman. I use she and her pronouns. I have dark curly hair in a top knot with a multicolored headband and a denim dress on. Hi, I'm Rebecca Hewitt. She, her, pronouns. I'm the program director at the Schubert Foundation. I'm a white woman, long dark brown hair, brown tortoise shell glasses, wearing a black blouse with pink and white flowers on it. Thanks very much. Great. I forgot to ask the other important question that I wanted to do as part of intros, which is something that you've seen recently that you loved or can't stop thinking about. While those on the live stream, I can get devices for anyone who might utilize captions in this space. Is there anyone who would be benefited by having the device that they could watch it? Thanks so much for asking, David. No problem. Great. Anybody want to kick us off with a, something that you've seen recently that you can't stop thinking about, or our thrilled exists? Maybe you can go reverse order. Reverse order. Rebecca, kick us off. I saw Nikki Douglas's piece, Prey. It's a co-pro with Ars Nova and National Black Theater. I saw it on Friday night and I've been thinking about nothing else since. It's a beautiful reimagining of what church could might look like, and it's just gorgeous. It closes on the 28th. You still have a few days? I, so right before I came back to New York, I was the artistic director at Baltimore Center Stage and I was back there this weekend for the inaugural locally grown festival, which is a festival of all manner of performance by local artists. And y'all, I was weeping from everything from like the puppetry to the ballroom battle that was packed. And it was just glorious and gave me so much hope. Infinite Life, any vacancies in Infinite Life, but then I had Theater Company, which was awesome. I'm sorry, it's not open anymore. Yeah. Okay, it's a good reminder to see shows when they're open, right? Bye to kids. Bye to kids. Okay, okay. I'm gonna say two. Two. So the first one was just as academic writing, which was absolutely amazing. And I hope everyone had a chance to see it. It was just riveting and the audience, you could hear it pinned off, it was just spectacular. And then over the weekend, I was lucky enough to go to the Met to see New York City Children's Theater, Corre Abuelita Run, which was for their youngest theater goers. And it was in such a beautiful space in the Asian art section. And to see the little ones like so engaged by what was in front of the sort of like enormous pieces of art and then this very like small intimate and accessible work was really fantastic. Beautiful. I haven't been to the theater recently, which I'm ashamed to admit to this audience. So I will say that I saw a beautiful summer of live DJs and dance performances, all of the city, particular shout out to Natasha Diggs and the Dance's Life community and the Mellon Foundation for funding the resurgence of disco and mussel and the queer community that supports it in New York City. I love that. We can be multi-genre here. We're not limited to just theater. I feel like all appreciation is great. There's so much that I've loved recently and there's so many things that I'm excited to see this fall. I was lucky enough to be at the, we are here opening at the Shed on Sunday, which was very cool. Just amazing to see the work that Sondheim was doing at the end of his life and the embrace of absurdity in theater, especially in these absurd times. I was like, yes, we are in a room. We're not going to make sense. That feels true. And so I love the strangeness. Love the strangeness. So one thing that I'm curious about, because I feel like one of the whole purpose of this panel is to like open up the dialogue. You all are like rich and interesting and curious people as evidenced both by your taste and also the work that you've chosen to do. But I also know that many of you have your own creative artistic practices, either that is avocational or otherwise in your current roles. And I'm wondering if you would share about that and how you feel that it informs your approach to grant making and the funding lens. For anybody who wants to get off. I can start. I don't know if I would call it a creative practice, but I grew up in a military family. So I grew up moving around every couple of years like clockwork. And what I always glommed on to wherever I lived whenever I lived in a new place was what kind of artistic outlet could I find there. Theater was the place where I found a lot of acceptance as a care doctor around, especially when you got to like those really awkward, wonderful early tween years. Yeah. So for me, that's why I love what I do, that we get to, as a national funder, we fund theater and dance and every nook and cranny, almost every nook and cranny in the country. And that's why I do what I do. To believe that we are helping other people find that creative outlet is a big deal to me. And that's how I get going in the morning when I'm on the subway. I used to be an actor. And that's why I entered my career. And I haven't been on stage. I think the last time I was on stage was a stage reading in 2017. But I'll never forget when I, a million years ago when I worked at the Playwrights' Realm, I used my professional development funds as the producing director to take a Greek devising workshop with Anne Bogart. And it was for the express purpose of not losing or continuing to remember not just what it meant to create and to activate that, part of myself, but also to continue to retain the empathy for what it means for those who are creating and the vulnerability that is required of the creative space. And so I don't know what that will look like in my new life working for the Mellon Foundation, but I do think that continuing to go back and touch that part, that the generative artist part feels important to empathy. Yeah. Practicing vulnerability is good for all of us. Anybody else want to share about creative expression? Well, I was an actor too. I have a BFA from Syracuse. So I spent about 10 years pursuing that. Don't ask me what I was in. Sometimes lots of equity showcases. So I have that context. My husband and I at the time also started a small cater company if I wouldn't be free. So I have that context. So I feel like as a grantmaker, that's just the greatest because it gives me a joy nap. I know what all these words mean. I know what a 29 hour reading is. We can have a much more nuanced, richer conversation because I'm not, you know, I've done that. Yeah. And do you feel like there is so much lingo? Both in the funder space, right? Like there's a lot of lingo in philanthropy and there's also so much lingo in the creative practice. And I feel like sometimes one of the challenges can be those like miscommunications or people feeling like they have to translate something that perhaps it would just be better to say like, no, we should just have this shared vocabulary. Like, is that something better? Opportunities or obstacles? I told them there would be no pop quizzes. And I... I'll take that question. My question, I'm a cultural arts producer at the R&D Festival and, you know, I think that having the shared sort of real-time experience of finding space, finding resources, navigating contracts, figuring out all of the details, right? Yeah. In real-time, you know, it definitely is a shared vocabulary and shared experience with some of my grantees who are sort of directly art-making in that way. The obstacles that folks are facing, it's not sort of vocabulary as much as awareness. Yeah. It can be just like lived experience. Yeah. So I've never been an actor or a dancer or a plumber. And so I feel like I've always sort of been in the support cheerleader, listener kind of role my entire career. And my background is in dramatic literature and writing. And so I do approach sort of new work and this curiosity with artists creating. I think there's also the flip side of the sort of camaraderie at the Mellon Foundation as we are waiting ever deeper into social justice and what it means to be a social justice funder that leverages the arts for change. I think that much to some folks chagrin, like the Mellon arts and culture team is stacked with practitioners from different disciplines, which means also that it is very hard to hide. There's nowhere to hide in terms of the analysis around what the justice practices