Applied Theatre: Economies 9781350001701, 9781350001732, 9781350001725

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One
1. A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre
2. Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy
3. The Economies of Applied Theatre
4. Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies
Part Two
5. Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z: Colectivo Sustento in Continuous Resistance
6. Foundation Funding: The Pedagogies of Applied Theatre Projects in Two Toronto Theatres
7. Waiting on a Miracle: The Precarious State of the Everyday in Applied Theatre
8. A Difficult Fit: The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong
9. The Long Tail/Tale: Seven Thought-provoking Mind-sets to Reframe your Applied Theatre Practices
10. The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies
11. The Theatre Dividend: Reflecting on the Value of a Theatre and Social Housing Partnership in Bolton (UK)
Afterword
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Applied Theatre: Economies

The Applied Theatre series is a major innovation in applied theatre scholarship, bringing together leading international scholars that engage with and advance the field of applied theatre. Each book presents new ways of seeing and critically reflecting on this dynamic and vibrant field. Volumes offer a theoretical framework and introductory survey of the field addresses, combined with a range of case studies illustrating and critically engaging with practice. Series Editors Michael Balfour (Griffith University, Australia) Sheila Preston (University of East London, UK) Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Theatre, Music and Art Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe ISBN 978-1-4742-8383-0 Applied Theatre: Aesthetics Gareth White ISBN 978-1-4725-1355-7 Applied Theatre: Development Tim Prentki ISBN 978-1-4725-0986-4 Applied Theatre: Facilitation Sheila Preston ISBN 978-1-4725-7693-4 Applied Theatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing Veronica Baxter and Katharine E. Low ISBN 978-1-4725-8457-1 Applied Theatre: Research Radical Departures Peter O’Connor and Michael Anderson ISBN 978-1-4725-0961-1 Applied Theatre: Resettlement Drama, Refugees and Resilience Michael Balfour, Bruce Burton, Penny Bundy, Julie Dunn and Nina Woodrow ISBN 978-1-4725-3379-1

Applied Theatre: Economies Molly Mullen Series Editors Michael Balfour and Sheila Preston

METHUEN DRAMA Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, METHUEN DRAMA and the Methuen Drama logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Paperback edition published 2020 Copyright © Molly Mullen and contributors, 2019 Molly Mullen has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Louise Dugdale All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mullen, Molly, editor. Title: Applied theatre : economies / [edited by] Molly Mullen. Description: London, UK ; New York, NY : Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019. | Series: Applied theatre | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2018024007 (print) | LCCN 2018033398 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350001718 (ePub) | ISBN 9781350001725 (ePDF) | ISBN 9781350001701 | ISBN 9781350001701(hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Theater--Finance. | Theater--Economic aspects. | Theater management. | Theater and society. Classification: LCC PN2045.E26 (ebook) | LCC PN2045.E26 A77 2019 (print) | DDC 792.068/1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018024007 ISBN: HB: 978-1-350-00170-1 PB: 978-1-350-15483-4 ePDF: 978-1-350-00172-5 eBook: 978-1-350-00171-8 Series: Applied Theatre Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloom sbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Figures Notes on Contributors Foreword  J. K. Gibson-Graham Acknowledgements Introduction

vii viii xi xiv 1

Part One

1

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

11

2

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

25

3

The Economies of Applied Theatre

50

4

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

79

Part Two

5

6

7

8

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z: Colectivo Sustento in Continuous Resistance Penelope Glass

97

Foundation Funding: The Pedagogies of Applied Theatre Projects in Two Toronto Theatres  Lois Adamson and Anne Wessels

115

Waiting on a Miracle: The Precarious State of the Everyday in Applied Theatre  Peter O’Connor and Briar O’Connor

135

A Difficult Fit: The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong  Molly Mullen and Bonnie Y. Y. Chan

152

Contents

vi

9

The Long Tail/Tale: Seven Thought-­provoking Mind-­sets to Reframe your Applied Theatre Practices  Paul Sutton

171

10 The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies Paul Bonin-Rodriguez

184

11 The Theatre Dividend: Reflecting on the Value of a Theatre and Social Housing Partnership in Bolton (UK) Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes

201

Afterword

219

Notes Select Bibliography Index

256

222 261

List of Figures 2.1 7.1

The diverse economy framework. Used with permission from the Community Economies Project. Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd’s annual funding/staffing dilemma.

47 143

Notes on Contributors Lois Adamson is an educator and theatre administrator. Currently, she is the Director of Education at the Stratford Festival (Canada). Prior to this, she worked at Young People’s Theatre. Lois began her career after completing her MA (OISE/University of Toronto), exploring why teachers include live professional theatre in their educational repertoire. Lois belongs to PAONE, sits on the board for the Paprika Festival, and is a founding member of Shakespeare in the Ruff. She works with a variety of organizations as a consultant and educator, and presents and writes on issues in arts education, nationally and internationally. Paul Bonin-Rodriguez is Associate Professor in Performance as Public Practice at the University of Texas at Austin, where he leads the undergraduate Minor in Arts Administration and Management. He specializes in the study of contemporary artist-­driven cultural policies. His book, Performing Policy (2014), has been hailed as a ‘timely, relevant’ and ‘much needed perspective’ on how shifts in research, policy and funding have altered artists’ practices nationwide and brought them more fully into community engagement, planning and development. Formerly a writer-­performer and dancer, his works have been published in The Color of Theatre (2002), Jump-Start Playworks (2004) and TPQ. Bonnie Y. Y. Chan graduated with a Master of Arts in East-West Drama and is now a performing arts researcher and administrator. Chan joined FM Theatre Power (Hong Kong) in 2003 and has participated in numerous productions and projects. Her theatre works and academic papers have been presented at international festivals and conferences in many countries. Ben Dunn is a PhD candidate at the University of Manchester (UK) undertaking research on the politics of community theatre. His work focuses on the role of theatre as a socio-­political practice, its intersection with social and ontological praxes, and its dynamics as a form of

Notes on Contributors

ix

political action. Ben studied contemporary performance at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow and worked as a theatre practitioner for a number of years, making both solo and socially engaged work, before relocating to Manchester to begin his MA in 2012. Penelope Glass works with Colectivo Sustento, a collective of theatre and social activists, in Santiago, Chile. The collective aims to provoke critical reflection and community action through theatre and gardening. Colectivo Sustento directs Fénix e Ilusiones, a continuous (since 2002) theatre experience in the Colina 1 men’s prison on the outskirts of Santiago. Colectivo Sustento and Fénix e Ilusiones collaborate to extend the ‘space of freedom’ created in the theatre group beyond the prison, working specifically with young offenders. Jenny Hughes is Senior Lecturer in Drama at the University of Manchester (UK). She researches the relationships between theatre and poverty, protest theatre and applied theatre. Alongside various articles and chapters, her publications include a collection of essays (edited with Helen Nicholson), Critical Perspectives on Applied Theatre (2016), a monograph, Performance in a Time of Terror (2011) and a co-­authored book (with James Thompson and Michael Balfour), Performance in Place of War (2009). Molly Mullen is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Theatre at the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work, Aotearoa New Zealand, where she is a member of the Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre. Molly’s recent publications focus on management and funding in applied theatre. She is also involved in researching arts education practices engaging with issues related to place and ecology. Prior to lecturing, she worked professionally in theatre education, youth theatre and community arts in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Peter O’Connor is Professor of Education and Director of the Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre at the University of Auckland. He co-­ founded Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd in 1999 with Briar O’Connor

x

Notes on Contributors

MA(Hons). Briar is the Managing Director of ATCo and oversees the management of the Everyday Theatre programme. She is also a primary school teacher. Paul Sutton is the Artistic Director of C&T, based in Worcester in the UK. He has extensive experience as a drama teacher and theatre director. He has worked as an arts manager and consultant, with expertise in the use of social and digital media. Paul has published widely on theatre and technology and is Digital Editor of RIDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. Anne Wessels’s doctoral research analyzed performances of the suburb and the intersection of youth, pedagogy, drama and place. After graduating from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, she won the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies Dissertation Award and the ARTS Doctoral Graduate Research Award. Anne now works as the Education Director at Tarragon Theatre in Toronto.

Foreword J. K. Gibson-Graham

On a hot January evening in 2017, I found myself sitting on a red plastic stool in an empty multi-­storey car park in the outer western Sydney suburb of Blacktown. The performance of Home Country by the Urban Theatre Projects Company1 was well underway. Along with the other audience members, I had just decamped from a formal Welcome to Darug Country held outside the car park. Two performances had taken us by surprise – one from an old man who had seemed to be camping out under a tree behind us, another by a young woman two floors up, who was sitting on the outer ledge of the car park looking out over the expanse of Sydney’s sprawl back toward the distant CBD and coast. Now, I was part of the ‘red chair’ group, split off from the ‘blue chair’ people who had walked up a few levels in the car park to watch a parallel performance, one we were to see next. This movement of bodies and chairs and surprise performances in unlikely places had a few more iterations until we re-­joined the blue chair audience members at huge upended wooden cable-­winder tables on Level 5 set with food for a feast. Sitting in the car park in groups of eight, we were treated to dishes from Africa, the Middle East, Greece and Australia – all of the countries from whom performers and stories in Home Country hailed. The Sydney skyline was a distant backdrop. Dinner was followed by more movement, more performances, picking up threads of the stories we had already witnessed. Finally, we ended up on the open top of the car park, with dramatic scenes and an invitation to dance. The warm summer night was finally dark. By the time the performance was over I had become part of an activated, energized mob, no longer an isolated culture consumer. Together we walked down the ramps usually crowded with cars and

xii

Foreword

impatient shoppers. I sensed a mood of incredible interconnection with all around – the other audience bodies, the characters in the performance, the place in Blacktown, even the infrastructure – a car park, my least favourite urban structure. What had been created for me was a sense of possibility that things could be different – that people could listen to each other respectfully; that different histories, sufferings, joys could be appreciated; that hard urban settings could be re-­humanized; that nature could be invited into our lives in new ways. It was, I’d like to imagine, a glimpse of a community economy. It also was, I am now pretty sure after reading this book, an example of applied theatre. In this Foreword, which I am delighted to have been asked to write, I will think on the connections between the two. Applied Theatre: Economies is a pioneering book that positions applied theatre within a diverse economy – one in which a mess of different kinds of transactions, labour relations, business forms, financial investments and types of property, interact. The overarching goal of performing social change is pursued by enrolling a range of economic survival strategies. Practitioners rely upon mainstream economic transactions with capitalist entities and arms of the state, but also, and just as importantly, upon non-­market, unpaid, cooperative, gifted and commoned actions that are part of an other more-­than-capitalist economy. By opening the window on the radical heterogeneity of applied theatre economies, this book liberates practitioners from both the debilitating purism of those who see engagements with the mainstream as a ‘sell out,’ and the celebratory embrace of those who advocate fullblown entrepreneurialism as the only viable survival option. Economic pathways do not have to be represented in such simplistic terms. Economies are what we make them, albeit within the confines of what we inherit – and one thing we have inherited is un-­useful binaries that place applied theatre in some sort of timeless, unchanging box. This book changes all that and gives a glimpse of the ongoing challenges and opportunities that exist for theatre that explicitly courts social change.

Foreword

xiii

The community economy that I witnessed Home Country performing was made up of practices that took back the economy for people and place – bringing to the fore ethical interconnections. First, there was the transformation of property. The performers, stage workers and audience became a common community who, for a few nights, shared access to a publicly owned car park space with elevation and views, took responsibility for setting up moveable performance spaces, cared for each other walking up and down ramps, carrying seats, finding and sharing food, and enjoyed the benefits of an unusual indoor/outdoor theatre. Second, there were transformative transactions. Tickets were paid for via the internet or at the venue. But, in return for a modest price, the audience received an unexpected cornucopia of pleasures – six – or was it more – short plays within a play, dinner, music and conviviality. And then there were the transformative experiences of empathizing, listening, laughing, moving, caring – the intangible emotional transactions that ebbed and flowed back and forth between actors and audience and made us all grow and become more than we had been before. Common and bountiful exchanges are just two aspects that I could glimpse of the community economy that came into being for a few nights in Blacktown last summer. While this particular community economy was an ephemera, it is part of a galaxy of possibility. As this book demonstrates, the diverse economies of applied theatre are where incipient community economies are born, performed, practised and prototyped, and negotiating survival and wellbeing involves as much economic creativity as it does artistic.

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge Peter O’Connor, Viv Aitkin, Esther Fitzpatrick and Michael Balfour. Their support throughout the production of this book was invaluable. Also, Tom and Ida for allowing me precious family time to get this project finished. I would like to thank Emily Giles for her expert assistance in the editing process and Caitlin O’Connor and Kat Thomas who worked as research assistants on the project. Thanks also to the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education and Social Work and School of Critical Studies in Education for funding their time. Some sections of the first part of this book have been adapted from: Mullen, Molly. ‘The “Diverse Economies” of Applied Theatre.’ Applied Theatre Research 5, no. 1 (2017): 7–22. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1386/ atr.5.1.7_1 (accessed 26 February 2018)

And Mullen, Molly. ‘Managing Applied Theatre.’ RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 20, no. 3 (2015): 267–270. Available online: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569783.2015.1059260 (accessed 26 February 2018)

Introduction

Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, February 2012 You can tell that the minister has arrived by the sudden fluster of movement. She is small, fully made up, loose hair, long blue cardigan, heels. I quickly move to the front of the room to sit with Briar, Peter, Caitlin and Natano. The guests take their seats. The judge, minister and Commissioner for Children sit in the front row. Behind sit representatives from social services, the police and multiple NGO s, probably twenty people in all. Someone closes the door. Peter makes eye contact with the Commissioner who raises his eyebrows, questioning, a slight nod from Peter confirms we are ready to start. It is exactly 10.30 am. The Commissioner makes a speech, carefully welcoming each important guest. He describes Everyday Theatre as central to New Zealand’s challenge to family violence. We start the performance . . .1

Worcester, United Kingdom, May 2012 The International Trade Advisor says the coalition government is committed to pursuing exports. In the West Midlands they are working through the Chamber of Commerce to support regional industries. Paul and I sit opposite the advisor and the arts management consultant who set up the meeting. Paul describes C&T as an applied theatre company, using the analogy of applied science; theatre solving problems in the real world. ‘We don’t look like a theatre company’ he says, explaining their use of digital media. The consultant points out that C&T’s budget for travel indicates a commitment to international

2

Applied Theatre: Economies work. Paul describes projects in New York, Kenya, Australia . . . The advisor grills him about C&T’s turnover, income from overseas work, international relationships. Paul says the priority is building trusting relationships with partners.2

Outside the Central Government Offices, Hong Kong, September 2012 Ten FM Theatre Power members gather in a loose circle on the edge of the crowd of black-clad protestors. Bonnie translates for me. Today is the deadline set by the protesters for the Chief Executive to withdraw the new national education curriculum. It seems unlikely this demand will be met. Banky says they need to agree how to respond. If curriculum changes come in it may not be long before they cannot act at all. He wants to stage a play raising issues about education in Hong Kong, reaching an audience beyond the protest site. Others are concerned about the lack of time to prepare another show this month, or that the theatre audience is too limited. They want to create street theatre, performing every night in the busiest shopping districts.3

Each of these scenes depicts a brief moment in the life of a theatre company. In each moment, these companies are involved in developing and sustaining their socially committed practice. In each moment, they negotiate the tangled web of relationships in which their practice is enmeshed. These relationships connect their practice to institutional and economic systems extending well beyond the sites in which their work takes place. These companies critically consider the ways in which such relationships affect the forms and intentions of their practice. Moments like these are part of the economy of each theatre company’s applied theatre practice. I begin in the midst of practice because that is where this book began its journey. It addresses a range of concerns that arose first from practice, through moments like the ones above. After ten years running

Introduction

3

community-­based theatre projects in London, I found that I needed to know more about the economies of my work – how it was resourced and managed. What were the implications of engaging with particular sources of funding or with different business strategies? Undertaking a Masters in Applied Theatre in 2008 helped me to connect these questions to the concerns of the wider field. The academic discourse of applied theatre is pervaded by critiques of the effects of funding relationships and financial conditions on the aesthetics, pedagogies, politics and ethics of socially committed theatre practice. What I also sought were ways to respond to these concerns that were practically relevant to my work in the field: ethically and politically informed ways to generate the income and other resources needed to create drama and performance projects that engaged with the needs and interests of different groups, institutions and communities. This search became the basis of a PhD, of a research project that drew me back into the midst of practice, into the day-­to-day work of three theatre companies: Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd (ATCo) in New Zealand; C&T in the UK; and FM Theatre Power (好戲量) (FMTP) in Hong Kong. I looked critically with each company for practice-­based knowledge about the ways in which their funding and financial relationships were experienced and managed. Many of the theories and arguments presented in Part 1 of this book emerged as I began to make sense of my fieldwork experiences with these three companies. This book examines applied theatre’s relationship to the economy and the ways in which socially committed theatre makers fund, finance, or otherwise resource their work. In doing so, it brings together and addresses longstanding concerns in the field about the implications that financial conditions and funding relationships have for applied theatre practice and the people it involves. Applied theatre describes an expansive family of socially committed, participatory drama and performance practices.4 Many of these practices take place in settings outside traditional performance venues including schools, hospitals, prisons and private businesses. In this collection I also include participatory practices in existing performance venues that challenge the

4

Applied Theatre: Economies

dominant discourses, activities and material conditions through which those spaces are configured. Many practitioners working in this field are committed to the belief that participating in drama or performance can facilitate learning, make a difference to the lives of individuals, build communities and/or contribute to social or political change.5 Applied theatre practices, however, do not all share common intentions, principles or techniques. Instead, sustaining an inclusive, informed and critical debate around different ideologies and practices is a key characteristic of applied theatre’s academic discourse.6 This debate has included whether the terms ‘applied drama’, ‘applied theatre’ and ‘applied performance’ refer to distinctively different practices. In this book I use the term ‘applied theatre’ inclusively, to describe a range of drama, theatre and performance practices, both established and contemporary. The social aims and aesthetic forms of applied theatre practices are inextricably linked to the socio-­economic contexts in which they are produced.7 This raises complex ethical questions for theatre companies as they adapt their organizational and creative practices to survive economic and political changes. An ongoing concern is the extent to which the ‘rationale and practice’ of applied theatre is, as Michael Balfour persuasively argues, shaped by its ‘economic base’.8 Applied theatre makers work with forms of participatory theatre in which the interests and experiences of participants are central. In doing so, they often act on a commitment to creating theatre that contributes in some way to social or environmental justice. But, they are also acting on economic imperatives. They must secure the resources necessary to develop and sustain the work, to sustain themselves and often to cover the costs of running an organization. In many contexts there has been fruitful alignment of theatre practices committed to social change, and the social agendas of governments, philanthropic trusts and other grant-­making bodies. Balfour, and much of the literature discussed in Part 1, describes how theatre companies come under pressure to adapt their practices to the agendas of such donors, a process that often involves a form of economization. A question that troubles many writings in this area is whether practice ends up serving capitalism or

Introduction

5

neoliberalism, rather than addressing the injustices produced by these forms of economy. Another key concern is ‘whose values the application of theatre-­making serves and represents’.9 Applied theatre tends to combine pedagogic and artistic approaches to engage people in the active exploration of important social issues and processes. This often involves the participation of under-­ represented and marginalized groups and challenges social injustices and inequalities. What is intended can vary from contributing to reducing the chances of someone reoffending to providing an opportunity for the experience of enjoyment and beauty.10 Underpinning such theatrical interventions are certain values around what is ‘good for’ the participants and/or for the wider social context. Participants may be consulted or involved in deciding the aims of a project – or not. In addition, many agencies and organizations may be invested in the project, bringing their different agendas to the work. Critics suggest that the social intentionality that characterizes most applied theatre practices makes them vulnerable to being co-­opted to serve the agendas of partner agencies or donors.11 This is a particular concern when a company is dependent on a single source of income, leaving little room for negotiation. A complicating factor is the way in which the economies of applied theatre can extend beyond the immediate sites of practice, through local and national contexts, into powerful global processes. This book draws attention to the many ways theatre makers might negotiate this ‘tangled web’12 as they develop and sustain organizational and creative practices. Often, the relationship with a donor is the nexus of the relationship between applied theatre practice and local, national and global economic arrangements. However, fully discerning how any project is situated within wide-­reaching social, political and economic processes would seem to be impossible, making questionable the argument that rigorously researched intentions are the basis of ethical practice.13 Much of the literature discussed in Part 1 of this book shows that the conditions and dynamics of such relationships have implications for how the aesthetic, pedagogic, political and ethical values of applied practices are defined, articulated and enacted.

6

Applied Theatre: Economies

This book responds to the above concerns, and questions the extent to which the agendas of donors or of wider cultural policy operate to shift, ‘tame’14 or undermine the social, political and artistic intentions of applied theatre by looking at how theatre makers might navigate the ‘murky terrain’15 of their funding relationships. It does so from a more hopeful perspective than the one I held after an initial review of the literature at the start of my research. At that time, I was left with a powerful sense of the economy as a determining, driving force in applied theatre; I found little hope or grounds for action:16 Made to measure?17 Late capitalism. Policies on social exclusion. Tied to targets. Demonstrate the impact. Evaluate the impact. Reifying the radical potential of creativity and the imagination. What role is being played in the drive for profit? Fitting the Bill,18 The free market Steps in to fill this void. Efficient service providers: Cost effective, Locally rooted. Devised within the confines of project briefs. Parameters clearly determined the path. What role is prescribed by the donor driven agenda? The vultures in the sky19 Caught up in a net of contradictions.20 Building up their own empires.

Introduction

7

or Serving as pseudo-­mercenaries. Subtle manipulation. Dependent, Determined, Domesticated by their donors to stage their adverts.21 Commissioning transformation,22 Donors infect The delicate process of translating aesthetic agendas into non-­theatrical contexts. Governed and defined, Diluted, Addicted.23 Mercenaries,24 Missionaries,25 Half car salesman, half ideologue. Watch out for the Agenda trap.26 Don’t fall Prey to the agendas of the sponsors.27 Funders have Dubious ends.28 Don’t become Unwitting dupes.29 It is possible to work productively with donors . . .30 To find an optimistic alternative . . .31 At best . . . strong partnerships where the creativity agenda is honoured;32 The largest miracle unseen in the work.33

In the literature cited here, economic imperatives appear, at first, to be pervasive, spreading disease-­like, infecting even potentially radical practices of creativity and imagination. Donors appear as sinister

8

Applied Theatre: Economies

characters, often anonymous, manipulative, coercive and sometimes downright exploitative. The practitioner, meanwhile, ends up as an opportunistic vulture, an amoral mercenary, an irrational addict, or a dupe being blindly manipulated. Others find a way to continue to work in a confused and conflicted state. Practice seems caught, constrained, compromised, set on a predetermined path, ineffectual. Other possibilities seem rare or even miraculous. Of course, a first reading of anything will be limited. A more in-depth engagement with the literature generated a more complex picture and this is presented in Part One. The aim of this book, reflecting the aim of the research on which it is based, is to do more than offer further evidence of how economic conditions and funding relationships constrain and compromise applied theatre practices. The chapters and case studies in this book offer diverse and often complex understandings of the ways in which applied theatre practices interrelate with local and globalized economies. And the case studies in Part Two provide rich, detailed insights into the ways in which people working in applied theatre companies might negotiate the relationship between their political, aesthetic, pedagogic, and ethical values and the demands of resourcing their work.

Part One

1

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

When I began the research on which this book is based, ‘economy’ did not feel like my word, ‘economics’ even less so. I had set out to examine funding and management in applied theatre but quickly found these concepts encroaching into my study. I needed to better understand them and the phenomena they encompassed. In much of the literature I encountered the economy as something so obvious it required no explanation, or as something so complicated that it could only be explained with highly technical language. In contrast, feminist economists like Marilyn Waring addressed conceptions of the economy head on. They argued that the discipline of economics had gradually normalized a limited conception of the economy and, in doing so, produced problematic norms, subjectivities and assumptions. One effect of this narrowing of the economic sphere has been the economization of the arts, a process that has shaped how we think in and about art, performance and applied theatre. The next two chapters are concerned with the relationship between applied theatre and the economic conditions in which it is produced. In this chapter, I discuss selected theoretical perspectives on the economy and its relationship with the forms and purposes of art, performance and, ultimately, applied theatre. In doing so, I begin my search for ways to think about applied theatre’s relationship with the economy that allow forms of economic activity, relationship and subjectivity that do not conform to the dominant norms of economics and neoliberal capitalism to be recognized and valued. Throughout this chapter and the next, I draw on the experiences of the three theatre companies involved in the research from which this book has emerged: Applied

12

Applied Theatre: Economies

Theatre Consultants Ltd in New Zealand, C&T in the UK and FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong. I use examples from their work to illustrate key issues and ideas being addressed.

Economy, economics and the economy ‘Economy’ derives from ancient Greek, Latin and French words for household or domestic management. As argued by Waring,1 its meaning has changed over time: Xenophon coined the word ‘oikonomikos’ to describe the management or rule of a house or household. In general usage, the word ‘economy’ still retains some links with its Greek origins. Roget’s Thesaurus lists as synonyms management, order, careful administration, frugality, austerity, prudence, thrift, providence, care and retrenchment. These synonyms are unlikely candidates for what is called the ‘science’ of economics. The meaning of words, our words, change inside a ‘discipline’.2

Current usage can still carry this association with careful or sparing administration or organization.3 In this sense, an economy might be any system of arranging or managing things in any context and on any scale, and economics refers to: ‘The science or art of household management; domestic economy’.4 There is no essential association between economy and finance. In the nineteenth century, however, the emerging discipline of economics deliberately defined itself in a way that excluded domestic activity in order to be recognized as a science.5 The modern discipline of economics focuses on ‘the production, distribution, consumption, and transfer of wealth; . . . (also) the condition of a state etc., as regards material prosperity; the financial considerations attaching to a particular activity, commodity, etc’.6 It is a discipline in which, Waring argues, only certain kinds of value, labour and productivity count – in terms of informing political decision making but also what societies see as being of worth. The contemporary discipline of economics includes a range of perspectives, but its methods are dominated by a positivist paradigm,

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

13

which narrows what counts to what is deemed valid economic knowledge.7 For example, in the nineteenth century, Keynes made the distinction between positive and normative economics. Normative economics includes things that cannot be tested empirically, ‘forms of values, opinions, ideologies, judgements, and so forth’, and so came to be viewed as external to the primary business of economics.8 Marilyn Waring argues that this separation of market values and moral values involves a ‘moral judgement’ itself,9 concealing gendered, cultural and political interests behind claims of objective neutrality. When she critiques modern economics, then, Waring is challenging what has become the dominant approach to economic knowledge and the problematic role it plays in determining what gets valued in societies. Waring and other feminist economists argue that the norms and methodologies of economics are problematic for both women and the environment. Much of the literature discussed below indicates they can also be problematic for the arts. Cultural economics applies the methods of mainstream economics to the arts, often addressing issues of concern to applied theatre. Michael Rushton, for example, examines artistic freedom from this perspective.10 He explains that an economic approach ‘plays down any consideration of abstract rights (“nonsense upon stilts”) and instead looks for legal frameworks that maximize aggregate wealth, broadly defined’.11 An economic analysis of a situation where there is an objection to the nature or content of an artwork, for example, might weigh up material cost and benefits to each party of the artwork being produced or publicly presented and is likely to side with the party that will incur the biggest financial cost, directly or indirectly. Rushton also considers the restriction of free expression in donor relationships. The economic rationale for public arts funding is that public subsidy corrects the level or distribution of cultural goods provided by the market, ensuring cultural production meets consumer demand. From this perspective, placing constraints or limits on what gets produced, in terms of content and purpose, is justifiable if it reflects consumer wants. Rushton points out possible limits to the economic approach to such issues. The focus

14

Applied Theatre: Economies

on what can be empirically measured, for example, means issues of power are not fully taken into account. Economics is also limited in the extent to which it can deal with the complexities of human decision making and human wants, which are not always rational. Rushton’s analysis illuminates some of the norms that are at the heart of mainstream economics, which appear to allow only a very narrow understanding of human nature and the value of the arts. Mainstream economics is dominated by the neoclassical tradition.12 Marxist scholars Jack Amariglio, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff summarize the presumptions at the heart of the neoclassical approach: human beings are self-­interested and use their reason to achieve their egoistic ends. The presumption about physical nature is that, at least relative to human needs (which are additionally presumed to be insatiable), resources are scarce. Thus, self-­interested agents must use their reason – they must make choices between alternative uses – about the disposition of their resources in order to realize their ends.13

The account of the economy proposed by neoclassical economics provides a justification for why capitalism is the economic system that will best meet human needs. Taken to its logical conclusion, it is argued, this system leads to the optimal distribution of resources – the balance of production and consumption so that all wants and needs are satisfied. Also at the heart of neoclassical economics is the conception of human nature as homo economicus, the rational self-­interested agent trying to satisfy their own wants and needs.14 The principles of neoclassical economics were foundational to the thinking of the early proponents of neoliberalism.15 Broadly, neoliberal theory emphasizes the liberal ideals of individual freedom and liberty, but argues that they can only be realized within free market conditions. It advocates for limiting the powers of the state to protecting the rights and institutions required by individuals and corporations to accumulate wealth. It is perhaps not surprising then that homo economicus has been identified as the neoliberal subject.16 Feminist economists argue that this narrowly conceived, gendered conception of human subjectivity has come to

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

15

preclude all other explanations of human experience, identity and behaviour.17 Neoclassical economics and neoliberalism naturalize the view that a market economy and a propensity to pursue individual interests through exchange transactions are human nature. In the arts, this is evident in the way social relationships, like those between artists and audiences, come to be treated in cultural policy as transactional exchanges between producer and consumer, while those in power, like grant-­making agencies, must serve as custodians of the market. As a theatre practice that typically claims to generate social value in some form, applied theatre has been critiqued for capitulating to the problematic economic logic of capitalism. In the next part of this chapter, I turn to a range of theoretical perspectives that both inform this critical viewpoint and those that offer alternative ways to think about how socially committed art practice relates to the economy.

