Convening and Exploring Public Art for Public Good

When I think about the theatre field in the United States, I imagine a version where each theatre scene engages in the politics and is responsive to the needs of its hometown or city: opening lobbies and theatres for civic discussions, being hubs for community resources and exchanges, and most importantly, actively growing as an accessible place for everyone from all walks of life. Where and who are the institutions doing that work? In Boston, where Company One (C1) resides, is a glimpse of what this vision can look like in practice––lauded by local artists, community organizations, and the city itself.

I was drawn to working with C1 because I saw them using new plays as a platform for dialogue, paired with programming that allows flexibility for how audiences engage with community partners, civic calls to action, and other ways to engage with Boston neighborhoods. As a multi-hyphenate dramaturg and the new work manager at C1, my work involves developing new work and mentorship programming that puts this vision into action and tasks artists and audiences alike with what it means to create and participate in work that is hyperlocal, sparks aspiration for social change for theatregoers, and shows the deep impact collaboration has in building relationships.

I’ve had the pleasure of covering the first convening for the Future of American Theatre cohort, which came together out of the opportunity for social change-oriented theatres to grow and find models of sustainability for their organizations and the communities they serve. The Future of American Theatre is a cohort funded by the Mellon Foundation to collaborate on innovative strategies that can be replicated by the national landscape and is made up of Cleveland Public Theatre (Cleveland, Ohio), Crowded Fire Theater (San Francisco, California), Mosaic Theater Company (Washington, DC), and PerseveranceTheatre (Juneau/Anchorage, Alaska), in addition to C1. C1 launched the first cohort gathering as a case study exploring its neighborhood activations and productions in civic spaces with entirely free and pay-what-you-want ticketing. Over the course of three days, the convening built upon existing relationships, and identified the threads that the cohort will continue developing and exploring in their case study.

For this convening, C1 partnered with HowlRound, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide that amplifies progressive, disruptive ideas about the art form and facilitates connection between diverse practitioners. With HowlRound’s rich history ofconvenings and established relationships with some of the theatres in this cohort through the National Playwright Residency Program (which is also funded by the Mellon Foundation), HowlRound played a crucial role as a host and facilitator in fostering connections and dialogue. C1 regarded HowlRound as an essential partner in disseminating the cohort's insights to the wider theatre community.

Day One: Welcome to the City of Notions

The first day of the convening started as a grounding in-community. As cohort members arrived in Boston, they met C1 staff at SIP Wine + Bar. Introductions were filled with hugs and enthusiasm for connecting at the dinner table. There was a natural eagerness to learn more about each other, our stories, and hopes for the convening. While the intention of the convening was to learn more about C1’s work within the city, there was a clear sense that this event was going to be people-forward as well––building camaraderie over creating new paths and futures collectively.

The night ended with a trip to see ArtsEmerson’s interactive and mentally stimulating presentation of Fight Nightby Ontroerend Goed. The production challenged audiences to think about what is democracy in action? causing the cohort to reflect on how democracy can show up outside of voting. We wondered, how can it show up in our creative practices that hold space for active dialogue and move away from a linear, binary perspective?

Day Two: A Case Study

The next morning, the cohort and C1 staff reconvened for our first day-long session, with a formal introduction given by HowlRound director Jamie Gahlon and a “Welcome to the Land” ceremony led by Ted and Maria Hendricks of the Mashpee Wampanoag. This ceremony was led to welcome the cohort to Massachusetts, but more importantly the ancestral lands of the Massachusett, Nipmuc, and Wampanoag Peoples who have stewarded this land for generations. An intimate intention-setting for the day, the Hendricks spoke to us about the relationships and duties we hold to the land just as we do to our community engagement and organizing work. We participated in a smudging ceremony, where we were smudged as a form of respect to the land, preparing for the work we were about to embark upon. As I sat with the presentation, we shifted gears into our share-outs.