are, what the equitable practices are, and assessing if an organization is at a diversity place or if they moved along the continuum into a liberatory space and any space in between. So I think it can cut both ways, too. With such a deep knowledge of what the work is, it means that we can have more, hopefully, realistic conversation about what. And before we got started just a moment ago, Talia and Amy and I were talking about how grateful we were to have had this conversation. Art New York has brought us all in the room together because so many of the funder conversations happen one-on-one with individual grantees. And I think there's a lot of, I think, telephone that can kind of come out of that. I heard that Mellon's doing this and I heard that Schubert's doing that. And so to be all together here and have this conversation feels really timely. And I want to thank Art New York for putting this together. Thank you all for being here. It feels like a dream day and the scariest day to be able to have these conversations. I mean, I think, you know, Stephanie, bringing up the sort of, like, as we integrate practices, right, as we both bring, like, a discipline-focused approach, but also these other lenses of equity, social justice, I think that there are really interesting conversations both in our field and I think also just, like, broader cultural conversations about how we navigate or find balance or not find balance. There are other approaches that are justice-centered or social justice-focused, but also really about rigorous art-making in various ways and as funders. What do you think that looks like or what do you think and how that looks? Because I think there has been a lot of change and I think this is a good example, Rebecca, of, like, the grapevine is perhaps not reflective of where any individual funding institution is or any particular theater-maker is. And so I'm interested to hear if there are, if you have observations about other conversations that you're having, you know. Teams or what you're hearing from grantees and theater-makers about, like, where that conversation is moving. The majority of our arts and culture focus on systems-level investments that, you know, impact multiple artists by their one. This is supporting our grantees in the direction that, you know, they go, right? And so if that's responsiveness to the world and the way that artists respond to the world and if that's responsiveness to young people and the way that they demand answers for the spectacular, the absurdity of the world that we live in, you know, use art, you know, in the ways to explore those topics. And so very much seeing, you know, the demand from communities and youth for understanding and this continued appreciation and importance of art in all forms. At all, man, it is really kind of responding to and supporting what the community tells you it wants or needs or that the artist tells you, like, this is the direction that we're trying to push. Yes. Astrix, astrix. I can jump in. I think if I'm understanding the question correctly and I think I'm piggybacking a little bit on what you said, where we want to be responsive to the goals and desires and hopes and dreams of each individual organization that we fund. And I think it's the organization's responsibility including all of the foundation's responsibilities, you know, and the theater companies to really examine what their mission is in a very deep and full way. Everybody has a mission, but how much have you unpacked what that mission really means and developed goals around that mission? So I like to hear how self-aware is an organization. Again, including all of ours, how self-aware are we in what we're really doing to actualize that mission? So that is something I really like to dig into with people because you can say, I'm trying to do this and this and this but are you really, and it's okay whatever the mission is, but have it and stick to it and let's see where that goes. So it's both the sort of like individual acknowledgement or awareness of this is the role that we serve in our community and our communities to find in this way and the services that we're looking to provide are these and we can have a real conversation about where we either need additional support for that, where we aren't meeting the demands of our community or where maybe we say like, is that needed? Which I think is like an interesting sort of like super mission focused way of approaching it. I think that kind of transparency is what we're thinking and talking about a lot at Schubert too and I feel like there are lots of things that maybe grantees are afraid to tell funders because of what it might look like but for us to do our jobs we need to know what's going on and I know that's easy for us to say that because we're the funders, it's easy for us to say that and it comes from a place of privilege to be able to say that but really and truly to be here for the field we need to know the truth of what's happening. So this is why I think discussions like this are so wonderfully helpful in terms of what we're talking about at Schubert we've begun having application seminars our next one is on November 8th at 4 p.m. Eastern time you can sign up on our website but it's for people who haven't been funded by Schubert yet but it's also designed for new staff members at existing grantees there's been so much turnover and we see that and we know that so the questions we're getting from people it became clear to us that there were a lot of people doing this application for the first time or we're doing it very recently had much experience with it so that's how we're trying to meet that moment by hopefully offering greater transparency about our process and how we do what we do but there are always going to be other like more that we can do and that's where this kind of conversation can be so helpful in giving us a sense of how to do that better and better Absolutely and just building on that is great but we pride ourselves on having an open door policy we're not invitation only but that open door is also about communication and about that very you know we want to hear from you we want to know the issues facing the field issues facing just your theater in particular we want to give you the space for it however you're comfortable but we know that sometimes it is intimidating and so a group like this hopefully you know can make you feel more secure in just kind of sharing things and kind of making one of the greatest things that has happened post-COVID is the breaking down of silos and the more that we can help do that and build these partnerships is about most important too I think I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about what you were sort of alluding to Rebecca like maybe people don't know how to answer the questions or I think especially around issues or challenges that organizations are facing around whether it's programming capacity whether it's staff retention whether it is around equity or justice work I think that there is so much fear around either how people are perceived or imagining that there are these kind of benchmarks that you all have said that you aren't telling anybody or like secret metrics that exist somewhere and I wonder if you all would talk a little bit about what you wish people were telling you more about or like questions that you have or conversations that you want to be having with grantees that feel either like it's difficult to get a kind of full-time answer or that it just feels like there's not maybe there's more trust that you can build around like sharing and giving visibility I'm thinking about what Emily said around self-awareness again I'm thinking about whether we're talking about organizational capacity mission or again in the case of the sort of melon rubric how we assess justice oriented practices I think that kind of self-awareness of what the internal challenges are it's demonstrative of a critical lens being able to bring I don't mean critical bad like an analysis to the organization so there is that ability to say these are pain points and this is how it connects to the larger system of the larger theater ecosystem and the larger sort of shenanigans in the systems that oppress us all kind of analysis is really it brings a sort of new opportunity I think to the