Art, performance and economization The social intentionality of applied theatre is seen to leave it particularly vulnerable to a form of commodification; to being produced in ways that reflect the limited norms of a capitalist market economy. However, Jenny Hughes, Jenny Kidd and Catherine McNamara’s examination of applied theatre research indicates that applied theatre may be a more difficult fit within the dominant economic paradigm.18 Hughes and colleagues suggest that while much applied theatre research reflects the economic imperative to provide evidence of impact, the value of practice is often articulated in ways that suggest an ambivalent stance. To explain this, they draw on Raymond Williams’s definition of ‘Art’ from Keywords. Williams links the process of distinguishing between the intrinsic imaginative or creative purposes of artistic labour and the extrinsic purposes of manual or artisan labour to the division of labour under capitalism.19 He argues the arts came to define skilled creative practices where ‘forms of use and intention . . . were not determined by immediate exchange’.20 The arts claimed a distinctive identity and intrinsic value to defend artists from the demand to make something

16

Applied Theatre: Economies

useful for market exchange. For some of the thinkers discussed below, socially committed art, such as applied theatre, in its desire to be socially useful, has let down its defences. Hughes and colleagues offer a different argument: The field of applied theatre deliberately and creatively disrupts the binary of ‘use value’ and ‘exchange value’ identified by Williams and to a certain extent renders these terms obsolete, as it adopts an approach to theatre practice that exhibits use value and exists within the productive regimes of the social and cultural economy, broadly conceived, as well as carries the abstract value attributed to ‘pure’ arts.21

This depiction of applied theatre’s ambivalent stance is important to the argument I make in this book as it accepts the possibility that different, sometimes contradictory, forms of economy and value can coexist. This ambivalence also seems to reflect the messy reality of running a socially committed theatre company. For example, multiple value systems converge in these quotes from representatives of ATCo, C&T and FM Theatre Power: Peter, ATCo Director: It’s right at the heart of what we do, we’re a business and so it is about making money, but it’s not about making money to make us rich, it’s about making money so we can do more of what we want to do . . . the end goal is not making profit, does that make sense?22 Max, C&T Assistant Director: We act like a profit organization even though we don’t make profit . . . you know, we’re constantly expanding into new areas, being innovative . . .23 C&T Funding Ethics: Being entrepreneurial is a good thing as long as it respects our other values and our overriding creative ethos.24 Mo, FMTP President: We had always emphasized that we were an independent group that we didn’t depend on any other organizations but after that moment we think that we have to make different collaborations with different organizations.25

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

17

As representatives from each company describe aspects of their organizational economy, they express seemingly contradictory ideas. As will emerge in most chapters of this book, there are aspects of the economy of applied theatre companies that fit the mainstream economic paradigm, but also aspects that cannot be explained by it or that disrupt it. For some people, critical alarm bells will start ringing as soon as theatre makers talk about making a profit or being entrepreneurial. Such discomfort reflects a long tradition of critical thinking about the relationship between art, performance and the economy, and with capitalism in particular. Much of this thinking is in the Marxist tradition. Broadly speaking, this perspective treats forms of production, individual identities and forms of cultural expression as products of particular historical conditions. This focuses attention on the nature of the relationship between art-­making and processes for producing commodities in a capitalist market economy, between the work of artists and other kinds of labour highlighting the tensions, or struggles, between ‘opposing political positions’.26 Williams’s argument that the arts have forms and purposes distinct from activities intended to produce value through market exchange is central to thinking about the value of art and performance. Richard Schechner, for example, argues this distinction is the basis of the value and function of performance in society.27 Schechner proposes that ‘[t]he separation of performance activities from productive work is a most interesting, and unifying, factor of play, games, sports, theater, and ritual’.28 He acknowledges that all performance activities are ‘embedded in particular ‘economic arrangements’,29 particularly those that operate commercially. What distinguishes performance from the productive work of other industries, however, is that economic arrangements do not determine the ‘form of the operation’.30 So, while elements surrounding a performance activity are affected by the financial economy, the form of the activity is not. Instead, performance activities are determined by rules, traditions and conventions that are ‘designed not only to tell the players how to play but to defend the activity against encroachment from the outside’ [emphasis in original].31 Unlike

18

Applied Theatre: Economies

productive work, Schechner asserts that performance activities gain value through being: something apart from everyday life. A special world is created where people can make the rules, rearrange time, assign value to things, and work for pleasure. This ‘special world’ is not gratuitous but a vital part of human life [emphasis in original].32

Critical theorist Theodore Adorno makes a different argument about why the value of art in late capitalism depends on the autonomy of the form of an artwork. Adorno proposes that within the conditions of late capitalism, art can best serve a critical function in society when it eschews any direct commercial or social function. Writing in Germany and the United States of America during the lead up to, and in the aftermath of, the Second World War, Adorno interrogated the role played by culture in promoting social conformity. He outlines the ways in which, by the early to mid-­twentieth century, cultural production had become like any other kind of commodity production. Literature, music, film, theatre and radio were being produced, packaged and distributed for the easy consumption of mass audiences. The culture industry ceaselessly reproduced the ideologies and expectations of the status quo. Simultaneously, its products became the measure of the good life, promoting conformity to existing social categories, and the logic of an exchange society in which everything must be for some socially useful purpose. For Adorno,33 the culture industry facilitated the total integration of economy and society. Adorno argues ‘[t]he cultural commodities of the industry are governed, as Brecht and Suhrkamp expressed it thirty years ago, by the principle of the realization as value, and not by their own specific content and harmonious formation’.34 Unlike Brecht, however, Adorno is sceptical about art that seeks to play a political or social role. In doing so it loses the autonomy that for Adorno distinguishes art. A work created for any social purpose, even to try and critique the status quo, ultimately offers a reified experience, reducing its value to that of a quantifiable exchange transaction. Autonomous art, for Adorno, is not entirely cut off from society, but it

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

19

cannot be reduced to any single message or social requirement. Instead, when its formal qualities offer an experience of the difficult, contradictory conditions in which humans live, art can have a critical relationship to society. Adorno ends up arguing that what might be considered Bourgeois art by other Marxist and Neo-Marxist thinkers has a potentially more critical relationship with society than intentionally political art, precisely because it does not try to engage in social change. Pierre Bourdieu35 is also concerned with artistic autonomy, but his conception of the relationship between art and the economy differs from Adorno. Bourdieu describes the field of cultural production as a domain in which different producers struggle for a dominant position. Dominance depends on accumulating the forms of capital most valued in the field. The field of cultural production is cross-­cut by two principles of hierarchization, the heteronomy principle, which comes from the fields of power and the economy, where success is based on external recognition and levels of production and consumption. This value hierarchy works against the autonomy principle that is internal to the field, where symbolic capital is accumulated by those whose work is recognized as being the least interested in financial capital. Bourdieu, then, describes a core of artistic production where the autonomy principle inverts the dominant logic of the financial economy. This subfield includes artists who make work for small elite audiences. In other areas of cultural production the accumulation of economic capital is celebrated, with the most dominant producers being the most commercially successful. Art produced for popular and mass audiences, for example, is, for Bourdieu, governed by the heteronomy principle. Each area of the field of cultural production has its own economy that is based on a particular belief about the value of art. But, within the field of cultural production ‘[t]he status of “social art” is, in this respect, thoroughly ambiguous. Although it relates artistic or literary production to external functions (which is what the advocates of “arts for art’s sake” object to about it), it shares with “arts for art’s sake” a radical rejection of the dominant principle of hierarchy and of the “bourgeois” art which recognizes it’.36 Arguments, that separation or autonomy from the

20

Applied Theatre: Economies

economy is the basis for the social, critical or ‘abstract’ value of art and performance, can be problematic for applied theatre, which has the kind of ambiguous value system described here by Bourdieu. Applied theatre draws on the ‘rules, traditions and conventions’ of existing theatre and performance forms to create theatre in ways that are collaborative, participatory and democratic. As Michael Balfour37 highlights, applied theatre also draws from the social and institutional contexts in which it is embedded. To an extent, a distinctive feature of applied theatre is that its forms and intentions incorporate influences from beyond the art form. Often, however, the creative process in applied theatre is embedded within a form of economic transaction that establishes the values and criteria according to which the success of the project is judged. This raises questions about whether wider financial arrangements can really be separated from applied theatre’s forms and, if not, what this means for applied theatre’s capacity to provide a vital, performative, lived experience. For example, ATCo, C&T and FM Theatre Power endeavour to create forms of participatory theatre that respond to the interests and experiences of participants. In doing so, they act on a commitment to creating theatre that contributes in some way to social justice and/or change. However, each company also responds to economic imperatives – they operate within conditions that require them to secure financial resources. On Adorno’s terms, then, their practice is likely to be doubly implicated; it is neither authentic art, nor in a position to be critical. Shannon Jackson38 argues that the ‘autonomy principle’ is limited in enabling an understanding of the value of socially engaged art practices, which are ‘nearly by definition, to be beholden to the “external rules” of the social’.39 The heteronomy of socially engaged art, she argues, means that it is seen by some critics as symbolically devalued and critically compromised. Challenging the idea that the value of socially engaged performance is contingent on separation, Jackson suggests its value might come from the way in which, for performance in particular, separation is always ambiguous. In the creation of performance works, artists must negotiate a range of systemic relationships, often including donor relationships. In social practice the negotiation and even cultivation

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

21

of social interdependencies is treated as part of the artwork, rather than something that must always be resisted. In doing so, socially engaged art practices draw on the legacy of historic art and theatre movements where social engagement was taken as a precondition for economic transformation. Bertolt Brecht, for example, was concerned with the active role art and artists could play in political and economic change through particular aesthetic techniques and forms of cultural production. Brecht developed aesthetic techniques aimed at cultivating a socially critical audience by drawing attention to the contradictions of capitalist society. Brecht also challenged the way in which theatre was produced. Like Adorno and Bourdieu, Brecht saw the arts as playing a part in reproducing the social relations and relations of production of capitalism. He observed artists and audiences in the early twentieth century caught up in cycles of exploitation within the wider entertainment industry.40 Artists had lost control of the apparatus of cultural production to the extent that Brecht suggested that artworks were produced by that apparatus, not by the individual artist.41 In Notes on the Opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Brecht describes the work of artists as having come ‘to resemble that of subcontractors’,42 dependent on a system requiring them to serve the reproduction of existing, capitalist, social relations. His concept of ‘renovative art’ indicates the way in which innovations in artmaking served the limited purpose of creating more appetite for the same kind of art, rather than transforming the wider apparatus of cultural production. Audiences, meanwhile, were both exploiter and exploited. He saw the audience as the cause and as the victim of a system that divides both terms – on the one hand, it marks work and productivity as devoid of pleasure, and on the other it keeps pleasure free of productivity for the sake of work.43

Brecht was concerned with restructuring, or refunctionalising the production of theatre to address divisions between producer and consumer, pleasure and productive work, intellectual and manual labour, and art and everyday life ‘in order to bring about a more democratic mode of communication’.44

22

Applied Theatre: Economies

Brecht was in no way alone in his commitment to creating theatre and art in ways that challenged dominant forms of cultural production under capitalism. Nicola Shaughnessy’s45 consideration of the politics and aesthetics of avant-­garde and radical theatre shows this has been the focus for political art movements throughout the twentieth and twenty-­first centuries. Such movements experimented with ways to refunctionalize the economy of their artmaking according to a non-­ capitalist logic. The Soviet Constructivists, for example, aimed to make art useful to a revolutionary society by integrating processes for producing and organizing art into the everyday lives of ordinary people.46 Looking at relatively recent socially engaged art practice, Gregory Scholette argues experimentations with alternatives to capitalism, politically and culturally, diminished in the late twentieth century. Scholette proposes that ‘contemporary art groups, as if reflecting the plasticity of identity formations in the post-­industrial world, might be said to perform or enact collectivist modes and organizational forms rather than embody them’.47 These artists sought to comment ironically on social issues or create a temporary autonomy from capitalist social relations, rather than attempting to enact a process of change through their work. The ironic stance identified by Scholette was perhaps a response to an increasingly close proximity between artistic and economic production in the late twentieth and early twenty-­first centuries. Writing about contemporary performance and forms of labour, for example, Gabriele Klein and Bojana Kunst identify a correspondence ‘between modes of production in performance and flexible, collaborative and precarious modes of working. It is evident that the labour of the performance artist is directly related to the production of artistic subjectivity, which in turn is in correspondence with changing modes of labour in contemporary society’.48 Similarly, Jen Harvie outlines the way in which ‘labour deregulation in art and performance corresponds to the broader deregulation of markets – particularly labour markets – under neoliberal capitalism’.49 Relating back to the discussion of economization above, she highlights how artistic subjectivities have fundamentally changed, aligning with the norms and assumptions of

A Narrowing Sphere: Economization and Applied Theatre

23

neoclassical economics and neoliberalism. Martin Parker50 also examines the relationship between the rules that structure work and rules that structure an artistic process. His focus is a performance piece, In Many Ways, created by Tim Etchells with staff from Tate Gallery in Liverpool, England. While Schechner51 makes a clear distinction between external economic rules and the internal rules of performance activities, Parker finds a more porous relationship between the two in this performance. The relationship is playful, with the rules and habits of work changing the artistic process and vice versa. As Jackson argues, such works can call into question the ‘anti-­institutionality’ of much radical art and performance practice.52 Jackson proposes that many socially engaged performance practices enable audiences to imagine and explore alternative forms of institution and social organization. In the heteronomous art practices examined by Jackson, economy becomes materially part of the performance, something that is crafted, experimented with and reflexively or ironically foregrounded. Jackson offers a way of thinking about economic relationships and interdependencies as productive parts of a creative process. She identifies the need to look for ways to ‘respond to art’s heterogeneous mixed economies’53 rather than trying to reclaim an ideal of art or performance as autonomous from either the state or the market. Jackson conceives of socially engaged art-­making as a ‘supported and supporting apparatus’.54 Supporting and being supported are not presented as ideal relationships; it can be uncomfortable and difficult to manage: ‘sustaining support can simultaneously be felt as constraining’.55 While applied theatre has some shared heritage with the socially engaged art practices discussed by Jackson and Scholette, the practice of treating funding and other institutional relationships as sites of creative and critical action is less visible. Instead they appear in the literature predominantly as problematic sites of co-­option, compromise or coercion from which some degree of autonomy must be sought. In Applied Theatre: Aesthetics Gareth White examines the relevance of the principle of autonomy to applied theatre as ‘a practice predicated on heteronomy’.56 He argues that in spite of its aesthetic heteronomy,

24

Applied Theatre: Economies

notions of autonomy still have relevance to applied theatre, particularly in relation to ideas about value and effectiveness. Applied theatre has been dogged by the demand to demonstrate value in the form of measurable effects. White depicts the way in which this demand can shape the forms and intentions of applied theatre: As a snapshot of this issue, we might imagine a set of characters. There are the good people of the grant-­making committee, eager to share their limited resources where they will do the most good, but obliged to gather evidence for that good. There is the applied theatre artist, compiling a funding application, juggling evidence and ambition. There are other competing projects that use other means, perhaps with more ample evidence, or more direct connections between input and output. There are participants, members of a community or individuals pursuing their own interest, wanting to ‘get something out’ of making art.57

This example shows how applied theatre’s relationship with particular sources of income and with wider economic conditions can create a particularly thorny tangle. It also shows how assumptions and subjectivities produced by neoclassical economics and neoliberalism are very much part of the economic terrain of applied theatre. It indicates how easily the making of applied theatre can become economized when applied theatre artists must compete for scarce resources, and when getting ahead, or at least staying afloat, means demonstrating value according to an economic rationale. For many practitioners, possibilities for negotiating the system in any other way seem few and far between and the ideal of autonomy from economic demands, and from capitalism in particular, persists. In the next chapter, I turn to literature examining applied theatre’s perplexingly entangled relationship with economic conditions. In doing so, I highlight key concerns about the implications for applied theatre’s political commitments, and its aesthetic, pedagogical and organizational forms. Finally, I consider the possibilities presented by the more expanded conception of the economy proposed by some feminist economists.

2

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

Sometimes it feels like it is all about the money. Finding resources, financial and otherwise, to sustain applied theatre practice is an ongoing challenge. In some contexts there is an historically inadequate infrastructure, in others subsidies and supports are being eroded through the neoliberalization of state policy and implementation of austerity measures. Nevertheless, accounts of how socially committed theatre movements, in different international settings, have fared over the past four decades tell of the resourcefulness of those dedicated to making theatre that is socially engaged and in some cases highly critical. However, they also tell of a gradual process of adaptation to market-­driven, individualized policy interests, resulting in diminished or frustrated artistic and political ideals. It is not surprising then, that concerns about applied theatre’s relationship with the economy and the implications of specific forms of income generation are persistent. In this chapter I consider what has been said in the literature of applied theatre about the relationship between the forms and intentions of applied theatre and wider economic conditions, asking whether it is inevitably all about the money. I then return to feminist economic theories that offer possibilities for attending not just to the economization of applied theatre under neoliberal capitalism, but also to the wider economies of practice. By conceiving of the economy as a space of diversity, these theories highlight the ways in which a range of economic practices and subjectivities might be cultivated as a central part of a socially engaged theatre practice.

26

Applied Theatre: Economies

United Kingdom – imposed instrumentalism The effects of local, national and global economic arrangements on applied theatre in the United Kingdom have been well examined.1 This includes studies exploring the relationships between political and economic changes on theatrical movements from which applied theatre in the UK emerged. Other studies focus on the influence of New Labour’s cultural policy, which emphasized the value of the arts in terms of social impact and contribution to the creative industries. The legacy of this era, Eleonora Belfiore2 argues, is that it has become almost impossible to make a case for funding the arts that does not appeal in some way to its economic value. The literature below illuminates the effects this has had on socially committed theatre practices. It points to the gradual imposition of a narrow instrumentalism, a focus on function and impact, and identifies consequences for the politics, aesthetics, pedagogies and ethics of applied practices. But the literature also indicates that this has not been a complete or straightforward process; it is not yet, or not always, all about the money. Baz Kershaw’s3 comprehensive examination of alternative theatre in the UK between 1960 and 1990 has informed thinking about how applied theatre’s emergence from earlier political and community theatre movements was, to some degree, economically driven. Kershaw investigates the potential of performance to contribute to social and political change, examining the relationship between counter-­cultural theatre movements and political and economic changes in the UK. His approach is based on Raymond Williams’s4 cultural materialism, examining processes of cultural production by analysing specific examples of practice within the development of the alternative theatre movement as a whole. Kershaw argues that despite the aesthetic diversity of the UK’s alternative theatre movement, it had a coherent, oppositional ideological position. He then depicts the conditions under which the movement and its ideological position ‘fragmented’ as the economic infrastructure on which it had come to depend was dismantled.5

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

27

The seeds of this fragmentation were sown during the late 1970s when the growing dominance of neo-­conservativism in national politics presented challenges for countercultural arts practice; one challenge being the distribution of resources. In spite of calls for arts funding to recognize cultural plurality, the Arts Council of Great Britain continued to focus resources on an established cultural hierarchy, privileging large national theatre companies. At the same time, the small proportion of funds that went to alternative theatre did grow and Kershaw describes this as a decade of expansion for ideologically oppositional theatre practice. By the late 1970s, however, debates emerged within the movement around the extent to which radical politics were diminishing as artists accommodated the conservative expectations of funders and communities. Groups that sought a closer interrelationship with communities encountered an ideological tension between wanting to affirm/celebrate the status quo and wanting to work in ways that challenged or disrupted it. A tendency towards less radical interventions was seen to be exacerbated by state funding. Dependency on state funding, it was argued, resulted in ‘safer’ practice, in terms of choices about audience, venue and radical intent. Kershaw’s conclusion, however, points to contradiction rather than capitulation. He suggests ‘the increased dependence on the state can be read as both a prudent political tactic used to stay in oppositional business and a craven accommodation to the status quo’ (emphasis in original).6 He proposes that the movement thrived despite unfavourable political conditions because its experimental aesthetics aligned with the interests of many communities by providing opportunities for ‘self-­determination and localised democracy’.7 Political and economic conditions in the 1980s became increasingly hostile to oppositional theatre and to the aim of cultural democracy. Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government embedded the view that ‘[a]ll spheres of social and cultural life were to be judged first in economic terms’ and this included the arts.8 The argument that public services were better delivered by private enterprises within a free market led to cuts to public spending in many areas, including the arts.

28

Applied Theatre: Economies

By the mid-1980s, the Arts Council was actively encouraging theatre companies to be entrepreneurial, to diversify their income through corporate sponsorship, match funding and increased earned revenue.9 Training schemes and consultancy opportunities encouraged arts organizations to bring management and business practices into line with corporate models. Changes to Arts Council grant aid shifted many companies from annual revenue funding to short-­term project grants. Kershaw argues this resulted in a decline in long-­term community collaborations. The changes that took place during the 1980s embedded a ‘neo-­conservative business ethic’ into the arts sector: theatre became increasingly oriented towards market success, with value judged in terms of contribution to heritage or tourist industries.10 By the mid– 1980s, the total number of alternative theatre companies began to decline, as did the movement’s radical ideological position. Into the early 1990s, the UK was experiencing political instability and widespread social unrest. Further restructuring of the Arts Council, together with cuts to local authority grants, meant theatre companies of all scales were facing closure unless they fundamentally changed their business models. At the same time, a plethora of other grants became available, presenting companies with a wider range of funding options, while simultaneously increasing competition between them. In a complex, competitive market, companies needed to differentiate themselves, specializing in work with specific groups, themes or techniques.11 Alternative theatre, Kershaw argues, was no longer a unified movement, it became ‘an industrial sector which is most notable for its pluralism, with some companies working for highly specialized constituencies and others aiming to appeal to a range of “markets,” simultaneously or in sequence’.12 Picking up almost where Kershaw’s book ends, Jonothan Neelands13 proposes that in the UK, after 1997, the political values of applied theatre shifted in response to the New Labour government’s social inclusion policies. New Labour increased spending on the arts and, as Coaimhe McAvinchey identifies, ‘much of this resource was directed towards practices that explicitly set out to ameliorate the pathways to,

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

29

and effects of, social exclusion’.14 This enabled a growth in participatory arts practices that engaged groups who were perceived as marginalized or deprived. Under New Labour, publicly funded arts organizations needed to justify their value in terms of social benefit.15 Neelands argues this resulted in a shift away from a left-wing commitment to a politics of redistribution and towards a liberal politics of recognition.16 In doing so, he differentiates between ‘pro-­social theatres that seek to ameliorate the psychological harm caused by social and economic injustices and political theatre seeking to directly challenge the causes and class interests, which underpin those same injustices’.17 Neelands’s argument is that many applied theatre practitioners claimed to take an oppositional political stance while developing forms of practices that supported the inclusion of disadvantaged groups into the status quo. For Neelands, such practices fail to address the social and economic injustices that disadvantage or exclude certain groups within society. McAvinchey argues more moderately that the language of community performance practice changed as the ‘financial linguistic framework’ required practitioners to emphasize effective social impact over the realization of ‘political or aesthetic ambitions’.18 Here a change in vernacular is presented as a deliberate strategy to sustain business as usual. Writing about theatre with young offenders during this same era, Jenny Hughes and Simon Ruding indicate that in some cases a change in rhetoric can determine the shape of practice and that instances of practice that do not reflect the ‘financial linguistic framework’ can remain invisible. When targets and impacts are prescribed by government agencies practices can end up conceived and delivered so as to engineer ‘the performance of “pro-­social behaviours” ’.19 Even when skilled practitioners experiment with other kinds of intervention, this more ambiguous work is more difficult to account for in reductive impact assessments. The shift towards less radical, more instrumental practice could indicate a relationship between applied theatre and wider political and economic arrangements that is almost entirely deterministic. Indeed, Kershaw identifies the trend in Marxist and Neo-Marxist analyses to

30

Applied Theatre: Economies

depict historical conditions as having a dominant rather than contingent relationship with theatre movements or sectors. For Kershaw this undermines any claim for the social or political efficacy of theatre because ‘the movement/sector is cast as an object always, as it were, at the beck and call of the dominant order’.20 But, he sees the apparent alternative as also limited.Attributing agency to companies/practitioners who engage in deliberate strategies, for example, does not explain the fragmentation of the alternative theatre movement. Kershaw highlights the difficulty of analyzing the ways in which theatre makers respond to social and economic conditions without presenting a view that is either idealistic or ‘fundamentally debilitating’.21 He ultimately proposes a kind of middle ground in which the relationship between alternative and community theatre practice and historic conditions was a dialectic one in which co-­option and capitulation existed in a potentially productive tension with deliberate forms of strategic resistance. Hughes and Ruding, meanwhile, point to a problematic relationship between emerging forms of applied theatre and forms of labour and production in late, globalized capitalism. They suggest the trend in justice settings at the end of the 1990s towards forms of participatory theatre using surrealism and fantasy, represented a move away from orthodox, instrumentalized models. At the same time, however, this shift emphasized the value of developing ‘creative skills and capacities’, reflecting the subjectivities demanded by the late capitalist economy.22 Helen Nicholson’s23 study of theatre education in the twentieth century also examines the implications of the social and economic conditions of globalized capitalism for the aesthetic and pedagogic approaches of theatre educators. In the mid-1990s, education policy in the UK linked creativity to preparedness for work in the twenty-­first century. The rationale for developing students’ creativity was to foster capacities for entrepreneurism and innovation in the knowledge economy. In terms of applied theatre, new funding sources were introduced that enabled arts organizations to develop programmes with schools that were long term, lasting three or more years. Large-­scale partnerships between artists, arts organizations and schools were founded (and funded) based

