Annual Report of AustinLiveTheatre Sites, 2012-2013

Annual Report, 2012 - 2013

by Michael Meigs

ref: 2012 Annual Report

Austin Live Theatre (ALT), a sponsored project of the Austin Creative Alliance, is a non-commercial Internet publication crafted as a gift to the theatre artists, companies and the theatre-going public of Central Texas. It originated in mid-2008 as a blog when I realized that Austin media were not adequately covering the rich world of live narrative theatre in and around Austin. Since 2009 I have published both the blog (www.austinlivetheatre.blogspot.com) and a more extensive .com site (www.austinlivetheatre.com).

In 2012 I expanded the site's coverage area to include not only theatre in Austin and outlying communities but much of San Antonio theatre as well. Site usage remains stable at approximately 15,000 hits per month, approximately 75% of them at the .com and the rest at the blog.

Experience suggested that the core clientele of the sites consisted of members of the artistic communities. I chose to focus the content more closely on their interests and needs.

• AustinLiveTheatre picked up from the now inactive www.austinactors.net the initiative of announcing auditions for live stage productions; in the reporting period ALT collected and published 303 auditions/opportunities and announced them via Twitter (@ALT_auditions) and via the Austin Live Theatre Facebook page. There is no charge to individuals or to non-profit/non-commercial organizations.


• The technological advantages of the Internet platform became more manifest this past year as more companies produced and circulated videos on YouTube, Vimeo and elsewhere. I picked these up and embedded them on both ALT sites. I also produced several videos in cooperation with Austin theatre companies. ALT posted 27 videos in 2011 and 50 videos in the first seven months of 2012; during the reporting period ALT posted 139 videos.

• The website aggregates relevant arts reporting and news from other sources. One recent example is the publication of the full listing of cultural arts awards made by the City of Austin for the upcoming biennium.

Reviewing non-commercial Central Texas theatre productions is a key function of the site. ALT has occasionally covered touring productions but almost all of the 65 reviews written between September 2012 and August 2013 were of small non-profit, educational or community theatre events often not covered by local media. ALT reviewed fewer productions in the reporting period because of the demands of administering the websites (as noted, 65 reviews, compared to 113 in 2011, 110 in 2012 and 40 in the first 7 months of 2013). The site is fortunate that four volunteer reviewers have occasionally contributed pieces. (Contributions are invited and may be sent to austinlivetheatre@gmail.com)

The Central Texas Theatre calendar is available by clicking through the front page of AustinLiveTheatre.com. With it ALT seeks to establish as comprehensive as practicable a listing by date of locally produced live theatre in Austin, San Antonio and nearby communities for the upcoming two months. Venues and times are given, and users can click on the venue to be connected to a map of its location. These listings will continue.

Discontinued marketing support. Beginning in 2011 I created a separate announcement page for each theatre event that came to my attention. ALT published these as internal pages at the main site (.com) available to search engines or via front-page links at the site, and placed them immediately on the front page of the blog. Almost a thousand were created in 2011-2012. During the reporting period 570 such pages were created and later shifted to the category Performances Finished and another 58 were extant in the categories Coming Soon (39), Opening This Week (2), Continuing on Stage (11), and Theatre for Youth (6). Although these pages offered an extensive and informative picture of theatre art and regularly attracted Internet 'hits,' they required a great investment of time and effort. Conservatively estimating 15 minutes of research and formatting for each such page, this marketing experiment required at least the equivalent of a full month of work for the reporting period, constituting an unrealistic burden. I have stopped creating these pages. 

Reviews from elsewhere. ALT immediately provides its readers with links to other published reviews by creating links on the internal pages mentioned in the previous paragraph. I expect to continue this service in a slightly different format, probably by creating a front-page box at the .com offering links to others' reviews of productions currently on stage.

Software updating and new site. The principal site operates as www.austinlivetheatre.com and as www.austinlivetheater.com. I have registered two additional domain names: www.centraltexaslivetheatre.com and ctxlt.com. I am planning a redesign of the site and an update of the content management system to reflect its wider scope and to adapt to mobile devices.

