April 29, 2021 – Artistic Director Community Conversation #8

AJT’s 8th Artistic Director / Organization Leader Community Conversation will be on Thursday, April 29 at 3pm – 4:30pm Eastern Time (12pm – 1:30pm Pacific, 1pm – 2:30pm Mountain. 2pm – 3:30pm Central, 10pm – 11:30pm Israel Time). It will be led by Aaron Henne, Founder & Artistic Director of theatre dybbuk. The theme will be Alternative Revenue Streams and Leveraging Partnerships for Theatres.

What are other ways theatres can leverage their tools, knowledge, and resources to create income? What educational opportunities exist? Arts and theatre adjacent opportunities? What other skills can artistic leaders utilize from within their company to create funding and revenue streams? What partnership opportunities might be available that can help theatres to increase their outreach and interact with new audiences?

Please RSVP to jeremy@alljewishtheatre.org if you are able to attend.

BIOS

ABOUT THEATRE DYBBUK
theatre dybbuk seeks to illuminate universal human experience for contemporary audiences by exploring Jewish thought through lyrical theatrical performances and innovative educational encounters.
www.theatredybbuk.org

ABOUT AARON HENNE
Aaron Henne is the Artistic Director of theatre dybbuk, an arts and education organization whose work illuminates universal human experience from a Jewish perspective. In addition to his work with theatre dybbuk, Aaron teaches storytelling throughout the country and has presented workshops at Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Dreamworks. With Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, he has been faculty for the EMA program, was the Diane Luboff Scholar at the Cutter Colloquium, and is a part of Beit Hayotzer/The Creativity Braintrust. Aaron has also served as a professional mentor at Otis College of Art and Design and as faculty for the Wexner Heritage Program, as well as for Georgetown University. He has worked as an educator and facilitator for a wide variety of organizations including The Hive at Leichtag Commons, Jewish Federation of North America’s Young Leadership Cabinet, and The Bronfman Fellowship. Mr. Henne is a Pilot Wexner Field Fellow, a member of the ROI community, and the recipient of LA Weekly and SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards for Playwriting.

The next (7th) AJT AD Community Conversation will be on Tuesday, March 30 at 2pm – 3:30pm Eastern Time (11am – 12:30pm Pacific, 12pm – 1:30pm Mountain. 1pm – 2:30pm Central, 9pm – 10:30pm Israel Time). The theme will be AJT Theatres by Population Size. Please RSVP if you are able to attend.

Theatres with similar population sizes sometimes have parallel resources and opportunities. This month’s Community Conversation will split Artistic Directors and Institutional Leaders up by the population size of their city and surrounding city center. 

What is it like to produce theatre in a (big / little / medium-sized) city? What are the institutional grants and organizations companies can and should be connecting to? What action can you take with local government organizations and officials to uplift your organization? How do you connect to your local synagogues and other Jewish organizations? Especially Jewish arts & culture organizations? What other opportunities and challenges are out there? A more full agenda will be sent at a later date.

We are aiming to create 3 rooms:

Room 1: Population size 1,000,000 and up
Room 2: Population size between 500,000 to 999,000
Room 3: Population size 499,000 and below

The room breakdowns based on population sizes may shift around slightly based on who attends so that we have approximately an equal amount of leaders in each room.

The next (6th) AJT AD Community Conversationwill be on Wednesday, February 10 at 3pm – 4:30pm Eastern Time (12pm – 1:30pm Pacific, 1pm – 2:30pm Mountain. 2pm – 3:30pm Central). The theme will be AJT Theatres Succession Plans. It will be led by Audrey Heller, Producing Artistic Director of The Jewish Theatre of Bloomington in Bloomington, Indiana. 

What happens when a founder or long-term Artistic Director leaves a company? How can you start your process of transition early enough so that your company and people are ready for it? What are resources for finding the right people from outside and inside your company? What things should be put in place prior to the shift? What kind of financial state should the company be in when you hand it over?

Our 5th Artistic Director and Institutional Leader Community Conversation gathering will be on Thursday, December 17 at 3:30pm – 5pm Eastern Time (12:30pm – 2pm Pacific, 1:30pm – 3pm Mountain, 2:30pm – 4pm Central Time) the theme will be Virtual Programming during the Pandemic and will be led by Hal Schneider, Producing Artistic Director of Central Massachusetts Jewish Theatre Company.

Some of the questions we will dig into will include:

1. What has each company produced virtually so far?
2. What was the range of audience sizes?
3. What was the audience’s reaction?
4. What are audiences looking for?
5. What are you doing in terms of marketing? What is effective?
6. What are your production costs? Budget? How are you monetizing?
7. Looking at the technology, can we avoid “theater in a box” (aka Zoom)?
8. Is there a desire/need/way to create a clearing house for existing productions?