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

31

on the belief a ‘relationship between the skills needed to extend globalized economies and creativity in education’.24 Nicholson suggests the principles and practices of educational theatre in this era responded to global economic priorities. The emphasis on creativity in UK education policy was tied to economic and cultural globalization. Creativity was becoming a desirable quality in an economy where financial advantage depended on the ability to develop new ideas, products, services, production methods and forms of marketing. Creativity was seen as the key to wealth generation for individuals, corporations and even cities. Nicholson draws attention to the way in which these economic benefits were based on the exploitation of human and natural resources around the globe, producing ‘highly differentiated patterns of labour and uneven levels of opportunity’.25 Nicholson argues, aligning theatre education with creativity at a time when it had become a global economic priority had political and pedagogic implications. It meant the value of theatre education programmes was based on their capacity to develop human capital, not well-­rounded critical human beings. Nicholson considers the implications of pedagogic and creative processes focused on fostering individual creative capacities. These capacities may eventually benefit individual participants in terms of employability, but the cultivation of a creative workforce would primarily benefit existing global elites. When drama focuses on generating benefits for the individual rather than fostering a sense of collectivity, Nicholson argues the imagination itself could become a ‘commodified social practice’.26 For Nicholson, theatre educators face critical questions about the implications of justifying their practice on the basis that it develops useful skills for a socially unjust economic order. There is a sense in both Nicholson’s and Hughes and Ruding’s analyses that contemporary forms and intentions in applied theatre and theatre education increasingly correspond to forms of labour, production and consumption in contemporary capitalism. Nicholson ultimately offers a relatively positive interpretation of the relationship between theatre education and economic conditions

32

Applied Theatre: Economies

of the late twentieth century. She suggests: ‘theatre education has always been responsive to contemporary social circumstances, and it has often led the way in developing new educational practices’.27 She describes a relationship in which theatre responds to social, political and economic shifts in ways that can be pedagogically and aesthetically ‘productive and inventive’.28 She proposes that, in the UK at least, ‘the two historical periods in which educational drama and theatre have been most energetic and innovative coincided with periods of significant economic growth and cultural change’.29 The emphasis on creativity in UK policy, then, created conditions in which educational theatre could thrive, fostering collaboration, experimental practice and social engagement. New, sometimes ground-­breaking forms of practice emerged as theatre actively engaged with the social and educational outcomes envisaged in policy. New, Nicholson explains, does not necessarily involve a radical break with the past, but a process of reforming established practices and ideas for different times and spaces. Nicholson does not overlook the fact that different adaptations have different political and ethical implications. What I infer from her analysis, however, is the possibility of a relationship in which theatre makers are neither entirely incorporated into the capitalist order nor entirely autonomous from it. She opens up the possibility for a relationship with material conditions that involves the ongoing, active regeneration of past experiences into new imaginings, creative practices and forms of cultural production. In the UK, cultural policy moved through various versions of the rationale for funding the arts on the basis of tangible economic contribution. Successive governments brought different forms of economization to their cultural policies, but New Labour has been identified with the almost wholesale instrumentalization of the arts.30 The strong argument made by New Labour for the social benefits of the arts and the economic value of creativity resulted in more recognition and resources but also the requirement to demonstrate impact in utilitarian, individualized ways. This economization of the arts and the tendency of applied theatre to focus on the tangible outcomes that can

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

33

be achieved through individualized approaches to social problems are now strongly associated with processes of neoliberalization in a range of international contexts.31

Neoliberal contradictions and new modes of production in New Zealand The literature on applied theatre in New Zealand is small, but due to this country’s specific political and economic conditions it provides a case example of the implications of neoliberalization for socially committed theatre makers. Over the late twentieth century, [a]lmost all states, from those newly minted after the collapse of the Soviet Union to old-­style social democracies and welfare states such as New Zealand and Sweden, have embraced, sometimes voluntarily and in other instances in response to coercive pressures, some version of neoliberal theory and adjusted at least some policies and practices accordingly.32

Jamie Peck argues that the ideals and forms of governance associated with neoliberalism have become normalized to the extent that ‘it seems to be everywhere, and it seems to be all there is’.33 In such conditions he stresses the importance of treating neoliberalization as a ‘project’, constructed and reconstructed by particular individuals and institutions, usually within constrained conditions, rather than as a kind of all-­pervading ‘ideological atmosphere’.34 This is important, he argues, because projects of neoliberalization are typically contradictory, fallible, faltering, compromised processes. New Zealand has secured its place as one of the most neoliberal countries in the OECD. Jane Kelsey describes it as a context in which neoliberalism has become ‘a regime so extensive, coherent and integrated that it cannot be transformed by simply reordering isolated elements’.35 Neoliberalization in New Zealand was initiated and consolidated by successive governments, from both the political left

34

Applied Theatre: Economies

and right. The New Zealand Experiment, a systematic process of deregulation, commercialization and privatization starting in the 1980s, is recognized as more extensive than reform processes implemented in other Western democracies. Wendy Larner breaks New Zealand’s neoliberalization down into three phases to emphasize the uneven nature of its development: (1) during the 1980s the state withdrew from many areas of economic production, while at the same time attempting to preserve – and even extend – the welfarist and social justice aspirations associated with social democracy; (2) the more punitive phase of the early 1990s . . . saw an extension of the marketization programme accompanied by the introduction of neoconservative and/or authoritarian policies and programmes in the area of social policy; (3) a third phase in the late 1990s characterized by a ‘partnering’ ethos in both economic and social policy.36

This articulation of neoliberalism within policy discourses resulted in specific contradictions, challenges and opportunities for applied theatre. In his study of community-­based theatre in New Zealand from the 1970s onwards, Paul Maunder37 highlights the way in which neoliberalization in the 1980s and 1990s dismantled the infrastructure that had supported communities, while creating opportunities for theatre companies to deliver services to address the resulting issues. He observes how, over this time, community theatre companies in New Zealand shifted to either a commercial model or a contract model, delivering specialist services for the state and other agencies.38 Contracting has been adopted extensively by New Zealand government and as a mode of funding it is discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. Maunder’s study indicates the way in which neoliberalization in New Zealand, and a trend towards contracting over grant funding, challenged established modes of production for community-­based theatre, business models, organizational structures, employment patterns and the way they developed their creative practice in relationship with communities. The experiences of Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd, described by Peter O’Connor below and in Chapter 7, further illustrate

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

35

the impact of neoliberalization in New Zealand on applied theatre’s modes of production. Jane Kelsey details the process by which the Treasury of New Zealand’s Labour government in the 1980s restructured state services to create a decentralized, competitive market of ‘private voluntary contracting’.39 This made it possible for Peter O’Connor’s company ATCo to sustain a for-­profit business model, something that is unusual in applied theatre.40 But, creating a for-­profit was not simply an opportunistic move to secure and exploit government contracts. The reasons for setting up ATCo as a for-­profit are explained by O’Connor as he reflects on the company’s response to the 2008 banking crisis.41 Setting up a charitable trust was costly and they decided it was better to put the money directly towards projects. They wanted to avoid the protracted decision-­making processes involved in the running of trusts, to respond to issues quickly as they arose rather than deferring to a board. O’Connor argues that this capacity, together with their ability to accumulate some financial capital, was essential to ATCo’s survival in the tough political and economic climate of the late 2000s. Setting up a limited company was about making the best use of income and keeping control of decision making. It was not, O’Connor argues, driven by a desire to profit financially from the work. Reflecting the phases of neoliberalization in New Zealand outlined by Larner above, ATCo’s most substantial contractual relationship was formed at a point in time when the ideal of a ‘unified, ethically committed public service’42 had re-­gained currency, and there was a move towards public service design and delivery based on meaningful community partnerships and strength-­based models. ATCo might be seen as exemplifying a neoliberal mode of producing applied theatre. But, as explored further below, the company’s approach to developing forms of creative practice and working with communities are driven by values other than the profit motive. New Zealand’s version of neoliberalism has represented majoritarian democracy as a form of tyranny to legitimize the transfer of decision-­ making power into private hands. This is evident in O’Connor’s examination of creative practices responding to the devastating

36

Applied Theatre: Economies

earthquakes in Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island since 2010.43 The extensive powers given to a quango set up to deal with earthquake recovery effectively removed any requirement for meaningful public participation. The dominant discourse of the government represented earthquake recovery in Christchurch as an opportunity for private business and investment. O’Connor highlights the ways in which theatre and performance makers attempted to challenge this discourse by presenting other narratives of recovery, by enacting modes of creative production that resisted the commodification of the city, and by facilitating public dissent and protest. But, he also depicts the ease with which some of these grassroots projects commercialized and aligned their creative practice with private interests. What emerged were processes of creative production that operated within conflicting economic paradigms. For example, pop up projects that aimed to enact modes of alternative economy and cultural production were also celebrated for their contribution to the capitalist economic development of the city. A trust that addressed the lack of creative spaces by bringing artists into vacant properties was simultaneously serving the interests of the private land owners. Creating applied theatre and performance in the neoliberalized conditions of New Zealand, then, seems to demand practitioners who are willing to walk, or work, in multiple economic worlds. Maunder and O’Connor depict the relationship between applied theatre and the neoliberal state as an intricate and contradictory one. They offer few examples where the line between being co-­opted into and resisting neoliberal capitalism is clearly drawn. Instead they present practices that are run through with contradictions and ironies, at all levels of their work, from employment practices to aesthetic strategies.

Far-­reaching webs and strangleholds: Theatre for Development and international relationships The web metaphor has been used repeatedly in the literature of applied theatre to draw attention to the complex relationships that inform and

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

37

influence practice.44 As a heterogeneous practice, applied theatre is created within a web of interrelationships. Within such webs, applied theatre’s relationship with the financial economy and with contemporary forms of capitalism in particular, seems to be a persistent source of tension, and, sometimes, strangleholds. The web metaphor is particularly apt in the case of theatre practices where relationships reach beyond a national context. James Thompson, for example, focuses on applied theatre initiatives where multiple international agencies are involved. He depicts the difficulty for applied theatre practitioners of being fully aware of the role their work is playing within this far-­reaching ‘web of powerful strategic performances’.45 Thompson argues that such webs need to be ‘acknowledged, revealed and questioned’ by practitioners.46 He also considers the ways in which applied practices might engage with the webs in which they are caught through particular forms of performance. In most cases, however, examinations of international applied theatre projects and Theatre for Development show the continuous challenge of comprehending and negotiating the multiple relationships in which practice is enmeshed. James Thompson47 and Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta48 highlight the difficulty of defining local need or enabling local control within a complex network of international interrelationships or flows. Thompson describes a project aiming to train local theatre companies in Burkina Faso to use Forum Theatre to address local issues. He highlights a degree of irony in the project’s aim to ensure that the process was not beholden to an externally defined ‘instrument of development’, given the use of Forum Theatre.49 The international donor and partner relationships further complicated the idea of local versus external determination. In Thompson’s example, this is exemplified by the insistence of the UK donor that the Burkina Faso theatre company controlled the running of the project, but that the university partner in the UK should control the grant. The flow of practices, ideas and money resulted in ‘a paradoxical relation between the local and the external in the construction of this project’.50 Sadeghi-Yekta’s examination of a theatre initiative in Cambodia carefully unpicks the ways in which the

38

Applied Theatre: Economies

practice was shaped within shifting flows of national and international donor relationships, partnerships, artist exchanges and tourism, each bringing ‘competing aesthetic criteria’.51 Within such conditions, she concludes, finding an aesthetic that truly arises from local traditions and serves the community is impossible. Instead, the aesthetic of this work, as described by Sadeghi-Yekta, reflects its position at the nexus of complex cultural and economic flows. Some of the most pressing concerns about applied theatre’s relationship with economic conditions arise in the literature of Theatre for Development (TfD), an area of applied theatre where neoliberalism as a globalized political and economic agenda has been acutely felt. Tim Prentki52 locates TfD within the wider history of Development, an imperialistic economist process driven by Western nations in the wake of the colonial era, in which ‘less-­developed’ countries were given a ‘helping hand’ in their evolution towards capitalist democracy. Prentki offers a thorough analysis of the impact of neoliberalism on TfD across multiple contexts as an agenda that ‘asserts the dominance of economics and finance over every other area of human activity and requires that the myriad of ways in which humans relate to each other – the very stuff of culture – are reduced to market exchange’.53 He identifies the seemingly unresolvable contradictions faced by TfD companies: simultaneous demands to demonstrate economic value within the neoliberal paradigm, and social value within the international human rights framework; and to develop individualized interventions and outcomes for donor agencies through theatre approaches that are based on collectivist principles. Compounding this are limited models and methods of impact assessment, many of which are implemented at the requirement of development donors.54 Even if it were possible to measure the impact of applied theatre on equity or fairness, Prentki argues, any attempt to achieve such outcomes would be continually undermined by the wider neoliberal context. Syed Jamil Ahmed55 and Asma Mundrawala56 highlight the intricate processes by which the economically driven development agenda of international donors affects the politics and practices of local theatre

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

39

movements. Mundrawala’s close examination of the experiences of political theatre groups in Pakistan reveals the ways in which the systems and technologies of donors discipline theatre makers into becoming compliant subjects. The imbalanced power relationship caused by economic dependency between the theatre company and the donor meant that the latter could influence the values of the former, setting the criteria against which funds must be accounted for. Her analysis suggests that political theatre companies in Pakistan gradually adopted reformist agendas after receiving funding from international agencies.57 As the companies responded to the requirements of the donors, she argues, their work became ‘depoliticised and seen as a commodity, transforming its role from self-­directed activism to donor-­ driven activism’.58 Prentki argues that TfD companies need to engage in theatrical strategies that promote conscientization and counter neoliberalism’s hegemony. Ahmed,59 however, depicts the failure of Bangladeshi TfD companies to enact such ideals when the need to reflect the priorities of funders underpinned decision-­making even in supposedly participatory processes. In many cases, the power dynamics of the donor–recipient relationship enabled the funder to determine the focus, structure and form of a theatre programme. What these critiques share is the argument that within a neoliberalized context, socially or politically committed theatre becomes commodified, produced so as to receive funding or to generate income. The pressing demand to make work that will make money, catch the donor’s attention, and keep the donor interested ultimately overrides ethical, artistic and political principles. In some instances, the pursuit of funds from global donors becomes the primary function of the organization. Ahmed describes larger theatre companies behaving like ‘empire builders’, and smaller groups ending up as ‘pseudo-­mercenaries’.60 For politically committed theatre companies it seems like the options are to compromise and be co-­opted in, to take a stand and opt out of the funding system, or, as Prentki argues, to become adept at negotiating contradictory demands.

40

Applied Theatre: Economies

The issues raised above are specific to historical and geographic contexts, but there are common concerns about the ways in which an economic rationale can infiltrate applied theatre making, shaping the values, intentions and forms of practice, and limiting the control theatre makers have over what they produce. Even when practitioners intend otherwise, projects can end up contributing to, or at least becoming complicit with, the social and environmental injustices produced by capitalism, sometimes the very injustices the work seeks to address. Funding relationships can act as a nexus in a complex web of local, national and global actors. Understanding the reach of such relationships and the implications for local practice may be beyond the critical faculties of even the most ethically rigorous practitioner.61 Alternatives, instances in which social and artistic aims are furthered through a particular donor relationship, for example, seem to be amongst the rarest miracles of the field.62 An unintended outcome of such critical accounts, then, could be that opportunities for acting ethically within or against economic conditions appear impossible or, at best, miraculous. Very little of the literature discussed in this chapter treats applied theatre’s relationship with economic conditions as an entirely deterministic one. There is, however, a tendency to represent the economy as a singularly capitalist or neoliberal domain. A possible result of this is a kind of impasse, in which an idealized, often unobtainable, financial autonomy appears to be the only possible pre-­ condition for critical and aesthetic freedom. In the final part of this chapter, then, I return to the argument that applied theatre does not always fit neatly into the dominant economic paradigm and consider possibilities presented by the more expanded conception of the economy proposed by some feminist economists.

The ‘diverse economies’ of applied theatre63 Even when taking a critical stance towards the economization of applied theatre, the stories that get told about the ways in which applied

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

41

theatre gets resourced tend to be ones where engagement with funding systems or other modes of income generation result in practice that is individualized, serving instrumental agendas, produced as if for-­profit and as if in competition with others. As indicated at the start of the previous chapter, engaging critically with the literature of feminist economics encouraged me to look beyond this economic story line to explore the multiple ways in which applied theatre does not fit into, refuses or disrupts economic norms, assumptions and subjectivities. Feminist economics is primarily concerned with questions relating to women, their position in the economy and with deconstructing economic theory from a gender perspective.64 Pursuing such questions has led feminist economic theorists to reconsider the ontology of economics, what economics can be and the political and ethical values that inform economic theories and practices.65 This has led some feminist economists to argue for a relational approach to economics. Marilyn Power, for example, proposes that feminist economic analyses place ‘interdependent and interconnected human actors . . . at the centre of the analysis, rather than the isolated individual’.66 Feminist economic theories not only emphasize individual agency but also acknowledge the ways in which power relationships affect people’s ability to participate in economic, social and political actions. Key writers in this area do not advocate for the neutral, objective stance claimed by neoclassical economists, calling instead for ethical judgements to be made about economic practices. As a critical approach, feminist economic theories do not take capitalist institutions and dynamics as natural or given, but as ‘subjects to be examined and critiqued’.67 J. K. Gibson-Graham,68 for example, argue that capitalism’s dominance has been reinforced by representations of the economy and economic activities as singularly capitalist. Feminist economic theories encourage an analysis of the ways economic practices can operate both within and beyond capitalist market economies.69 They seek alternative economic narratives, models, practices and metaphors as a way to widen the realm of economic possibility. In applied theatre, this could mean discussing aspects of socially committed theatre practice that

42

Applied Theatre: Economies

mainstream economics might dismiss as nonsensical and showing how the financial activities of theatre makers/companies can be based in ethical, political, pedagogic and aesthetic value systems. One example of what this might look like is Helen Nicholson’s70 analysis of applied theatre through the lens of gift theory, focusing on the ethics of relationships between the different agencies and individuals involved in applied theatre processes. Nicholson highlights the paradoxical nature of gift giving, showing how it can be both (simultaneously) an act of economic self-­interest and a generous act of care for others. The process of applying theatre can involve practitioners and participants in an exchange relationship based on feelings of indebtedness, responsibility and obligation, but it can also exceed the endless symmetry of reciprocity as a relationship based on care, pleasure and enjoyment. Nicholson’s analysis of applied theatre’s economies is a reminder that ethical practice requires more than the artful negotiation of the relationship between theatre makers and participants and that multiple, often conflicting, interests and ‘desires’ are at play.71 The creation of applied theatre can involve partner organizations, host institutions, funders (often multiple funders), evaluators, researchers and advisors. Researching the economies of applied theatre, then, means examining practice within a rich texture of multiple, continually evolving relationships and value systems. The use of gift theory allows such an analysis to think about the economies of applied theatre as simultaneously located within multiple value systems. Applied theatre has become, for many, a way to make a living, but that does not mean it is ‘all about the money’. In their study of caring work, Nancy Folbre and Julie A. Nelson72 question the dichotomy of work for money (self-­interest) and work for ‘love’ (altruism). They suggest that financial motivations can coexist with concern for others and for the quality of care. There are some parallels between their analysis and McAvinchey’s73 exploration of the labour of practitioners involved in community-­based performance. McAvinchey highlights how applied performance, like other artistic practices, involves immaterial labour, producing something other than material goods, for

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

43

example: processes, ideas, experiences or services. McAvinchey examines the way in which community-­based arts projects depend on the immaterial labour of artists – their ability, for example, to create ‘social relations and communication between themselves and the participants’.74 In doing so, she highlights the way in which productive labour becomes interwoven with caring, creative practices in applied settings as artists invest much of themselves, their time, emotions and subjectivities, into their work.75 Like Folbre and Nelson, McAvinchey reveals the complex values and motivations that coexist in the work of these artists. For McAvinchey, immaterial labour, as the production of relationships and communication, is integral to the success of applied theatre as an affective, relational experience for participants and practitioners. At the same time, within contemporary relations of production, the immaterial labour of artists is essential to the creation of economic value. As discussed above, the aims and forms of contemporary applied theatre practices converge or correspond with those of an economy that depends on the production of creative, reflexive, self-­managing worker subjectivities. This applies to the skills and capacities it is claimed that participants will gain from an applied theatre process, but also to the skills and capacities required by the people employed, or more often contracted, to work in this area. While theories of caring work and immaterial labour make it possible to acknowledge that applied theatre work is not singularly motivated by monetary gain, arguments that the cultivation of aesthetic and affective motivations to work are part of the condition of contemporary capitalism cannot be ignored.76 The ambiguities that emerge from the analyses of Folbre and Nelson and McAvinchey offer a critical perspective on caring and performance, suggesting that the work ethics of late capitalism do not inevitably override the possibility for workers to operate from an ethic of care. An ethic of care is based on the belief that all humans, at some point in their lives, experience caring practices and feelings, and that such practices and feelings can act as a moral guide at a personal and political level. Caring becomes an ethic of care when a response to a particular

44

Applied Theatre: Economies

other is based on moral responsibility rather than natural responsibility (the natural responsibility of parent to child for example).77 An ethic of care is not abstracted or rational; emotions arising from a sense of responsibility to the other ‘enable morally concerned persons in actual interpersonal contexts to understand what would be best’.78 This does not mean emotions are the only guide of behaviour. As Virginia Held is careful to point out, all ‘aspects and expressions of care and caring relations need to be subjected to moral scrutiny and evaluated, not just observed and described’.79 An ethic of care, then, does not idealize natural or intuitive responses; acts of caring require effort and commitment. Nel Noddings retrospectively situates her theory of an ethic of care within a relational ontology. In her review of various theories of the ethics of care, Held expands on this idea, suggesting that an ethic of care starts with a conception of the individual as always in relation, always interdependent with others, rather than isolated and autonomous. For Held, ‘the autonomy sought within the ethics of care is a capacity to reshape and cultivate new relations, not to ever more closely resemble the unencumbered abstract rational self of liberal political and moral theories’.80 In the previous chapter, Mo of FM Theatre Power described a shift for the company, from seeing a kind of radical independence as critical to their way of working, to seeing themselves as cultivating a particular kind of independence in collaboration with others. Freedom, then, might not always involve being autonomous from external demands, but also being able to negotiate critically and with care amongst heteronomous relationships of interdependency. At the start of her book Applying Performance, Shaughnessy gives the etymology of the word applying as ‘derived from the Latin applicare’.81 She suggests that ‘[i]mplicit in this terminology is the concept of “care”: practitioners of applied theatre and performance care about and/or care for the communities they are working with’.82 Resonating with this notion of applying theatre as an act of care is Volker Kirchberg and Tasos Zembylas’s reflection on arts management:

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

45

In its original etymological sense, ‘management’ means ‘taking care of something’ (see Martin Heidegger’s ‘Besorgen’, i.e., the notion of solicitude, actively caring for someone who needs help). Similarly, ‘economy’ means ‘taking care of a household’. Associating these meanings with the arts, we can interpret arts management as caring for the goods, activities, and aims of the field.83

In the previous chapter, Peter O’Connor articulated an apparently contradictory idea about the economy of Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd, suggesting they were a for-­profit company, interested in making money, but not in making a profit. In companies like ATCo the economy of the work, how it is resourced and managed, is infused with a deep care for the creative practice and the communities they work with. What will become apparent in the next chapter is that, rather than exploiting their contracts for personal profit, Peter and Briar O’Connor have channelled resources into sustaining the quality of their practice and ensuring democratic relationships with communities. Their way of working, their economy, contrasts with theories that conceive of economic and management practices, particularly in for-­profit organizations, as the actions of individual, rational, independent actors. The full complexity and contingency of ATCo’s economy is obscured by the label ‘for-­profit’. Feminist, post-­capitalist theorists J. K. Gibson-Graham propose that the economy needs reframing, or ‘rereading – uncovering what is possible but obscured from view’.84 Their approach provides another example of how research into the economies of applied theatre might proceed in a way that ‘widen[s] the scope of possibility’ rather than generating a kind of critical inertia or stalemate.85 GibsonGraham’s academic activism is concerned with political and economic transformation; they seek to intervene in the way the economy is conceived and practiced. This involves reframing the economy so that diverse economic practices can be imagined, recognized and supported. Operating from a performative ontology, they argue that how we talk about the economy matters. They identify a

46

Applied Theatre: Economies tendency to theorize economy as a stable and self-­reproducing structure impervious to the proliferative and desultory wanderings of everyday politics; the tendency to constitute ‘the’ economy as a singular capitalist system or space rather than as a zone of cohabitation and contestation among multiple economic forms.86

For Gibson-Graham, this ‘capitalocentric’ tendency reinforces capitalism’s hegemony as it conceals economic difference and marginalizes alternative economies. They propose a language for talking about economy in a way that performs economic diversity by making visible multiple forms of transactions, labour and organization, finance and property (see Figure 2.1). This framework is not intended to further fix economic categories and boundaries, but to generate a ‘language of economic diversity’87 in which capitalism becomes one set of economic relations among many. The framework can be used to uncover the ways in which economic subjects, enterprises and sectors occupy multiple sites in a diverse economy. The framework is also intended to draw attention to the diversity within categories like capitalist and non-­capitalist and, in doing so, destabilizing the economic norms, assumptions and subjectivities discussed in Chapter 1. With this analytic framework, it becomes possible to identify and examine the different economic and organizational practices that coexist within theatre companies like ATCo, C&T and FM Theatre Power without repositioning capitalism as the all-­pervading or determining force. Gibson-Graham’s approach to reframing the economy is one way to illuminate the diversity of economic practices in applied theatre, not all of which are driven by an economist or neoliberal rationale. In the quotes from C&T in Chapter  1, it is clear the company has adopted terms that some people in the arts are less comfortable with because of their associations with the dominant subjectivities of new capitalism – entrepreneur and innovation, for example. However, C&T’s economy is grounded in a specific set of values and clear creative ethos. As Paul Sutton explains in Chapter  9, C&T has repurposed concepts and strategies from the new economies of the culture industry to sustain

Figure 2.1  The diverse economy framework. Figure used with permission of the Community Economies Project. http://www.communityeconomies.org/home/key-­ideas (accessed 19 December 2016).

48

Applied Theatre: Economies

C&T’s social and artistic commitments, as traditional modes of funding for Theatre in Education in the UK have been eroded. Socially committed theatre makers take challenging creative and organizational decisions to survive within inhospitable funding contexts as established conditions change. The approach taken by Gibson-Graham offers a framework for identifying and affirming instances in which applied theatre makers take seriously the ethical, social and artistic implications of financial and organizational decisions. Gibson-Graham are not arguing it is possible to ‘think ourselves out of the materiality of capitalism or repressive state practices’, but that we should strive to ‘identify them as contingent outcomes of ethical decisions, political projects, and sedimented localized practices, continually pushed and pulled by other determinations’.88 By emphasizing the contingency of economy, Gibson-Graham want to reinstate the idea that an economy is something that is made rather than essential and universal. Economies are created within specific contextual conditions and ‘can be transformed or at least managed’,89 something which seems evident in the case studies in the second half of this book. In different ways, each case study depicts individuals and organizations cultivating ethical economic subjectivities and participating in ‘a global politics of local transformations’, developing everyday practices for negotiating through uneven power relations and contingent structures.90 Gibson-Graham describe such activities as ‘ethical practices of freedom’.91 This concept focuses analysis on the decisions, actions and relationships of theatre companies as they generate or acquire the resources needed to produce socially committed, aesthetically rich practice with careful attention to the conditions in which they operate. It is my argument that this theory widens the scope of possibility for applied theatre makers by casting economic activity and relationships as diverse sites of active critical and creative negotiation. Doing so is one way to push back at the increasingly narrow economic discourse and technologies that have come to dominate much applied theatre work.