Theatre coverage and support from others improved somewhat with the continuation of www.austin.broadwayworld.com, in which reviewer Jeff Davis covers a good spectrum of theatre types and locations and now offers an e-mail announcement posted several times a week advising of reviews and news. Jenni Morin of San Antonio's www.theatre-for-change.com periodically posts thoughtful reviews. Print media coverage in Central Texas remains mostly inadequate, although the 1-3 reviews published weekly in the Austin Chronicle are generally informative and thoughtful.
The Creative Fund, a group of individuals in Austin who subscribe to help subsidize the costs of theatre venues, makes quarterly choices of which projects to support. They have consistently assisted small but highly deserving theatre organizations applauded by this website.

At KOOP-FM Lisa Scheps is the principal host for a Wednesday afternoon program discussing theatre generally and interviewing local artists (also available for download in .mp3 audio format on-line at http://offstageontheair.blogspot.com).

Austinist (www.austinist.com), examiner.com and the Culturemap site (www.austin.culturemap.com) established in 2012 cover theatre only occasionally. The website www.artandculturetx.com, live as of September 2013, has a theatre section (http://artsandculturetx.com/category/theatre/) that has carried three feature articles mentioning Austin theatre, but given its goal of covering the entire state the site is unlikely to engage deeply in Central Texas theatre. 

The website of the Austin Convention and Visitors Center (http://www.austintexas.org/) is essentially non-functional as far as theatre art is concerned, and its relatively glossy presentation focuses especially upon music events (the heading to the events page reads, "Austin, Texas offers a wide range of events, from music concerts, food festivals, and sports competitions to museum displays, exhibits, and family fun. Use our listings of Austin's featured and ongoing events to find the perfect activity for your vacation").

The principal website of the Austin Creative Alliance (www.austincreativealliance.com), formerly the Austin Circle of Theatres, does not feature theatre anywhere on its front page. The website calendar is empty. Austin Shakespeare and the Creative Fund have their own secondary pages, but there is no other listing of theatre organizations. The website presents itself essentially as that of an advocacy organization. The ACA's promotional website www.nowplayingaustin.com and associated weekly e-mail are somewhat better, but they provide an incomplete and somewhat skewed picture of theatre events available in Austin.

The B. Iden Payne Committee, now spun off as a separate sponsored project, continues to operate but with a reduced population of voting members, who pay for the privilege when they purchase advance tickets to the annual promotional event.

Expenses. Austin Live Theatre does not solicit advertising and makes no charge for listings. Reviewers do accept complimentary tickets associated with reviewing opportunities. The approximate costs for the 2012-2013 period were $2000 (web hosting and Internet service $650; equipment purchase, $205; software, $150; transportation, $275; tickets, $600; Austin Creative Alliance fiscal sponsorship, $120). I contributed $1925 directly to various Central Texas theatre organizations during the reporting period. Austin Live Theatre has a PayPal registration for contributions (austinlivetheatre@gmail.com) but as yet has not solicited donations.

Statistical detail:

ALT reviews in 2012-2013
ALT video and photographic postings in 2012-2013

Funding Appeal: Grease, the musical, City Theatre, August 23 - September 15, 2013

Click HERE to go to donations page of the

Austin Live Theatre 2011-2012 Report to the Austin Creative Alliance

Austin's Live Theatre and ALT in 2011 - 2012

a report to the Austin Creative Alliance

by Michael Meigs

Background

Michael Meigs (Alison Yin Photography)

This observatory of live narrative theatre in Austin began just over four years ago as a simple blog. Karen and I had retired from Washington DC and points abroad and relocated to this mid-sized capital and university town where we didn't know a soul. As we settled in and surveyed the city, we realized that there was a lot more to Austin that its touted status as a 'Live Music Capital.' Austin had a lively and largely unpublicized theatre culture. We set out to explore it, and in June of 2008, I set up a blog that is still active.

I went into my 'live theatre' project with work habits and thinking patterns shaped by a diplomatic career of investigating unfamiliar environments, gathering data, evaluating and reporting. I had all the time I wanted; I was newly independent and no longer part of a large institution, The undertaking was initially a pastime, but the more I learned, the more I could see that needed to be explored. Thanks to a Christmas surprise from my family, I found myself with a .com site and flexible open-source website administration software, a whole new intellectual toy to play with. The technological wizardry of the Internet had so reduced the barriers to entry that in short order I was producing my own on-line publication.

