Presented: January 23, 2006

Good evening and welcome to the 2006 Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia Membership Meeting! My name is James Haskins, and I am the Executive Director of the Theatre Alliance. The structure of this evening's event is very simple. I will share a few words and provide some nuts and bolts information about our current programs and services, we will then open it up to you for Q&A, and then we will go down the hall for a party.

But first, I'd like to say that we are thrilled to be here at Freedom Theatre. We regularly depend on the kindness of our member organizations to provide us with space for our events and so much more. For instance, this podium is the property of InterAct Theatre Company, the mic stand belongs to Theater Catalyst, and 1812's coffee urn has taken up permanent residence in our office. I'm particularly pleased to be here at Freedom tonight because tomorrow on this stage, the set will be loaded in for Emergence-See, the show that will begin Freedom's 2006 Back with a Vengeance Season. With many thanks and congratulations, I'd like to welcome our host for this evening, Freedom's Producing Artistic Director, Walter Dallas.

[Walter speaks]

The Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia is now 104 organizational members and 214 individual members strong! Of the organizational membership, 67 are full members and 37 are associate members. Our calendar of events boasts 334 productions during the 2005-06 season, resulting in 5,400 performances. If we look at all the venues in the region, from a house of 40 at the Shubin Theatre to 2,500 at the Academy of Music, and work with a very conservative average of 200 audience members per event, we are playing to more than one million theatergoers per year.

Given these numbers, the Theatre Alliance is hard at work to redefine the organization as one that leads and strengthens our community, rather than one that simply serves: our budget has increased to $360,000 for our most recently completed fiscal year and we expect another significant increase in the very near future. About 22% of our revenues are earned, primarily from your membership dues and Barrymore ticket sales. The balance of 78% is contributed, including grants, Barrymore sponsorships and in-kind contributions. As you can see, we rely on the kindness of so many for all that we do, and we extend our heartfelt thanks to all who have given of their time and resources to make our work possible.

We have introduced a new look for the organization and we have moved our offices to a new location. For those of you who haven't yet entered our new address into your database, please be certain to take a New Look New Location postcard with you this evening. We also welcome you to visit us in our new digs at 1616 Walnut Street, Suite 1800, where we share office space with Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and reside 10 floors above the Cultural Alliance. With much gratitude to our webmaster Anne Shuff of MindLabs.net and our graphic designer Chris Rugen, we have completely redesigned the website, not only to reflect the new image of the organization, but also to provide comprehensive information for the theatergoing public and the membership alike. And to further enhance our image change, I have personally and respectfully requested that our constituents discontinue use of the acronym TAGP and simply call us The Alliance, for we are all allied to promote, inform and advocate for the collective community of theatres in our region.

The progress to date has served us well as we work with funders, government officials, the media and other community leaders in the region to engender greater awareness of the breadth of theatre activity. In the near future, we will report hard cold facts and figures, rather than just anecdotes, about attendance and economic impact, and we will publicly share information as it is confirmed. You, in turn, will be able to look at your organization in context of the community, and share valuable information with your boards of directors.

During the past two-and-a-half years, we have also revised our mission statement, discontinued certain programs, added new programs, and overhauled the structure of our incredibly committed Board of Directors - all with an eye towards providing you with the most valuable programs and services possible. The board is now comprised of 26 individuals, which is a reduction from more than 50 when all full member organizations held a seat on the board. The new structure allows us to bring community representatives from outside the non-profit theatre world in addition to representatives from the membership. Now, each board member who comes from a full member organization serves as a contact and a spokesperson for three or four additional full member organizations. We also now have a board member who serves as a representative for the individual membership, as well as a board member who represents our advisory board, and works with us to reach further into the corporate community. During tonight's reception, we hope that many of our board members will have an opportunity to meet face to face with representatives from their constituencies. If you do not know who your board representative is, please see Stephanie Kish, our Membership and Development Manager, and she will provide you with accurate information.