Our 4th AJT Community Conversation will be on Tuesday, October 6 at 3:30pm – 5pm Eastern Time (12:30pm – 2pm Pacific, 1:30pm – 3pm Mountain, 2:30pm – 4pm Central Time). It will be led by David Winitsky, Founder & Artistic Director of Jewish Plays Project and Interim Producing Artistic Director of Kitchen Theatre Company. We will discuss Jewish plays and projects, especially new and relevant ones.

1. Who is writing these plays? (age, location, background of the 600+ submitting JPP playwrights)
2. Who is developing the plays?
3. What are they writing about and what is missing? (subjects, content and form)
4. What new Jewish plays should people know about?
5. What Jewish plays would be good for zoom?
6. What Jewish plays would be good for outdoor environments?
7. What Jewish plays come from Sephardic, Mizrahi, Ethiopian, or other Jews of Color POVs?
8. What Israeli plays should people know about?

AJT’s 3rd Community ConversationGathering will be on Monday, August 31 at 1:30pm – 3pm Central Time (11:30am – 1pm Pacific Time, 12:30pm – 2pm Mountain Time, 2:30pm – 4pm Eastern Time). It will focus on what we are planning for our upcoming season and how we can collaborate, share work, and audiences. It will be led by Deborah Baer Mozes, Artistic Director of Theatre Ariel in Philadelphia, PA.

1. Are you doing performances and/or special events on zoom? If so, how many, with who?
2. Give more detail about the projects you are working on.
3. Any tips and best practices?
4. How are you collaborating with other companies?
5. How are you looking to collaborate? Marketing? Production?

The second AJT Community Conversation Institutional Leaders conversation will happen on Monday, July 27, 1:30pm – 3pm Central Time (11:30am – 1pm Pacific, 12:30pm – 2pm Mountain, 2:30pm – 4pm Eastern). It will be led by Debórah Eliezer, Artistic Director of foolsFURY in San Francisco and Jeremy Aluma, Executive Director of AJT. The theme of our second meeting will be: Black Lives Matter, Anti-Racism, dismantling White Supremacy, and the intersection of these issues with Jewish Theatre in America.

This is a peer-led community gathering for Artistic Directors and Institutional Leaders to convene and talk about strategies, solutions, and ideas for various topics each month. It’s different than our Webinar/Panel series which is led by experts and leaders in the field. You are the leaders of your organizations and our hope is to collect you together in a brave space where you can be open, honest, and vulnerable with one another and learn from your colleagues and peers.

The theme of our second meeting will be: Black Lives Matter, Anti-Racism, dismantling White Supremacy, and the intersection of these issues with Jewish Theatre in America. It’s not an easy topic to tackle and there will be discomfort, unease, and maybe even some tension. Because these are the most pressing issues of the day, we feel the need to dig into the many questions, ideas, and tensions it will uncover. Anti-Racism can not be ignored anymore. Please familiarize yourself with the resources at the bottom of this email and attached, and come with your questions and impressions. 

AJT has been doing it’s own work in Anti-Racism recently. Our leaders have been reading articles, watching webinars, and talking with experts in the field. We’ve been doing this for both anti-racism at large and the specific ways it intersects with the Jewish community. We’ve also been sharing these resources in our newsletter and social media. We also set-up an Anti-Racism Committee that is about to have it’s 4th meeting. At these meetings we discuss the many ways our organization and its leaders can contribute. It’s an ongoing process so new ways to get involved will continue to emerge as we continue to educate ourselves and gather.

The AJT Board has also recently approved holding 3 anti-racism training sessions for all AJT Members. It will be led by the Director of Community Engagement from Be’chol Lashon, Lindsey Newman and a colleague of hers. Lindsey is a Black Jewish woman who has been doing this work for years and her colleague will be a White Jewish person who has also been doing this work for years. Together they will cover: What race is in America, what is the paradigm, how do we (as Jews) fit in, where don’t we fit in?; an hour long history of race through the lens of Jews and Jews of Color in America with some debrief afterwards; and they will help us develop a tool for Jewish Theatres and artists to become anti-racist practioners. The dates and times and additional information will come soon.

This Community Conversation gathering on Monday will help lead us towards the Anti-Racism Trainings which we hope everyone of our Artistic Directors is able to attend. Our hope is to gather the concerns, pain points, and questions to be answered from the ADs at the Community Conversation.

AJT Institutional Leaders & Artistic Directors: Community Conversation Gathering #1