Statistics given below were gathered for the period January, 2011 to July 31, 2012.

REVIEWS

My first concern was the apparent lack of media coverage for the rich and varied theatre world in Austin. On a typical weekend Austin had eight or ten productions going on, sometimes even more. Many of them were never reviewed. I've written 488 reviews of live narrative theatre in Austin since that time (57 in 2008; 158 in 2009; 120 in 2010; 113 in 2011; and 40 so far in 2012). Since 2010 I have signaled the publication of new reviews via Twitter at @ALTcom.

I've welcomed guest reviewers but have not had very many. I would welcome submissions from anyone who would like to be published at Austin Live Theatre. Prospective contributors can register on the front page and use the internal editor to submit texts or they can send them to me at michaelmeigs@austinlivetheatre.com.

I monitor Austin theatre reviews and promptly post links to them on the relevant 'upcoming' page for the production.

Click to read continuation at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Annual Unified Auditions, Austin Creative Alliance, August 26 (registration deadline August 17)

Austin Creative Alliance Annual Auditions

Sunday, August 26, 9am-4pm

Scottish Rite Theater, 207 West 18th Street, Austin, TX 78701

Registration Deadline has been extended to August 17th.

Register to Audition
Register to Audit

Each year ACA hosts Annual Unified Auditions for local actors and auditors. This program provides actors an opportunity to be seen by professional directors, producers, and casting agents, and are instrumental for the region's theatre and film-makers in the casting of their productions and films throughout the year.
Time slots are filling up fast! Don't wait to register!
Are you an actor looking for your next performance opportunity? Click here to learn how to register for the Annual Auditions, and be seen by Austin's leading Producers, Directors and Agents.

Registered Companies Auditing:
Theater Penfold Theater, Sight Ain't Seen Productions, Austin Theater Project, Capital T Theater, Bastrop Opera House, The City Theatre, Austin Shakespeare, Austin Summer Musical for Children, Kayo Productions, VORTEX Repertory Company, Baby Girl Productions, The Highland Lakes Players
Casting Directors and Agents A Casting Place, Casting Works LA, Creative Casting Service, Collier Talent
Film Iguanadonald Motion Pictures, Muffled Bark Productions, Iron Dragon Productions, Better Archangel Pictures, Blue Paper Film Works, Abby Productions, University of Texas Department of Radio Television and Film, and filmmakers Leah Griffin, Lauren Kinsler, Dan Knight, Britta Lundin, Geoff Marslett, PJ Raval, Amanda Gotera.

Don't see your name here? Are you a Producer, Director or Agent looking for new talent? Register to attend the ACA's Annual Auditions to see some of Austin's best new talent. RSVP Here.

Want to Volunteer? Email Anne-Marie McKaskle at membership@austincreativealliance.org

Upcoming: Annual Unified Auditions, Austin Creative Alliance, Registration Deadline of July 27

presents its

Annual Auditions

The 2012 Annual Auditions will be held at Scottish Rite Theater (207 W. 18th St. at Lavaca - click for map) on Sunday, August 26th from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

This is a great opportunity for actors to be seen by directors, producers, and leaders of both theatre and film organizations throughout Central Texas.Actors of all ages, ethnicities, and physical ability are encouraged to participate. Showcase your talent and meet others in the Austin arts industry!

Deadline to register is July 27, 2012.

If you are a producer, director, agent, or casting director of film or theater productions and you would like to attend the Auditions please RSVP here.
Registered Companies Participating: Penfold Theater, Sight Ain’t Seen Productions, Austin Theater Project, Capital T Theater, Bastrop Opera House, The City Theatre, Austin Shakespeare, Creative Casting Service, Iguanadonald Motion Pictures, University of Texas Department of Radio Television and Film, and filmmakers Leah Griffin, Dan Knight, Britta Lundin, Geoff Marslett, PJ Raval.