partnership because now we are speaking a common language about what we together want to tackle and it starts to, at least in my experience my seven months experience it starts to disrupt or starts to chip away at the power dynamics because we can come together and say we are both looking at this set of problems and they're very real and let us be authentic and vulnerable about it and then also I think it's incumbent on us as grant makers to be transparent about what we can and can't help with whether that's financial support or otherwise I think I feel fortunate to have been able to work with a lot of you as funders for your organizations and I do feel like that approach and partnership of let's look at the problem together we're not in an adversarial we're definitely not in an adversarial relationship and we're not really even in an evaluative relationship how can we be in a sort of we're both looking at the same set of circumstances that what if there were different variables what can we identify together and think about a new way and I do feel like one of the things that is great about this panel and you've already sort of illuminated it is that there are so many different approaches to grant making each of these funders have a sort of lens whether it's a geographical focus a different way of approaching kind of identifying how you function and you're all in conversation with each other and so I wonder if you can just sort of reflect on what doesn't it look like to be I think we talk a lot as a field about the relationship between different producing organizations or presenting organizations of this sort of ecosystem of the way projects move but I think the same thing happens in philanthropy and this sort of ecosystem and approaches to grant making that are later, you know, you sort of dovetail in interesting ways what do you think that you know, what are your reflections on that or has that I think influenced the way that maybe a grantee positions their work well I think we're always looking for the biggest bang for our buck so how can our dollars go as far as possible and if that means collaborating in certain ways then that is like the most exciting part of grant making truly we do talk to one another we have opportunities where we meet and work together we have service organizations for arts philanthropy that we all belong to so we're we're very connected and there have been many examples during my time at Gilman where we collaborated with funders very very deliberately on a very specific project where one funder might be able to fund some capacity building support another funder might be able to come in with some debt relief another funder might be able to come in with some general operating support and we worked that very specifically to get to the next place it wants to be so I think the more of that we can do the better and I do want to just underscore that behind the scenes like we are always trying to find the next bit of leverage oh I can't find that company they don't fit within my guidelines let me call my friend at this organization and let them know this is an amazing organization or if I give this grant I know I could leverage over here to unlock this money that you know that's part of our job so we're doing that and if I if I could also put Emily on the spot a little bit more Emily leads a really great committee at the New York grant makers in the arts and it's about it's called the Common Application Committee and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up because I think the Common Application in New York is not going to happen for lots of reasons and I'm very sorry so I don't want to give anyone false hope but what that committee has evolved into under Emily's leadership is also really interesting so can I put you on the spot this might be a panel no no and I'm sorry it's about that committee and it's the great work that we're doing there love it love it so yes Rebecca is on the committee and Dylan from the DCLA so it's been great we we meet once a month and we talk about what are the pain points for folks applying for grants for arts grants whether they be individuals or organizations applying for New York City funding so it takes a lot of time and it produces a lot of anxiety so are there ways as a funding community we can alleviate some of that so are we all asking a question about the history of your organization but we're asking it in 15 different ways and that's creating a lot of anxiety about how to answer it for each individual funder maybe there's ways to come together on something like that something Gilman put in its application for 2024 it's tiny but I think it's significant is in the budget requirement section we just put a little note that said if you want to submit you know the template you used for your DCLA grant for your budget please just send us that so just you know a little acknowledgement that we are working together and we we want to simplify things and if I yeah and Gilman and Schubert have been talking too about we have such an overlap of grantees we're a national funder they're not there's not going to be there's not going to be a common application and I'm very sorry but but where can't where is there enough overlap like what are those like the supplemental materials we're asking for there's a lot in common that we can try and come together on so we're talking that's one of the biggest things that we're talking about together right now yeah I'm also interested in Chelsea you spoke a little bit about the Altman portfolio the relationship between general operating support capacity building um project specific funding do you all feel like there are certain trends that you want to see more of you know obviously I think Emily I think you did a beautiful job to be like how those pieces all fit together right like in an ideal world nothing is happening in a vacuum and both for good reasons and also because I think it builds great coalitions in the way that you were talking about not every funder can fund everything you know that is like a true reality today and but I wonder like what you're seeing on sort of the trend level of how general operating support project funding capacity building and other sort of you know specialty definitely for lines of credit or other ways of providing financial support to organizations do you observe any kind of like macro trends about those kinds of support I think specifically in New York City arts funding or gaps that you wish somebody could fill that you can't you know things that you're like I would love somebody to be funding something I'm sitting next to you very nice asked for and so I can't really speak necessarily to whether we as a field or as a sector are responding to that yet right but we hear these calls very much for general operating support or for longer you know multi-year grants like we if not for the financial aid we get 10-year grants like wow that is amazing we're not there right and so you know sort of this move towards what ultimately falls under sort of trust you know and then also the nuances of what that really looks like when we are looking for leverage when we have just these to sort of report back to that many materials but we had a you know call for phone calls or no reporting and then you're sort of like well where is the shared language where's the shared sort of material from this experience that we can then go and keep trying there's this call for just more money to flow more seamlessly quickly and with fewer restrictions and I think there's definitely enthusiasm to move in that direction and we're all to the point of the common application trying to navigate you know how close we can get towards that dream within you know and barriers we can break down etc within our own organization I'll just underscore the trust based plan because is one that in my understanding of it both has like very sort of like structural implications but I think also can be like a way of being right you know it can be a posture even if there are structures that we have not fully dismantled in part because there are like big bets to make potentially it's a really great lens I'm thinking about it's like Chelsea I can't really speak to trends across philanthropy however I am hearing more and more across so I steward the performing arts portfolio from Mellon