Framing the share-out and case study sessions for the day, artistic director and C1 co- founder Shawn LaCount shared, “This is a collective, organic, and healing gathering. Not another industry moment; it is connecting and seeing what we can do together.” Summer L. Williams, associate artistic director and C1 co-founder, added that in spending time together in this act of vulnerability, “uplifting the complications of our organizations not only establishes trust, but also recognizes how we can anticipate these things as we grow and work together.” Naming what we were experiencing within our organizations provided an opportunity to create a map of learnings within the cohort for the years ahead.

Our share-outs reflected the triumphs and challenges which echoed the many issues the US theatre landscape is facing.

In terms of celebrations, Crowded Fire is experimenting with a six-person leadership model, while Perseverance is working towards operationalizing decolonizing/re-indigenizing practices and reparation efforts coordinated with contributing to the social safety net and health and wellness of our ecology. Cleveland Public Theatre and Mosaic have worked on growth in their respective organizations that have positively impacted their programming for the communities they serve. C1 celebrated working towards health: shifting workplace culture, experiencing growth in the organization, and moving away from practices that no longer serve staff and collaborators.

On the other hand, organizations were experiencing challenges like reckoning with the rising cost of living that was driving many artists away from the arts and culture landscape, operational sustainability, and the seemingly all-time high burnout that arts administrators are experiencing since the peak of the pandemic—all while trying to keep ongoing healing justice approaches at the forefront to repair harm and historical and contemporary traumas. Each organization has felt stuck in trying to figure out how to juggle the needs of their staff, artists, board, and audiences, with little capacity, to create the upheaval needed to break ground for impactful change.

Keeping these shares in mind, we shifted to the case study.

By recognizing the correlating impact between public health and civic action, our programming moved away from being a traditional theatre company to that of a community center.

Looking at C1 as a case study of our value of “Public Art for Public Good” and how it can become a roadmap of the American Theatre, Karthik Subramanian (C1 managing director) presented data around Boston’s current demographics, the growing wealth gap incommunities of color, and an arts audience breakdown. This data highlighted who in Boston had access to the arts, revealing that many communities of the global majority lacked such access, and underscoring the health implications for those who did benefit— which proven by over nine hundred publications from the National Library of Medicine, has a significant contribution to improving our health and wellbeing. To address these challenges, C1 created a framework in 2020 responding to community needs through free, accessible programming in public and digital spaces. By recognizing the correlating impact between public health and civic action, our programming moved away from being a traditional theatre company to a community center.

The cohort was fascinated by the data presented in the case study. Questions around this restructuring led to a discussion about how this information can inform and elevate community engagement in arts and culture institutions. More importantly, how can this work be further funded so that the data reflects a city engaged with all its neighborhoods?

The next day was a clear demonstration of what this model, public art for public good, looked like in action for C1 and our community.

Day Three: Kick Back and Relax with a Taste of Boston

Day three of the convening was best described as “getting to know the neighborhood” as the agenda was packed with touring the Boston Public Library Copley Branch, experiencing C1’s annual Kick Back, visiting the Uphams Corner neighborhood in Dorchester, and concluding the evening with a “groupthink” dinner at Comfort Kitchen.

With a personal tour from Boston Public Library (BPL) President David Leonard, we learned more about the history of the Boston Library system and the Central Library in the heart of the city. For C1, our relationship with the BPL has been significant, as we have produced plays and other programming at and in partnership with the BPL branches and staff. By bringing mission-aligned theatre to Rabb Hall, attendees and library patrons of all walks of life have been able to see a show that invites them to engage with the library’s accessible programs and resources. My mother, who was my plus one during the tour, was so moved by Leonard’s presentation that she got her firs

As the tour ended, we moved quickly to Shattuck Picnic Grove to attend the Kick Back, an annual day-long event with free food, all-ages activities with community partners, and performances from local artists.