Upcoming: Candidates for Mayor and City Council Meet Creatives at Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, Monday, April 30

Mayoral and Council Candidate Forum for the Creative Sector

A conversation with candidates on public priorities co-presented by the Austin Creative Alliance (ACA), Austin Music People (AMP), Austin Film Society (AFS) and Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts of Central Texas (TALA)

May 30, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River Street (click for map)

RSVP requested via this link

Austin Creative Alliance today announces the “Mayoral and Council Candidate Forum for the Creative Sector” to give voters an accurate understanding of the position of each candidate on issues concerning the sector. Addressing issues such as affordable housing, funding sources, public policy, job creation and economic development, and the creation of durable community institutions—the questions will be culled from the co-presenting organizations’ leadership as well as input from their constituents.

The creative sector in Austin is a $2.2 billion industry that contributes over $48 million annually to the City tax base and over 44,000 jobs. We invite the Mayoral and Council candidates to the table to address critical issues for this city that our boards, member organizations and artists, and partner groups agree are pivotal factors this coming election.

As community-based nonprofit organizations representing an extensive and diverse constituency, Austin Creative Alliance, Austin Music People, Austin Film Society, and Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts of Central Texas (TALA) believe it is their responsibility to raise awareness of and facilitate discussion concerning issues deemed important by community residents and creative industry. Community members can submit questions in advance at www.facebook.com/events/164979496958188/

The “Mayoral and Council Candidate Forum for the Creative Sector” is open and free to all, but an RSVP is requested.

• 5:30-6:00pm Happy Hour: Mix, Mingle, and share a beverage with your community and fellow candidates

• 6:00-6:30pm Mayoral Candidate Forum

• 6:30-7:30pm City Council Candidate Forum - Please note that questions will be posed at large so that candidates who need to leave early for another engagement or those who arrive late will all have an opportunity to participate fully in the forum.

Snapshot: Current Reservations for the B. Iden Payne awards at the Paramount Theatre, October 24

A reminder to members of the Austin Creative Alliance: you have until midnight on Friday, October 14 to vote on-line for the B. Iden Payne stage awards for 2010-2011. You should have received that advisory about a week ago.

Thinking about splashing out $35 to $75 to attend the B. Iden Payne awards to be staged at the State Theatre at the Paramount on Monday, October 24, at 8 p.m.?

Here's the link for ticketing for the event, now being sponsored not by the Austin Creative Alliance, but instead by the B. Iden Payne committee, spun off on September 27 as a self-supporting sponsored project of the Alliance. The Paramount's ticketing service charges a $3 service charge per order. And here's what the seat map looks like as of today, October 5:

Austin's B. Iden Payne Nominations for Stage Performance, 2010 - 2011

Announced last night, September 26:

Nominations to be considered by members of the Austin Creative Alliance:

Click to view full list

DRAMA

Outstanding Production

• Frankenstein: The Trouble Puppet Show (Trouble Puppet Theater Company)
• Hedda Gabler (Palindrome Theatre)
• A Lie of the Mind (Capital T Theatre)
• Paradise Key (a chick and a dude productions)
• Topdog/Underdog (City Theatre Company)

Outstanding Direction

• Connor Hopkins (Frankenstein: The Trouble Puppet Show)
• Lisa Jordan (Topdog/Underdog)
• Melissa Livingston (Paradise Key)
• Christina J. Moore (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
• Don Toner (The Trip to Bountiful)

Outstanding Lead Actor

• Collin Bjork (Equality 7-2521) Anthem
• Tom Green (Dr. Halb) Paradise Key
• Joey Hood (Jerry) The Zoo Story
• Ev Lunning, Jr. (George) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Justin Scalise (Hamlet) Hamlet [Scottish Rite Theatre and Black Swan Events]

Outstanding Lead Actress

• Mary Agen Cox (Carrie Watts) The Trip to Bountiful
• Dawn Erin (Ann Martin) Defiant
• Babs George (Martha) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Meredith McCall (Linda Waterman) Fiction
• Rebecca Robinson (Hannah Jelkes) The Night of the Iguana

Outstanding Featured Actor

• Aaron D. Alexander (Papi) Fight
• Travis Dean (Baylor) A Lie of the Mind
• Micah Goodding (Aaron McKinney, Stephen Belber) The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later
• Daniel Sawtelle (Slim) Of Mice and Men
• Jacob Trussell (DJ Snowstorm) Flying