so it's not just theater it's across dance and music and everything in between and as organizations at scale not all scales but particularly at the larger scale as they are trying to correct course right size re-imagine some people might call it contracting scaling back like what I hear is this gets back to like how are we creating the conditions for grantees or potential grantees to really come with their whole authentic problems and potential solutions because increasingly I'm just real talk hearing organizations be straight up punished from funders don't individual corporate you know your budget got smaller you are not doing as many shows as many this as many the product the productive the sort of Henry Ford assembly line like rat race that has become has been so standard for so long that now as organizations really try to like do right by their artists their people their capacity and their and right size their activity to their resources it we're in a place where there are funders and donors who see that as a sign of I don't know failure I have no idea but that is a increasingly I'm having those conversations so that's a very worrying trend and I feel very fortunate to be in a foundation that can that can hold the the risk portfolio that or the the corrective nature of this moment and lean in where other funders are straight up getting out like there were snaps in the room in case they didn't fully translate on to the video I think that you know that idea feels it's so connected to this sort of like people wanting to share their full selves you know there's this sort of fear of a punitive response that it really gets to the heart of Emily what you were saying about like really understanding the mission and I think that as art makers as people who have specifically chosen the practice of doing a like temporal ephemeral highly collaborative requiring many people with many specialised skill sets that do a particular thing and then it goes away we had never been in an economy of scale right like that's not the nature of our creative work and yet I think that perhaps in times of other either economic conditions or other just sort of like moments in time there was this sort of like more more like we'll just do more shows and bigger shows and more theatres and more companies and and that that there is like an unsustainability built into that sort of pole to sort of be like oh yes my budget gets bigger every year we hire more people every year and that we release that if we are able to release that find like a more art based and human based way of making with each other it does put a lot of pressure on sort of like the structures that we've set up right you know I was just serving on a Niska grant panel that was like beautifully run and executed and you know but you know working with public funds there's also a different pressure there are different outputs that are around public good you know public access public ability for citizens to participate in art which is yet a different lens and so I do feel like I understand without even having been a part of it the challenges of the common application of like sometimes we're actually after different things and that wants to be okay too but how can we do that without downsizing giving at the exact moment that organizations are trying to make really smart choices about how they move through like a generative practice at a time that is really hard expensive and demanding I think it also gets to how we learn from you all so that we can advocate better for you to who we report to and our boards of directors as well who may not have a background in theater or nonprofit theater so again like that stress of being honest about how you're scaling your work as you come out of the pandemic again it's easy for us to say that but at the same time knowing more helps us advocate to the people that we report to and helps them understand why we're making the recommendations that we feel like we need to make in light of what we learn from how you're handling these situations on a day-to-day basis I can remember that these people are advocates and friends they want to go to that for you to get better at what you want to do and I think that that underscores like the need for sort of really candid and trusting conversations just to give props to Rebecca who really was the driving force on our webinar we already have one more second as was mentioned and my favorite from the anonymous survey was that what really came through is how much we want our grantees or potential grantees to succeed and we do we're lucky enough to have increased funding year over year and to add new groups year over year we don't you know just keep the same group and so we want to know you know we sustain but we also you know grow this is no question that I prepared that feels very much like a talk-back question where you're like it's a monologue is there a question at the end I will do my best so I think like thinking about this topic of both like what are the needs of this field right now how do we bring all of the very approaches that you bring and then the field at large to this moment of real uncertainty and I feel like you know we live through summer of offense and hot takes on like all kinds of ideas and one sort of recurring theme was this kind of a cult on individual artists over institutions and I feel like Stephanie posted on Facebook a widely circulated post that was calling out sort of the fallacy of the heart of that which is artists are institutions and they run and power our organizations whether it is people who have a directing practice and write grants on the side or whether it's the technicians and dramaturgs and producers who staff organizations and then I also feel like there's the sort of thread that is the acknowledgement that I think has been super clear today that our field is so porous you know artists and audiences and administrators like move across the institution so nothing is ever one thing you know I feel like looking into this room I know so many of you with four different hats and I think that that is a strength and so I feel like there's this sort of the the sort of artists versus the institution which I think is false but then I think also just sort of the like well renewed support versus expanding your portfolio or sort of all of these kind of dichotomies that are I think in large part not real but I think end up kind of having these like very tense holes and I wonder obviously I think that if you all each had access to an unlimited ATM machine you would just distribute as much as you can as quickly as you can but recognizing that there are limitations and there do have to be hard decisions how do you think about this kind of like funding an ecosystem as opposed to perhaps an individual idea or an individual outcome what does it look like to kind of take on the bigness of an ecosystem that's a constant question at Schubert we are a national funder because we do fund companies with really small budgets of $150,000 up to you know tens and tens of millions so for us this tension of wanting to keep working with supporting the companies we have for decades versus also bringing on new companies every year that's our constant conversation and there's no easy or straight forward answer I think unfortunately we don't make a choice about depth versus breadth so as much money as $38 million is it's still a finite resource so there still comes a point we have to talk about how much can that money do this year so it's a constant tension of wanting to support the theater ecosystem nationwide ours is organization based you have to have a 501c3 we don't even fund other companies so that's not that's not going to change so we do believe and hope that our organizational grantees are using that money we hope it's underwriting a certain amount of risk taking with the artists that they are that they are supporting it's a constant discussion of how do we raise where can we raise where can we add it's hard to get your arms around it that's not a precise answer but yes that is true it's just a vast scale to be working on very curious to hear about some of this topic but one of the conversations that has bubbled up a few times recently is one of the things that's challenging about theater is that as organizations grow which is not every