We are now seeing national media coverage to suggest that the Philadelphia region is breaking through its greatly bemoaned second city syndrome and finally being recognized on a national level as the cultural destination it truly is. This recognition is long in coming and I firmly believe the work that all of you are doing has had immeasurable impact on the revitalization of the region. All we need do is look at Old City, Ambler, Sansom Street and Media, to name a few, to see how theatre has played a significant role in driving economic influences. The city of Philadelphia is consistently dubbed "livable" and I see it borne out by the numbers of theatre artists who are able to purchase homes rather than rent studio apartments. We seem to have an inordinate number of theatre families in our region and they, in turn, bring forth the next generation of theatre artists. In fact, eight days ago our newest member, Lila, was brought into the community by Amy Dugas Brown and Ben Dibble. More and more, theatre artists are moving to our region and inspiring comments from our neighbor to the north identifying us as the "sixth borough." I'm here to tell you that we welcome artists into our community from anywhere, but we are a "borough" to nowhere. We are Greater Philadelphia, and we have a theatre community as accomplished and distinctive as any across the country.

While the anecdotes are heartening, the numbers are impressive and the journey of the Theatre Alliance has overall been a positive one, we recognize that the situation may not be the same for all of our member theatres. This year, we are hearing stories of strong subscription renewals, but a sudden end to new subscriptions far short of goals. Is this the result of focusing our national attention on Hurricane Katrina at the beginning of the season? Or are there additional forces at work? We hear that many of our companies are struggling with single ticket buyers, not only due to decreases in numbers, but also changes in ticket buying patterns. How do we adjust our marketing strategies to attract the ever-increasing last-minute ticket buyer? And decrease our stress levels as we wait for those last-minute buyers to show-up? We also hear about (and in some cases experience first-hand) changes in funding practices from those loyal sources that have provided such consistent support for so many years. And we're all mightily aware of the ongoing decreases in media coverage.

We at The Alliance see the challenges facing our community and it is within all of our best interests for us to be responsive to the community's needs. And yet, we are a staff of four. And as a staff, we are all inclined to jump at any idea when it seems to be perfectly in keeping with our mission and strategic goals. But if we try to do everything we'd like to do, we only end up falling short in everything we do. Ultimately, it is our goal to give you the greatest value our staff and resources have to offer.

And to that end, I would like to provide brief information about each program and service we offer for individuals and organizations, and then open the meeting up for questions and comments. When you arrived this evening, you were given a survey to complete regarding our programs and services. We ask that you fill it out and return it to us after tonight's meeting.

For our individual members, we offer...

• A personal web page on our website in the Philly Talent Database, a searchable collection of Philadelphia theatre artists, technicians, educators, and administrators. The Philly Talent Database currently contains 202 listings.
  
  
• Advance notice of the Annual Auditions and the Production Resource Book for non-acting theatre professionals. Notices went out recently to individual members, so if you didn't receive yours, please let us know. The $10 application fee for both auditions and the resource book is waived only for individual members.
  
  
• Events and membership meetings, providing the opportunity for networking and information sharing, and to foster a sense of community among the membership. That would be what's happening tonight.
  
  
• Participation in Spark events, igniting dialogue and opportunities for small and developing theatre companies. I'll talk more about Spark when I review programs and services for organizations, but I do want to mention that our next Spark event on February 13th is a networking opportunity for directors and designers at Fergie's Pub on the 2nd floor. What would we do without Fergie! This networking event is, of course, open to all members.
  
  
• Each individual member also receives one set of mailing labels to Alliance member organizations - great for sending headshots and resumes, especially for those who are new to the Greater Philadelphia community. For those who are not new, well, it can never hurt to add the organizational membership to your holiday card list.
  
  
• We also offer individual members discount tickets to the Barrymore Awards Ceremony and discounts at Alliance member organizations and local theatre-friendly businesses. Currently, 25 organizations offer discounts to our individual members. We'd love to see that number increase.

In the near future, we will produce an individual membership brochure with the intention of greatly expanding our community of individual stakeholders. We are certainly pleased with the growth we've seen just in the past year and we look forward to providing valuable service to more and more individuals in the year to come.

As for organizational membership, we'll start with...