The day was full of activities like dancing and live graffiti with A Trike Called Funk, crafts and a reading circle with For Black Girls, creating Earth Confections with local artist-activist Carolyn Lewenberg, and protest t-shirts with Wee The People. There was a live poetry performance with Amanda Shea, followed by a live music performance with rising rapperBrandie Blaze and friends from the cast of HOOPS. Between each performance, partners introduced themselves, inviting attendees to chat and learn more about their orgs. This event was a space for C1 artists, partners, and community members to reconnect, meet new friends, and be well fed while also being introduced to community organizations where they could get involved and be directed to needed resources.

After spending an afternoon kicking back in community, the cohort and I made our way over to Uphams Corner, for our final tours for the day with Design for Social Intervention(DS4SI) and the city-owned Strand Theatre. C1 has partnered with the City of Boston for a summer residency at the Strand, fostering relationships with audiences and community partners in the historically rich Dorchester and Roxbury neighborhoods. During our time in Uphams, I learned how DS4SI uses design methodologies to create public interventions, labs, and activations to rekindle public imagination and create possibilities answering the question of: how do we break our own way of thinking? Next door at the Strand Theatre, I learned about the importance of having municipal bodies involved in accessible buildings and community spaces to serve everybody in the neighborhood and keep arts and culture thriving. More specifically, how do we demystify economic and racial narratives through public spaces?

How do we create a world in which people seeing a piece of art can be fueled to do something together?

The idea of public art for public good was a clear connector across the sessions. We were led by the question: how do we create a world in which people seeing a piece of art can be fueled to do something together?

Ending our action-packed day, we walked down to Comfort Kitchen, where we spent the final hour of our day eating dinner while discussing what public art for public good meant to us. I had the pleasure of connecting with Leigh Rondon-Davis of Crowded Fire, sharing the existential challenges of working in the arts while addressing the prompt on a personal, regional, and institutional level. At the heart of it, public art for public good to us meant that art should be seen as a form of accessibility—it gets us on the same page, unified on a particular hyperlocal issue or conversation outside of traditional contexts. Regionally it serves as a public intervention, like we learned from our DS4SI tour, providing new modes for audiences to better understand these issues, and giving audiences the opportunities to engage civically. Public art for public good requires us to utilize deep listening and be responsive rather than reactionary, to better serve what the communities need. Like our small table, other tables around us were lively with new, expansive definitions of public art for public good. We touched upon childcare for audiences and parent-artists, pay equity, and other visions of a world where peoples’ needs are being met by the community and public.

Day Four: Reimagining Community Investment

On the fourth day, the cohort opened the conversation to the public. The day’s session, Public Art for Public Good: Reimagining Community Investment, was a two-part roundtable conversation facilitated by C1’s former director of new work Ilana M. Brownstein. Centering public art and its impact on Boston neighborhoods and communities, this event invited Boston-based artists, art leaders, and funders to be in conversation and share insight on the public arts.

While we waited for the first session, the room was buzzing with reunions, introductions, and conversations, which was a testament to having so many similarly aligned artists in one room who call Boston their home. It especially felt like a rare moment to have both City of Boston and BPL leaders engage not only as partners, but investors in the arts and culture ecology. Together, we explored the question: how do we continue to reclaim the notion of public art that builds an integrative community?

Brownstein’s facilitation prepared artists and audiences alike for the second part of theconversation, which shifted focus to how we can collectively create a better future through reciprocal relationships fueled by the value of public art for public good. What resonated with me was when Boston Art & Music Soul Festival founding artistic director Catherine T. Morris identified that Boston lacks soul. I winced at the statement, but Morris reminded us that there are places where you still need a dance permit. There is still segregation in the city that divides our communities. And as much as Boston residents desire change, we’re still in a moment that polices what forms of expression are acceptable. Morris later added, “…creatives and artists are beginning [and ready] to imagine the city how they want it to be.”