organization's desire but organizations at different sizes and different phases in their life cycle it's not just a difference in scale it's a difference in kind the ways of taking risk the ways of absorbing risk the ways of providing really longitudinal support for artists versus deep investment it's the same there are so many ways to parse what an organization needs to turn out even reflected in a budget but also there is so much variety within that it's a huge portfolio to hold I really appreciate the question around ecosystem it is it's a big part of how Melan lured me away from this vocation but thinking about it not just the theater ecosystem but in my portfolio the performing arts and the good news is the good news is that across artistic practices individual artists and organizations are experiencing such similar things it's just not unique to theater but that question of how do you analyze an ecosystem and then not to get super scientific about it but then identify the sort of indicator species that if you go in and you really focus on this aspect of the ecosystem it is truly going to be the most impactful lever that you can push that feels like a moving target at least from where I sit right now I could not tell you even with the theater ecosystem which is literally my entire career in I couldn't say if you push this one lever it will unlock everything else it's got to be multiple levers and I think to your point about the individual artists versus the institution and the verses, the binary embedded in that I reject it wholly, completely on Facebook and in real life and the power structures that have been built up over generations privilege the physical embodiment of these like institutions and their their structures, their memories their rigidity, their values and so what does it mean to emboldened and able and enable artists to challenge that really like that feels like a more specific question and the last thing I'll say in my own talkback monologue is that I want to you just said it Talia over and over again that like the institutions don't want to grow not everybody wants to grow and I just want to get a little bit more nuanced about that because if if you believe in the theory of cost disease and if you believe in compensation and thriving wages and you believe that inflation is going where it's going if you believe that costs are going to continue to do this then you must grow you must it doesn't mean the scale at which you're operating needs to expand but in terms of the cost that you are actually like paying out you must grow and so I just want to like bring a little bit of like nuance into that we don't want to grow we're so small we're going to stay small false if you want to keep pace with all of the values you are going to have to put more resources because we live in a capitalist blah blah blah blah and also and also I feel like a lot of companies are handling that by not growing maybe necessarily with dollars but with resource sharing yes so like for example I was in Buffalo doing site visits last month and they've got this great program every fall called Curtin Up where a lot of their theater companies open shows around the same week in September and it gets a huge amount of publicity for all the companies around the entire city it was all over the local news they had a block party downtown it was all people you know in town were talking about that week it was going to see live theater the Frederick Foundation in Connecticut is funding a bunch of our Connecticut based grantees to with a grant to think about how they can better resource share in this moment Seema Suico the amazing human director human being extraordinaire won the Alan Schneider award from TCG last year maybe the year before and she's using part of her proceeds to put together virtual learning circles about solidarity economies so how can we as theater artists not rely on money to do this to meet this moment of expansion so I think all those are just my it's my it's my model log talk back but I would also say that in terms of how the expansion is happening there are ways in which it's happening outside of financial exchange I mean this picks up a little bit on what we were talking about in the last session which was about staff retention HR people people who work at these organizations and talking a little bit about how do theater companies come together and share one HR department and I mean I know that like these ideas come in cycles and they kind of every few decades they go like this but now is the time and you know with service organizations like Art New York leading these conversations the more I think we can explore these kinds of shared situations the better we talked about Pittsburgh in our last session as well and their shared artistic services which are exceptional I know New York is different and it's bigger I know we can't do it but like maybe we could do it and I think we don't talk about it right you know I think that I certainly I'm sure all of us are seeing much more partnership than ever before amongst theater companies that pose pandemic many more co-productions which is I think so fantastic and I think theaters have to to resist the temptation to tear each other down if they are different shapes and different sizes and do different types of work and oh I'm a big theater so I wouldn't want to work with a little theater or I'm a little theater so I'm doing real art and the big theater is not doing real art because I think we have an opportunity to work together much more right now and there's and there are real and just to say for us as grant makers too there are actual real impediments to the kind of collaboration I think we would all see and I think that sort of big budget little budget is a great example of here in New York and across the country like the way that the mental and producing gymnastics that me and my colleagues have had to do to sequence a co-production in order to adhere to the collective bargaining clause that says you cannot take a pay cut you know there are things that are in place for good reason but they prohibit the kind of just like free flowing collaborative experimentation and a lot of those things look like regular regular calendars but a lot of it looks like CBAs and agreements across different unions that impact and inform a theater's ability to partner and to force multiply and to share resources. It also starts to be a bit when you think about resource sharing beyond co-productions which I think have their own set of unique groups but I think that there are really interesting ways of parsing the idea of shared HR maybe putting it through the same filter as the common application conversation of how do we recognize what is shared and how do we recognize what are unique needs across a different organization and build a container that is both like flexible enough but also supportive enough that it does a thing which I think it's not I think that is the kind of creativity that I think we're all being kind of called on right now to exercise because there's not sort of a like oh copy paste that we've done it and I do think that but I think you're right Emily it's time again if these are kind of circular conversations the cycle is back to meeting to think about if we're not going to just continue on the rat race of meeting and beating inflation and trying to pay people better an absence of universal basic income and socialized medicine in this country there are like inescapable big forces and so if we want to as a sector be released from some of that pressure it is about finding those kind of like what is the non-financial way of building that structure and I'm on the safety net coalition of grant makers and arts so education a little more lofty our whole you know it's really interesting though because it's really the fundamentals of these sort of these bigger systemic things right like why can't we have access to universal health care what does it look like to have a solidarity economy and where is their common cause for coalition building efforts outside of the theater outside of the arts with other human beings in society who are struggling with these same issues to meet their basic needs let alone find affordable space coordinate the schedule to get everyone there afford the union labor to hire the and do the whole