Tangled Webs: Applied Theatre and the Economy

49

Conclusions Applied theatre cannot ignore its own materiality: the need to find the resources, financial or otherwise, to create and sustain projects and programmes, companies and people. The ways in which it does this are diverse and different forms of resourcing present practitioners with distinct aesthetic, pedagogic, political and ethical tensions – but also possibilities. Political and aesthetic freedom in art-­making is typically associated with autonomy from external demands, whether that be the demands of the market, the state or the pull of social commitment. The freedom envisaged by Gibson-Graham, however, is not a freedom from, but within heteronomous relations.92 The underlying argument of this chapter, then, is for the importance of finding ways to articulate the economies of applied theatre that do not deny the structural forces or material realities of the socio-­economic contexts in which practices take place, but also present viable possibilities for finding the ‘freedom to act’.93

3

The Economies of Applied Theatre

Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd (ATC o) is a limited liability company, owned and run by Company Directors Peter and Briar O’Connor. In 2012, they employed a part-time National Programmes Manager and had a small team on contracts to run Everyday Theatre. As a for-profit organization, ATC o is not eligible for most grants from government or charitable trusts. For Peter and Briar, their for-profit status is important as it gives them the ability to make decisions quickly and to accumulate financial capital for challenging times. The majority of their income comes from government service contracts. In 2012, approximately 85 per cent of the company’s income came from the Everyday Theatre contract with the Ministry of Social Development’s Department of Child Youth and Family (CYF ). The funds from that contract did not enable them to meet demand for Everyday Theatre from communities across Aotearoa New Zealand. ATC o worked in partnership with charitable organizations to access other grants for Everyday Theatre. Acting as the ‘funding umbrella’, the charity was the recipient of the grant, accountable to the funder, paying ATC o upon completion of the work. During my research, a regional family violence network had carefully negotiated for nearly 30 different agencies to each make a small financial contribution to cover the costs of an Everyday Theatre tour to that area. When no funding could be secured, ATC o used surplus income to run the programme.

C&T is a non-profit-making company and registered charity. The Board of Directors has overall responsibility and accountability for C&T’s operation. In 2012, Paul Sutton was C&T’s full time Artistic Director working alongside a part-time Finance Manager and Assistant Director. C&T employed Animateurs, who mainly worked long term

The Economies of Applied Theatre

with partner schools and engaged freelance artists, designers and technical experts to develop new projects, technologies and software applications. C&T generates income in a variety of ways. In 2012, less than half of its overall income came from grants. Regular funding from the Arts Council England was used for researching and developing new technologies, creative processes and project models; activities harder to fund from other sources. Grants from private charitable trusts, the Big Lottery Fund and local government were usually project-based, tightly ring-fenced to specific budget areas. The majority of C&T’s income was earned through schools paying a fixed cost to participate in the C&T Network. Income from school contracts funded salaries and the company’s other core running costs. When conditions change, C&T must reconfigure aspects of this model, but, so far, always with a focus on direct partnerships with schools and other organizations.

FM Theatre Power (FMTP ) began as an informal collective of students and artists. They sustain a prolific creative practice with minimal financial income. Resources needed for any project or production are donated, borrowed, reused or recycled, even for productions with ambitious staging concepts. Company members agree to work without pay unless all members can be paid the same. They believe that members should work primarily because they are passionate about doing so, rather than for financial reward. They aim to operate as a collective, resisting structural hierarchy. This ideal is balanced with the day-to-day reality of different members juggling many other commitments. The resulting pragmatic limitations and group dynamics must be addressed continuously to ensure that all members have opportunities to contribute to organizational and creative decision making. While FMTP see themselves as financially independent, they need to raise money to cover the overheads of their studio, venue hire and publicity. They have many ways of doing this, including ticket sales, setting up a separate commercial t-shirt company, developing paid-for theatre-education work and small project contracts.1

51

52

Applied Theatre: Economies

There are prevalent modes of funding applied theatre, but there is no single economy. The above examples of the economies of ATCo, C&T and FMTP illustrate that applied theatre can be resourced in multiple ways. Yet, its association with certain modes of funding has become a definitional feature of applied theatre. In her explanation of applied theatre as a Key Concept in Theatre/Drama Education, for example, Helen Nicholson suggests it ‘is often, but not always, funded by charities or the public sector who have particular interests in promoting the well-­being of a particular community group, or in encouraging public engagement in specific issues’.2 Historically, then, applied theatre in many contexts has been funded through a mixed economy of government grants, service contracts for government departments, grants and donations from Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and direct income from schools or other institutions. Most of the literature addressing issues related to funding and applied theatre focuses on projects undertaken as a contracted service, as a commission, or funded by a contestable grant. Applied theatre is also financed through corporate giving, sustained through commercial activity or charitable trading, produced on a voluntary basis or resourced in part by unpaid labour, however, these modes of resourcing are less visible in the academic discourse of the field. The nature and degree of freedom or exploitation within any of these modes of funding, or resourcing, applied theatre will vary between companies and between contexts. Taking a state contract in a country where the government forcefully suppresses freedom of expression, for example, has very different implications from taking state funding in contexts where the freedom of expression of artists is mandated. What it means to have control over the forms and intentions of practice will differ for companies that are for-­profit, not-­for-­profit organizations governed by boards, co-­ operatives and collectives. Negotiating with partners or donors will be different for an independent freelance practitioner, a newly formed company, or a large theatre company with a well-­established reputation. The diverse economy of applied theatre brings with it a multiplicity of issues and tensions.

The Economies of Applied Theatre

53

Many of the issues faced by applied theatre practitioners trying to resource their work are distinct from other kinds of theatre. One reason for this is that applied theatre often gets funded by non-­arts donors. As Nicholson states, theatre with benefits for particular groups or that engages people with specific issues or topics can meet the criteria for grant-­making bodies and other donors seeking the betterment of society in some way through their investments. There are persistent concerns, however, with the degree to which non-­arts funding has skewed the forms and intentions of the field. Further, as the intentions of the theatre company and grant-­making organization coincide tensions can arise. In some instances, the underlying interests of donors, expressed in their ideas about what benefits are needed or what evidence of benefit looks like, do not align with the interests of participants or the values of practitioners. What becomes clear from critiques of such situations, is that applied theatre’s economy is intimately tied to the aesthetics, pedagogies, politics and ethics of practice. In this chapter, I identify and critically examine issues relating to the more typical methods of resourcing applied theatre. Based on literature from the field and related disciplines, I consider the implications of these different forms of economy; the possibilities and challenges they can present. This chapter also looks at the problems and opportunities related to forms of income generation that have received less critical attention in the applied theatre literature, including unpaid labour and market models.

He who pays the piper: Grants and contracts In this section, I deal with issues related to grants from government agencies, charitable trusts and other non-­governmental organizations, as well as funding coming from commissions and service contracts. Applied theatre encompasses a range of forms and traditions of practice, many of which take place outside formal spaces for theatre performance. For some, this indicates commitment to social engagement but also a

54

Applied Theatre: Economies

pragmatic economic move. James Thompson makes the following observation of the emergence of applied theatre in the UK: Applied theatre developed under the combined effect of a harsh funding climate and the post-­cold-war impact of postmodernism. A desire to take ‘theatre to the people’ was divided into creating theatre for a multitude of peoples . . . and idealism was tempered with a pragmatic search for sites where theatre practice could gain non-­arts financial support.3

A distinctive feature of the economies of applied theatre, then, is the way in which engagement with social settings and groups beyond theatre spaces opens up options for sources of income other than established arts donors. Applied theatre does receive arts funding, particularly where funding priorities encompass social as well as artistic outcomes. But, the sources of income that are discussed most frequently in the literature are funders concerned primarily with the social or educational value of the theatre practice. This includes contestable grants, but also commissions or contracted services for government agencies and NGOs. A number of critical issues that have arisen across the field have been related back to the conditions presented by these common forms of funding. One argument presented in the literature is that these typical modes of funding have fundamentally affected discourse and practice in many areas of applied theatre. This argument underpins Michael Balfour’s article ‘The Politics of Intention’.4 He proposes that funding from non-­governmental organisations (NGOs), charitable trusts (sometimes religious, sometimes not), arts councils and government agencies ensures, at least partially, that the rationale and practice adapts to myriad social discourses. The commissioning of transformation by these donors infects the ways in which applied theatre defines and talks about itself.5

He describes the process that takes place as applied theatre makers engage closely with the agendas of donors and the institutional settings in which they are commissioned to work.6 In the process, the terms of engagement

The Economies of Applied Theatre

55

between theatre makers and participant groups can end up being determined by the donor or contractor because they establish the paradigm for change through application criteria, predetermined targets and reductive methods of impact assessment. This is when ambiguities of intent on the part of theatre makers can lead to the uncritical adoption of problematic discourses and models. Drawing together examples from research and practice in a range of contexts, Balfour presents problems that arise when theatre makers come to depend on sources of funding that demand tangible outcomes. These include the adoption of simplistic models of change, increased potential for self-­censorship, and diminished attention to artistry and experimentation. His analysis reflects concerns expressed in the wider literature of the field about the extent to which the political, ethical, pedagogic and artistic values that inform practice are shaped, compromised or undermined by the need to demonstrate value in terms of what can easily be counted and accounted for. Alternatives, instances in which social and artistic aims are furthered through a particular donor relationship, for example, seem rare.7 But, importantly, they are to be found. In fact, in many instances, the literature highlights the ways in which donor relationships are ambiguous, contingent and changeable, indicating that they are open to some form of negotiation. A number of studies and reflective accounts raise concerns about the ways in which donors’ conceptions of social value can affect the aesthetic and pedagogic values of an applied theatre process. These studies explore the multiple ways in which funding can shift practice towards more instrumental approaches, focused on the delivery of predetermined outcomes, such as developing specified skills, capacities or behaviours. One of the central arguments of Balfour’s article is that aligning the social intentions of applied theatre with the agendas of funders can lead theatre-­makers to focus on social outcomes at the expense of aesthetics.8 Balfour refers to his theatre work in prisons in the UK during the 1990s when funding was predominantly available for arts projects with a clear social agenda. Under such situations, application requirements, grant management processes, impact assessment and reporting all had

56

Applied Theatre: Economies

significant effects on the ‘delicate process of translating aesthetic agendas into non-­theatrical contexts’.9 If impact must be demonstrable to funders to justify current funding or to secure future contracts, Balfour argues that practitioners focus on articulating and evaluating the social value of their practice at the expense of considering its aesthetic value.10 Balfour proposes practitioners should seek an interdependent relationship between the aesthetic and social outcomes, although he does not identify what particular funding arrangements might make this possible.11 Writing about theatre for development in Bangladesh and Pakistan, Syed Jamil Ahmed12 and Asma Mundrawala13 raise further concerns about the impact of funding relationships on pedagogic process and aesthetic experience. Many of the NGOs they discuss base their practice on ideas from Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed,14 claiming their theatre programmes create dialogic processes in which the problems addressed and solutions proposed are determined through the participation of ordinary people. A theatre process based on Freirean pedagogy would develop participants’ critical consciousness, raising their awareness of the conditions that shape their lives and enable them to collectively identify actions that can change those conditions. This process, Mundrawala argues, should involve rigorous critical dialogue as participants engage in a cyclical process of reflection and action.15 In practice, however, Mundrawala and Ahmed find opportunities for dialogue to be limited. They both observe theatre-­makers from NGO groups orientating consultation and collective devising processes so that the work reflects the agendas of their international donors. Ahmed argues that local consultation processes are manipulated by NGO representatives, who ensured that issues were chosen to attract donor interest.16 Ahmed also identifies the way in which funding targets can encourage NGO workers to place more importance on achieving the required quantified outputs, numbers of performances or participants, for example, than on whether a process had actually engaged people in complex, critical social analysis. The resulting theatre work, he argues, is formulaic and predictable, with post-­show discussions used as a way to

The Economies of Applied Theatre

57

test if the right ideas or messages have been conveyed. Mundrawala, meanwhile, identifies how the creative process was effective in provoking dialogue, but it was rarely sustained by theatre companies working to the time-­limits of their funding contracts.17 In a critique of theatre for development in Malawi, David Kerr observes how the limited briefs given by NGO donors to African theatre troupes led artists to simplify their performance techniques. He suggests indigenous performance traditions, which engaged communities with social concerns in ways that reflect the contextualized and complex nature of these issues, simply did not fit the NGO project model.18 Like Ahmed and Mundrawala, Kerr is sceptical of the capacity of NGOfunded theatre to facilitate open and critical discussions or to generate plans for action that acknowledge the complex networks of ‘politics, kinship systems, economics, class, ethnicity, global communications and local/global ideologies’ in which the issue being addressed is embedded.19 Mundrawala, Ahmed and Kerr all argue that the dependency of theatre groups on NGO-funding for their financial survival or growth can mean care for sustaining the donor relationship comes to override care for cultivating artistic and pedagogic principles. A reflective article by Anthony Haddon of Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah provides an example of how funding for Theatre in Education can create, or exacerbate, a tension between social and artistic outcomes.20 Haddon describes in some detail how engaging with non-­arts grant funding skewed the process of translating the company’s artistic values into youth service contexts in the UK. In their early years, the Blahs had produced plays based on material that interested them as artists, introducing subjects that would extend on the experiences of their young audiences but raise questions significant to their lives. In the late 1990s, however, they found the youth service only able to pay for programmes focused on particular social issues. Making issue-­based work to meet the needs of their main partners then made them eligible for some non-­arts grants. Haddon explains how this new source of funding affected the language they used to describe the work, presenting their theatre in education programmes in funding applications as a ‘tool

58

Applied Theatre: Economies

for communication to connect with the group that is seen to be at risk’.21 Haddon suggests that the company actively resisted the direct translation of this language into their practice, still striving to make complex, challenging and contemporary work. But, the explicit focus of their productions on a single social issue ultimately skewed their relationship with young audiences. The position they found themselves in reflects that of the ‘secular missionaries’ described by Balfour (citing Bill McDonell), of theatre workers ‘promoting an orthodoxy that may not relate to the actual needs of a group’.22 Haddon reflects that the Blah’s artistic vision and decision making was compromised when the company became preoccupied with navigating different perspectives on what issues should be addressed with young people and how.23 Importantly, however, Haddon’s reflections give a humanized insight into the way in which the theatre company experienced and negotiated the dynamic interplay between artistic and pedagogic values, the interests of participants, the agendas of their funders, and other contextual factors. Haddon goes on to give an example of a funding relationship in which there seemed to be a generative interdependency between educational and artistic outcomes. The project described was commissioned by an Education Action Zone24 to raise literacy achievement, an apparently instrumental goal. But, particular conditions allowed for the theatre company and school teachers to explore what literacy and achievement might mean within the project, and for aesthetic experimentation to become the mutual focus of the work. Haddon stresses the importance of the three-­year contract allowing time to build relationships with schools, teachers and students and to establish ongoing, extended dialogues about the artistic and educational value of the work. This meant the theatre practice was not simplified or narrowly focused on demonstrating specific literacy objectives. Instead, Haddon describes how teachers gradually became competent and confident artistically and contributed to the development of more theatrically sophisticated methods. This example challenges the assumption that the requirement to demonstrate some kind of instrumental value will inevitably lead to a trade-­off with the quality or richness of the pedagogic and aesthetic experience.

The Economies of Applied Theatre

59

Haddon’s account indicates that different relationships with apparently similar kinds of donors might present quite different possibilities and challenges. What also emerges is the way in which the effects of donor relationships are, to some degree, contingent on the nature of the theatre company’s other relationships: with schools or the youth sector for example, as well as conditions within the company itself. The contingent and changeable nature of donor relationships is also apparent in Helen Wheelock’s account of the funding partnerships of New York-­based Creative Arts Team (CAT).25 CAT is a large company providing extensive education and outreach programmes for the City University of New York. CAT’s practice is based on critical and learner-­centred pedagogies, combining performance and participation to ‘encourage participants to engage critically in the world around them and actively participate in their own learning’.26 Wheelock identifies how CAT’s work adapted over time to the priorities of funders and partners while trying to stay true to a child-­centred ethos. Her focus is primarily on long-­term contractual partnerships with government agencies. While highlighting problematic aspects of these relationships, she argues that the company’s donor and contractual relationships, at times, pushed ‘CAT to experiment with form, implementation structures and evaluation methods’.27 Reflecting the issues raised by Balfour, she identifies the ways in which outcome-­based contracts led the company towards less complex pedagogic and aesthetic approaches. But, Wheelock also details the way in which the company responded actively to such potential risks. When the basis for a school’s contract was demonstrable literacy outcomes, for example, the company realized there was a risk that teaching artists would become less attentive to the emotional or affective engagement of participants. In this instance, they responded by employing teaching artists who they felt could negotiate/ mediate between the artistic and educational aims of the project. She also depicts the way in which pragmatic responses to financial imperatives, such as reducing the number of actor-­teachers in a team, are not made in isolation from pedagogic or aesthetic considerations, but are made with attention to the possible impacts on the quality of the

60

Applied Theatre: Economies

programme. Wheelock suggests that the company has, at times, been able to negotiate problematic contractual conditions with a particular government agency, but the company’s ability to do so was not a given and all negotiations were perceived to involve a degree of risk. In this account of the effects of a range of long-­term contractual relationships, Wheelock does not present the gradual erosion of artistic vision or pedagogic values. Instead, she makes apparent the ongoing re-­evaluation and re-­articulation of the company’s vision and values in response to the changing conditions of the contexts they work in and the changing nature of their funding partnerships. Wheelock does not explicitly address the implications of taking funds from government agencies or the distinctive features of contractual relationships. These issues are addressed in more detail by Peter O’Connor, who argues: If applied theatre operates in murky terrain (Thompson 2003), then the murkiest area is often the relationship between funders and applied theatre practitioners. It can be a minefield of misconceptions, of competing and occasionally conflicting agendas, and open distrust of motivation – none more so than when the funder is a government agency.28

In his critical account of Applied Theatre Consultants’ relationship with the government department that funded Everyday Theatre, O’Connor takes into account wider literature on government contracting. Some of the issues experienced by companies and practitioners involved with government service contracts will be similar to those arising for grant recipients, but there are differences. One difference is the legal basis of the agreement. Contracts legally bind the parties involved to deliver the service in exchange for the money. A grant funds someone to do something, to achieve a certain goal, but there should not be financial or legal implications if that goal is not reached or the project was not completed as proposed (although non-­completion may well impair the company’s chances of getting more funding). In contractual relationships the contracting agency may end up owning data or intellectual property

The Economies of Applied Theatre

61

generated through the project. The purchasing of services by governments is heavily managed and monitored. O’Connor highlights the ways in which contract management processes ‘draw on corporate agency theory, which . . . assumes that those delivering services on contract will work to further their own interests and therefore narrow specification and monitoring is a means by which funders control agents’.29 The contract is developed, managed and monitored on the basis of this fundamental mistrust. O’Connor adds to this that contractual relationships between governments and theatre companies often proceed from a very limited understanding of the value of theatre in social contexts. O’Connor sets out to show how the nature of a contractual relationship ‘determines not only the scope of an applied theatre company but also its ends, its aesthetic framing and eventually its effectiveness or otherwise’.30 The example he considers in depth, however, is one that departs from the conditions outlined above. While O’Connor argues that the nature of the contract is a determining factor in an applied theatre process, he presents the negotiations of the contract of everyday theatre as contingent on a range of conditions. At the time when the contract was formed, for example, Peter and Briar, ATCo’s Directors, held two of the main Ministry of Education contracts for drama education. Peter also had an international profile in drama education and applied theatre. ATCo was a small-­scale company, but this status and experience gave them the ability to negotiate the intentions and form of the project, Everyday Theatre, with the government department. Most crucially, O’Connor argues, they determined the parameters of what the project would be expected to achieve: As partners we negotiated and agreed on the goals for the programme together. We created a contract that, rather than talking about tightly prescribed outcomes, talked instead about creating spaces for dialogue, of opening up ways in which Everyday Theatre could organically shift and change to meet the communities it worked with.31

The contractual negotiations took nine months.32 This time was needed to carefully create a programme that would not only meet the

62

Applied Theatre: Economies

needs of the government agency, but also the interests of the participants and the artistic and social values of the theatre company. The early contract for Everyday Theatre, then, was ultimately based on a set of non-­quantifiable shared values about how to work with children and communities. The company’s commitment to addressing issues of social justice and working democratically to support social change resonated with the community development ideals held by their contract manager. The strength-­based approach also reflected the wider values of the public sector at that time; a policy moment, amidst the ongoing neoliberalization of New Zealand’s public services, when the ideals of trust, reciprocity and collaboration were foregrounded in the formation of relationships between public agencies, private/ voluntary sector organizations and local communities.33 The intention around which Everyday Theatre was formed, an intention that was carefully agreed by both the government agency and ATCo, was to ‘provide a forum for active and safe discussion of the issues of child abuse’.34 The government agency was also involved in the devising process. This helped ATCo to negotiate the agency representatives’ limited, or mixed, ideas about what applied theatre was. Their involvement meant ATCo could demonstrate how process drama created an aesthetic experience that provoked dialogue, generating affective and critical engagement with the complexities of the issues being presented. The availability and nature of government contracts, however, are highly changeable, as policies and ruling political parties come and go. As detailed in Chapter  7, the contractual relationship described above has changed many times and ATCo has never had certainty about whether it will be renewed. Contracting is a mode of funding to which some in applied theatre may be ideologically opposed. The shift to contracting as the typical mode of government funding, and the dominant paradigm for the delivery of social and welfare services in New Zealand, was politically and economically based. Some practitioners, then, may feel that becoming a government contractor means accepting a degree of complicity with neoliberal strategies intended to erode the state and

The Economies of Applied Theatre

63

diminish public accountability in public service provision. In some instances, such as that described by O’Connor above, a government contract might (also) be an important, mutually supportive relationship where a common understanding of the cause of a social issue and the value of a theatre-­based response can be found. Much of the literature discussed so far in this chapter presents the challenge of attending to the immediate impacts of a funding relationship on the quality of practice and of collaborative partnerships while being attentive to the way in which a grant or contract positions the work within a wider context. As James Thompson proposes, applied theatre, like all forms of performance, is implicated in the ethical struggles of zones in which it exists. It does not sit above them. Every action performed, game played, question asked, story told and scene witnessed includes the theatre practitioner in an active ethical debate.35

Recognising this, Amanda Stuart Fisher argues that each applied theatre intervention should be informed by an ethic that is responsive to the context in which the work takes place.36 However, in his later writing, Thompson suggests that even clearly articulated, rigorously researched, highly contextualized intentions cannot guarantee ethical practice. He highlights the need to be aware of how the specific, often private, site of an applied theatre project is embedded within ‘wider public actions’.37 As discussed above, a funding relationship can act as a nexus in a complex web of local, national and global actors. Understanding the full reach of such relationships and the implications for local practice may be beyond the critical faculties of even the most ethically rigorous practitioner. Recognising this, O’Connor presents an argument that extends on that made by Balfour. He observes how focusing on the aesthetics of practice and on the quality of relationships in the immediate context may prevent theatre companies from ‘realising the wider context of their actions . . . [and] questioning the wider implications of their work’.38 In an earlier article, O’Connor reflects that even when the intentions of an applied theatre project are based on

64

Applied Theatre: Economies

thorough research of the context, when care is taken to ensure the process does not lead participants towards prescribed outcomes, the work can still end up becoming ‘naively complicit’ with social and environmental injustices, sometimes the very injustices the work claims to address.39 Both Thompson and O’Connor raise questions around where the boundaries of a particular project and of its context are located. They pose questions about how practitioners might attend ethically to institutional, political, economic and discursive forces beyond the immediate localities in which the work takes place. Another key concern in the literature of applied theatre is the extent to which aligning with the agendas of funding agencies can shift, de-­radicalize or undermine politically committed theatre practice.40 Funding for social and educational causes is allocated with intent. While the broad social aims of a donor may resonate with the commitments of a theatre company, the wider agenda and social or political values that a donor operates from are unlikely to be explicitly stated. Asma Mundrawala41 is almost unequivocal in her argument that the values underpinning funding agreements between political theatre companies and donors will affect the politics of the practice that is created. As discussed in Chapter 2, her analysis of political theatre companies in Pakistan suggests that they gradually adopted a reformist agenda after receiving funding from international agencies.42 She depicts the intricate process through which a shift in political values can take place. In the cases she examines, the imbalanced power relationship caused by economic dependency of the theatre companies on the donors is important. This meant donors could effectively discipline companies into compliance through application, monitoring and evaluation processes. Drawing on wider research into NGO–donor relationships, Mundrawala identifies how performance assessment processes rewarded compliance and penalized those who pushed the boundaries of their funding contracts.43 From interviews with key practitioners, she identifies how theatre makers found themselves with little option but to plan their work around the priorities, application requirements and monitoring criteria of donor agencies. Tied to

The Economies of Applied Theatre

65

restricted budgets and fixed targets, theatre makers felt unable to respond to issues or concerns that emerged once a project had got underway. Compliance was ensured by keeping companies in a continual state of uncertainty. Theatre companies were aware that the priorities of a donor could suddenly change, which led to feelings of constant insecurity, even for experienced practitioners and those with long-­term contracts. Describing the impasse experienced by the political theatre companies she researched, Mundrawala asks: In a climate such as this, what are the options for theatre groups who wish to remain involved in socially and politically motivated theatre as a tool for change, but find themselves entirely dependent on funding bodies that carry an agenda that differs from their own?44

For politically committed theatre companies in Pakistan, it seemed like the only options were to compromise their values or to opt out of the funding system altogether. But, Mundrawala ultimately suggests that theatre that does absorb the agendas of external development donors can still play a role in social change. Syed Jamil Ahmed, however, seems more sceptical. Even when practitioners within political theatre companies remain committed to an oppositional ideology, he argues, accepting funding means the practice will inevitably serve the interests of the donor.45 These interests, in the case of international NGOs funding development work in countries like Bangladesh, are the interests of global capitalism, or neoliberalism. Ahmed argues that performances created with donor funding will be, at best, ‘benign acts of theatre and persuasion’, or, at worst, normalizing processes serving only the interests of dominant groups.46 Even when practitioners do not have radical political intentions, the need to sustain income from an external donor can lead to work that is less critical. Balfour, for example, proposes that practitioners who become dependent on external donors may find themselves ‘too close to the powers it may want to question’.47 Such self-­censorship is also evident in Peter O’Connor’s reflections on his work for a government-­

66

Applied Theatre: Economies

funded public education programme aimed at addressing discriminatory and stigmatizing attitudes and behaviours amongst mental health service providers in New Zealand.48 In retrospect, he questions whether it would have been possible to create a programme that implicated the state in the social injustices experienced by the recipients of mental health services, rather than focusing on changing individual actions and beliefs. The precarious and legally binding nature of contract work may make it particularly difficult for companies to publicly challenge the operations or policies of a government department. Examining the precarious position of community theatre makers in Zimbabwe, L. Dale Byam offers an important reminder that practitioners in many countries face direct censorship.49 In some contexts, taking a critical stance or being seen to align with a particular agenda can have consequences for the personal safety of artists and participants. In many of the examples discussed above the social intentions of applied theatre practice are coerced or co-­opted through the technologies and processes of funding relationships. One significant area of concern is around the effects of evaluation, or impact assessment, processes. A number of scholars have highlighted how impact assessment models used by donors influenced the way in which change is conceived in applied theatre. Ackroyd, for example, argues that the ‘rhetoric of transformation’, a feature of early conceptions of applied theatre in particular, lends itself to ‘mechanistic – or at least reductive – practices’50 aimed at generating the kinds of outcomes desired by most funders; outcomes unlikely to include the ways in which the drama/theatre experiences can move, intrigue or inspire audiences. Similar points are made by Balfour and Neelands. Neelands highlights the effect of evaluation or impact assessment processes, as well as the time-­limited nature of most grants, on the expectation that tangible, transformative results can be achieved in a short space of time.51 Balfour highlights how the process of adapting to the demands of donors can contribute to a conception of social change derived from ‘donor-­based objective-­setting practice’ rather than the complex, tentative theorising about theatre, performance and change in academic literature.52 For

The Economies of Applied Theatre

67

Balfour, this limited conception of change perpetuates a problematic ethic of intervention, ‘[t]he rationale of the useful artist, making creative interventions into a fixed reality with predictable impacts’.53 Funding agreements which require evidence that a problem or need has been addressed may also result in projects where participants are required to perform their victimhood and/or redemption.54 Etherton and Prentki highlight the way in which narrow conceptions of impact lead to individualized notions of change – changing the individual participant to be a better fit in the status quo.55 Ultimately, Balfour argues that applied theatre should scale back its ambitions, focusing on creating ‘a more “playful” relationship between practitioners and participants’.56 Also responding to applied theatre’s vulnerability to manipulation, James Thompson proposes that ‘the connection between the forms applied theatre takes and its political aspirations’ needs to be rethought.57 While the intentionality of applied theatre has been critiqued, the writers cited above do not ask theatre practitioners to relinquish all political commitment, to quash all aspiration to contribute to a more just society. Rather, in different ways, each highlights the need to continually interrogate how the relationships between donor and theatre maker are being configured. They also express a concern that funding relationships can contribute to the conception of change as a process in which an intentional, preconceived cause leads to a predictable, tangible effect or outcome. They identify the political, ethical, aesthetic and pedagogic tensions that arise when practices uncritically adapt to this model. Other critics, like Kennedy C. Chinyowa, have considered alternative approaches to monitoring and evaluation.58 It also seems important to acknowledge instances in which carefully integrated evaluation processes have played a generative rather than constraining role in the development of creative practice. A strong body of research and evaluation can also play an important role in protecting projects, and theatre companies, when funding becomes precarious. My research with ATCo, C&T and FM Theatre Power, for example, showed that each company engaged in research and evaluation projects independently of

68

Applied Theatre: Economies

any funding relationship, using this body of knowledge to inform their practice and to strengthen their ability to negotiate with donors. Donor funding and government service contracts might seem to be areas of applied theatre’s economy fraught with largely unresolvable tensions. I have tried to include examples in this section that provide possibilities for negotiating such tensions. I am concerned that critiquing these prevalent modes of funding in ways that present political, aesthetic, pedagogic and ethical compromise or co-­option as an inevitable outcome means that such relationships are always associated with a trade-­off. What is needed, I suggest, are more examples of companies that have found ways for their artistic and social commitments to develop and thrive within the bounds of funding and contractual agreements – and examples where practitioners have found other ways of resourcing their work.