As those in the room expressed a desire for another space to gather and stay connected, the question was raised: how can artists and creatives continue to gather and organize community investment in Boston in the face of a presidential administration that has already proceeded with rollbacks of free speech, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and other progressive initiatives; and massive cuts to federal funding and grant programs? How do we collectively create a public lab that allows us to intervene in culture and make the changes that reflect Boston communities, as DS4SI’s founder and methodology and strategy director Kenneth Bailey suggests?

At the End of the Day, Where Do We Go?

After a rich weekend, I heard a need for critical policy change and generative public labs to build the very muscles needed to create public practice. Our cohort reflected-out an eagerness to see what C1 does next and share personal learnings with their theatres.

Mosaic Theater’s artistic director, Reginald L. Douglas, shared in his reflection his impression of the respect C1 has curated from their community. Douglas noted:

I’m thinking deeply about the specificity of who is invited, and I’m struck by the respect for the company as a leader in the Boston ecosystem with funders part of an equilateral conversation around vision and practicing that vision. This kind of respect does not come overnight for the work and the workers.

What does hyperlocal mean and how can we be intentional about the places we’re in conversation with and who our community is?

Chiming in, Leigh Rondon-Davis uplifted the intentionality and specificity they witnessed during the convening, and how the intentions were communicated to the community. The Crowded Fire leadership team shared how this has challenged them to redefine and develop community differently. What does hyperlocal mean and how can we be intentional about who our community is, and the places we’re working within? How can values alignment inform how to practice accountability with partners? And how can you continue valuable and long-lasting relationships?

Nailah Unole Dida-nese’ah Harper-Malveaux of Crowded Fire shared that she was most struck by Morris’ comment about Boston lacking soul and clarified “Company One has soul. It is in the company and connections you make.”

What also stood out to the group was the question: aside from having charismatic leadership, how can we have a charismatic idea? The cohort spoke to how the convening served that purpose, as Marguerite Hannah observed that traditionally,

...a convening is usually prohibitive and involves a financial barrier to be in a room with like-minded people. The decision to use the morning roundtable session as a community meeting with community stakeholders allowed people to walk away feeling valued in a way that you cannot quantify and would help our society; it is a healing gesture.

Douglas added “it is justice work. To invite people who are often told they are not valuable, to the table. And shifting what matters here through building relationships.”

With high regard for the learnings of the convening weekend, the cohort also shared scenarios they would like to explore. Some members of the cohort wondered what would happen if the conversation did not involve funders, but instead the artists who came to the convening: decentering power and cultivating an exchange of ideas in the space that all would benefit from listening to.

While the group processed, the question still lingered: how do we build upon what we have learned?

The convening reinvigorated me to sit down with this simple revelation: intention-setting is a radical act in the face of political uncertainty, economic inequality, and other barriers. When the work is done with deep trust and alignment with communities and stakeholders, it creates an invitation that is authentic, charismatic, and most importantly, relationship based. We can hold the respect of artists, institutions, and audiences who are fueled by a shared vision and inquiry that feels tangible to not only make an impact hyper locally, but to change the culture nationwide as well.

 So, what’s next for the Future of American Theatre cohort?

For the cohort, the next convening takes place in Cleveland, Ohio in June, where they will carry these learnings into the field—getting more specific about what next steps look like holistically. In this moment, there is power and significance for arts leaders to meet and engage in vision-forward, lionhearted conversations and vulnerability. What this first convening proved was the importance of values-led and aligned organizations connecting and expanding their knowledge and gaining new perspective on ways to reimagine and create a praxis and business model that is driven by a defined purpose towards transforming our local communities and making an impact on the national field as well. Looking forward to these conversations, the cohort imagines having discussions about leadership and staff models, working with Indigenous artists, and other values-aligned topics.

With support from the Ford Foundation, the cohort can plan future convenings hosted by each theatre, continuing a cultural exchange between the values and the relationships each theatre has with their respective home locations.