Outstanding Featured Actress

• Shannon Grounds (Fool) Lear
• Sadé Jones (Lady in Green) for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf
• Julia Lorenz-Olsen (Ophelia) Hamlet [Scottish Rite Theatre and Black Swan Events]
• Rebecca Robinson (Beth) A Lie of the Mind
• Gricelda Silva (Bushy Tail) Flying

Click to view full list at AustinLiveTheatre.com

Upcoming: Seminar on Cultural Data Project, Creative Alliance and Wyatt Brand at Dougherty Arts Center, September 13

Received directly from David Wyatt of

The Austin Creative Alliance

presents

The Pew Memorial Trust Cultural Data Project

Dougherty Arts Center - 1110 Barton Springs Road (click for map)
Tuesday, September 13 from 6- 8 p.m.
free admission
www.austincreativealliance.org

In its third meeting on "crisis and opportunity," the Austin Creative Alliance is having a look at the numbers. Because earlier discussions touched on a recurring theme of understanding and strengthening organizations’ advocacy efforts, the Alliance is bringing in representatives from the Cultural Data Project operated by The Pew Charitable Trusts to help the area’s creatives make sense of their own institutional and community information. Neville Vakharia—the Director of the Cultural Data Project—and Senior Associate Flo Gardner are traveling from Philadelphia to facilitate.

The Cultural Data Project (CDP) is a powerful online management tool designed to strengthen the arts and cultural sector. [Click image or title to visit their website] Now operating in 11 states, the CDP is a unique system that enables arts and cultural organizations to enter financial, programmatic and operational data into a standardized online form.
Organizations can subsequently quickly and easily generate reports to use as part of the application process for participating funders. They can also use the CDP as a tool to track their own trends over time or to benchmark key components of their operations against others in aggregate by discipline, budget size, geographic location and many other criteria. This knowledge is power: organizations have leveraged increased board support or lowered their rental costs thanks to their findings.

With more than 11,500 arts and cultural organizations now entering data into the Cultural Data Project each year, the CDP’s database has become an important resource for arts advocacy organizations and researchers seeking to report on the value and needs of the cultural sector. The first resource of its kind for those involved in arts policy, the CDP can provide standardized, high-quality, comprehensive data to help arts advocates illustrate how many jobs are supported or how much earned income is generated by the cultural sector in a particular city or region. As a result, when public support for the arts is on the chopping block, the CDP helps decision makers to be informed by solid facts.

From the AustinLiveTheatre.com article of April, 2009 "Pew's Cultural Data Project: Why Not Texas?" -- an interview-discussion from 2008, via Collective Action, the blog of the Chicago League of Theatres:

Philanthropy Chat: Janet Camarena Interviews John McGuirk of the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman of the Pew Charitable Trusts
San Francisco, CA March 12, 2008

For this edition of Philanthropy Chat, Janet Camarena, director of the Foundation Center-San Francisco, interviewed John McGuirk, program director for the arts at the James Irvine Foundation and Bobbie Lippman, senior officer for culture and director of the Cultural Data Project for the Pew Charitable Trusts. They discussed the new California Cultural Data Project, its impact on grantseeking and reporting for California arts and culture organizations, and other benefits to having a centralized, online data management system for arts organizations. (40 min., 32 sec)

Annual Unified Auditions: Austin Creative Alliance at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, September 17

Received directly from

Annual Unified Auditions Updates

Hello all,

I hope everyone is having a great summer and your preparations for the Annual Unified Auditions [on September 17 at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.] are coming along well! Just wanted to share some updates with everyone about the AUAs. Here are some of the auditors we have confirmed so far for the auditions:

The Alliance - State Theatre School - Bastrop Opera House - City Theatre Company - Calliope Talent - Different Stages - DVA Talent - Esther's Follies - Sight Ain't Seeing Productions - SplitFace Productions - Tutto Theatre Company

We're still looking for more auditors and audition participants--for those who would like to audit the 2011 AUAs, please fill out our survey here. For those who would like to participate in the auditions and be seen by Austin's theatre and film groups, please register right here.