thing and so I think building critical consciousness around the just conditions of our lived experience is really valuable and finding shared fellow travelers to walk that road together is really just of increasing importance because we end up with exactly you know exactly what you're describing right it's shared back office if it's HR or if you go to art school for your financial management etc and then art school comes to us right and so you know provisioning that forward right and so being able to have at least the network effect of you know collaborative thinking collaborative dreaming collaborative identification of what the barriers are so that you can begin to kind of solve for them I think is really valuable so things like this are the first step to getting outside of your particular theater or your particular issue and looking up and saying okay well maybe the solution might be in the room or at least my fellow traveler to get there I think that's such a great point I think I'm you all know but previously I was a development consultant and spent a lot of time thinking about fundraising and I feel like one of the things that I would like rail against quietly to myself was that I think we often ask philanthropy private philanthropy specifically to solve structural problems that are not private philanthropy is perfect you know that there's often this sort of like the all of the issues of the safety net coalition and this sort of like what are we called on to provide each other you know how do we how do we make it possible to make art you know around things like housing and you know all of those other sort of basic means and I think that sometimes it's a real I found that I could kind of like work myself into a whole spiral of being like but who's doing it and I think that that is like I think it's something that I appreciate how all of you are talking about this because there is both agency around like how can we think structurally find fellow travelers build coalitions in interesting ways but also we all kind of have to work in the lame and the and the role that we have and and I think that that's like a good thing to sort of demystify of I want to say like philanthropy is not the man but also you know but also like there are all of these like structures that make it difficult to function in certain ways and I think you know kind of recognizing that that the idealism of art practices butts up against the realities of our absurd room that we're in and I think that that can be that can be tough and I think does also feed into some of the potentially adversarial feelings between you know grantees or applicants and those working in philanthropy. But also philanthropy is very much the man. Like real talk. Look where the money comes from. It'll gotten gains across the board, yeah? We at our neighbor have been talking about some is like everybody's wondering what the new normal is and I think part of that is like we all have to perhaps breathe into the possibility that there is no new normal and normal is not here for us. But I think there are trends and there are sort of like patterns I wonder if you can kind of help contextualize like what do you see you know I think people have talked a little bit about like contraction copros any other kind of like programmatic trends or also change change leadership change and staff change those I think are like definitely trends that we can all acknowledge are affecting a lot of folks are there any other kind of like macro trends that we haven't talked about or things that you have sense might be coming I feel really excited by the organizations who are taking an incredibly expansive view to the definition of theater the organizations who are I know this is blasphemous but like jettisoning their main stage seasons and even that idea of that language around normal puts us in again a binary of what is normalized and what is abnormal and increasingly I hear the language is like shout out to Annalisa Diaz in her essay in Rescripted around decomposition not collapse do theater be like soil that thing we need all the ideas all the time and this is Octavia Butler change is God, God is change right and so if we normalize dynamism and change constant change then I think we relieve ourselves of trying to get to a fixed destination or a monolithic or homogenization of a model and if we can embrace all the ways of practicing I think that is I am hearing that language increasingly and it makes me so happy do you feel like it's mostly at the sort of like idea phase right now or do you feel like you've seen any examples of like oh I think that's what that is I have seen examples I will I'm like aware that we're live streaming and so I'm not going to say I'm not going to say everything that's in my mind right now but I do think that that we tend to valorize inside of New York and outside of New York we tend to valorize and lift up a dominant model that involves a season it involves subscriptions involves dual headed leadership model at the top but you know there are all the it involves Lord contracts or Lord side letters or references to Lord right there are so many ways that we are holding up and focusing on one dominant model and so the extent to which we can understand that it's not that everybody is working that way as Todd says and many people are working in many different ways so shining practically speaking first we need to elevate shine a light on embrace understand and learn from our fellow travelers who are doing it differently they are walking a different path and we can start there just practically speaking it's sort of finding where are there like the evolutionary early early adapters right you know like they're they're doing something different and how do we make it possible to thrive in a different way which I think is really interesting to think about and I think it was like a really good prompt for us in New York to think about I think we have a long really valued and leaned into not wanting there to be one model or you know one way of making work or one style of work and I think that it's a great challenge to think even more extensively about like what aren't we even seeing because it's not on our radar yet. Any other trends or like I think something we're facing organizations are starting to pay their people better yes coming out of the pandemic this is a huge priority and a lot of organizations have like really moved very far forward in this yeah so that's on one side of the pendulum on the other side of the pendulum there people are cutting staff and cutting production so there is not as much work but for the people who have the work they're getting paid better so you know this is again one of those things that goes like this and you know pendulum will swing but I think one thing we can do as a theater community there's a lot of doom and gloom over the course of the pandemic about people leaving the field and there is some doom and gloom about that but I also would suggest there's a beautiful narrative about that that could be uplifted Daniela Topol is going to be a nurse and she's going to be the best nurse ever because she has a theatrical background right so my husband has worked in theater for 20 years he has now left he's finishing up his master's degree to be a high school English teacher he's going to be an amazing teacher because he's worked in the theater so how can we change a little of this narrative to not just be if you don't stick in the theater for the rest of your life you know that's it like how can say theater gives people something and then they can move and bring those gifts to the rest of the world in different ways so that's I don't know if that's a trend but that's something I've noticed yeah yeah you know it makes me think about well two things that there was like a great New York Times article that you know highlighted like Tonya Brown Jackson and like all of these people who are like former theater kids doing amazing things in the world and I and it strikes me that when we talk about our audiences and our communities we're always talking about theater being additive no matter what you do right that exposure for young kids you know kids having both exposure to and practice in the arts changes the trajectory of their lives and the communities that have robust arts have better