Friday, August 1, 2008

Why Be A Green Theatre Company?

Are the Arts Sustainable?


Part One:  Where we've been.  Arts Equity premiered its first production in June of 2005 at The Main Street Theatre in downtown Vancouver, Washington.  Over the next three years, seventeen plays and a series of musical events were staged at the home of Vancouver's 1st professional theatre company.  Arts Equity vacated The Main Street Theatre in the spring of 2008.  Our artistic successes were outweighed by other factors--the high cost of maintaining a rented space and our inability to attract a corporate patron base to our downtown location.  Thus, we chose to embark on a season of plays being presented in different venues in Portland and Vancouver.  That season has begun and will continue.  

The core purpose of Arts Equity remains securely in place.  From the beginning, we have sought to produce theatre that is passionate, exuberant, profound and deep in the American spirit.  We stage classics, premieres of new plays and contemporary music-theatre.  At The Main Street Theatre, we provided Vancouver-area patrons the chance to experience, appreciate, and respond to the works of celebrated playwrights (Nobel, Pulitzer, and Emmy Winners) as well as younger, under discovered artists from the Northwest.  We have had great successes--our production of Herringbone ran 44 performances in the summer and fall of 2006, and in the summer of 2007 we extended our staging of Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile.   We managed to build a dynamic and powerful group of artists, providing roles for 70 actors.  Though out, we tried to cultivate an engaged, diverse and responsive audience. 

Part Two: Where we're going.  The Same ideals continue to guide us as we reshape Arts Equity.  We will produce  theatre designed to delight and promote serious thought among adult theatre-goers.  Our current aim is to imagine, build and operate a model that supports and makes possible sustainable theatre for southwest Washington.  The area, we continue to believe is under served in terms terms of high quality theatre.  The wish to achieve sustainable theatre has two parts--to survive and thrive as a serious artistic entity and to adopt and promote ecologically minded practices.  The pieces are in place to reach both these aims.  

In terms of artistic excellence, Arts Equity has thrived through out its existence.  Staging an impressive line-up of plays, we learned to operate in an efficient and frugal fashion.  Our administrative costs are strictly controlled. Stage design and set construction--where our efforts have consistently received high praise from reviewers and audience members--are prime examples of our thrift and green practices.  Our sets are constructed almost entirely from re-used and recycled fount items.  The current production of (21A at Theatre, Theater in Portland) is a perfect example.  The play takes place on a bus.  Our substantial and authentic st was rebuilt from a bus, located on its way to salvage, that we disassembled.  The total cost was less than $10.  Our environmental impact is a large, net positive.  This is how we operate.

For each of our past two productions (21A and Exit the King, performed at The Main Street Theatre in the spring of 2008) we received grant support from a non-profit foundation.  We intend to build on these successes.  With each instance of foundational support, we increase our experience in this important process, and we build the reputation of Arts Equity as an artistic entity worthy of support.  

Our future course lines up as follows:  We want, first to attract financial support from business and professional entities.  We believe that partnering with private interests sharing our green values can enhance our prospects.  We want, second, to locate Arts Equity in a new home in the Vancouver area.  We are looking for a building we can re-fit, an existing structure we can turn to new use with a special emphasis on applying green practices to the renovation and subsequent operations.  

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