Connecting Collaborative Passion to a National Network
15 February 2022
Tony Award-winning producer Mara Isaacs discusses how she puts collaboratively creative work in front of national audiences through her producing organization, Octopus Theatricals. This final episode of season two holds hot takes on boards, theatricality, and the connective tissue around artist-centered producing.
Process Performances and the Completion Commission
15 December 2021
Rachel Dickstein, Artistic Director of Ripe Time, takes us through her experience with Center Theatre Group’s completion commission for their adaptation of SLEEP. She also spotlights some necessary and helpful relationships with tour presenting partners, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, as well as champion and friend Diane Rodriguez.
Exploring Questions About Shared Leadership in Theatre
Thursday 2 December 2021
United States
Wingspace Theatrical Design presented a Virtual Salon on Shared Leadership Models livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Thursday 2 December 2021 at 4:30 p.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 6:30 pm. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7:30 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
Glenn Davis, co-artistic director of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, sits down with Ken-Matt Martin, artistic director of Victory Gardens Theater, to talk about shifting relationships with donors, the concept of term limits for leadership, the joys of returning to rehearsal rooms, and their shared experiences as Black men at the helm of Chicago theatres.
The Future Is Now: Conversations with Leyli Gafarova and Elena Ishchenko
11 November 2021
In these episodes of The Future Is Now, two CEC Artslink Future Fellows—Azerbaijan-based filmmaker Leyli Gafarova and Russian art curator and researcher Elena Ischenko—discuss their vision for the future of arts practice.
Regina Victor, artistic director of Slideshow Theatre Company, and Kaiser Ahmed, artistic director of Jackalope Theatre Company, discuss the joys and challenges of stepping into their Chicago-based positions as theatres across the United States recalibrate their programming.
BUILD Forward: Advocacy, Artistry, and Adaptability
With Conversations Focusing on Trans Advocacy and Organizational Adaptability
Friday 15 October and Saturday 16 October 2021
United States
foolsFURY Theater presented BUILD Forward: Advocacy, Artistry, and Adaptability livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 15 October and Saturday 16 October 2021.
Miranda Wright discusses the vitality of supporting new work development in the field and shares learnings from her experiences doing so as the founder of Los Angeles Performance Practice (LAPP) and the Live Arts Exchange (LAX) Festival.
Mentorship, Empowerment, and Cultural Equity: Ingredients to Build Community
6 October 2021
Carlos Diaz Stoop shares the impact of mentorship on his career as an arts administrator, educator, and independent producer and explains how the Creative Independent Producer’s Alliance (CIPA) and the International Creative Producers (ICP) are creating organizational environments that encourage co-learning and collective decision-making.
Yura Sapi speaks with Eric Lockley, co-founder of the Movement Theatre Company. Lockley is a member of the company’s producing artistic leadership team, who work together to create an artistic social movement by developing and producing new works by artists of color. Their work engages audiences in a rich theatrical dialogue, enlightens communities to the important issues affecting our world, and empowers artists to celebrate the many sides of their unique voice.
Yura Sapi sits down with Ann James, founder of Intimacy Coordinators of Color, whose mission is to support and promote decolonized intimacy education and inclusive hiring practices in the entertainment industry.
Yura Sapi sits down with Iyvon E., artistic director of The Parsnip Ship, a podcast play company that amplifies bold artists for audiences who crave accessible stories and storytellers.
Yura Sapi sits down with Kyoung H. Park of Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theatre collective dedicated to working with artists, non-artists, and local communities to transform experiences of oppression into peace messages through public performance.
Ashley Malafronte and Michael DeWhatley ask: How can future-minded theatres revolutionize their internship programs to create a more diverse, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial set of initiatives?
Festivals for a New Age: Models of Responsiveness, Flexibility and Resistance
Friday 11 June 2021
United States
The International Presenting Commons (IPC) in partnership with Global Pillow and HowlRound Theatre Commons presents Festivals for a New Age: Models of Responsiveness, Flexibility and Resistance livestreaming on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 11 June 2021 at 9:30-11:00 a.m. PDT (San Francisco, UTC -7) / 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 12:30-2:00 p.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4).
Mike Lew and Rehana Lew Mirza sit down to discuss how COVID has forced a breakup between artists and theatres and what it will take to get back together again.
Reimagining Public Theatres as Collectively Organized Cultural Institutions
28 April 2021
Zenkő Bogdán believes public cultural institutions should be redefined from the perspective of the people around it: it’s artists, employees, and audiences. As an exercise, she has begun to reimagine a future public theatre’s rules of organizing and functioning—and wants each and every reader of the document to participate.
Antonia Napp, Sonja Riehn, Silke Technau, and Stephan Schlafke share learnings about running KOLK 17, a cultural institution in Lübeck, Germany that combines a puppetry theatre company and puppetry museum, and where the goal is to redefine exhibiting the art form.
The co–artistic directors of Red Eye Theater in Minneapolis talk about shifting to a collaborate leadership model with a horizontal structure and consensus-based process, backdooring their way into traditional funding structures and resources, and more.
Kamilah Forbes, artistic director of the Apollo Theater, speaks with Wes Jackson and P. Carl about the American theatre being a very slow-moving ship, genre-crossing for artists and organizations, systemic racism in the field, and more.
Andrea Kovich argues that inclusive design can be used to change organizations and the work being produced, leading to a more inclusive and equitable theatre field.
Marta Keil and Grzegorz Reske share letters from the past and the future, from June 2020 to June 2029, detailing the changes to the theatrical landscape in their hometown of Warsaw, Poland.
Adapting to the Pandemic in a Shared Leadership Role
2 March 2021
In a conversation that took place in November 2020, Meropi Peponides and Yury Urnov discuss stepping into shared leadership roles, adapting during the pandemic, paying salaries to actors, and more.