outcomes on all of these metrics and we don't apply that to ourselves you know we don't give ourselves the offering of like thinking about this being additive and expansive without it being like an on or off switch that either you're working as a theater maker or you are not you know that that has to be like a hard line and I think that that is a great reframing of something that I think also you know does have consequences for theater companies of labor shortages or the brain drain that I think is real you know we will also miss Daniela and your husband and all of these other people you know who have given so much and I think that that is like an interesting that's a good reframe I like that any other sort of trends okay great I'm interested in talking about audiences now since I just sort of like made a transition to different communities and obviously I think you know I'm not looking at the data there's a round table tomorrow about audience development and marketing here at Art New York's Fall Forum it will be live streamed and you know but I think that audience behavior obviously has made real changes urban environments have changed we are living in a different world and a lot of I think also like new adaptations and emergent ideas that are interesting and great to uplift but I'm and I think we'll talk about it tomorrow with David but I'm interested in hearing from you all like what do you think the relationship is between philanthropy and audience engagement or audience behavior and sort of donor behavior like again I think sometimes these are thought of in kind of opposition to one another but I think that there's a real great conversation and I wonder how you think about that in your practices I don't love the word audience anymore it feels too limiting in terms of what we ask of our theaters audience as we understand it the person who buys the ticket and sits in the seat or maybe they don't buy the ticket maybe it's free but anyway they're sitting in a seat and that that is the dominant, not the only but the dominant metric we use for impact for theater and that feels it feels like we're over indexing on that particular indicator I will say like the I particularly theaters with a physical space inside of New York, outside of New York I feel really curious about what that relationship could mean apropos public good and what it means for an arts organization, theaters in particular how do they want to be serving their public and the this is just my opinion my thoughts are my own it cannot, the only answer cannot be sit and watch a 90 minute, 2 hour 60 minute whatever play cannot be sit in the dark and watch the lights up if that's the answer then welcome to 30 years ago and so I feel like the opportunity for the reframe here is what happens if we stop using the word audience what happens if we use the word stakeholder what happens if we use the word I don't know, I don't have the answers but how does the how do the metrics start to shift I think that's so powerful just thinking about the stakeholders like involved in any production and also the premium of space and what happens in the space are there stakeholders the interns of low income young kids of color from the city who didn't go to college but could be technical theater professionals, are you actively seeking out opportunities to develop the next generation of folks to be theater makers are you, I'm focused on the youth but creating those pathways with intentionality of really exactly living your mission and understanding what resources you have at your disposal, what are you doing with the space when your theaters are dark even if it's just an hour of time, could you program, could you share that, could you speak on a panel I think just the more that we really lean into the network effect of sharing just whatever time time talent and treasure as they say is really valuable always but especially now as we're seeing declines in the number of ticket buyers as a particular stakeholder in class it's such a good reframe of away from a transactional relationship towards like a relational engagement and right, that that can happen in so many different spaces and it also does feel like it shifts away from I think another kind of like burbling whisper burbling brook, I don't know what I'm saying sort of this other thread around like it's the content or it's the marketing or it's the subscription package, you know there are so many that it's sort of like oh if you just do the right blank then everything will follow but it's actually like maybe what we need to do right is the relationship, is like call it the right thing, create the right environment for people to opt into something that isn't Netflix and chill and like that is actually like a larger way of thinking about audiences are essential or not audiences stakeholders, participants engaged in like contributors are essential to a live experience and so how do we treat them like that and not as sort of like but as chair that's great those are good prompts what I was just going to say because I don't know if the thing I think philanthropy can do is to invite and lovingly probe at those frameworks and enable and support the experimentation beyond the transactional dynamic I don't know how long it will take to shift the culture wholesale but I know it doesn't happen without philanthropic support to help absorb some of the very real opportunity cost of not working the way we used to work so just to get really specific about that's thought partnership and risk capital or risk absorption or whatever you want to call it feel like very practical ways that philanthropy can help move that needle it also feels like thinking about what you were saying about DJ culture live music culture there's so much about live entertainment culture that is thriving in so many ways because they are these like happenings that people want to be at and I think that there is so much to learn from that and if it requires a shift from us in how we practice absorbing that risk but also knowing that there's lots out there that we're doing I think for me is very energizing I just got the sign that we have about 10 minutes the last question that I have is about what makes you optimistic and what you're looking forward to and I feel like there have already been some gems of optimism and so we can share more of those and then also I want to provide some time that if you have questions for each other or if there are things that I let lie fallow that we want to revive and close out I'm open to any of that but lots of optimism always feel like a good way to end or maybe everybody just wants to go last and be the mic drop there's so much to be optimistic about but it's also just being in this room right now I don't want to sound too polyanna but the hard work that all of you were doing day in and day out is what motivates us to do what we do and makes us grateful to be able to do what we do and so we thank you for that and look forward to many more discussions like this that's one of the things one of the things that the prompts that Kelly shared with us before this session was the questions we have for you all and I don't want to hijack what's happening right now but in terms of what we can do besides money that's I think what's been on our minds a lot the money runs out at a certain point but what else do you need what else can we think about with you or do besides give more money is it more sessions like this is it think tanks is it listening tours are you tired of listening tours like what are we like what what what is it that's what we want to know about but we have some responses live in the room lots of them I'm gonna I'm gonna table responses no that's right we can facilitate that I want to hear other optimism and then we'll throw it to the room for things that people want to play with money I'm optimistic I'm optimistic because the world has been changing always always got to change right but the conditions of our shared and lived experience have gotten so wild out of control that I think the ability of everyone to feel more comfortable speaking truth to power and sharing a voice around what is not working has not it's become more normal and I think that as a grant maker and as a radical person it's beautiful to me to be able to see that reflected in what it is that's coming