A labour of love In contrast to donor relationships, unpaid labour is an under-­examined but important part of applied theatre’s diverse economies.59 In Chapter 1, I propose that applied theatre has antecedents in theatre and performance movements that sought alternative, non-­capitalist modes of cultural production. These movements have informed the political principles and artistic forms of applied theatre, but also ideas about how socially committed theatre work should be organized and resourced. FM Theatre Power (Chapter  8) and Collectivo Sustento (Chapter 5), for example, express commitments to collective modes of organization and seek alternative, non-­capitalist methods for resourcing their practice – including different forms of work without pay and self-­ provisioning. Both companies re-­articulate political and artistic ideals of earlier theatre movements in ways that respond to contemporary political and economic conditions in the countries in which they are based. The rationales of each company differ, but each articulates a version of the idea that to work for no monetary gain demonstrates

The Economies of Applied Theatre

69

genuine commitment, is the basis of aesthetic and/or political freedom, and a way to avoid reproducing capitalist social relations. In this section, I look at the small amount of literature that examines unpaid and self-­ funded applied theatre practice. What becomes evident is that such economic approaches are a necessary response to certain conditions, but are by no means an automatic route to realizing political or aesthetic freedom. I also look briefly at forms of unpaid work in applied theatre, which are under-­acknowledged.60 In doing so, I propose that unpaid work in applied theatre is not a straightforward labour of love, but a part of its diverse economy that requires further critical attention. Non-­capitalist modes of resourcing applied theatre have received little coverage in the literature of applied theatre. Asma Mundrawala and Syed Jamil Ahmed are amongst the few scholars who analyse examples of voluntary or self-­funded theatre work. They provide insights into the possibilities and limitations of this mode of economy. Both offer examples of voluntary and self-­funded activist theatre as an ideologically committed contrast to internationally funded Theatre for Development work of formal NGOs. Discussed above, Mundrawala’s research focuses on Pakistani theatre companies, many of which began as voluntary, self-­funded activist practice. Mundrawala gives examples in which the wider political and religious context generated urgent conditions from which activist theatre practices arose. Conditions that also, in some cases, made it impossible for this kind of work to be made at all without endangering the lives of those involved. While the self-­ funded voluntary collective might be a compelling ideal for companies in many contexts, Mundrawala shows how, under oppressive political conditions, it can be a precarious but necessitated response. Voluntary and unpaid activist theatre still requires resources. Mundrawala gives a detailed insight into the wide range of activities and relationships the Pakistani theatre companies engaged in to resource their work in the face of adversarial financial and political conditions. What emerges is a rich combination of self-­funding, voluntary work, various forms of self-­provisioning and non-­financial exchange relationships. Both Mundrawala and Ahmed make the case

70

Applied Theatre: Economies

that these modes of resourcing applied theatre can be the only option if explicitly political and activist forms of theatre are to sustain their radical ideals. At the same time, they present critical insights into the challenges of sustaining this form of economy. Voluntary or self-­funded work is not without its struggles and tensions. Ahmed examines the challenges faced by activist groups in Bangladesh as they tried to translate their committed political principles into pedagogic and aesthetic forms.61 While the self-­funded, voluntary projects he examines avoided the influence of donor agendas, Ahmed shows how self-­funded, middle class, urban activists, who went to work in rural communities in the 1980s, struggled to translate their own agendas into pedagogically and aesthetically rich practice. In some instances, for example, their fixed political views limited their engagement with the lived realities of the people they worked with. A dogmatic commitment to a kind of urban-Marxism meant that some groups failed to explore or represent the issues experienced by rural communities in their full complexity. Mundrawala’s examples show how voluntary activist theatre work can be sustained over the long term, in contrast to funded TfD programmes with a lifespan determined by the length of a funding contract. Ahmed, however, shows the difficulties of sustaining voluntary activist practice, as the people involved struggled with pressures on their personal economies. Importantly, what Ahmed also suggests is that the social impact and long-­term sustainability of voluntary or self-­funded practice is contingent on the sophistication of the theatre practice and the quality of local relationships, as much as it is on the personal sacrifices and commitments of theatre makers. The work of the groups described by Mundrawala and Ahmed embodies, to some extent, Nicholas Ridout’s concept of the passionate amateur, ‘those who work together for the production of value for one another (for love, that is, rather than money) in ways that refuse – sometimes rather quietly and perhaps even ineffectually – the division of labour that obtains under capitalism as usual’.62 For Ridout, theatre within capitalist society has the potential to create an experience of

The Economies of Applied Theatre

71

time and work that differs to those of both capitalist labour and leisure. Under capitalism, Ridout proposes, ‘human activity and creative capacity are primarily valued for what they can contribute to the accumulation of capital, and . . . life is measured in units of productive time’.63 Participating in theatre, in some cases, can interrupt this process.64 Ridout distinguishes his concept from both amateur theatre as a leisure activity and community theatre led by paid professionals. Neither, he argues, disturbs the division produced by capitalism between work and non-­work, or between work and leisure. Yet, Ridout does not exclude professionals from being passionate amateurs. Rather, he sees the professional who also has a commitment to social and cultural goals as a ‘contradictory figure . . . She is the worker whose “love” is subsumed within capitalist production but who is the bearer of romantic anti-­ capitalist values’.65 This description may resonate with the contradictory position many professional applied theatre workers find themselves in. The idea that the process of applied theatre, even when run by professionals, has the potential to interrupt the usual structure of time and nature of work under capitalism is explored further by Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes in Chapter 11. Other forms of unpaid theatre work do not seem to measure up to the ideal of the passionate amateur. Helen Nicholson, for example, considers the absence of any critical discussion of amateur theatre from the academic discourse of applied theatre, which has focused predominantly on ‘professionally led community-­based theatre, where paid theatre-­ makers develop new performances with local people’.66 Nicholson suggests that applied theatre research has distanced itself from amateur theatre because of the lingering stereotype of a conservative, parochial, elitist and hierarchical tradition which emulates a commercial theatre production process. Early debates about the emergence of applied theatre recognized that it was in part a process of professionalization, with new applied theatre degrees equipping practitioners to make a career applying theatre in a range of settings.67 Nicholson observes that a possible result of this process is that qualified, paid applied theatre workers, the contradictory passionate amateurs, are perceived to be,

72

Applied Theatre: Economies

or perceive themselves to be, better prepared to develop democratic, inclusive, cutting edge, politically committed theatre practice than their amateur counterparts. Nicholson’s argument is that applied theatre research could pay more critical attention to notions of professional and amateur and to the forms of amateur theatre work that do not embody the qualities of the passionate amateur and to examine other problematic forms of free labour. It is becoming evident that exploitative forms of free labour have become normalized in the creative and cultural industries in many countries. The discourse of work in theatre and the arts as, at its essence, a labour of love can be used to legitimize these problematic forms of free labour.68 Hans Abbing proposes that a certain desire or willingness to work for insufficient or no pay is part of the particular (or upside down) economy of the arts.69 The unpaid labour of the artist, as a demonstration of autonomy, is part of what gives art its high ‘symbolic value’.70 The moral certainty of the concept of a labour of love, however, becomes ambiguous when applied to situations where the workers must deny their own ‘material and immaterial needs’.71 As discussed above, and in Chapter 1, applied theatre has its own version of the moral or symbolic economy of the arts. This ambiguous economy includes the way in which free labour can be both valorized and critiqued. Chapter 8 touches on this slippery territory as it examines the way FM Theatre Power negotiated between the collectively agreed upon unpaid work of their members and the many forms of exploitative unpaid work that prevail in the arts and creative industries in Hong Kong. Activist groups, like the Precarious Workers Brigade and Carrot Workers Collective in the UK include, for example, unpaid internships, voluntary work placements and unpaid overtime as forms of exploitative unpaid work in the arts, cultural and creative sectors. They contest the way in which such forms of labour have become normalized and are legitimated, made to feel acceptable, by the positive feelings people have about work in the arts. It is also apparent that exploitative forms of free labour are not only prevalent in the commercial creative industries. Hans Abbing suggests that the exploitation of free or low-­

The Economies of Applied Theatre

73

paid labour may also be common in non-­profit arts organizations. To date, however, there has been little examination of the forms of free labour that are often required to sustain even well-­funded and commercial applied theatre projects and programmes, whether that is the work of unpaid interns or of employees and contractors who work beyond their paid hours. There are risks, then, to any argument that better or more authentic theatre is made without financial resources as it can bolster arguments for reducing public subsidy and place unrealistic expectations on practitioners. Under certain conditions, self-­funded and voluntary forms of theatre might be the necessary or only option. But, as Nicholson argues, in countries like the UK the eras of greatest experimentation and sustained collaboration in theatre education and alternative theatre occurred when this work was relatively well funded.72 In the literature discussed above, and in most case studies in this book, a lack of funds or having to work beyond available resources has little benefit for the quality of applied theatre work. Even in voluntary activist practice, working outside of a donor system does not necessarily guarantee a political or aesthetic approach that is contextually responsive. A 2017 special edition of Research in Drama Education addresses the topic of precarity. In her editorial, Jenny Hughes explains ‘the term “precarity” has come to provide a shorthand for understanding the common conditions of labour and life under neoliberal forms of capitalism’.73 This means labour that is ‘insecure, flexible, temporary, casual, intermittent, fractional or freelance’,74 as well as the dispersal of productive work, and particularly immaterial labour, into all spheres of life. The special issue provides important insight into the many ways in which applied theatre practice can generate alternatives to neoliberal forms of labour, exchange, value and wealth. However, while many of the articles in this special issue explore applied theatre practice with ‘communities in contexts of precarity’,75 very few address the way in which applied theatre may itself be viewed as a context of precarity, in terms of the conditions of work for companies and individuals. Most of the groups and companies discussed in Part Two have sustained

74

Applied Theatre: Economies

themselves for many decades. Few, however, have done so in a state of certainty about the continuation of the company as a whole, of much-­ cared-for projects, or people’s jobs. Many of the methods for resourcing applied theatre discussed in this chapter create conditions of uncertainty while promising greater security and sustainability. Chapter 7, by Peter and Briar O’Connor, examines what precarity means in the context of the work of one applied theatre company. They acknowledge the discourse, identified by Hughes, that precarity can produce new ‘creative and critical possibilities’,76 but make vividly evident the ways in which precarity can constrain creative and critical experimentation by draining energy and resources. Chapter 10, by Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, presents a hopeful alternative. He describes an artist-­led intermediary organization, which has worked for decades to challenge the precarious dynamic of funding for socially committed artists, working instead from an ethos of maximizing resources while fostering solidarity. This example seems like an important counter to the trend in many countries towards conditions for arts funding that reflect the ethos of capitalist market relations.

Market manoeuvres Marketization is typically presented as problematic for applied theatre, describing a process that erodes explicit commitments to political values, pitches companies and practitioners into competition with each other for scarce resources, reduces partnerships or collaborations to exchange or consumer relationships and leads to commodified forms of practice. As outlined in the previous chapters, in contexts like the UK the politics and forms of practice of theatre in education and political, community-­based theatre are seen to have shifted over the last three decades of the twentieth century, reflecting the wider economization of the arts. For some, the defining characteristics of applied theatre emerge in response to increasingly market-­like conditions in the funding context. The focus of applied theatre on theatre in specific contexts or

The Economies of Applied Theatre

75

with particular participant groups, for example, is interpreted by some as a result of theatre groups needing to create and protect their market position.77 This view of applied theatre is reflected, discursively at least, in Tony Millet’s proposal that graduates of Griffith University’s BA Applied Theatre programme (in Brisbane, Australia) in the early 2000s needed to ‘be capable of identifying niche markets for the application of theatre, and [to] develop those markets, thus being entrepreneurs, and future employers’.78 Issues related to the marketization and commodification of applied theatre are often raised in the analysis of practice created by non-­profits with grant or contract-­based funding. There is very little, if any, discussion in the literature of applied theatre practice being provided entirely within a formal capitalist market. Marketization of applied theatre, then, tends to refer to the various ways in which groups and organizations have been required to behave more like commercial corporations, through the creation of market-­like funding systems, the emphasis on particular business models or practices in cultural policy, and shifts to competitive tender processes for service contracts. Most examples of this come from the UK where successive governments created pseudo- or quasi-­markets in the public sector, based on the argument that these competitive conditions and localized control would drive up the efficiency and quality of services. One area of practice where these changes had significant impacts is on the Theatre in Education (TIE) movement. The 1988 Education Reform Act in the UK decentralised funding to UK schools and put an end to many TIE programmes that had been fully funded by local authorities and offered for free to schools.79 While many companies faced closure, others emerged or survived this era by developing forms of practice that responded to the changed conditions. Two examples are Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah, founded in 1985, and C&T, founded in 1988. Anthony Haddon’s article on Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah, discussed above, reflects in detail on the implications of their market-­like relationship with local authority youth service providers in the UK between 1985 and 1995. Even though

76

Applied Theatre: Economies

youth services were under-­resourced, the Blahs found them more receptive to purchasing TIE programmes in the late 1980s than schools. Haddon reflects that the company ‘took on the youth service agenda of using theatre as a tool for learning and looked at making it strategically effective for them and financially viable for ourselves’.80 The aesthetics and pedagogies of the Blahs’ creative practice at this time, then, were intimately tied to the needs of their ‘market’. For example, Haddon describes how the company introduced workshops and educational resources as this was the basis on which the youth service providers could justify funding the productions. While Haddon is ultimately critical of the impact that the Blahs’ relationship with the youth sector had on their practice, he gives many examples of the way in which the work was enhanced by negotiating a kind of exchange value in this context. It is also apparent that the artistic direction of the company at this time cannot simply be reduced to an instrumental response to market demands. Haddon depicts the intricate ways in which the company’s practice adapted over time to the physical spaces of youth centres, their young audiences and participatory ethos of the youth workers, while always referencing the company’s defined artistic standards. While Haddon’s account raises some problems with the market-­like model of funding the Blahs engaged with, his account also shows how the company maintained a reflexive and critical relationship between their mode of economy, and their social and artistic values. C&T began work in the immediate aftermath of the 1988 Education Reform Act. Artistic Director Paul Sutton has addressed head-­on the ways in which the company shaped its organizational and creative practice to survive in the resulting conditions. In a 2000 interview with theatre academic Claire Cochrane, Sutton remembers his initial frustration with these changes: We were increasingly being pressured to engage with the educational market-­place: better marketing, more focused projects on the National Curriculum, helping schools to do better in the league tables, and we increasingly recognised that it didn’t work.81

The Economies of Applied Theatre

77

C&T adapted its practice to this educational market place, but, Sutton argues, they did so without conceding the company’s educational and artistic values to the immediate demands from teachers and schools. C&T is interested in developing new ways of working with children, young people and educators by combining drama with other forms of media. An early example of this is The Dark Theatre, a comic book integrated with process drama techniques. The form of The Dark Theatre allowed for a different way of engaging financially with schools. Schools paid a termly subscription fee for which they received copies of the comics, workshops, performances and teacher training. C&T found this model enabled them to foster a collaborative, long-­term relationship with pupils, teachers and schools. Rather than consuming an off-theshelf product, the pupils generated and deconstructed the content and meaning of the comics through drama education processes. As discussed further in Chapter 9, C&T treats its creative, organizational and financial practices as strongly interdependent. Sutton acknowledges that the paradigm established through The Dark Theatre marked a decisive shift away from the forms and politics of the established theatre in education movement and was seen by many as selling out to the marketization of education and culture.82 C&T pursued forms of practice in which young people could deconstruct and reconstruct meanings from the media and popular culture, drawing on postmodern political strategies. Sutton argues the shift in their creative and financial economy was as much the result of this artistic, social and philosophical experimentation as it was an adaptation to the prevailing economic and political context. A concern about a market, or market-­like, economy for applied theatre is that practice becomes commodified, produced for, or as if for, a market transaction. In market transactions, value becomes ‘crystallized as price’,83 commensurable with the financial sum paid for it. As indicated in the above section, commodification is seen to undermine the radical or critical potential of theatre and performance, reforming the relationship between theatre and audience to that of business–consumer or service provider–client. In their examination of such processes of commodification, however, Luis Francisco Carvalho and João Rodrigues

78

Applied Theatre: Economies

caution against the overuse of any discourse of commodification in which it is assumed that ‘social value is . . . exhausted by the price tag metaphorically attached to it, thereby eroding the plurality of human values and generalizing a private gain, money minded, mentality’.84 Allowing for the possibility that a plurality of values might coexist in applied theatre when provided through market-­like transactions might be one way to resist adopting the narrow assumptions and economic subjectivities of neoclassical economics and neoliberalism. In the cases depicted above, neither company was for-profit, they were seeking ways to sustain themselves and resource their projects but were not driven to do so by the motivation of private gain; neither operated as if their primary objective was to make money. Rather, the necessity of making money operated in conjunction with other value systems and desires, for example to produce work of artistic value while staying committed to the interests of young people. This reflects the argument made by some of the feminist economists discussed in the previous chapter that not all market transactions are devoid of ‘moral and political concerns’.85 J. K. Gibson-Graham, meanwhile, argue that the market tends to be represented as a singular, capitalist entity, obscuring the existence of multiple forms of market based in different kinds of social relations and value systems.86 As with unpaid labour, the provision of applied theatre within different kinds of markets is yet to be fully examined. In all of the examples discussed in this chapter it is evident that modes of income generation, subsidy and self-­provisioning are intimately related to the pedagogic, aesthetic, political and ethical values of applied theatre practice. Certain economic activities and relationships have clearly brought an economist or capitalist logic to bear on practice in ways that have been hard for practitioners on the ground to recognize or resist. But, it is also apparent that this is by no means inevitable. The existing literature provides some glimpses into applied theatre-­making where practitioners and companies have negotiated economic relationships and navigated the wider economic territory in ways that challenge the idea that processes of co-­option, compromise and commodification are straightforward or irresistible.

4

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

This chapter focuses on contemporary forms of income generation that are largely new to the literature of applied theatre. These are forms that have emerged or been reframed within what Jen Harvie describes as the neoliberalization of arts funding in Western democracies where state subsidy was previously the norm.1 Harvie specifically critiques the UK’s Conservative-­led coalition government’s move to push artists and arts organizations towards mixed economies. A mixed economy is one in which public and private finances are combined. The idea of private subsidy for the arts itself is not new. In many contexts forms of private subsidy, such as philanthropy, have a long history. In countries like the United States, for example, public subsidy has never provided the core of funding for the arts. The UK’s coalition government’s promotion of private support for the arts, however, was an attempt to create a new economy for cultural production. Harvie argues, for example, that the contemporary forms of private giving they promoted were conceived as investments, departing from historical traditions of patronage where private donations were conceived of as gifts. As explored further below, one implication of this is that the relative autonomy (from the state) promised by private forms of subsidy are overstated. Instead, artists and arts organizations must negotiate new kinds of economic inter­ dependencies or binds with a plethora of private individuals and organizations. Private investment presents possibilities and challenges for applied theatre that deserve fuller discussion than can be provided here. Instead, my aim is to raise key issues and questions that are pertinent to the field, many of which are picked up and extended by the case study authors.

80

Applied Theatre: Economies

Corporate giving: Sponsorship, philanthropy and partnerships Corporate giving can be conceived of as a socially just means of redistributing the wealth of the private sector.2 In some instances of corporate philanthropy, for example, private corporations acknowledge the social and environmental impacts of their commercial activities and take responsibility for addressing them. For critics like Jen Harvie, however, the expectation that corporations will take a significant role in funding social and cultural provision represents a problematic transfer of responsibility and control away from a democratically accountable state to the private sector. Harvie and other critics argue that without considerable oversight or regulation the private sector is unlikely to deliver the equitable distribution of cultural goods and services.3 Yet, in contexts where government funding of the arts is being cut back, or where it has historically been minimal (or non-­ existent), private corporations are expected to play a greater role in supporting the arts through sponsorship or philanthropy, and private giving has become a small but essential resource for many arts organizations. There has been little critical discussion in the academic discourse of applied theatre about the specific implications of taking funds directly or indirectly from private corporations. This may be explained, in part, by the stigma that can be attached to corporate involvement in the arts. There is a prevailing perception, for example, that applied theatre in corporate settings is ‘pro-­market’4 or an ‘unworthy cause’.5 It is also likely, for reasons explored below, that corporate sponsorship is not yet a significant part of the economy of applied theatre. Potentially, however, many applied theatre programmes and projects will have received funds via grants from trusts and foundations set up by private companies. My argument in this section is that funding from private corporations, whether through sponsorship or philanthropy, presents distinctive challenges for applied theatre because of the ways in which some corporations use corporate giving strategically. Corporate

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

81

philanthropy, sponsorship or funded partnerships may not always be problematic. But, the nuances of these funding relationships warrant particular consideration. Corporate sponsorship of projects that increase access to and participation in the arts has been encouraged in contexts like the United States, the UK and Australia. Evidence indicates, however, that sponsorship is a form of funding that is likely to benefit some providers more than others. Corporate sponsorship is a commercial transaction: in exchange for money or other forms of tangible support, corporations typically want to benefit commercially from brand awareness and/or elite access to events and venues. As such, it is a form of subsidy that tends to benefit larger, high-profile and national arts organizations with the means to offer appealing sponsorship packages. Smaller theatre companies, however, do receive sponsorship by offering bespoke theatre-­based training and development programmes or niche experiences for clients.6 Volker Kirchberg outlines some of the advantages of corporate sponsorship.7 These include helping to attract audiences through enhanced image and profile, and providing a marker of prestige that may attract other donors. In some instances, sponsorship arrangements can afford arts organizations a high level of freedom about how funds are ultimately used. As Kirchberg and others make clear, however, sponsorship is rarely a disinterested investment.8 One reason why sponsorship is likely to only benefit a narrow spectrum of applied theatre practice is because corporations treat sponsorship as a form of PR. Evidence suggests that corporations tend to sponsor companies whose work is considered safe or conservative, with a preference for the high and static arts in certain metropolitan areas.9 Much applied theatre work may well be judged too risky, particularly work likely to be controversial, addressing less palatable social issues or involving marginalized social groups, or because the process results in unpredictable outcomes. While there is little evidence to date that corporate sponsorship plays, or is likely to play, a significant part in the economies of applied theatre, corporate philanthropy offers greater potential. It involves ‘a

82

Applied Theatre: Economies

non-­obligatory and voluntary transfer of wealth or resources from the firm to outside entities’.10 Corporate philanthropy encompasses giving by corporate foundations or trusts, legally separate organizations who distribute funds received from the corporation. As Harvie identifies, philanthropy is traditionally conceived of as an action made primarily ‘for the public good’.11 Philanthropic giving by corporations tends to align with a company’s corporate social responsibility objectives, within which private and public interests are aligned.12 Like sponsorship, philanthropy has historically tended to benefit traditional or conservative art forms and organizations.13 There is some evidence from the United States, however, which indicates that corporations are starting to give more to small, local arts projects where social and creative outcomes are being achieved.14 What is also evident, however, is that corporations are moving away from treating philanthropic donations as gifts made for the public good, to viewing them as social investments made with the requirement for projects to deliver ‘returns’ reflecting the objectives of the company.15 One of the fears about increasing the role of private corporations in subsidizing the arts, then, is that doing so further embeds economic and political concerns that have little to do with creating a rich, diverse arts ecology or the public good more widely. Corporations use sponsorship and philanthropic giving strategically to enhance their commercial position and their political influence.16 Corporations benefit commercially through increased brand/product awareness, enhanced reputation and from positive relationships with institutions and communities.17 Corporations also use philanthropic giving to extend and strengthen their political activity. A relationship with an arts organization, for example, could be used to advance efforts to influence local planning decisions.18 Michael Hadani and Susan Coombes19 found that companies in the United States used philanthropy to generate a kind of ‘moral capital’, giving them leverage over regional and national policy makers and regulatory organizations. Theatre groups might reason that in taking funds from corporate sources they are not directly supporting such activities or causing harm. However, in

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

83

a book focused on the implications of taking funds derived from the profits of the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries, Peter J. Adams makes a rigorous argument that taking money from such socially damaging industries ‘can be viewed as a consumption that causes harm in its own right’.20 His argument is based on evidence of the ways in which corporations actively exploit their corporate giving to promote, protect and expand damaging forms of consumption. In some contexts, ruling out funds from the dangerous consumptions that concern Adams would leave applied theatre makers with very few options. Adams argues that in such contexts organizations need to create a culture where the risks of engaging with a corporate donor can be raised and discussed. This includes looking beyond the specific relationship and immediate area of an organization’s work to whether the activities of the corporate donor are targeted at eroding democratic systems at a wider level. The problems or risks of engaging with corporate funding are not hard to find in literature on corporate giving to artistic, cultural, environmental and social causes. More positive examples of corporate funding for applied theatre or related areas of work are harder to come by. By this, I mean examples where some of the risks identified above are considered and negotiated, rather than simply overlooked or glossed. A hint of an example comes in a published conversation between Munyaradzi Chatikobo, Funding and Partnership Manager for Drama for Life and Katherine Low.21 Their discussion gives a brief insight into the role applied theatre might play in enabling corporations to engage meaningfully with the communities that are/ will be affected by their activities. Applied theatre as an umbrella term encompasses theatre projects developed for or in partnership with private corporations. As indicated above, however, this area of applied theatre is often treated as inherently problematic in its alignment with or support for the interests of capitalist corporations. Chatikobo describes a situation in which Drama for Life faced such interests head on. The theatre company was approached by a mining company who had the idea of using a short drama programme to get local support

84

Applied Theatre: Economies

for the opening of a new mine. Drama for Life responded by proposing a substantial three- to four-­year programme, the time needed, they argued, to facilitate meaningful dialogue between the corporation and local people, a process which required participants to have the power to influence the final decision. In this example the theatre company acted on their artistic and social values to propose the terms of a partnership they found acceptable. In this instance the partnership would have to move beyond the expectation of a commercial return if the corporation were to be genuinely open to not going ahead with their planned development or to radically changing the project. A recent article about theatre in corporate settings in India details the ways in which the work was instilled with the aim of producing the kind of labour force desired by the employers.22 Employees found ways to resist this aim through the theatrical process. But this kind of critical resistance to the organizational norms was certainly not the basis on which the work was paid for. Another alternative can be glimpsed in an example of organizational theatre from New Zealand. In this instance the ethos of the company and terms of agreement between the theatre maker and company allowed for a process in which it was accepted that the outcomes would emerge, rather than being predetermined and focused on productivity. The production, created from months working within the company and interviewing employees at all levels, generated critical questions by presenting seemingly mundane scenarios in which the limits of the values of the company were tested.23 The implications of engaging with income from private corporations, through sponsorship, philanthropy, training provision or partnership projects, is relatively uncharted territory for critical discourse of applied theatre. What seems evident is that it is an area of applied theatre’s economies where political implications cannot be easily divorced from the financial transaction. Further insights into the ways in which companies have navigated this terrain and negotiate their relationships with corporations of various kinds are much needed.