Also, please remember that the deadline for registration and headshot/resume submission has be extended to September 2nd, so register today!

If anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to shoot me an email at arts@austincreativalliance.org or give our office a call.

Thanks and happy auditioning!

Casey Hines, Arts Associate, Austin Creative Alliance

701 Tillery, Austin TX 78702, (512) 247-2531

nowplayingaustin.com - austincreativealliance.org

Arts Reporting: Robert Faires Outlines Development of the Austin Creative Alliance

Published at the Austin Chronicle, August 11:

Little Big Plan

The Austin Creative Alliance proves it can think big by thinking small

By Robert Faires, Fri., Aug. 12, 2011

How do you go about building something bigger than anything that's ever been built here before?

This question has been at the forefront of David Sandal's mind for about a year and a half now. That's how long this professional program manager and entrepreneur has been serving on the board of directors of the Austin Creative Alliance, an agency that aspires to nothing less than serving every creative individual, business, and organization in the city – whether they're involved in music, film, visual arts, performing arts, digital media, design, or any other creative field you can name, whether they're amateur or professional, nonprofit or for-profit.

Now, putting together an entity that all-embracing is an undertaking of such monumental proportions, you might find it easier to construct a limestone Pyramid of Giza on Auditorium Shores. But back in 2007, when a few dozen of our culturally minded citizens were meeting and dreaming up the CreateAustin Cultural Master Plan, the notion of just such an organization kept surfacing in conversation after conversation, forum after forum. Independently, two task forces proposed a creative alliance in their reports to CreateAustin's leadership council, and forming an alliance ended up being one of the top three recommendations in the final plan. In the CreateAustin vision of a city that realizes all of its creative potential, an organization that would break through the traditional barriers of discipline and art form to connect and unite, to offer resources to, and advocate for the entire creative community seemed vital and necessary.

Read more at the Austin Chronicle on-line. . . .

Upcoming Seminar: Crisis and Opportunity 2.0, sponsored by Austin Creative Alliance at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Ctr, July 28

Received directly from the

[Apple users: can't see the video? Click to go to YouTube!]

Crisis & Opportunity 2.0

with Matt Lehman

July 28, 6 - 8:30 p.m.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center, 600 River Street (click for map)

Thank you to all who attended the Crisis & Opportunity open meeting on June 7th. We were very pleased that so many of you took the time to gather with us for discussion.

On July 28th, from 6-8:30pm, we will be back at the MACC for a follow-up-forum.
After conversations with attendees, and review of comments and suggestions, we felt we had a clear direction for the next gathering.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Forum for the Arts Community: Crisis and Opportunity, June 7

Received on-line:

Austin Creative Alliance and Wyatt Brand Public Relations

sponsor a forum:

Crisis and Opportunity: An open, structured dialogue

Tuesday, June 7 from 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.

(with potential break-out discussions until 8:30 pm)

Mexican American Cultural Center Auditorium,600 River Street (click for map)

WEB: www.austincreativealliance.org http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=213895341978226

In light of recent transitions and critical issues cropping up in some of Austin's nonprofit arts and cultural institutions, Austin Creative Alliance has organized an open, structured dialogue in which any interested community member is invited to participate.

Their goal is to engage in a constructive process to address recent events, underlying issues, national trends, and proposed solutions with a specific outcome: to arrive at an honest and progress-centric document that we will issue to the community at large.

Topics will be collected on their Facebook event page and via email (dialogue@austincreativealliance.org) and then combined in advance to reflect the will and interest of engaged participants and ground-rules will be provided to give us the best chance of a productive process.

Subject to change, here are some initial topics they envision:

• Should the current economic climate tighten belts or drive innovation?

• What is the role of a trustee?

• To what degree should organizations be accountable to the public?

• How can non-profits understand and implement a new social/experience economic model?

• How does Austin’s creative economy/climate reflect national trends?

• What is the future of the non-profit model?

Austin Creative Alliance envisions this format being the basis for an ongoing series to address critical topics as they arise, as well as bringing in expert speakers to facilitate topic-centric discussions.