back to me to be asked for support because we can only support what it is that's happening right and so the more that folks are encouraged to take a bold step forward and say this isn't working and it could be this way or to present that theater piece or to have an institution committing to social justice ideals and not feel that their board members are going to have some uproar over this being a declared stance right that brings me tremendous hope right I think that I'm young but I've been doing this my whole career and that is not where I started in this work right and so you know to be truthful in our exchanges in a way that is still fresh brings me quite a bit of optimism it's not a good reflection on where we're at as a culture but it shows me I think where we're going I'm optimistic I'm optimistic seeing the work out there seeing the voices love seeing playwrights and artists names that I haven't seen before I mean there's a lot of amazing work out there some of it is hyper local and understanding you know ever more what these companies means to their communities and how that's growing and changing is really uplifting yeah well I tried to jot down a few thoughts I think mine are sort of similar in that what makes me optimistic are really good plays and the one that sort of came to me that has become symbolic of where I find optimism in theater Ebony Booth's primary trust at Roundabout last year the play was so sad but so bizarrely optimistic so the play itself was so full of hope but everything about that production you know how beautifully crafted every design element was and not on a rotating stage that cost a million dollars simple but so just you could see the art and craft and the sound design and in the lighting and in every prop and in costumes and that show that quiet little show come out with a bang was impossible to get a ticket to by the end and everybody I felt like I ran into when the street was talking about it so if you can do a show like that and then people show up that's what gives me optimism I love that I'm optimistic about the coalition building and the coalition building that is happening at a very public in a public way like the professional non theater nonprofit theater coalition and the way that theaters across the country are moving together across budget sizes but it's also the coalition building that's happening in the private and I'm thinking what is it the ED call here Fridays at eight Fridays at six, Thursdays at four Thursdays at three culture at three I'm like Roberta's always talking about the ED calls the coalition building amongst the executive directors here in New York the coalition building that happens when I was an artistic director they still let me in sometimes Tuesdays it's Tuesdays at three and Todd London convenes us every week on zoom for now three and some odd years of artistic directors coming together not to talk about co-pros but to talk about to be humans together and that kind of that kind of stuff is like we're going to be okay we're going to be okay because about humans like I also hope that this kind of panel also you know he mystifies foundations and he has more in the face because what comes through in all of our conversations together is how much we care about the field and as we said you know everyone to succeed to have access to these funds to make the incredible art that you do and I think that to just remember that we are human too and so we you know we need your help and we need you know speaking of some of the things that aren't money you know there have been some companies that have done funders briefings recently and I feel like that has been a powerful way to gather people in the room and an efficient way because we're humans with lives and families and you know and we travel and sometimes we take time out to go see the incredible work and to remember that we are doing this because we're interested and doing some of the simple things to make that a little bit easier to just give one final example when I went to a site visit in Cincinnati the sort of major theater in town ended up telling people that I was coming and not for a red carpet or any kind of special treatment whatsoever but just a chance to have coffee together and how generous that this theater was to invite colleagues and there was a colleague that was in from Indiana and there was a colleague that was in from Florida and not everybody can do that but it was it didn't cost any money and it was created by two people I think it's great to sort of end on like the reminder of like our shared humanity and our shared commitment to like a robust and beautiful art making practice but also to sort of underscore how important coalition building is whether it's on your like hyper local people who all have offices at 528th avenue or people who work with particular populations or whether it's through being part of something like the New York Fall Forum or wherever you are in the country finding your people your fellow travelers to help you to show up robustly with your questions and take some risks right like find the places where you can say like we're going to try and find some partners who will we help you support that risk or at least like give you a strong pat on the back for having done it I think we can just ask the people who raise their hand to talk about what can you imagine is against and maybe we can find you afterwards that's a great question also like we have time for a couple quick ones let's do it we're going to need to speak into the microphone so I decide to pop around we do have a short amount of time so if it feels more popcorn that might be nice just a recommendation raise your hands oh yeah I was just going to say lobbying like whatever support we can get to like the changes in the tax code that we need because that is where I feel like a lot of big change where philanthropy has a lot of opportunity to have voice on that like how can we make our government do better by us thank you just thinking about how you have you all have unique access to these stories of successful paradigm shifts successful relationship building with community is all the things we talked about for those of us whose organizational structures don't meet the funding requirements to be funded by you it would be so exciting if you could share out your learnings from those companies that you are funding I love that also more transparency if you don't fund us and just be a little bit more transparent because I have applied to a lot of other companies I have a lot of I have a lot of funders and then come to find out when I get some sort of feedback that's when they tell me oh you don't meet our requirements and I didn't know that from the beginning after having a conversation with you over months and I submit and then I find that out so to be transparent from the beginning about what your funding limitations are that would be very very helpful along the idea of like shared coalition building up and like helping us tell that larger trend story and especially I'm going to say at the elephant in the room actors equity especially for small companies that is such a hindrance to allowing us to have the flexibility to support artists from the ground up and move between tiers on the national and here in New York City also along the line of coalition building you are talking about partnerships you all have a whole group of people that some of whom we know some of whom we don't know but helping us facilitate those partnerships and maybe thinking about people that are not necessarily working with the populations that we're working with who are not necessarily working in the sectors that we're working with that we can get together and you know I'm yenta for us a little bit it would be great I think we have to wrap it here I'm sorry there's one more question in the back so for anybody who wants to find her afterwards please do but I just want to be respectful of everyone's time it sounds like maybe this will be the first of many conversations we can have on this I don't want to assume but it feels so exciting to be in this conversation to be part of this dialogue I'm so incredibly grateful to each one of you and the work that you do in the world and to all of you for the work that you do in the world let's be in touch and have a great day thank you