What Did Book-It Learn from Interviewing the Literacy Community?

January was a busy month; we interviewed more organizations in the literacy community and gathered data and research on adult learning in reading, writing, and speaking English. The literacy community is excited about our work and the possibility of a literacy center. One of the professors we interviewed said, “It puts learning in context for adult learners. Book-It gives them a vehicle to explore, create, discuss and, if you use literature and stories of the people you’re working with, it gives them power over their learning.” The connections the literacy institutions and experts are making to Book-It are immediate – they get how our work can support their learners and the community.

We are also deep in the process of developing tools and systems to assess student learning in Book-It All Over, our arts education program. We are starting with one of our residencies that we’ve been doing for nine years. We’ve been planning with a team of teaching artists, developing and testing systems, and revising as we go. We will be able to test the systems with the same project in the spring. Then do a final revision for future projects and programs for Book-It All Over. The process will help us get specific about how the Book-It Style impacts student learning in terms of literary analysis, communication, and comprehension.

Next will be focus groups with audiences, artists, and educators.

If anyone reading has used evaluation and student learning tools/systems for their education programs that seem to work well, please share them with us. We will be sharing our work when it’s complete. This is a time for us to test methods and models and it would be so good to know what’s out there currently – why completely re-invent the wheel if we don’t have to?

-- Myra Platt, Book-It Repertory Theatre

What Questions Should an Asian-American Talent Agency Ask?

East West Players has received some enthusiastic feedback from our long time community partners who have generously offered support (such as relaying good contacts in the industry for further research). These partners have also raised good questions we should consider. Here are some questions we knew we would be asking ourselves when we broached this new venture. We welcome any other questions you may be interested in as we continue in our information gathering!

• What are the financial bottom lines? What would it take for the agency to support itself and the theatre?

• What are possible legal, financial, and organizational ramifications of institutionalizing these activities in our standing non-profit model?

• How do we structure an APA-focused agency so artists feel empowered and better supported?

• How would producers, Film/TV, and other theatres perceive its value?

• What new niche would this prototype create in bridging the worlds of theatre and Film/TV to support the careers of our artists?


--Lisa Tang, East West Players

Whole People. Whole Planet. With pictures!

This week, an update from Woolly Mammoth (of Round 1 fame). Aaron Heinsman spends some time with the Whole Planet Foundation, re-ignites a passion for development (truth!), and reminds us that transparency is not always as easy as it sounds.

Whole People. Whole Planet.

Annual Fund Director Aaron Heinsman here, reminiscing on Day 7 of last summer’s Texas Adventure.

I had just spent 5 days in San Antonio for the annual Tessitura Learning & Community Conference, cramming my brain full of new tips for effectively harnessing and exploiting the power of our integrated donor/ticketing software and meeting, networking, and befriending fellow arts professionals in multiple disciplines from seven countries on three continents.

Austin: Texas’ proud capital city and a blue bastion in a red state. I had hoped to be spending a week with the amazingly dedicated five-member team of the Whole Planet Foundation—the philanthropic arm of Whole Foods dedicated to raising communities, specifically those which source their products, out of poverty through microlending. It’s corporate philanthropy in perhaps its purest form: driven by the core values of its parent company with little emphasis on tax benefits, visibility from its beneficiaries, or the bottom line. Beyond that, both Whole Foods and Woolly Mammoth are celebrating their 30th year of operations and both are still led by the extraordinary vision and dedication of our respective founders, a synergetic coincidence.

Due to the small nature of the Foundation’s staff and the fact that they are more often than not in the field seeking out more communities and opportunities for support, I was only able to have an informational meeting with Joy Peterson, their Director of Partnership Development & Internal Programs.

That said, while my visit was too brief to yield specific innovative ideas, what it did serve to do—particularly coming on the heels of my time in San Antonio—was serve to reactivate my enthusiasm for the actual work of development. Yes, at its root, development is fundraising. But the funds cannot be raised without having created some form of relationship first. And it is this—the nurturing of deep, highly engaged and personal connections with our patron-funders—which I felt both eloquently reminded of during my conversation with Joy and also validated. We shared a few stories of where we’re headed as people-driven organizations and realized that we’re on the right track. We agreed that to succeed you need to be true to a genuine, yet dynamic mission and, more importantly, have an energized base. For Whole Planet and Woolly Mammoth to continue to thrive and succeed in the long run, we have to have real, actual stakeholders, whether they are vendors, team members, and customers or donors, artists, and patrons.

If I got this much out of a single morning, I can’t wait to discover what a whole week will yield…which has proven quite tricky! I’ve made three concentrated efforts at sabbatical placement since whetting my appetite in San Antonio. One was to a major national foundation highly supportive of theatre, and the other two were to large regional banks with operations in the Baltimore/Washington area. All three organizations are ones where I have professional connections. And yet, and yet…no one seems quite willing to let me inside to view their operations and, hopefully even, assist them practically speaking. Transparency is such a difficult thing for organizations to embrace. But I haven’t give up!

Stay tuned for more tales from Woolly folks….

Scenic Design’s Social Impact

Salvage Vanguard Theater’s partner in the Austin Scenic Co-Op is Rude Mechanicals. Today, Thomas Graves of Rude Mechs shares with us a thought provoking meditation on scenic design and its significance beyond the stage…

I began working on this project during a state of emergency. When hurricanes Katrina and Rita tore through the southern United States, many of us felt an urgent need to act. Among other things, the devastation Katrina and Rita caused forced us to recognize the racist and classist structure of our society; the fact that our elected government officials fail to serve us; the scarcity of natural resources; and the devastating effects of our actions on the environment. The crisis caused me to interrogate the ethics of my arts practice and ask myself how I can have a more positive impact.

Over the past three and a half years I have been working as an actor and sometimes technical director with the theatre collective Rude Mechanicals (Rude Mechs) in Austin, TX. Katrina and Rita book-ended the construction of the set for the Rude Mechs’ production Match-Play. As technical director of this production I bought the materials and organized the labor required to build the set. Performing this task in a state of crisis made me wonder what impact the immense time and resources invested in the construction of theatrical sets has on the world.

The Rude Mechs adapted Match-Play from renowned choreographer Deborah Hay’s dance The Match. The play uses Hay’s performance practice to raise questions about consciousness and the relationships between theatre, dance and daily practice. The work of performers like Hay that challenge the boundary between what I regard as carefully crafted artistic practice and everyday life inspire me to more be more intentional about practices of making theatre.

Early in her career, Hay participated in the Judson Dance Theatre, a group that explodes notions of dance’s ontology. Watching Deborah Hay perform, my perceiving heightens and expands. A plane flies overhead as she makes a slow turn center stage, and I hear, as if for the first time, the intricate complexity of the sound of a jet engine. Nothing escapes the performance. Planes, late-comers, and people rustling candy wrappers all become something to marvel at. Hay’s work expands my understanding of what performance is, thus challenging me to carefully consider what happens behind-the-scenes as much as that which happens onstage. This more capacious definition of performance demands that the technical process receive attention.

The performance of Match-Play itself certainly has an impact by making us—technicians, performers, and audience—question the way we perceive the world. The set, therefore, in so far as it serves as a site for the performance and furthers its artistic vision, makes an impact. However, considering the nature of tragic events that surrounded the production I couldn’t help but feel the need to have my labor as a technical director make an impact that was less ephemeral and esoteric, and more concrete and immediate. Linda Frye Burnham captures the sense of urgency that fuels this project when she states, "There is too much going on outside . . . Real life is calling. I can no longer ignore the clamor of disaster—economic, spiritual, environmental, political disaster—in the world in which I move.” I am interested in exploring the ways that the performance of my labor and its product can have a direct material result in the face of real life disaster.

Peggy Phelan, in her book Unmarked, makes the case that performance is fundamentally ephemeral. She writes, “Performance’s only life is in the present . . . Performance’s being . . . becomes itself through disappearance.” Although I agree with Phelan, matter refuses to disappear. The performance may disappear, but the set, props and costumes remain. Considering matter’s durability, should not the impacts of the material excesses be as intentional as those of the performances they support?

I want my work in the world to matter. This project focuses on the technical production of theatre as an important site to do those things many performances confront onstage, like countering capitalism, addressing inequality, and contributing to the well-being of the planet and its inhabitants. I am interested in how theatre enacts better futures, not only in the moments of live performance, but also within technical production. This Austin Scenic Co-op project concerns itself with the making of theatre as a way to create the world in which we want to live.

--Thomas Graves, Co-Producing Artistic Director, Rude Mechs

Childsplay Hosts Sustainable Stagecraft Summit

Read about Childsplay’s planning of summits to find solutions to Sustainable Stagecraft, and take part in their survey this month…

Our search for practical, affordable solutions to sustainable stagecraft is being led by a fantastic team of graduate students from Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability (GIOS). We have been meeting weekly to develop a shared vocabulary and a framework for conversations about the constraints – cost, availability, quick turnarounds, institutional priorities, etc. – that govern purchasing decisions in our shops.

With the help of the GIOS team, we are busy preparing for our first of three Sustainable Stagecraft Summits. The February convening will focus on the sourcing and recycling of materials used in our shops. Childsplay will bring together theatre professionals, manufacturers and recyclers to explore the following topics: where are we currently purchasing our materials and what is their origin (source); what sustainable materials currently exist in the marketplace that are directly comparable to our current materials and how might we reduce costs through bulk purchasing; are there other existing sustainable (and affordable!) products that could be adapted to theatrical applications; and how could we alter our preparation of materials to make them easier to recycle. We will build upon the excellent work of Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company (see their entries on the A-ha! Blog) and the Rainforest Relief Fund’s Safe Sets Campaign in providing a framework for materials discussions. We will also hope to have a practical application session during the summit, spending part of the day in a shop environment experimenting with samples of substitute products.

We need your help, too. In the next few days, Childsplay will survey the field to better understand the quantity of materials used in theatrical scenic construction, the potential buying power of the industry, and any current sustainable purchasing and recycling activities at individual theatres. Thanks for your help – we will share the results in our next blog!

Here is the link to the survey: Childsplay Sustainable Stagecraft Survey


--Jenny Millinger, Director of Strategic Initiatives & Anthony Runfola, Production Manager, Childsplay

A-Ha! Round 3: Go!

The waiting is over! New Guidelines and Applications for the 2010 MetLife/TCG Aha! Program are now available on the TCG website, and we know you're just bursting with ideas so far out of the box they can only be called... A-Ha!

Deadline: May 3, 2010

Book-It Repertory Theatre and Literacy

Book-It Repertory Theatre is asking many questions relating to literacy as part of their A-ha! project. They have provided an Evaluation Plan that outlines their process and seeks to answer numerous questions. Their plan and story so far...

To be honest, I feel like I’m just getting started. Through this grant, I have been hired as the Literacy Assessment Director to research, develop systems, provide data, explore, question, and answer all things related to literacy and how those things intersect with the work of Book-It. The dream is to have our own home – a literacy-based theatre center. In the beginning, I spent a lot of time developing a plan that outlines exactly what we hope to do over the course of the year. We have some big ideas and lots of questions and it became clear, that we needed to stay focused – the plan helps us achieve this and is included in this posting.

First, a little background on the Book-It Style. Book-It’s mission is to transform great literature into great theatre through simple and sensitive production and to inspire our audiences to read. Book-It adapts works of literature for the stage in the signature Book-It Style which activates the narrative text through the characters in the story. You can see/hear an example on our website or go directly to: Book-It Rep Theatre's Channel

The evaluation plan is a framework I've morphed from various consulting companies. Its purpose is to: identify the key areas of investigation; develop core questions for exploration; name the ways in which those areas will be investigated and how data will be gathered; and finally to state how this knowledge will be shared with others, or, the deliverables.

So, literacy. What is it? And, what is it in relation to Book-It’s mission? During one of our interviews with Literacy Source – a local non-profit provider of adult education, I asked “What is literacy?” The Executive Director laughed at me – it’s such a big question. She told me to do some street talk. Go on corners and ask the people – it can be interpreted so many ways. Even though she was joking, I think we should do this.

The first wave of our work was to create a staff baseline. We drafted questions to be answered for ourselves and our departments. We completed a vision exercise to draw the new “space” and the programming that it will house. This helped us see the possibilities that are floating around in our individual brains. We drafted lists of all the organizations and people Book-It has partnered with over the past 20 years. These will shape who we talk to and think of as potential future partners for the space and programming.

The questions we brainstormed are rich – they are risky because they make no assumptions about the work we’re doing and they go beyond our theatre and into our culture. Here’s just a few of these questions:

1. What stimulus and at what age triggers a person to become a reader? If this stimulus is not triggered, what can shift this behavior?
2. What does Book-It mean when they say that they encourage audiences to read – read what? How much?
3. What is it about reading that keeps us engaged as citizens?

So…What is literacy? We have started to gather statistical data for our region on illiteracy rates, programs, immigrant populations. We are doing a literature review that includes the NEA’s study around reading literature/poetry. We’ll be doing interviews and focus groups with the community and literacy-based organizations.

The next wave will be to take this knowledge and hone-in on what literacy means to Book-It. We want to measure the impact of our work for the mainstage and education programs. We want to know how to use the Book-It Style intentionally within the world of reading. I think once we’re educated on all this, the lines can begin to blur. Book-It already does this in many ways, but it’s helpful to name the similarities and differences.

Actually we are entering this phase now. We completed a baseline survey of our mainstage audience in response to our first show of the season – A Confederacy of Dunces – and will refine it in upcoming shows to try to understand the impact of our work on reading behaviors of our adult audiences. We are in the process of doing program evaluation and student learning assessment in our education program, Book-It All Over, with one of our Page-to-Stage residency programs. We will be evaluating our teaching methods with an eye toward “the language of possibilities” – I believe this idea comes from Shirley Brice Heath. This is not traditional instruction. We hope to compare the average classroom with a Book-It classroom when analyzing text. We will also set student learning goals for the project, which we've never had before. Fortunately we can develop and test the methods this winter, then revise for the spring when we work with another group of students.

These questions we’re grappling with are not new, but they are so important for us to address and answer as deeply and honestly as we can if we are to transform as an organization. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by their complexity, but the conversations they prompt among ourselves and with others in the community are so exciting that I keep chasing them, trying to pin them down and analyze them in the context of the bigger picture for Book-It.

For now, I’ll stop here and will check back in a month. Thanks for reading and if any of you out there are doing similar work or have thoughts on where we are so far, we’d love to hear them!

-- Gail Sehlhorst, Literacy Assessment Director, Book-It Repertory TheatreGail has more for us regarding the Evaluation Plan and you can view the actual document here:

BOOK-IT EVALUATION PLAN 09-10

The evaluation plan is a framework I've morphed from various consulting companies. Its purpose is to: identify the key areas of investigation; develop core questions for exploration; name the ways in which those areas will be investigated and how data will be gathered; and finally to state how this knowledge will be shared with others, or, the deliverables.