Robert Faires' Salute to Latifah Taormina as She Retires from Directing the Creative Alliance, Austin Chronicle, April 29

Published at the Austin Chronicle:

A well-earned rest for Queen Latifah

By Robert Faires, Friday, April 29

Latifah Taormina answered the ad thinking the post she was applying for would be "a nice part-time job and a good way to get connected to the local theatre community." She was certainly right on the second score, but as for the first? Well, running the former Austin Circle of Theaters wasn't anywhere close to being just part-time work. Ever since the night in September 2000 when she was introduced at ACoT's B. Iden Payne Awards ceremony as the arts umbrella's new executive director, the job has pretty much consumed her life. Taormina has given herself over to countless phone calls, emails, grant applications, committee meetings, commission meetings, board meetings, task force meetings, planning sessions, conferences, workshops, and awards ceremonies – whatever it took to help better serve Austin's arts community. But after 10½ years, Taormina is about to get her life back. As of April 30, she's retiring as head of the Austin Creative Alliance, the organization that, under Taormina's stewardship, grew out of ACoT.

Click to read full text at the Austin Chronicle on-line . . . .

Urgent Appeal from Austin Creative Alliance

The Austin Creative Alliance is appealing urgently for public reaction to legislator Simpson's budget amendment, just filed and aimed at defunding the Texas Commission for the Arts.

The demands of the time are such that new interim executive director Marcy Hoen is still using a template with the signature of departed longtime director Latifa Taormina -- but the creatives have found time to cap the appeal with the group's new logo.

The old logo, a clunky inward-bowed rectangle, is still on the website.

Save the TCA!

Immediate Action Required!

UPDATE 4/1/2011:
Rep. Simpson (R, Longview) has just filed a TCA-killing amendment

UPDATE 2/18/11: The House budget version (HB1) comes to the floor today. Please call your representatives immediately and ask them to vote NAY on any amendment -- similar to Rep. Simpson's -- that would further reduce the appropration for the Texas Commission on the Arts.

The TCA has already sustained a 52% reduction - any further would amount to killing the agency.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION NOW AND CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES!

WHY SUPPORT THE ARTS, ESPECIALLY NOW? . . . . Aside from the fact that they generate 4.9 BILLION dollars for Texas of which a teency tincy percent goes back to the arts, and aside from the fact that they are the largest growth area for new jobs in the state.....

WHAT WE NEED TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS IS CREATIVITY - the ability to generate something fresh - which also entails the ability to face a problem and create something new from what is broken. THAT IS WHAT THE ARTS DO. THAT IS WHAT THE ARTS TEACH US.

To quote Arlene Goldbard's recent talk in Austin* (click for link to text and video)

"In a world morphing at light-speed into something none of us can foretell, fear and loss can be paralyzing. Creativity is the antidote: it is both our greatest challenge and our greatest need.

You can see these same capacities in action when we make music, dance, or theater: we collaborate, expressing a shared passion for beauty and meaning, stretching to accommodate each other, negotiating differences, holding space for everyone, and thus expanding possibility.

Artists rehearse for life's challenges through imagination and improvisation, exploring the limits of their powers and the synergies that can be created when they are aligned.

Making art, we learn how to move past the easy and obvious into essence, how to discard what no longer serves and explore the unknown.

Reflect on the business world: in IBM's most recent biennial CEO study, Capitalizing on Complexity,** interviews with over 1,500 CEOs and managers from both the private and public sector in 60 countries and 33 industries revealed that the "single most important leadership
competency" needed to navigate an environment of escalating complexity was creativity."

* Arlene Goldbard, author and arts activist, gave the keynote at the annual conference for the Association of Perferforming Arts Service Organziations here in Austin, March 8, 2011. The Creative Alliance hosted the conference.

**Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Officer Study, IBM Corporation, May 2010

An Annual Report: ALTcom in 2010

AustinLiveTheatre became a "sponsored project" of the Austin Creative Alliance last year, a status it shares with many another small theatre concern here. One advantage is exemption from sales taxes, derivative from the umbrella organization's status as a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. The Creative Alliance can also serve as monitor and guarantor of grants made by the City, collecting a 10% fee for its own overhead for that service.