• The Barrymore Awards: We are now in our 12th season of celebrating artistic excellence and, for us, the program is indeed a celebration of our community. We had a marvelous time at the Merriam Theater last October and we look forward to announcing preliminary information about the 2006 ceremony before too long. This season, 36 theatre companies are participating in the Barrymore Awards program with 108 productions. As with many of our programs, agreement to participate forms are on the website and we just happen to have a few with us tonight as well. The Barrymore Awards program is one of the few programs that is available only to our full member organizations: 501(c)3 professional producing theatres in the Greater Philadelphia region. As you can imagine, we receive quite a few comments about the Barrymores, relating to both the process and the ceremony. I assure you that all comments are given consideration and oftentimes spawn extensive dialogue. The Barrymore Awards Oversight Committee works very diligently to administer a fair and equitable program for all eligible companies, while still maintaining necessary participation parameters. If you have any questions about the process, we are always happy to answer them and you can also visit the website to review the rules. The Oversight Committee continually seeks out dedicated and knowledgeable candidates to apply for Barrymore nominator and judge positions. We have nominator/judge applications with us tonight, as well as on the website, and we encourage you to apply. Please note that nominators are only required to see 12 to 15 shows per year. This averages to little more than one show per month. We are now in the process of conducting a cost/benefit analysis of the entire Barrymore Awards program to determine if our current approach is the most efficient for us, and most valuable for you. Last Monday, while watching the Golden Globes, I began to imagine what the ceremony might be like if we served the blue vodka during the ceremony rather than afterwards. Seriously, though, we remain committed to the original vision of the program: to increase positive public and media awareness of the professional theatre community, to enhance member theatres marketing and fundraising efforts, and to empower artists through recognizing excellence in the local theatre community.
  
  
• The Annual Auditions: Probably our oldest continuous program, the Auditions provide local actors the opportunity to be seen by more than fifty theatres' representatives at once. We continue to offer an annual audition workshop and we recently introduced the Production Resource Book. This year, the Auditions will be held on June 5th, 6th and 12th at the Prince Music Theater's cabaret space. One major change this year: After polling our membership and discussing the topic at length, the Auditions committee has determined that the program will no longer fulfill any Actors' Equity Association audition requirements for our Equity theatres. We believe this change will greatly simplify the program for all involved. Rather than scheduling the audition days by union status, we will now schedule musical and non-musical days while still grouping union actors on those days.
  
  
• Theatre Alliance Website: I've already mentioned the redesign of the website and its dual purpose. I am excited to also report that the site has seen a significant increase in the number of weekly visitors. Many weeks, we are receiving more than 20,000 visits from over 6,000 distinct addresses.
  
  
• Theatre Alliance Listserv: Ah, the listserv. Now 1,400 members strong and growing, it's a valuable tool for disseminating information pertaining to... just about anything. We do not police content on the listserv and that remains our policy. On occasion, I may make a suggestion when something seems inappropriate or grossly inaccurate. I am all for lively discussion. All I ask is that you try to be courteous. And when Robert Smythe sends out a Laff for the Day, I suggest that you read it because it's always genuinely funny.
  
  
• Gift Certificate Program: We now have 37 organizations participating in the gift certificate program and this past holiday season between Thanksgiving and the end of the year, we sold twice as many gift certificates as in the same timeframe last year. We have made the program more attractive to the consumer by reducing the service fee from $5 to $3 per certificate and by creating professionally printed materials. Theatre companies still receive the full $20 value of each certificate. All you need do is send the certificate back to us and we will cut you a check within a week's time of receiving it. I hope more organizations will join the program and, of course, we do have agreements to participate with us tonight.
  
  
• Theatre Alliance Roundtable Discussions: There are no agreements to participate in the Roundtables! Just stop by. We convene monthly roundtables to provide an opportunity for theatre professionals to discuss Marketing and Development strategies and share information with colleagues in a casual networking environment. The Development Roundtable meets the last Friday of every month at 9:00 AM, typically at a coffee shop in Old City called Double Shots. If we have an invited guest and expect a larger turnout, we may move the roundtable to a larger, more formal venue. As an outcome of the Development Roundtable, we are now pursuing a new initiative called the Tessitura Arts Software Consortium. I will provide more information briefly.
  
  The Marketing Roundtable is sponsored by Whole Foods and meets the 2nd Thursday of each month in the Whole Foods café on South Street. As an outcome of the Marketing Roundtable, we have begun to reach out to the hospitality and tourism contacts in the region to provide them with comprehensive and reliable information about the theatre community. They in turn serve as advocates to those visiting our region.
  
  The Press Task Force of the Marketing Roundtable is working diligently to rejuvenate a dormant program of The Alliance to serve as a press and media liaison for the community. We are in the process of creating a comprehensive press list that will be updated regularly and also include contact preferences and timelines for each media contact. We are brainstorming multi-organizational story pitches that we can make to the media to generate more overall coverage of theatre in our community.
  