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

85

Crowdfunding Crowdfunding24 can be presented as the panacea to cuts in funds for creative and social projects or as a mode of funding that grants greater autonomy to the producer. For some scholars it is a positive development, representing a form of DIY culture through which more people can make things happen without depending on large corporations, institutions or governments. For others it is a precarious and limited option, representing a problematic transfer of responsibility from governments to individuals. Some see it as creating opportunities for a greater number of producers, resulting in a wider range of cultural outcomes. For others, it perpetuates deeply ingrained inequities in terms of what gets produced, by whom and where. Crowdfunding appears to be a powerful platform for extending popular participation in the creation of goods, services, culture and even political activism. But ultimately, many crowdfunding platforms reduce participation to a modified form of consumption. A search of popular online platforms suggests it is becoming one of the economies of applied theatre, with campaigns seeking funds for applied theatre projects and research. As a mode of income generation for applied theatre, crowdfunding presents opportunities and potential challenges. This section briefly considers what these might be in the light of critical scholarship on crowdfunding for theatre, performance, civic projects and activism. Much of the literature discussed in Part One indicates that applied theatre makers can end up following the funders, making work that addresses the issues, themes or particular social groups that funders are interested in. Crowdfunding, in contrast, seems to present theatre makers with the possibility of a high degree of self-­determination and control: the ability to make decisions about the intentions and forms of practice without having to comply with externally imposed criteria, targets or outcomes. Certainly, the dominant ideology of crowdfunding is that it benefits producers by creating greater agency, autonomy and ownership.25 Crowdfunding affords creators the ability to play a greater role in determining what gets produced, the constraint being that

86

Applied Theatre: Economies

they must convince a crowd of backers of their project’s worth in some way. David Gehring and D. E. Wittkower consider the way that crowdfunding has come to be associated with an ‘ethic of “D.I.Y.” creation’; backers feel they are supporting creative projects that are more ‘authentic’ and less commercial by supporting the artist/producer directly.26 The authors ultimately question this view, but observe how crowdfunding is commonly perceived to be an anti-­establishment mode of funding, supporting grassroots cultural production. Related to concerns raised above about grants and contracts, crowdfunding appears to remove the need to provide evidence of impact or even of any outcome at all. For some sites, for example, there appears to be a low degree of monitoring and accountability. The creator determines how much insight, if any, the crowd of backers get into the process and final outcome. Gehring and Wittkower argue that the conditions of exchange created by crowdfunding ‘provide a space of immunity for the creator’,27 although failure to meet campaign promises is likely to affect the chances of a subsequent campaign succeeding. Crowdfunding, then, seems to promise the creator a high degree of independence. The degree of independence and control offered by crowdfunding may be of particular importance for applied work that is explicitly critical or politically oppositional. In Turkey, for example, Suncem Koçer argues that crowdfunding has played an important role in activist cultural production by allowing artists to make work that would not have received government subsidy.28 In a context where media coverage of activism and controversial social issues is limited, Koçer argues that the crowdfunding process itself can be an important way to raise awareness and galvanize support at a local, national and international level.29 In some contexts then, crowdfunding might better facilitate artistic freedom of expression and activist performance than traditional funding sources as a form of mutual support between activists and those who support their cause. The kind of independence promised by crowdfunding may have its cost, however. The emergence and growth of crowdfunding are related

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

87

to the increasingly limited availability of state subsidy for community-­ based or civic projects30 as well as for the arts.31 Benjamin Boeuf, Jessica Darveau and Renaud Legoux suggest that, in many countries, cuts to public funds have been accompanied by a push for arts organizations to explore new modes of income generation.32 Jen Harvie, then, argues that it is a mode of funding that is complicit with, and to a degree legitimating, a reduction in state support. Civic crowdfunding, in particular, has prompted concerns about the extent to which the cost and responsibility for providing community resources and services are being transferred to individuals. Civic crowdfunding is specifically designed for projects that generate assets and services for communities or the wider public. Rodrigo Davies considers whether civic crowdfunding contributes to ‘shrinking government’33 or extends what governments can reasonably be expected to provide. He describes examples from the United States where bankrupt city governments turned to civic crowdfunding to cover costs of basic services like waste collection. In the UK, meanwhile, civic crowdfunding projects have raised funds to renovate publicly owned buildings and spaces. Such projects can be seen as grassroots or civic action, but can also legitimize moves from local councils to withdraw from providing and maintaining such public resources. Davies argues that based on the limited available evidence such volunteer-­based action is ‘far too uneven and short term to provide for the needs of a broad public, let alone to substitute for government’.34 But, the issue is not clear-­cut. Civic crowdfunding can enable collaborations between government and other groups that genuinely expand and diversify what governments could otherwise deliver. Civic crowdfunding seems to offer applied theatre makers some distinctive opportunities. There are opportunities for theatre companies to contribute to local projects that are looking for support, as well as using the platforms to seek support for applied projects. This is possible because the crowd in civic crowdfunding is more complex; platforms allow for backers to include charitable trusts, NGOs, corporations and government agencies, as well as individuals.35 Also, donations can

88

Applied Theatre: Economies

be non-­monetary, including volunteer time, expertise or material resources. Some civic crowdfunding platforms offer more flexibility for community-­based projects to gain momentum and evolve over time. The timeframe for campaigns can be much longer than on mainstream crowdfunding sites and some platforms allow for projects to start before the target amount is raised. Unlike crowdfunding solely from individual backers, however, civic crowdfunding brings with it the potential for many of the tensions associated with grants and contracts to arise. It is also not immune from the issues of inequity and limited participation associated with other forms of crowdfunding. A successful crowdfunding campaign depends on popular support. By allowing individuals to collectively determine what gets created, it is seen to counter the potentially elitist or exclusionary nature of top-­down funding and commissioning in cultural production. Crowdfunding enables projects and companies to get off the ground that would probably not have received backing from traditional investment or funding sources.36 One argument, then, is that crowdfunding offers greater opportunities to a wider range of producers by providing opportunities for producers who would not be eligible for subsidy or attractive to mainstream donors. In contrast, a growing body of research suggests that crowdfunding, including civic crowdfunding, does not in fact level the playing field in terms of who can produce, what gets produced or where. It seems that some individuals and communities have qualities and resources that better enable them to capitalize on this form of income generation.37 It is also evident that not all kinds of projects are equally served. The arts and culture projects that produce outcomes that can be widely distributed tend to do better, e.g. game design, music and film projects.38 With both theatre and civic projects, geographic inequities are evident, with urban centres being best served by crowdfunded initiatives. In relation to civic crowdfunding, Davies proposes that the limited available evidence suggests that well-­resourced communities are likely to benefit more from these kinds of funding platforms. Crowdfunding carries the promise of more equal oppor­ tunities and participation. But, critics like Harvie argue that without

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

89

some moderation or intervention, crowdfunding alone may well end up reproducing existing inequities. As well as promising greater independence for producers, crowdfunding appears to offer greater agency for consumers or backers as they are able to participate more actively in the production process. Critics argue that ultimately it does not radically disrupt the dominant consumer/producer relationship or the dominant structure of the culture industry.39 For example, the forms of participation offered by existing platforms are highly limited, even for civic crowdfunding which is premised on the idea of civic participation.40 In relation to crowdfunded theatre projects specifically, there is some evidence that backers are not motivated by the promise of material returns for their contribution.41 Based on this, researchers argue that crowdfunding for theatre has more in common with a gift economy than a market one. Other scholars argue that crowdfunding only makes the consumer relationship appear to be different, to be pro-­social or altruistic.42 In actuality, the relationship between producer and consumer in a crowdfunding transaction does not differ materially from other forms of consumption.43 In most instances the participation of backers in the creative process is symbolic; there is rarely any actual dialogue, control or direct involvement. In relation to civic crowdfunding, Davies argues that popular participation still tends to be limited, raising questions about whether campaigns actually generate fully public goods. Arguing for fuller recognition and critical interrogation of the diverse economies of applied theatre is not the same as advocating for the kind of mixed economy model promoted by the Conservative coalition in the UK. In Part One, I have started a process of making more visible the diverse ways in which forms of applied theatre get financed or otherwise resourced. In doing so, and by starting to examine the differences within each area, my aim has been to resist ‘the hegemonic framing of capitalism’44 without at the same time idealising certain modes of income generation. It is my hope that this might open up the possibility for the economic activities that support applied theatre to be viewed not just as an Achilles heel, but also as

90

Applied Theatre: Economies

important areas for critical, creative and considered negotiation, and even activism.

Introducing Part Two: Asking difficult questions and finding hopeful answers The second part of this book is made up of seven international case studies written by practitioners and researchers who have direct experience of running applied theatre companies and programmes, or who have undertaken sustained research in such settings. Each case study examines critical issues and points of tension that arise from particular funding relationships, economic practices or with specific economic conditions. In doing so, the authors ask difficult questions of themselves, other practitioners or organizations. In each case study chapter, the authors’ responses to these questions are not naïve or idealistic, but still offer hope that alternative ways of conceiving of and practicing the economies of applied theatre can be found. The first case study by Penelope Glass, with Colectivo Sustento, asks difficult questions about commitment and sustainability, examining how the collective has managed to sustain its work in prison and community contexts within the neoliberalized cultural economy of Chile. Chile’s cultural economy does not value human-­centred development. So, along with other groups working for social change, Colectivo Sustento has turned to autogestión, a form of self-­managed economy with liberatory objectives. Glass meticulously differentiates the autogestión cultivated by Colectivo Sustento from versions that have been co-­opted and promoted by the Chilean government. She examines the possibilities and challenges of the multiple ways in which the collective sustain themselves and their work, including the development of a community garden. The chapter also provides a vivid insight into what Glass calls the ‘alphabet of plans’, a strategy for survival rooted in a deeply resourceful sense of conviction and collectivity. This close-­up examination of practice is contextualized by critical reflections

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

91

on the histories and economies of community-­based theatre in both Australia (where Glass is from) and Chile. The writing of the second case study required its authors, Lois Adamson and Anne Wessels, to ask searching questions of themselves and the theatre companies they work for. This chapter looks at two established theatres in Toronto, Canada: Young People’s Theatre and Tarragon Theatre. The education and outreach programmes of these two companies share a commitment to using theatre innovatively within communities to work for equity and creatively address issues of social justice. In each company, this work is funded through a mix of public, private and corporate sources. The chapter focuses in on two examples of foundation-­supported applied theatre projects. It offers multiple perspectives on these relationships, and on the missions and mandates of the two foundations. In doing so, it challenges some core assumptions (from the field and from the authors themselves) about donors and donor relationships. The authors find no simple divide between the imperatives of the private foundations and those of the theatre companies, revealing instead the complex, often productive interplay of diverse value systems. As indicated above, the case study by Peter and Briar O’Connor addresses the precarity of applied theatre companies and projects. Their flagship project, Everyday Theatre, has been running for over twelve years with central government funding, surviving multiple changes in government. They ask how, in spite of its miraculous beginnings and impressive longevity, the contract for Everyday Theatre has kept them in a continual state of uncertainty and instability. In answering the question, they dissect the ways in which they run their company with frank honesty. They reveal how seemingly mundane processes like making bookings with schools or negotiating contracts with staff are affected by the conditions of the Everyday Theatre contract and, in turn, affect their ability to follow through on their aesthetic and political ideals. The fourth case study critically examines the financial, organizational and performative actions taken by Hong Kong theatre company FM Theatre Power, as they fight to sustain their work in a political and

92

Applied Theatre: Economies

economic system to which they are ideologically opposed. FMTP translates the ideals of people’s theatre into a multiplicity of performance practices, but also into a diverse economy. Their organizational model is based on the ideal of a non-­hierarchical collective and they worked for many years to cultivate ways to resource their practice with as few financial constraints and demands as possible. Over time, however, they have engaged with several mainstream sources of funding and commercial models. This chapter explores how they have playfully and provocatively made these modes of economy the subject of critique. Paul Sutton’s case study sets out the ways in which C&T in the UK has re-­purposed new media business concepts and models with the intention of enhancing its own internal organization, marketing and sales, as well as its creative practice – all the time guided by core values consistent with those of their earlier TIE work. Sutton draws on the concept of ‘The Long Tail’, reshaping this business-­orientated metaphor to show that synergies can be found between profit-­driven e-­commerce techniques and applied theatre. Through a series of provocations, Sutton illustrates how applied theatre makers might engage critically and reflexively with the vernacular of the commercial creative industries and e-­commerce. The next case study responds to a challenge to pay more critical attention to the systems and networks that enable artists to work within and contribute to communities. Paul Bonin-Rodriguez shifts the focus of the book away from the practice and economy of an individual theatre company, by examining the role of intermediary organizations in supporting applied theatre at a regional and national level in the United States. His case study is an organization named ROOTS, which has secured and challenged funding and opportunities to artists for over forty years. This chapter examines ROOTS as both a distributive system and an important network through which the ethos of the field has been cultivated and sustained. Finally, Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes examine a partnership between a regional, state-­subsidized theatre and a social housing charity in Bolton, a post-­industrial town in Northwest England. Since 2011, the

Applied Theatre and New Cultural Economies

93

housing association, Bolton at Home, has given the Octagon Theatre annual funding to support a range of projects for tenants, including theatre visits and neighbourhood theatre clubs. This long-­lasting partnership is part of an apparently unique ‘Percent for Art’ arrangement. This case study explores the socio-­historical context from which the partnership emerged and analyses one theatre making project with a women’s theatre club. The authors reflect on the circulation of a percentage of Bolton at Home’s capital expenditure as ‘cultural and social dividends to tenants’ and consider the nature of and relationships between economic and ‘non-­economic’ forms of value. Drawing on the work of Miranda Joseph, the authors find potential in social theatre practice that ‘nestles deeply’ within capitalism.

Part Two

5

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z: Colectivo Sustento in Continuous Resistance Penelope Glass

There is more heart than there is cash for this work. Fighting for freedom has always been, and remains, unpaid work, regardless of what any capitalist system might tell us. Once we connect with that spirit, we will soon realize that we have always been powerful, bestowed with an untouchable wealth . . .1

The eternal conundrum If you work for social change through theatre, over time you come to realize that results will not happen overnight, and you will eventually realize the tremendous value of continuity. Short-­term projects and freelancing do not change society: you build community trust, then you are gone; off to the next paying project. This becomes frustrating if your dream is grander. But one must pay rent and bills, buy food, pay for transport, bring up kids perhaps. As financial considerations inevitably raise their ugly head, you remember how you made a commitment . . . This internal dialogue has been a constant in my working life, but never more so than in Chile. Colectivo Sustento/Sustain Collective, the group I co-­founded in 2012 in Chile’s capital Santiago, works for social change using theatre and gardening within prison and community contexts. The heartbeat of our work is continuity, coupled with reflexive collective praxis. Colectivo Sustento directs Fénix e Ilusiones/Phoenix and Illusions, a theatre

98

Applied Theatre: Economies

experience in Santiago’s Colina 1 men’s prison that has expanded from humble beginnings in 2002 to create thirteen issues-­based shows, three radio-­plays, and has performed sixty-­five times outside the prison. We run theatre and gardening workshops with young offenders, and train community theatre workers as social activists. Colectivo Sustento established the Huerta Sustento/Sustento Garden in my own backyard to generate income, and as a holistic response to the dehumanizing and alienating world around us. It is the beginning of 2017 as I sit down to write this chapter, both as an individual practitioner (I) and as part of Colectivo Sustento (we), representing both my own and the collective’s experience. Generating a sustainable economy is the least resolved part of Colectivo Sustento’s work. It is the area where I often feel at sea, and where our politics, collectivity and ethics are challenged and refined. This eternal conundrum causes me and my colleagues distress and frustration: how can it be that our work is recognized for its humanity, critical reflection, social activism, and theatricality, and yet cannot pay even one person full-­time, causing a never-­ending struggle between the day-to-day and our hopeful convictions? While a combination of paid and unpaid work is the norm in community organizations here, I still do not fully comprehend why we cannot overcome the paradox of precariousness. I often feel stupid, and, despite my understanding of the world, allow myself to fall into the trap of ‘self-­blame’,2 focusing on my shortcomings instead of systemic factors. Yet I dream: how much further could we develop the work, if only we received an injection of funds? Perhaps, considering the ideological minefield of state and philanthropic support, would it not be better to ask: how can we build autonomous financial and organizational alternatives? Since 2012, the work inside and beyond the Colina 1 prison has developed further than ever before. We have engaged in a range of income-­generating strategies: two successful crowdfunding campaigns outside Chile, income from international training and collaborations, and a monthly buyer’s network in Santiago called Víveres Justos/Fair Produce that pays a part-­time worker to maintain the Huerta Sustento. We have also applied for government grants and tenders with

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

99

varied success. We employ trueque (bartering of objects or services), and Colectivo Sustento workers give a lot of unpaid time to the work. We hatch innumerable plans that are realized successfully (or not). We attempt to follow the principles of autogestión (autonomous or self-­ management), a concept that will ground the narrative of this chapter. Autogestión reaches beyond financial considerations, embodying not only resistance to the competitive market logic of neoliberalism, but also advocating an ethical and cooperative way of life. These principles are actively being re-­installed into contemporary Chilean life by many community-­based initiatives working for the ‘re-­articulation of the social fabric’.3 Writing this chapter, considering what is the ‘untouchable wealth’ of the introductory quote, it is inadequate to merely focus on financial questions because our economy is both financial and human. Our achievements are almost always a result of the collective’s convictions about the necessity of our work. Individual energies and commitments have waxed and waned since 2012; but when the collective falters, everything becomes so much harder. This chapter is an attempt to contextualize, exemplify, and analyze Colectivo Sustento’s struggle to realize our dreams through an alternative financial and human economy despite myriad limitations and dead ends.

A short look back Lack of finance was not a barrier when I began doing community theatre in Australia in the mid-1970s. Incipient funding for community art was not the impetus. We had conviction, a drive to take theatre out of theatres, to be part of the social movements changing Australian society. This first generation of the community theatre movement was grounded in ‘clear-­eyed radicalism’.4 The dominant group modus operandi was collective and self-­managed. In 1982, the Popular Theatre Troupe in Brisbane had four contracted actors and a part-­time administrator. In 1984, when I worked in Death Defying Theatre in

100

Applied Theatre: Economies

Sydney, there was no administrator; each performer took on a portfolio. I chose finance and the coordination of performances in prisons and factories. Those were very different economic times; the welfare state had not yet been dismantled and it was relatively easy to obtain unemployment benefits. Throughout the 1980s I worked continuously, with an income assembled from sporadic fees and the dole. Surviving was not difficult: shared housing, a politically and economically driven (and also fashionable) alternative, and cooperative food buying were two of many strategies arts workers employed. The community arts sector in the 1980s was organized. We formed networks and won the battle for recognition and funding: community theatre boomed until the mid-1990s. Then the Australian arts sector funnelled into the culture industry, as in the UK, whereby ‘understanding [of cultural and social implications] has frequently been displaced by arguments about statistics and the economic value of arts and culture’.5 Community-­based initiatives were less attractive under this new funding logic, and struggled to adapt. In 1998, I migrated to Chile. From the mid-2000s, the community arts networks set up in Australia in the 1980s were de-­funded; I sensed a definite turning had occurred on the other side of the Pacific. Had the main loser been the spirit of autonomous and collective self-­management? Far away from Australia, I observe these changes and make comparisons with Chile. Despite, and perhaps because of, the brutal long-­term Chilean neoliberalism, the spirit of autogestión is rising again, feeding a collective sense of hope, underpinning a broad groundswell for social change.

Chilean context The problematic economy of everyday life is fraught for most Chileans, and people are forcibly obsessed with finances; the country’s recent history explains why. Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular/Popular Unity

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

101

(UP) government (1970 to 1973) was destabilized through an ‘appearance of crisis’6 created by the CIA-financed political right and conservative media. Representing them, the armed forces led by General Pinochet overthrew the UP government in a bloody coup and imposed a military dictatorship (1973 to 1990). ‘[Milton] Friedman advised Pinochet, to impose a rapid-­fire transformation of the economy – tax cuts, free trade, privatized services, cuts to social spending and deregulation’,7 immortalized as ‘economic “shock treatment” ’.8 The Chicago boys, Friedman-­trained Chilean economists, implemented the transformation while the military maintained a stranglehold of terror. In 1980, a fraudulently passed Constitution sanctioned the corporatization of social services, converting them into lucrative private businesses. As a palliative, banks and department stores now offer easy-­access pay-­later solutions (with crippling interest). Informal loans go back and forth between friends or within families; ongoing responsiveness can become ‘a bitter struggle’9 weighing on personal relationships. Contributions to privatized social services compound household debt, which ‘rose to about 60% of disposable income in 2014’.10 Chileans survive on credit, and the economy of everyday life is a relentless burden. Wealth is a constant determinant; it cuts a swathe through society and swallows people’s lives because, literally, nothing is free. The education system has high socio-­economic segregation; student achievements vary widely with ‘considerably different life chances depending on one’s family wealth’.11 Chile has the highest income inequality of all OECD countries, with a Gini Index12 of 0.50.13 All post-­ dictatorship governments (right or social democrat) since 1990 have maintained the neoliberal economic logic and resultant inequality: [T]here is no public policy, no relevant effort, no project directed towards radically modifying the inequality scenario . . . Chile has been split in two.14

Social and political trust in Chile is low: less than 13 per cent of Chileans express high interpersonal trust, compared to the OECD

102

Applied Theatre: Economies

average of 36 per cent.15 When the electoral process was restored in 1989 there was initial high suffrage, but participation has been steadily shrinking since the mid-1990s. Average voter turnout in the 2016 municipal elections was just over 30 per cent in the poorest areas.16 In the Chilean prison system, where much of our work is based, the population is over 42,500, with 35 per cent in pre-­trial detention.17 Major problems include corruption and abuse by prison officials, and overcrowding.18 Living and health conditions are precarious and there is endemic human rights abuse. Almost all prisoners come from the poblaciones,19 where the economic situation is so harsh that working on the edge of legality is a legitimized option. Income inequality combined with a media-­constructed culture of individualism, competitiveness, and consumerism keeps most of Chile focused on money, and distracted from collective social action.

Autogestión: Autonomous or self-­management Its character is not only economic-­productive, but also its goal is a new social conformation, based on the configuration of a social fabric that is guided by solidarity and mutual support between one community and another.20

These are the liberatory objectives of autogestión: resistance to neoliberalism and patriarchy; collective decision making; autonomy from government and institutions; and collaboration with resistant others. The concept of autogestión has also been manipulated by government and corporations to undermine those very objectives. A quick look at history grounds us in autogestión’s original intentions. Samoupravlenie (autonomous management) has been used in Slavic languages since the nineteenth century to refer to democratically directed provincial organizations (the mir).21 Anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin gave the term its social revolutionary focus: hostile to State,

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

103

social and patriarchal oppression, with power exercised from below.22 Translations of Bakunin spread these ideas to Western European worker’s movements, migrating them to Latin America in the late nineteenth century.23 Libertarian autogestión was adopted with fervour in revolutionary Spain from 1936 to 1938. Three-­quarters of Catalonia’s industrial production was collectivized, and anarcho-­syndicalist collectives became the ‘mainstay of the economy and emblematic of revolution’;24 freedom was posited on horizontal collective organization, solidarity and the fair sharing of all production. Hierarchical power and traditional political party structures were rejected in favour of self-­management by New Social Movements,25 from the 1968 Paris Commune through to feminist, civil rights and environmental movements, as well as counter-­cultural expressions like punk culture and (first generation) community theatre. In Latin America, the 1960s and 1970s liberation struggles and 1980s resistance to dictatorships were driven by libertarian autogestión and educación popular/people’s education (inspired by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy). These struggles were imbued with the radical nature of hope – ‘though I know that things can get worse, I also know that I am able to intervene to improve them’.26 Neoliberalism and its globalization in the 1990s changed societies, reframing the nature of work and the economy. Self-­employment, competition and entrepreneurialism are sold as the pathway, social mobility the goal. Internet and social media give unrestricted acccess to the means of production and promotion: anyone with a computer and the internet can take a photo, record music or a short video, and make it go viral. The logic invoked is that being successful depends on you alone and your ability to be creative. On the surface, this would seem to be enabling greater freedom, but does it? Within the corporate world, self-­management is touted to employees but only results in a tokenistic sense of ownership and democracy, while owners pocket increased profits. At the same time, the individualized workforce (including the culture industry) requires fast, tech-­savvy, self-­promoting creatives to take on short-­term, sub-­contracted,

104

Applied Theatre: Economies

project-­based work. The outcome is an atomized, precarious labour environment where individuals are unlikely to question social structures: ‘[s]peed and risk negate ethics, community and politics’.27 Under neoliberalism, the political, collective and ethical meanings have been laundered out of self-­management, rendering it oppressive rather than liberating. Chile is by no means removed from this phenomenon.