For any theatre group without the half-million dollar turnover and permanent staff required by the City to qualify for direct grants, the $120 membership fee to the Alliance for sponsored projects is a pretty good deal. You reach your break-even in this world of 8.25% sales tax by the time that you spend just over $1400 to purchase otherwise taxable materials for your project.

Your contract with the Alliance requires an annual report of your activities as a sponsored project. I've just submitted ALT's report, which you can read here at your leisure. Meanwhile, following good business practice, ALT presents this executive summary:

ALT provides to locally-produced narrative theatre events a number of free services:

• full-page "upcoming" announcements with images, posted both on interior pages at ALTcom and on the front page of the blog (www.austinlivetheatre.blogspot.com)
• front-page icons linked to upcoming performances of theatre for youth or by youth
• display of a poster icon on the ALTcom "front page" for two weeks before opening and throughout the run
• listing on the comprehensive Austin Theatre Calendar covering the upcoming two months of performances
• publication of photo features
• posting of clickable audio and video features either in "upcoming" announcements or as separate feature articles
• ALT reviews of local theatre productions and notification of their publication directly to the producing company and to the 225 followers on Twitter of @ALTcom
• links to theatre reviews published elsewhere, posted immediately at the foot of the ALT review and at the top of the "upcoming" announcement
  
• facsimile publication of event programs, scanned as .pdf files and held on the ALTcom server
• arts news coverage, both original and excerpted, with appropriate links to full coverage
• announcement sof auditions and educational opportunities
• The Guide to Austin Stages, a work in progress available via a "front-page" link (because of the press of ALT administrative work, the most recent update was in September, 2010)
• coverage of Austin productions of Shakespeare and Shakespeare-related theatre for www.playShakespeare.com

Readership fluctuates from day to day and in the course of the week, with 250-400 hits daily at ALTcom and 150-200 at the blog. Monthly total hits are approximately 13,000.

Expenditures for 2010 were about $6225, including $990 in donations to nine non-profit theatre groups and to two schools. ALTcom had zero income in 2010 but received in-kind donations of 27 complimentary theatre tickets.

ALT published 870 articles in 2010.

These included 578 "upcoming" features in 2010 for the greater Austin area, announcing narrative theatre productions within a periphery established by the cities of Killeen, Salado, Georgetown, Smithville, San Marcos, New Braunfels, Wimberley, Lakeway, Cottonwood Shores near Marble Falls, and Leander. ALT provided "upcoming" features for five theatres of interest in San Antonio.

ALT wrote 115 reviews of theatre productions.

Other categories of articles: arts reporting, 87 (including 9 on the controversy concerning criteria for City of Austin grants funded by the hotel and occupancy tax); auditions and opportunities, 34; classes and education,. 22; opinion pieces from elsewhere, 17; reviews from elsewhere, 10; postings at www.playShakespeare.com, 8; books of interest to theatre artists and scholoars, 3; video features not in "upcoming" articles, 3; and the Guide to Austin Theatre (a work in progress).

Approaching its third anniversary of operation, ALT acknowledges that it has reached the performance limits of its structure as a non-commercial single-proprietor service to Austin arts. I am looking for ways to reduce workload or to find additional resources.

World Theatre Day Happens, without Austin

World Theatre Day, observed today for the 49th time, is one of those "opt-in" holidays. It's tied to the International Theatre Institute, established by UNESCO in 1949. The WTD blog and annual messages have a strong flavor of consensus- making at an international organization, including the conscientious acknowledgement of the world's vast array of economically disadvantaged countries.

The U.S. correspondent to the international observance is the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), which arranged for a video message from "Tony-award winning actor and world citizen Jeffrey Wright," head of the TAIA Peace Foundation. Wright evokes the theatre message while telling of a village festival in Sierra Leone, where he and collaborators helped finance a road. His is a thoughtful, humane message, in which with unintended irony Wright stands slightly tilted to the left.

[Apple users: Can't see the video? Click to go to Vimeo]
Austin is not celebrating World Theatre Day this year. The world map posted at the WTD blog shows no "push-pin" anywhere in the vast expanse between Chicago and Los Angeles, and the TCG map, perhaps not updated, doesn't feature LA.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .