NEW YORK, NY – Pittsfield’s Barrington Stage Company is one of only five theatres and seven individuals which were selected for an award to encourage their innovate audience development efforts. BSC is a pioneer in the Berkshires, having started the 1/2 Tix Program which now operates in five locations during the summer, as well as programs to attract younger – under 35 – audiences, the LGBT community (“Out” at Barrington Stage) and an aggressive social networking presence. (In a recent interview, we talk with Barrington Stage Company’s artistic director Julianne Boyd about her innovative approach to theatre.
The new two year grant is for $51,600 and has to be matched. It will help fund a new year round position to focus on marketing to new and future audiences.
“If Barrington Stage is to move firmly into the 21st century, we need to develop tools not only to communicate with our audience but also to engage and interact with them,” said Julianne Boyd. “We want to create a place for young people to start a dialogue where they can participate and feel ownership.” – Julianne Boyd
The unusual grant – there are no others like it – was part of the tenth round of the New
Generations Program, a grant initiative cooperatively designed by the Doris Duke Charitable
Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Theatre Communications Group (TCG).
Nearly $900,000 was awarded this round and more than $13 million in grants have been awarded to
over 200 theatres in ten rounds of this program.
“We have enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which has always been rooted in providing resources to make the
national theatre community more sustainable for the future,” said Teresa Eyring, executive director
of TCG. “These grants will not only help nurture young leaders and give them the tools to be
successful in theatre, but also help theaters cultivate audiences by embracing new and ever-
changing technologies.”
In Future Leaders, emerging leaders in all areas of theatre are mentored by accomplished theatre
professionals at a host theatre. An award of $80,000 ($40,000 per 9-month period) will be paid to
the theatre in support of the 18-month mentorship with up to an additional $10,000 available to the
mentee for student loan repayment, or to meet unique travel and legal expenses incurred if an
international mentee is selected. In Future Audiences, theatres with a successful track record of
reaching young, culturally specific and/or underserved communities will receive a matching grant
of up to $65,000 ($32,500 per year) to support the development or expansion of technology focused
initiatives aimed at cultivating a diverse audience. Up to $7,500 in additional funding will be
available to help recipients transition out of the program.
“We are pleased to partner with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the Theatre
Communications Group’s tenth round of New Generations Program grantees,” said Ed Henry,
president of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “We look forward to the contributions that these
emerging leaders will bring to the field, and to the expansion of creative approaches for using
technology to engage diverse theatre audiences.”
The five recipients in Round 10 of the Future Audiences objective are:
Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA) will enhance and broaden new media strategies
through Barrington Stage 2.0, a technology initiative that creates unique structures to cultivate and
partner with young audiences.
“If we can engage and empower a larger, more diverse and younger audience by utilizing the online culture and community, then we can offer more programming that will appeal to this new audience as well as engage more fully with our current audience.” – Julianne Boyd, Barrington Stage Artistic Director
Deaf West Theatre (North Hollywood, CA) will invest in state of the art captioning technology to
enhance service to deaf audiences and improve interactivity with patrons through the Internet.
HERE (New York, NY) will further develop HERE: On Demand, an aggregated online and onsite
program that deepens HERE’s engagement between artists and audiences by offering new and
radical participatory experiences. They will also produce MADE HERE, an online video series on
performing artists making life and art in NYC.
Mixed Blood Theatre Company (Minneapolis, MN) will work with consultants/advisors and
playwright Ken LaZebnik to expand Mixed Blood’s engagement of communities around autism,
including a broader range of people on the autism spectrum, by gaining invited access to the online
autism community.
Tectonic Theater Project (New York, NY) will add new features and expand the functionality of
their ‘Laramie Project Online Community’ to deepen engagement with young LGBT audiences and
their allies, as well as creating a support system for artists involved in current productions of The
Laramie Project and The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later.
For more information about the New Generations program, please visit:
http://www.tcg.org/grants/newgen/newgen_index.cfm.
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The New Generations Program is funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and is administered by Theatre Communications Group.
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (www.ddcf.org) is to improve the quality of
people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical
research and the prevention of child abuse, and through preservation of the cultural and
environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
The Mellon Foundation (www.mellon.org) is a private philanthropic institution that
makes grants on a selective basis in five core program areas: higher education and scholarship;
scholarly communications and information technology; museums and art conservation; conservation and the environment; and performing arts.
The Foundation’s Performing Arts program focuses on
achieving long-term results by providing multi-year grants to leading organizations in the
disciplines of music, theater, and dance. Annual giving in the area of the performing arts has
averaged approximately $30 million per year since 2005. In 2004 The Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation was awarded a National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists and arts
patrons by the United States government.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG)
Theatre Communications Group is the national organization for the American theatre,
exists to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. Founded
in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700
member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 12,000 individuals nationwide.
TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events,
research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre
companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the US Center of the
International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is
the nation’s largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best
Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine
and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks
to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic
talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation
for, the theatre.
In 2005, TCG received the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre in recognition of its impact on
the national field. TCG and its member theatres are major contributors to the American theatre
sector, which employs nearly 130,000 people, produces more than 187,000 performances each year
and contributes $1.9 billion to the US economy annually. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization,
TCG is led by executive director Teresa Eyring and governed by a national board of directors
representing the theatre field. www.tcg.org.