Autogestión in Chile The unjust Chilean context engenders hopelessness; there is a sense that nothing can be done. Nevertheless, Chile has a powerful history of libertarian autogestión, with many organizations set up by workers and pobladores28 from the beginning of the twentieth century, including mutual funds, autonomous schools and free thinkers’ societies, among others.29 Most of these organizations have been quashed, both by elected governments and dictatorships; their legacy ignored or forgotten. The term autogestión is manipulated in Chile, as in other places. Liberal or state autogestión,30 installed in government and business discourse, conceals its true objectives: social control and increasing corporate profits, with a fake veneer of participation. Nevertheless, since the 1990s, libertarian autogestión has re-­appeared in Chile in new formats, through the urban squatting movement (Okupas) and other independent activist ventures that generate their own funds: pobladores’ federations, community radios and libraries, popular schools and pre-­universities, artisan markets, alternative media and editorials, neighbourhood cultural centres, community gardens, and community-­based arts groups like Colectivo Sustento.

Autogestión and community theatre in Chile Neoliberalism has determined Chile’s arts and cultural development. The UP government’s dream of cultural democracy – spearheaded by

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

105

massive arts participation within the poblaciones – was decimated by the 1973 military coup but, even during the darkest years of the dictatorship, people’s art (murals, music, poetry and, particularly, theatre) flourished as resistance. After 1990, the UP dream was not reinstated, and access to the arts was reframed as passive consumption of product created by an elite arts establishment. To this day, studies measure theatre participation only through conventional spaces’ audience numbers.31 The competitive grants system (Fondart), established to distribute arts funding, is highly questioned and selective: in 2015, only 15.2 per cent of all applicants were successful.32 While there is a powerful tradition of community-­based theatre in the poblaciones, this work is marginalized within arts funding. Performing arts applications have separate lines for circus, dance, and theatre – where theatre has a subcategory for street or community theatre, community would seem to be an afterthought. Community theatre’s marginalization is also reflected in theatre training. After the coup, community or social theatre was removed from the curriculum, only reappearing in the 2000s in one Valparaíso university. Theatre students are not encouraged to consider their social role, although some seek out opportunities, like Sebastián Squella, Fénix e Ilusiones co-­director, who has trained on the job in the Colina 1 prison since 2010. In 2015, the Theatre School of Santiago’s Christian Humanist University (Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano) invited me to develop a compulsory Applied Theatre module. This is a very welcome advance. Some Chilean community theatre groups have been drawn into the arts funding web but its inequalities cause indignation. Nevertheless, there are some successful tales of semi-autonomy. The International Community Theatre Festival ENTEPOLA 33 has survived for more than thirty years through a combination of autogestión, local council support, and national and international grants. Total autonomy has become impossible for ENTEPOLA due to the sheer size of the festival and rising basic costs, they have had to put enormous effort into funding applications and therefore lobbying. At the time of writing this chapter,

106

Applied Theatre: Economies

ENTEPOLA coordinators had expressed anger at being lured into a strategy that has co-­opted their time, energy and political focus. Other groups want no connection with the State, embracing autogestión founded on collective decision-making and supportive community relationships. One example is Teatro de Emergencia Fisura (Fissure Emergency Theatre)34 that is embedded in the emblematic población La Legua (The League), established through a land grab in the 1940s. Autogestión in La Legua is positioned resistance, built on the sector’s strong sense of cultural identity and political history. The Fisura collective has built a fully equipped theatre and community space funded entirely by local businesses. Strategies differ and mutate, but I believe the underlying objective of many Chilean community theatre groups is to maintain self-­determination and autonomy; autogestión is a statement of intention. Projects that achieve continuity are exceptions, but the possibility of autogestión inspires hope, and the successful survivors convoke other dreamers to action.

Back story: Teatro Pasmi After migrating to Chile in 1999, I worked for twelve years with Teatro Pasmi/Pasmi Theatre Company (founded in 1994), which produced and toured shows about contemporary social issues, and ran community workshops in diverse contexts. In 2002, Pasmi entered the Colina 1 prison, founded the continuous Fénix e Ilusiones theatre experience, and guided it up until 2011. Pasmi also worked in the San Miguel men’s prison for five years, up until the tragic fire that killed 81 prisoners35 (including one of our actors). Teatro Pasmi was driven by the intention of autogestión. We devised ethical fee scales for school performances in urban and rural poblaciones, and some of this income was diverted to support our prison work, as well as national and international touring. Pasmi activities, creative process, and income distribution were defined collectively. We received small grants from social programmes and international cooperation,

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

107

retaining autonomy in design and implementation. The Gendarmería/ Chilean Corrections Department theatre workshop fee in the Colina 1 prison was shared between two Pasmi workers, and we extended the work far beyond institutional objectives, responding to collective decisions with Fénix e Ilusiones. Colectivo Sustento has retained this politically and ethically driven modus operandi. Personal investment, unpaid time, unsolicited donations and playing music on buses were all part of Pasmi’s survival strategy. By 2010, after over-­stretching personal investments, the company was heavily in debt, and machismo within the collective had become untenable. Pasmi’s 2011 demise was both financial and human. We had not built liberatory relationships nor explored autogestión and collaborative alternatives: Pasmi’s economy was deeply flawed. Colectivo Sustento/Sustain Collective was born in September 2012, guided by experiences and reflections within and outside the Colina 1 prison. The initial objectives were to extend Pasmi’s prison work, support Fénix e Ilusiones men post-­prison, and seek other avenues for sustainability – ‘to bring together theatre, social justice and self-­ sustainability into one process linking life and action’.36

Broadening possibilities Although societies for social responsibility are rapidly forming, we need to expand the concept to social and environmental responsibility, and to create our own financial and employment strategies in those areas . . . we can be investors in life. We cannot profess or teach one ethic, and live another, without damage to ourselves and to common resources.37

When nine theatre workers and social activists founded Colectivo Sustento, one of the first questions we asked was: how can we sustain what we are proposing? While doing a permaculture workshop in Australia, the answer appeared. What if the 200 square metre backyard of my Santiago house (full of weeds and some fruit trees) became a community garden guided by permaculture ethics: earth care, people

108

Applied Theatre: Economies

care, and fair share?38 It was not enough to rail against the system, we could remove ourselves from it at that most basic level, becoming producers instead of consumers. Gardening is more tangible than theatre: a garden could provide some food and a regular income dependent only on our personal determination rather than arbitrary funding decisions. With abundant information appearing about the effects of food engineering, the idea of food autonomy was appealing. The road from wanting a community garden to making it happen was constructed on two coincidences. Firstly, one collective member participated in a Community Supported Agriculture initiative, Huellas Verdes/Green Traces organic farm.39 And secondly, the two ex-Fénix e Ilusiones men in the founding Colectivo Sustento group were interested in farming. I met with Huellas Verdes and a collaboration was proposed: that the men work one day a week free, in exchange for training in organic agriculture and permaculture. Their skills were immediately applied in the Huerta Sustento and our Verdivereda (footpath garden). The original six-­month collaboration extended for two years, immensely benefiting both our garden and Guido40 (one of the ex-Fénix e Ilusiones).

Return to the collective The two interlinked collectives, Fénix e Ilusiones and Colectivo Sustento, are a diverse bunch of people, drawn to this work for different reasons. Not all of us define ourselves as social activists; we have different levels of literacy and education. Our professions include teaching, social work, journalism, theatre, trade work and independent business. These skills add to our possibilities, but our diverse life experiences and political visions also engender clashes and complexities. Fénix e Ilusiones’ collective identity is strongly established after fifteen years of continuous action and reflection. The Colina 1 prison workshop room is a space of freedom – semi-­autonomous within the controlled institution – where Fénix e Ilusiones and the Sustento

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

109

theatre workers face each other twice a week in a constant creative process. Colectivo Sustento is still very much a work in progress, sometimes fragile, sometimes buoyant. It is much harder to install a space of freedom outside the prison: finding the time to meet on a regular basis, although essential, is not always easy. Communication can be tortuous: not everyone accesses email, few ex-­prisoners use computers, and phone connection is intermittent. Many internal contradictions have arisen in Colectivo Sustento because of political differences and post-­release complexities. Machismo dies hard in Chile, and homophobia too. For the feminists in the collective, these attitudes are unacceptable, and effective dialogue is an ongoing issue. At the end of 2013, we received Roberto (ex-Fénix e Ilusiones), and he began to work in the garden with Guido. They built a Verdivereda at the house of a Víveres Justos supporter. After three months, Roberto began acting strangely and soon after he robbed the house where they had built the Verdivereda. Guido discovered he was consuming pasta base (a cheap cocaine derivative), Roberto refused to communicate, and we were unprepared to help him; it was a dead end. The repercussions divided Colectivo Sustento; some thought we should stop working with ex-­prisoners while others, like myself, believed we should modify our objectives. We all agreed we did not have the experience to deal with drug use. In the end, three members left and Colectivo Sustento defined a more ethical relationship with ex-Fénix e Ilusiones: the men were invited to maintain ongoing dialogue with the collective, not to support their post-­release needs but rather to prolong our deep connection. Some make a continuous commitment to work in the collective. I have seen the benefits of returning to the collective: to resolve problems and conflicts; to create (theatre and strategies); to celebrate achievements; and to grieve our losses. Self and collective reflection is essential because it is hard to maintain what we do, in precariousness, and over time, without dialogue and solidarity. The collective recognizes that our sustainability is as much human as it is economic. What would be the point of having all the money we

110

Applied Theatre: Economies

need for our work, if human relationships have broken down, or if hierarchical or patriarchal structures have developed? Further to these internal considerations, cooperation with resistant others is also an imperative for Colectivo Sustento’s economy.

Entangled with others: Networks, collaborations, trueques and volunteers Colectivo Sustento is part of an inter-­connected, mostly informal, network of community initiatives seeking to instigate social change in Chile. These connections sometimes provide us with hard income, but also support other needs, like labour, training, visibility, knowledge-­ sharing and political impact. The establishment of the Huerta Sustento connected us with organic farmers, other community gardens and collective action such as: movement against the patenting of indigenous Chilean seeds, and the Santiago-­based Red de Huertos Comunitarios/Community Gardens Network.41 We have a modest seed bank, enriched through seed exchanges. We have discovered ethical small-­scale businesses whose products we sell through our Víveres Justos network. In 2015, Colectivo Sustento’s garden team decided to prioritize medicinal herbs due to space limitations but also to promote alternatives to Big Pharma logic; this is particularly relevant in Chile where there is a pharmacy on almost every corner. We participate in forums and actions denouncing the inhuman conditions in Chilean prisons: collaborating with 81 Razones/81 Reasons,42 families of prisoners who died in the San Miguel prison fire, and with human rights lawyers’ groups such as Leasur.43 Colectivo Sustento’s theatre team participates in the Chilean branch of the Latin American Cultura Viva Comunitaria/Community Culture44 movement that lobbies for the recognition of community-­based arts. In 2015, together with the ENTEPOLA Festival, we formed the Plataforma de Teatro Comunitario/Community Theatre Platform,45 a network of Santiago’s community theatre organizations. Theatre colleagues donate

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

111

performances inside the Colina 1 prison, always including post-­show skills exchange with Fénix e Ilusiones. The annual ENTEPOLA Festival would not happen without the team of fifty volunteers that coordinate all aspects of the festival. Colectivo Sustento is part of this autogestión, coordinating community workshops and the Populteatro Conference Programme (community theatre exchange and debate). ENTEPOLA provides a platform to install alternative narratives about theatre’s social role (Populteatro), as well as connecting us nationally and internationally. Fénix e Ilusiones has performed eight times on the festival’s mainstage amphitheatre in front of 2,500 people, presented simply as a Chilean theatre company to avoid the sensationalist branding of prison theatre. Another connective strategy used by Colectivo Sustento is the trueque/barter, an ancient system for using excess products which has re-­ appeared in the wake of world financial crises, expanding to include services. In 2015, the Women’s Bioconstruction Collective assisted Colectivo Sustento to build a natural water filter in our garden. As trueque, we established a vegetable garden on their land outside Santiago. The barter concept guides platforms such as WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) and Workaway, through which Colectivo Sustento receives volunteers who donate labour in the garden in exchange for food and accommodation. A logic that mixes barter, donation, training and knowledge-­sharing governs Colectivo Sustento’s local and international prison theatre collaborations. Because of continuity, we can offer free, on-­the-job training programmes for young community theatre workers from Chile and Latin America. International theatre students and workers, who have more access to funding, are asked for a donation in return for accommodation and the coordination of a work programme that includes: professional supervision, skill development and exchange, critical reflection and practical experience. These forms of collaboration or cooperation are opposed to the competitive ethics of the market, and are built on an ‘ethics of human solidarity’,46 designed to be of mutual benefit to all.

112

Applied Theatre: Economies

The alphabet of plans Working continuously in volatile and precarious contexts calls for constant creativity. Uncertainty kills creativity, therefore we must always have a plan, even if it is only temporary. Changing plans and thinking flexibly, as well as ethically, is a daily exercise. Colectivo Sustento and Fénix e Ilusiones’ work with young offenders provides an excellent example of this never-­ending creativity. The original idea arose in 2005; the Fénix e Ilusiones men wanted to say directly to young offenders ‘don’t come here (to adult prison)’, using theatre as a pretext. Over nine years, we made multiple attempts to interest the Chilean National Juvenile Service (SENAME) in this idea until, through a total coincidence, we met the institution’s enthusiastic cultural coordinator, Javier Aguirre. In 2014, the Modecate Tour (spearheaded by Fénix e Ilusiones’ show Modecate about social control and dehumanization), was jointly coordinated by SENAME, Colectivo Sustento and Gendarmería: seven weekly theatre and reflection days in three juvenile detention centres. We pulled off a logistical feat. The tour day’s format was designed by Colectivo Sustento and Fénix e Ilusiones and directed by the prisoner-­actors, aiming to build trust with the young audience through diverse interactions over five hours. We began with a shared breakfast, then the play performance, theatre games, sometimes a quick football game, an open dialogue and, finally, sharing lunch. The performance and the games broke down the rigid attitudes of prison culture, allowing for laughter, play and making mistakes, creating bonds between the men and boys that led to real dialogue in the forums. It was obvious that Fénix e Ilusiones’ voice of experience had a powerful impact on the young offenders. This has a brutal logic. In House 4 of SENAME’s San Bernardo centre, the young men asked Fénix e Ilusiones to return with a theatre workshop. We formally requested support from SENAME but the proposal languished in the institution’s National Office for months. Nevertheless, we had made a promise to the boys, and if we could not return with theatre then we

Autogestión, Conviction, Collectivity and Plans A to Z

113

would return with gardening. Plan B, a crowdfunding campaign, financed four months of gardening workshops in House 4 in 2015, run by Guido. The workshop also ran in another SENAME centre in Calera de Tango, on the rural outskirts of Santiago, and we developed an ongoing collaborative relationship with the centre’s Technical Director. Since 2016, this centre finances theatre and gardening workshops from their own programme funds, demonstrating through an excellent Plan C that collaboration can be defined without recourse to hierarchy. Plan D was an application with SENAME to a Regional Development Program, which funded five months of theatre workshops in House 3 of SENAME San Bernardo. After the gardening workshops, House 4’s atmosphere changed and House 3 was now the most conflictive; we agreed to take it on. I ran the workshop with Pablo, who had been in Fénix e Ilusiones for five years and joined Colectivo Sustento after his release. The work was complex because of the oppressive conditions of House 3; nevertheless we formed Hjios del Rigor/Sons of Severity, and the group devised a short play about family violence, bolstered by a pumping techno soundtrack. In 2016, when Fénix e Ilusiones went on a second theatre and reflection tour with their show Lysistrata (about normalized violence), Hijos del Rigor performed alongside their mentors in all four Houses of the San Bernardo centre. Despite resistance from some staff, security issues were overturned to allow boys from different Houses to interact for the first time ever. We observed how Hijos del Rigor (who were all over 18) took on a pedagogical role in the post-­show forums, especially in Houses with younger kids, supporting Fénix e Ilusiones’ pro-­social message. After five months, the funding ran out. Pablo and I decided to keep going. Plan E was an ethical decision, based on a commitment to continuity and supported by Pablo’s full-­time job with his brother and my teaching work. Close to Pablo’s release, his brother started to take an interest in our prison theatre work and agreed to give Pablo time off during work hours to go to SENAME. This became Plan F: a collaborative agreement with an employer, built on trust, that recognized the importance Pablo gave to his social activism with young offenders.

114

Applied Theatre: Economies

The dark experience we have lived was converted into something powerful and positive, which in turn made me realize the huge responsibility of what we are doing. I can’t let the boys [in SENAME] down, or lie to them.47

In October 2016, Pablo and I decided to end our collaboration with the San Bernardo centre. Institutional conditions had deteriorated and all boys in the centre over eighteen (including Hijos del Rigor) were transferred to a maximum-­security facility. Colectivo Sustento is highly critical of institutional discourse and practice even though we are contracted to or collaborate with these institutions. The work in House 3 was now untenable: some House staff had sabotaged the workshop and were openly suspicious of Pablo’s motives. Strong bonds were forged with the boys, but SENAME had not optimized our collaboration. We expressed these opinions to the centre directors in a final evaluation. In July 2016, we ran a theatre and reflection day in a YMCA-run young offender programme. Both Colectivo Sustento and Fénix e Ilusiones felt that our work had had more impact and autonomy in that setting: collaboration with these community programmes is our newest plan (as yet unfinanced). At the time of writing, Colectivo Sustento’s theatre team includes a newly released Fénix e Ilusiones. His energy and commitment is captivating and reinvigorates the need for a new battery of plans. The road to realizing our dreams is paved with resistance and resilience. The energy of conviction and collectivity has indeed bestowed us with an untouchable wealth which re-inspires our hope, and drives our search for human and economic sustainability.

6

Foundation Funding: The Pedagogies of Applied Theatre Projects in Two Toronto Theatres Lois Adamson and Anne Wessels

Advocating for the state of arts funding is not new in Canada, but there seems to be a renewed sense of urgency. We recognize a change in the way we value and talk about theatre, applied and otherwise. As noted by dramaturg and writer Fannina Waubert de Puiseau in her analysis of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s mandate letter to Federal Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, like those before him, Trudeau used economic language to articulate the value of the arts.1 This need for valuation may come from the fact that, in our current Canadian context, there is simply never enough funding for the arts. William Baumol noted fifty years ago that the arts are in permanent crisis when it comes to funding, particularly if the sector of arts and culture is not recognized as a ‘social commitment’2 or responsibility rather than conceived of and measured according to economics. This problem persists today. The two case studies presented in this chapter show a different way of talking about the arts. In them, we argue that, alongside a discourse of business, there is a pedagogical and artistic dialogue at work. It is well beyond the purview of this chapter to fully outline arts funding in Canada. Although we are looking at two examples of applied theatre projects (or, as they are more often called in Canada, community-­ engaged theatre or theatre in education) that are funded by private foundations, we believe that funding from what Jen Harvie calls ‘diversified lines of support’3 is essential and note the particular

116

Applied Theatre: Economies

importance of public funding. Funding for arts and culture in this country aligns with Harvie’s description of the current conditions in the UK, which she describes as ‘mixed economies of arts funding’ that include government grants and philanthropic donations from corporations, foundations and individuals.4 Our respective case studies discuss one of these diversified sources of arts funding: private foundations. In this chapter, we share the stories of two foundation-­supported applied theatre projects housed in established Toronto theatres: Young People’s Theatre (YPT) and Tarragon Theatre. The first case study draws primarily on an interview with a foundation executive and offers a nuanced picture of funding philosophy and priorities. The second case study draws on an interview with an emerging theatre artist as he outlines his applied theatre project proposal, while referring to the foundation-­as-funder more peripherally. In approaching the case studies from these different points of focus, we examine decision-­ making processes and the ways in which the relational, the artistic and the pedagogical are integral to the projects that receive funding. Our counter-­balanced perspective problematizes the notion of valuation and what Michael Balfour has coined ‘donor agendas’.5 However, in looking closely at the mission and mandate of the foundations, we found that relations between the theatres and these particular donors are productively aligned – and we are proud to share these examples.

Our positionality as researchers To begin our discussion, we want to position ourselves as employees of arts institutions that are well established but still dependent on funds from government art councils, foundations and corporate and individual donations. It is important to recognize that we write from our own positioning as paid insiders. We are also aware that there are funding tensions within our larger theatre community and that our voices are not representative. Methodologically, we are in some ways

Foundation Funding

117

constrained in how we approach these case studies, not only because we are examining the organizations that pay our salaries, but also because the sustainability of these organizations is something we care deeply about. As insiders, we are also privileged in what we are able to observe and, by virtue of our positions, we have learned about the minutiae of funding relationships grounded in first-­hand experience.

In context We wanted to write this piece for a number of reasons. Although education and outreach are positioned differently in YPT and Tarragon Theatre due to organizational mandates, priorities, resources and staffing, both share a commitment to using theatre innovatively within communities to work for equity and to creatively address issues of social justice. First, we were excited by the fact that there was research being conducted on the very work we do. We also held particular assumptions – and worries – about the funding relationships within the sector and our own organizations. In the context of the theatres in which we worked and in the broader theatre community we would consistently hear talk among colleagues about the need for ‘better’ funding, but did not have a clear picture of what better funding might be beyond the idea that it might mean more. While active participants in grant-­writing and at fundraising events, over the time that it has taken us to write and revise this chapter, we have deepened our understanding of the complexities of fundraising and the role donors play in relation to educational programming and applied theatre initiatives. We held a shared suspicion of the use of education for fundraising purposes and were equally concerned by the fact that, as Balfour notes, ‘it can and does lead to aesthetic engagement being eroded in the service of pragmatism’.6 Although we recognized that education programming within theatres requires funding, Lois, particularly in her first few years with the company, was at times irritated by the seemingly oversimplified data requested for fundraising proposals and reports – how many kids

118

Applied Theatre: Economies

participated? Were they in a high-­risk neighbourhood? Could this project be conceived as one that focused on mental health? We feared that when education and applied theatre are conceptualized as an arm of marketing, fundraising or audience development, its potential could be diminished. At the same time, however, each of us has also been gratified by the way in which the relational practices of the educational programming have worked to increase audience appreciation for the artistic work. In the context of Tarragon Theatre, for example, adult education programming has created a deep attachment between some audience members and the theatre with the unanticipated result that many of these participants have become donors, thus supporting the theatre’s work economically. These insider observations have offered to us insights into the complexities of the funding relationships in our respective arts institutions. What we witnessed has challenged some of our previously held and oversimplified assumptions. In writing this piece over time – over a year, now – our focus has narrowed and we have become increasingly curious about the interplay between money, art and education/applied theatre, in particular, in the context of a professional theatre.

Lois at Young People’s Theatre: In conversation with the pedagogical, the artistic and the economic In this first case study, I examine The George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation’s (Metcalf) approach to funding in relation to a specific project – the Member Schools Initiative – that was funded at YPT. I draw primarily from an interview with Sandy Houston, the President and CEO of Metcalf and reflect on my own experience with its funding. The analysis challenges a purely instrumental valuation of the arts in favour of a pedagogical and artistic assessment of what constitutes change – or success – in theatre and education projects and funding relationships.

Foundation Funding

119

Young People’s Theatre YPT, founded in 1966, ‘is the oldest professional theatre company in Toronto and is a national producer and presenter of theatre for young audiences – the first and largest of its kind in Canada’.7 It is an institution. YPT produces, presents and develops new work for young people. With two theatres, a smaller Studio theatre and a large, 460-seat Mainstage theatre, we are housed in downtown Toronto in an historic building, formerly the horse stables for the Toronto Transit Commission. Every year, YPT performs eight or nine productions for young people as young as three months. The artistic vision for YPT is grounded in a desire to positively affect the intellectual, emotional and social development of children and youth. In the past few years, the Education & Participation Department (E&P) in particular has grown in both scope and volume of work due to a multi-­million-dollar gift from the Slaight Family Foundation. Within E&P, there is a diversity of programming including artist residencies with schools and communities, inquiry-­based work by young people in collaboration with the theatre, a year-­round, interest-­ based drama school and research partnerships.

Metcalf Foundation Metcalf is a charitable foundation that strives ‘to enhance the effectiveness of people and organizations working together to help Canadians imagine and build a just, healthy, and creative society’.8 It was established in 1960. When George Cedric Metcalf died in 1998, he left his estate to the foundation and its allocation of resources changed, focusing specifically on the performing arts, the environment and poverty reduction. Its social aims are front and centre and integral to the funding it provides to individuals and organizations within the performing arts. Metcalf has supported YPT for over fifteen years through various grants including Performing Arts Internships for directing, dramaturgy, administration and education interns and

120

Applied Theatre: Economies

Strategic Initiative funding. The focus of this case study is the Member Schools Initiative, funded through Strategic Initiatives. YPT’s Member Schools aims to create a deeper relationship between participating schools and the theatre. The initial idea was to mirror a subscriber-­like model for audience engagement, but in a more holistic manner. YPT works with school leadership to create a three-­year partnership agreement specifically tailored to the aims and needs of that particular school, its staff and students. Each partnership is different but all include: increased attendance at the theatre; enrichment, including workshops, residencies and inquiry projects co-­created and carried out by students, teachers and YPT staff and artists; as well as research with and by the participating school’s students and staff. Member Schools are provided with a special rate for tickets and enrichment programming in order to support increased engagement. In the way that an artistic director is able to hold a longer conversation with subscriber audiences, the Member Schools Initiative allows teachers and students to engage in a sustained and evolving relationship with the theatre.

Valued relationships The careful process that was undertaken in setting up my phone call with Houston signalled to me the importance of this funding relationship. I first met with Nancy Webster, YPT’s Executive Director, who took the time to speak with me about this writing project. I told her it was about funding relationships in community-­engaged theatre or theatre in education projects. I expressed that I had an interest in looking at Metcalf because of its mission and my personal experience with one of the projects it funded at YPT, the Member Schools Initiative. I shared some of the questions I planned on asking – questions about the ways in which their management model might speak to an artistic process, how they fit into public policy as a private foundation and how they establish their focus and evaluative processes. I told her that I was open to exploring other projects and funders, if need be.

Foundation Funding

121

She agreed that Metcalf was the best fit, not only because of our secure relationship, which allows for open dialogue, but also because she knew they shared our interests in research and learning. In addition to being YPT’s Executive Director, Webster acts as an advisor regarding the Metcalf Creative Strategies Incubator 2014 Learning Network. She expressed her confidence in me having this conversation with Houston and made an introduction after mentioning the project to him directly. When Houston and I spoke, I hesitated to challenge or press him for more detail at first. This is not to say that he was not forthcoming or open during the interview – quite the opposite – but I was aware of the perhaps unusual situation that I had created within this funding system. It goes against a more conventional relationship where funders are the ones asking for the information or reasoning from theatres. I did not yet realize that this kind of dialogue was very familiar to Metcalf and was an important part of the way they work.

Business vocabulary: Investing in the arts I asked Houston a series of questions focused mainly on the Metcalf management model and funding approach. In talking with him, he emphasized the innovative and strategic approach of the foundation. Several times, I asked about artistic practices and whether Metcalf is at all informed by the art it funds. Houston countered this question, highlighting the fact that they follow a strategic process in which they try to encourage creativity. While the projects or organizations they fund might be creative and artistic, the foundation underpins this with ‘rigour and accountability’.9 He reminded me that these are ‘investments’, so while ‘innovative, they must be possible’.10 In this line of questioning, I initially sensed what I perceived was a need from him to align with business standards in order to demonstrate financial accountability. As a grant-­maker, Metcalf also uses language and perspectives seen within economy and business: accountability, rigour, investment, feasibility, strategy and evaluation.