  
• We offer a general umbrella program called Joint Marketing and Promotional Opportunities. Here are some examples of what this means: Recently, we have represented participating organizations at the WXPN All About the Music Festival and Rittenhouse Row Festival. Our participation in the pilot of Free Night of Theater last October falls into this category and we look forward to participating in the expanded Free Night 2006 on October 19th when we anticipate adding more than 15 metropolitan regions around the country. More information will be coming your way before too long, but please make a note of Thursday, October 19, 2006. I continue to serve on the Free Night steering committee along with representatives from TCG, Austin Circle of Theatres and Theatre Bay Area.
  
  As another component of joint promotions, we now have an agreement with the Cultural Alliance to enter all theatre information in the PhillyFunGuide. Whether you are a member of the Cultural Alliance or not, you will be included in the FunGuide, provided you give us up-to-date information about your productions and events.
  
  One of our most successful joint marketing projects has been the On Stage Page. The page lists the current productions of all participating theatres, who in turn print the page in their programs. We now have 52 theatres participating in the On Stage Page and the program has become so successful that we may need to expand to two pages in some of the more active months. Help us to make that leap a reality by filling out an agreement to participate form, if you have not already done so.
  
  
• Our final current program, and one of which we are very proud, is Spark igniting dialogue and opportunities for small and developing theatre companies. We conduct Spark meetings on the second Monday evening of the month - some are topic specific seminars and others are social and networking events. As previously mentioned, our February event will be at Fergie's Pub. For our March event, I would like to encourage participation from our entire membership and members of your boards. On March 13th at 7:00 PM we will be joined by the editors of The Art of Governance to take a meaningful look at how we work with our boards. There is an essay in this book that speaks directly about boards of small organizations, and since this is a Spark event, I have asked that we spend some time on this particular topic. But the session will be invaluable to all who attend. When I mentioned this at our January Spark event, James Lynes from Philadelphia Theatre Company lauded the publication and mentioned that they had just purchased forty copies of the book for their board. Books will be available to purchase at the event and also on the TCG website. As soon as the location is confirmed, I will send out more information to all individuals and organizations about the event.
  
  Also a component of Spark, last July, we initiated the Spark Showcase Festival with 10 for 10, ten plays, each ten minutes, from ten different companies. We now have more than twenty organizations that have expressed interest in participating in the 2006 Festival and a total of 30 companies have signed up to participate in the overall Spark program. Looking to the future, we are talking about formalizing a mentorship program and possibly developing cooperative advertising opportunities for our small and emerging theatre companies.
  
  
• Also looking into the future, we are taking steps to initiate two new programs: The Tessitura Arts Software Consortium and the Philadelphia Winter Play Festival.
  
  Tessitura is a state-of-the-art software program that, over the course of the next three years, will be implemented at seven of our larger theatre companies. In the long-term, the program will serve the entire community with a centralized real-time online ticketing component of the Theatre Alliance website. Tessitura will greatly strengthen the capacity of The Alliance and revolutionize participating organizations' marketing and fundraising capabilities.
  
  The Winter Play Festival is currently in the planning stages with a Steering Committee comprised of Sara Garonzik, Terry Nolen, Seth Rozin and Blanka Zizka. As more information becomes known, we will send it your way.

Since tonight, we are in the home of Edwin Forrest, I'd like to mention that March 9th will be Mr. Forrest's 200th birthday. With all the deserved hoopla surrounding Ben Franklin, it's important that we don't neglect our native actor who gave his first and last performances on Philadelphia stages. As indicated in his will, funds from his estate were used to create (and continue to support) the Actors' Home, an assisted living facility for indigent actors. We plan to celebrate Mr. Forrest's birthday and his thoughtful foresight by working with our member theatres to raise funds for the Actors' Home from audiences who attend the theatre on March 9th.

In just a moment, I will invite to the stage the amazing Glen Knapp, Theatre Alliance Board Chair and Executive Director of Philadelphia Young Playwrights, to facilitate a discussion between you and the incredible Theatre Alliance staff: Karen DiLossi, Stephanie Kish, and Natalee Hill. After that, we will go to the reception hall to enjoy food, drink and each other's company. We are grateful to the William Penn Foundation for their support of tonight's event and to the Victory Brewery Company for providing us with beer. We encourage everyone here tonight to meet new people and one very simple way to do that is to introduce yourself to people who have the same color coding on their nametags as you.

Before we move on, let me simply share with you my profound belief that a region's cultural life is its soul, it is the element that makes it uniquely different from any other metropolitan region around the world. And here in Greater Philadelphia, theatre is the heartbeat that keeps our soul alive and flourishing. Thank you.

Go to News Releases»