122

Applied Theatre: Economies

Well aware of how the language of business has permeated education, I was wary of such discourse and the dangers as I had experienced them. Of course, we also use this language, even if at times reluctantly; both the arts and education employ business rhetoric that can lead to limitations in vision, processes, planning and reporting, particularly in times of austerity. As Balfour notes, it ‘sets up an agenda in which theatre practitioners come under pressure to comply with organisational priorities of targets and outcomes’.11 Measures of success are reduced. It becomes about the number of tickets or number of participants in relation to output of resources. While of course this is necessary, it can reinforce structures that emphasize product and efficiency – limited structures when we are talking about human engagement with an artistic practice over time. Not only does this limit the scope of applied theatre, but it ignores or even negates the theatre or aesthetic underpinning of the work. As Waubert de Puiseau suggests, this ‘economization’12 of arts and culture has become normalized in Canada; many Canadian artists and arts organizations use this rhetoric to argue for the value of creative and cultural experiences. No wonder this language is familiar. I began my career as a drama teacher and was acutely aware of the need for assessment and evaluation that demonstrated cause and effect, rather than a method of teaching and learning that problematized such a simplistic notion of change. Managing the Member Schools Initiative, particularly during the pilot stage, I felt the need to demonstrate the positive impact it was having not only on students but on our box office. Johanna Lawrie, in a piece about citizens of St. John’s, Newfoundland protesting cuts to public arts funding, expresses the implications of this discourse: ‘the emphasis on the arts as an economic contributor has, in some ways, shifted the social and cultural values of the arts to become additional or fringe benefits of public support’.13 Lawrie wonders if there is a way to make both arguments at once, whereas Waubert de Puiseau suggests that rather than follow suit, ‘we must change the conversation about arts and culture in Canada from the bottom up. We must begin to reconfigure the terms with, and the context within which,

Foundation Funding

123

arts and culture are currently defined’14 to re-­establish its democratic purpose. However, as Allen MacInnis, YPT’s Artistic Director, rightly pointed out as we discussed this chapter: While business language and practices have sometimes dominated the way art is promoted or valued of late, it isn’t true that capitalist values are new to professional art. They have been present in art production, dissemination, and innovation for many centuries. I refer to it as the economic flaw in art – its success is inextricably tied to economic imperatives . . . Somewhere along the line the art or the artist has to connect to money or it isn’t going anywhere.15

Furthermore, educational aims have in some ways infiltrated the aesthetic, causing it to be too often ‘relegated to the second division, a footnote to the value of purpose of the project’.16 MacInnis’s perspective reminded me that the Member Schools Initiative is an applied theatre project that engages with this very conundrum. He pushed me to continue to reconfigure these terms in the ensuing conversation and to consider the ways in which having the aesthetic, pedagogical and economic elements enmeshed might allow for more productive programming and dynamic dialogue. I’ve observed and experienced in my work at YPT and elsewhere that there is so much that is common to the artistic and the pedagogical: a desire for change, a focus on the collective, a curation of an experience with an arch of some kind, a need to connect with others, a desire to see and be seen, a willingness to work and learn together, not knowing exactly what the endpoint will be.

A new vocabulary: Risk-­taking, relationship-­building and innovation As my conversation with Houston continued, my initial misgivings gave way as I realized that the objective of the foundation was not to participate in what Balfour describes as a ‘donor-­based objective-­setting practice’,17 but is instead establishing a discourse that values aesthetics

124

Applied Theatre: Economies

and social agendas. It is setting up a place for dialogue. In speaking with Houston about this and asking questions about democratic processes and how much the foundation’s work is in response to public policy, he explained that ‘it is partly because Metcalf is a private foundation that they are afforded autonomy and the capacity for risk-­taking’.18 They can take their time and be comfortable with ambiguity, experimentation and newness. My analysis of this proclivity to risk-­taking is not simply due to the fact that Metcalf is a private foundation and, therefore, not accountable to the state. It is connected to its mission and funding philosophy. As described on its website, Metcalf ’s philosophical grounding is as follows: ‘Have the courage to tackle tough issues. Be supportive, not prescriptive. Embrace diverse perspectives. Be inquisitive, respectful, and rigorous. Share knowledge and learn collectively’.19 None of this language is reminiscent of business terminology that favours an outcomes-­based approach. In fact, to my mind, this funding philosophy is akin to community agreements I have seen posted throughout schools in Toronto wherein teachers and students co-­create a commitment to how they want to work together based on shared values. Metcalf ’s funding approach aligns with models of teaching and learning exemplified in this practice, in which the teacher is positioned not as the expert or arbiter of wisdom, but as a knowledge-­maker in collaboration and joint curiosity with students.20 It reminds me of conversations we have at the theatre all of the time about our artistic work and approach to programming. This vocabulary of shared decision-­making demonstrated by Metcalf is antidotal to the instrumentalized valuation of the aesthetic. This was a more complex conversation than I had originally thought – one that was using multiple discourses all at the same time.

Curating the unexpected and creating the conditions for enduring change As Houston and I continued our discussion, he spoke in more detail about this philosophy that seemed to align with artistic and pedagogical

Foundation Funding

125

principles. In asking him how they define success in what they fund, particularly because they are so open to experiment, Houston talked about the fact that they look for change over time: ‘If it’s a good grant, something has changed, but also because we fund over several years, these reverberations may take time to be seen. We look for enduring change’.21 In a discussion where artists reimagined a better funding situation for the arts, Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill argues for this kind of slowness to be applied more often with artists: ‘Give artists the means to . . . focus on their craft in a sustained, daily capacity . . . perhaps through greater focus on long-­term residencies and mentorships’.22 Yaël Filipovic points to the value of the long game in her piece on institutional community collaborations: ‘Short-­term funding structures can often restrict critical reflection on projects in fear that reporting on negative or less successful outcomes could harm the potential for future funding possibilities’.23 This slow pace directly challenges neoliberal discourses of efficiency and allows for a reframing of productivity. This was certainly what I experienced in reporting on the Member Schools Initiative that was supported by Metcalf. Each year, reporting included noting what we learned and what surprised us. Metcalf asked for narrative responses and a reflective analysis. It pushed me to think about change within the initiative instead of remaining married to the initial outcomes we had determined in the first year. A focus on change is familiar to both artistic and pedagogical contexts. At YPT, for example, we define learning as change: a change in how someone feels or in how someone sees the world, an active effort to effect change, and ongoing work toward gradual transformation. Neelands24 and Ackroyd25 caution us against claims of social transformation within applied theatre. Balfour suggests that a radical gesture would be to question the relationship between theatre and change, to break the assumption that this is an obvious partnership. Or maybe, he posits, ‘it is a matter of simply re-­considering the scale of the claims for change that are made’.26 Metcalf mirrors what we know about pedagogical and artistic practices and supports the success of theatre in education by allowing

126

Applied Theatre: Economies

for diverse and unknowable outcomes for all involved. The foundation implements an emergent process in which Houston says, ‘they set up creative conditions for change’ and ‘plan for surprises’.27 They expect the unexpected. Houston said that they fully anticipate surprises in what is learned or created by the individuals and organizations they fund. In fact, he said, one of the challenges is actually setting up recipients of funding to also welcome the unexpected and to know that it is part of the process. This rejection of a transformational narrative based on knowable outputs was reflected in my experience working on the Member Schools Initiative. The programming developed in unexpected ways and YPT was able not only to report on the unexpected learning, but to enter into dialogue with Metcalf on what that learning might mean and how it might be newly applied. For example, we had anticipated that a much higher number of schools would participate in the program, but as we undertook its delivery, we recognized the need to limit the number of schools in order to sustain deep engagement. We were not ready for the increased participation of all of the schools we engaged as partners and found ourselves in the position of having to provide more tickets at a reduced rate than we were initially prepared to give. While this has meant many fewer schools have participated than originally proposed, it has allowed for deeper, richer relationships. This has also pushed us as an organization to regularly evaluate our strategies for access and consider the impact of sustained partnerships from moment to moment and over time.

Anne at Tarragon Theatre: In conversation with donor agendas and the institutional benefits from applied theatre work in the context of professional theatre This year, Philip McKee holds the Urjo Kareda Residency Grant for an Emerging Theatre Artist. McKee’s proposal for his residency focuses on an engagement with the mental health community and is comprised of three stages: research, outreach and creation. The group of participants

Foundation Funding

127

would see plays together, discuss them and possibly extend them through drama and theatre. The project might end in a performance but this would have to be negotiated with the participants and is not a certain outcome. In this case study, I discuss McKee’s project proposal, the foundation that funds the residency and collaborative decision-­ making processes as an aspect of funding. In addition to discussing the potential benefits to the theatre in hosting the applied theatre project, I also analyse the implications associated with the absence of the language of change in this proposed applied theatre project and the cautious foresight to not assume benefits or predetermined outcomes for the participants.

Tarragon Theatre and the Urjo Kareda Residency Grant for an Emerging Theatre Artist Tarragon Theatre has produced new Canadian plays for the last forty-­ six years. This well-­established but small theatre is housed in an old warehouse/factory with two theatres in which nine plays are presented over the course of a season. The theatre is playwright-­focused and has been integral to both the growth of playwriting in Canada and the development of Canadian theatre. Tarragon supports playwrights at all levels of their development through two playwright units, one for youth and one for professionals, and the Playwrights-­in-Residence program. Every season, Playreading Week offers the public staged readings of the works in development. Currently, there are six young playwrights and six professional playwrights participating in the Playwrights Unit and thirteen Playwrights-­in-Residence. This theatre has benefitted from administrative stability with a total of four general managers over its history. As well, there have been three artistic directors, one of whom died while he was still in that position; Urjo Kareda ran Tarragon from 1982 to 2001. Every year a grant is given out in Kareda’s name to ‘support the training and artistic residency of an exceptional emerging theatre artist’.28 The private Youssef-Warren Foundation offers ongoing support for the annual residency that

128

Applied Theatre: Economies

includes a C$15,000 grant with an extra C$2,000 for travel (if necessary). This grant is intended to fund a twenty-­week residency in which the artist can pursue ‘their own training and artistic goals by working in collaboration with professional artists in their chosen field(s) of interest’.29 Open to an artist in the fields of design, production, dramaturgy, playwriting, directing and artistic direction, the application materials posted on the Tarragon Theatre website invite a broad range of theatre artists to apply: ‘we encourage applications from artists of diverse cultures and artists working in non-­traditional forms of theatre’.30 Applications are accepted in the autumn and the process consists of a written proposal and a meeting, followed by the full submission of an application.

Youssef-Warren Foundation The Youssef-Warren Foundation was established in 1997 to support three areas of work: wildlife conservation, emerging artists and continuing care for the elderly. The foundation website identifies some of the particular challenges associated with arts funding in this country: Canada faces a particular challenge in supporting its artist community because of its proximity to the U. S. with its sizable artist community and available support to the arts. We have focused on supporting theatre companies that have continuing programs to encourage young artists to develop their creative work in all aspects of live theatre. This has encompassed both large and small organizations.31

The foundation focuses support for theatre artists who work within existing arts organizations in a mutually beneficial relationship. Opera companies, theatres both established and emerging, and a ceramic museum have received funding from this foundation in the past. It is also worth noting that the other theatre that receives funding is Vancouver’s Neworld Theatre which integrates community engagement into all aspects of its work.

Foundation Funding

129

Collaborative decision making as part of the funding process This case study draws from interviews with McKee, and the theatre’s former Associate Artistic Director, Andrea Donaldson, who was part of the team that chose this resident from a pool of applicants. I was curious to learn whether or not McKee’s project was signalling a growing trend towards community-­engaged artists working in established theatres or if he had been chosen because of his artistic merit exclusively. I wanted to know if there was a changing conceptualization of ‘artist’ that explicitly included the social dimension of community engagement. In terms of the history of this residency at Tarragon, he was the first who had suggested a socially engaged project. It is worth noting that this proposal offered a project with a social intention, although this was not listed as a specific criterion for the residency as defined by the theatre. The foundation, however, had previously funded socially engaged theatre. To try to answer my questions, I asked Andrea Donaldson in a telephone interview32 if it was the artist or the project that was more important to the decision making. Was it that McKee was chosen as an artist of interest to the theatre and what he proposed was less important than his artistic track record? Donaldson explained that the combination of an innovative project submitted by an emerging artist who produces work of the highest calibre swayed the adjudicators. Describing the decision making process, she said that the team had to also weigh how the artistic resources of the theatre would best support the proposed project and the artist. For example, the theatre would provide McKee with access to studio space and the expertise of seasoned theatre artists including the resident literary manager/dramaturg. As collaborative decision makers, the foundation and the theatre’s artistic staff consulted each other. The foundation read the proposals from the ten finalists and functioned as a full participant in arriving at the final decision. This was not a case in which the funding body rubber stamped the pre-­made decision of the theatre. This example shows collaborative

130

Applied Theatre: Economies

decision making in which the funder has entered into full discussion with the theatre about how to proceed and the choice of resident.

Working with political content: ‘The thing itself ’ and metaphor My interview with McKee took place in the Tarragon lobby in the reeling days following the American election. I learned that he had applied three times for this residency grant. The first time he proposed developing a musical play about privilege and social justice called The Pryce Academy. Although he was not chosen as the Urjo Kareda Resident that year, he was asked to join the Playwright’s Unit at Tarragon to develop this work further. His second proposal was a collaboration with theatre creator, Haley McGee, about contemporary romance and dating. Central to his third and latest proposal was McKee’s interest in mental health and his previous work with the mental health community through theatre. Having a strong personal curiosity about mental health, he explained that he had considered becoming a therapist and had completed courses at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He described his previous experience using theatre in a day programme in the mental health community. His proposed project at Tarragon, then, combines two of his central interests: theatre and mental health. As I tried to gauge the roots of his interest in the intersection of theatre and applied theatre, I noted that during the course of our conversation he referred to the work of Augusto Boal and a formative experience with a fellow student at the National Theatre School of Canada. His classmate from Tehran described how even gathering to create theatre was subversive and how metaphor in that context was a political necessity. Although McKee’s formal training did not stress the need for socially engaged theatre, it was from his peer that he learned about the constraints and importance of theatre practiced with political purpose. McKee does not think that politics and theatre are ‘strange

Foundation Funding

131

bedfellows’ but he does question the approach to politics when it is too directly expressed.33 He suggests that such directness may limit the ways in which issues can be addressed by trying to do what he calls ‘the thing itself ’. McKee explains, ‘And I mean that’s an interesting thing about the explicit social projects that can use the tools of the theatre to provide an experience for participants as opposed to for an audience’.34 This comment is of interest for two reasons. He considers the place of metaphor in addressing politics. His approach is to use metaphor to comment on the real world through such work as his satirical musical theatre. Secondly, he is teasing out who this project is for. Without a commitment to a culminating performed piece with his participants, this proposed project is working with a group of people who may or may not perform for an audience. The project has intended benefits for the participants, but without any kind of expectation of change or closely defined social outcomes. McKee brings a sophisticated awareness to his proposal, recognizing that even the best-­intentioned social projects can be self-­serving. At their worst, they can exclude and even harm the people they are trying to help or those ‘who they believe “need” help’.35 He is aware that the kind of project he proposes presents complicated social and power relations that could have unanticipated negative outcomes stemming from problematic or unexamined intentions. In terms of intention, he made no mention of this being a kind of therapeutic project, but held the outcomes open and responsive to the participants. Placing his work in the context of contemporary arts funding, McKee explains that artists do not work ‘in a vacuum’ and they have to be aware of current funding priorities36. He states, ‘for a lot of us, you’re kind of trying to get support for your work and so your work can bend to the way that support is given’.37 McKee addresses two aspects of current funding relationships. Firstly, he claims that his artistic practice was influenced by funding priorities. Secondly, he sees the benefits of his proposed project to the theatre’s future funding efforts. He recognizes that arts institutions have to be accountable in their own funding applications, where they must answer the question ‘what is your arts

132

Applied Theatre: Economies

organization doing that’s valuable?’38 In other words, the theatre, in its own requests for funding, will have to consider how they, as an institution, promote equity and offer more than a good play. Strategically, McKee considers not only his capacity as a socially engaged theatre artist to attain funding but also how this project helps to position the theatre as site of social engagement that will strengthen their future funding/grant applications. Balfour writes about the importance of uncoupling the ‘donor agenda’ from applied theatre work.39 He stresses the importance of the aesthetic in this non-­linear and what he calls ‘messy’ work.40 In intentionally refusing such discourses as ‘transformation’ and instead focusing on change on the smallest of scales, Balfour states that aesthetic work may realize some of the potential to explore complexity rather than serve predetermined outcomes. As I read Balfour’s salient arguments, I cannot help but wonder if theatres may prove fruitful sites of applied theatre work given that the practitioners and artists have highly developed aesthetic tools. So, where does this project fall in relation to the discourses of change that Balfour discusses? In the case of McKee’s proposed project – there is a focus on the social context of the work but there is no expectation that the participating communities will be transformed. This piece of applied theatre is intended to bring people into dialogue through theatre-­going, the experience of watching theatre together. Referring to Balfour’s idea of a theatre of ‘little changes’ what is envisioned here is a change in the practices of theatre-­going – making theatre more accessible.41 This is an important distinction: it is not the participants who are expected to change, but the theatre itself. What then changes is who is in the seats. Shannon Jackson, in her book Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics, advocates for art forms that do more than create social disruption and she stresses the need for works that ‘help us imagine sustainable institutions’.42 We suggest, then, that the intentions of this proposed work are highly pedagogical and that the learning offered by this project will affect McKee as an innovative theatre artist, his group of participants and the hosting theatre: Tarragon.

Foundation Funding

133

Both McKee and the foundation hold the creative and the social together, rather than as separate outcomes. I will watch with interest as this project unfolds to see if it can navigate away from some of the anaemic instrumental work that Balfour describes, to see what may happen as an emerging theatre artist takes on the social, fully aware of the pitfalls of becoming what Balfour (drawing on McDonnell) would describe as a ‘secular missionary’.43 We will continue to ask how socially engaged work done in theatres can revitalize and make more complex what happens between groups of people as they use theatre and drama in sophisticated ways to explore aesthetically the conditions of their lives. Projects conceived and funded, such as this one, acknowledge that the social and the aesthetic are interdependent and inseparable. As such, they represent the kind of contemporary work that Shannon Jackson describes as blurring the boundaries between art and social engagement: ‘I try to explore the social aspirations of socially engaged projects less as the extra-­aesthetic milieu that legitimates or compromises the aesthetic act and more as the unraveling of the frame that would cast “the social” as “extra” .’44

Conclusion We originally thought we would discover a clear divide between the imperatives of these two private foundations and the theatres in which we work. Instead, we found a more complex and productive interplay of different systems and aims, and a great deal of care and collaboration between the people engaged in funding and those working in applied theatre. We suggest that the foundations’ discourses seem wedded to two partners. Metcalf espouses notions of rigour and accountability, while at the same time embracing notions of slow and sustained change. The Youssef-Warren Foundation looks to support socially engaged theatre of high artistic merit. The donor agendas we encountered are not tightly outcome-­focused but instead stress collaboration, learning and the relational. In fact, to have this kind of language spoken by

134

Applied Theatre: Economies

funders helps us to imagine relationships between artists, arts organizations and funders that provide opportunities for change – loosely defined as slow, messy and surprising that, at best, leads to learning for all. Although we cannot say definitively that theatre artists are generally becoming more socially focused in their projects, McKee’s Tarragon project and the Member Schools Initiative at YPT both locate established theatres as sites in which applied theatre is practiced with developed aesthetic skill. These projects are funded by foundations that have high expectations while at the same time, they structure their funding to allow for work to develop slowly over a sustained timeframe, in the way that artists, like Tannahill, call for. In exploring these funding relationships, what is at play is a complicated landscape in which different value systems do not simply coexist, but do so productively.

7

Waiting on a Miracle: The Precarious State of the Everyday in Applied Theatre Peter O’Connor and Briar O’Connor

Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd (ATCo) was established in 1999, with a focus on using theatre as a tool for learning, primarily within public health education campaigns. Its tagline is ‘Creating awareness and participation on issues of social change and justice, through drama education’, and the company is recognized nationally and internationally for its ground-­breaking and innovative work. The attempted irony in the company’s name, where, rather than describing ourselves as theatre artists we deliberately positioned ourselves as consultants, was to draw attention to what we perceived as the outlandish profits made by highly paid private consultants. Consultants have grown in number following the dismantling of much of the state after the neoliberal revolution in New Zealand which began in the 1980s, making vast sums of money and, to our minds, achieving little. The ‘consultants’ tag also acknowledges that we have, as Jenny Hughes suggests about applied theatre, ‘nestled inside some of the most alienating and damaging of capitalist institutions’.1 Nestling inside these institutions, and funded by determinedly market-­driven social policies, we make no apology in regard to operating as a capitalist venture. We created the business in 1999, eschewing the option of a charitable trust. In the age of nimble and agile companies competing for corporate and government contracts, we saw a tension (but no inherent contradiction) in being social entrepreneurs. The limited liability company has focused on the bottom line of generating enough income to create ground-­breaking theatre work in areas of social justice. Like many of the consultancies established at this time, we have benefited

136

Applied Theatre: Economies

and suffered under the hands of successive neoliberal governments defining the nature of our survival. This chapter focuses on the precarious nature of our funding, and the consequences this has for the way the company is managed. Contractual processes and how they impact on staffing, our relationships with schools, and the aesthetics of our core programme are discussed within a wider reading of the neoliberal impacts on government funding of applied theatre projects. We tease out the ethical considerations we face as a company, forced through its precarity to make decisions that impact on the lives of the people who work for and with us. Everyday Theatre is an interactive programme that runs in Year 7 and 8 classes (eleven- to thirteen-­year-olds), creating a safe forum for young people to talk about family relationships through a facilitated applied theatre workshop. The programme has received central government funding since its inception. It was developed in conjunction with the government department, then called the Department of Child, Youth and Family (CYF), to directly address an identified deficiency: that while adults get to talk at length about family violence, child abuse and neglect, children do not. These discussions were taking place ‘about’ children in both senses of the word. Negotiations on the aesthetics, ethics and agreed outcomes of Everyday Theatre took more than nine months after initial meetings were held in 2003. In 2009, Peter O’Connor wrote Unnoticed Miracles, detailing the relationship between the company and CYF, especially the nature of those negotiations. He described the relationship between ATCo and CYF as a tangled web2 and suggested the initial funding relationship with the original funding manager was naïve. He presented how the shared belief underpinning the relationship was that both parties saw it as a genuine partnership: funder and theatre company both aiming to make a significant difference in the lives of young people. What Peter described as an unnoticed miracle was the openness and trust in that relationship, to work with open-­ended outcomes. Mutual trust, mutual support and a shared understanding of the power and limitations of applied theatre set the opportunity to establish a

Waiting on a Miracle

137

programme which has, since 2004, received continuous government funding and worked with over 60,000 children.

The contract environment Following New Zealand’s neoliberal revolution of 1984, private providers (which include consultants) fed on the devolution of services previously provided by government departments. Education, health, water, electricity, railways and prisons were deregulated, fully or partially privatized and opened to the market. Despite these market reforms, Hanley argued that the contracting system established by government enacted a ‘dogmatic prescriptive system encouraging micromanagement’.3 Typical of these contracts, Cribb4 argues, are hard accountability systems, exacting performance management and tightly defined outputs, with regular reporting. In hindsight, the miracle of an open-­ended contract based on mutual trust as described by O’Connor in 2009 was truly that. The following eight years have seen increased micro-­management of the Everyday Theatre programme on some levels, demanding accountability through distanced report filling. This has been exacerbated by a precariousness of funding, causing the power balance of the relationship to tilt entirely in favour of the funding body. This is aligned to the deliberate policy of successive governments who have attacked worker rights through collapsing collective bargaining, and celebrating a process where much government work is contracted out, casualized and fragmented. Since the programme was first designed in conjunction with CYF, each contract for delivery has been for one year, except for two blocks of time where the contract was extended for two years. In 2016 and 2017, contracts have been again offered for only one year each time. Ironically, while this may be represented as financial prudence on the part of the government, the uncertainty of a one-­year contract diverts time and resources away from focusing on the ongoing delivery of our core work, with ramifications for business expansion, programme

138

Applied Theatre: Economies

development, staff training, remuneration and retention. These all have long-­term impacts on the aesthetics of the programme, severely limiting risk taking, experimentation and other attributes necessary for creative development of the programme. Repeated shifts in management personnel within the government department (currently the Ministry of Social Development – MSD) requires both time and energy each time these change, to ensure the new funding manager understands the programme, its strengths and limitations. And the precarious environment created by frequent contracting cycles is amplified by a sense that core decisions about the programme are often made by people who, unless they have personally experienced the programme, have little vested interest in its continuance. The time taken to build and maintain relationships with the new funding representatives becomes a distinct strand of work within the company. The next section of this chapter details the multiple ways in which the precarity of the relationship and funding has impacted on the programme itself, our relationship with staff and schools, and the development and direction of the business.

Timing of contracting, delivery and the impact on schools One key issue that amplifies the fragility of this funding relationship is the disconnect between the funder’s financial year and our own company cycle – and how these each fit within the school year. Government contracts in New Zealand connect to the national budget set annually in May, and, if granted, are then in place for operation from 1 July. In the early years of Everyday Theatre, we were given either verbal or written assurance by December of its continuance, which meant we could plan staffing beyond the contract into the funder’s next financial year. This also meant we could begin the laborious process of booking schools and other providers into the

Waiting on a Miracle

139

programme. One exception was in 2009 when, following a change of government, the programme looked like it was to be axed. The Cabinet Minister responsible for the funding department personally rang on Budget night to say, despite the massive cuts announced that evening to the MSD budget, Everyday Theatre would continue.5 We believe this decision to save the programme was not due to the lengthy detailed numeric reports we had produced, but purely on her personal experience of the programme. Her enthusiasm and commitment was based on her experience of having seen the programme in operation and had, in her own words, seen ‘the kids get this – this makes sense to them’.6 However, her well-­intentioned promise that support at cabinet level meant that contracting would be easier sadly never materialized. Nine years later, constant government reshuffles of the delivery of services to children has meant the security of funding has again diminished, and the date for renewal of the contract is pushed further and further into the year. In 2016, ATCo did not find out until May that funding was continuing after 30 June, and at time of completing this writing (early June 2017) we remain unsure of the next funding year – from 1 July. Unfortunately, this uncertainty also coincides with the time of year when we should have the majority of upcoming deliveries booked. We have always been reticent to book into schools until we are certain of funding. Of the four ten-­week terms in the New Zealand school year, the best time to deliver a half-­day programme into schools is Term 3, which begins in mid-July. This is the least disrupted term of the school year: there is little external testing and, being winter, fewer full-­school sporting or off-­campus activities. We know from many years’ experience that schools prefer at least one full term’s notice to book external programmes, and in many cases these decisions are made in October for the whole of the following school year (January to December). Committing schools into the programme without guaranteed funding is not acting in good faith with schools: these relationships also take time to build, and we are aware that short-­notice cancellations may impact upon many external provider–school relationships.

140

Applied Theatre: Economies

In 2016, with concerted effort, bookings were made for Term 3 in the four weeks available before Term 2 ended, but with such short notice the term was not booked to capacity. Term 4 (beginning early October) had much better uptake as they had at least one term’s notice, but bookings in this term are limited as they can only be made within a much shorter period. Past experience has taught us not to go into schools from late November onwards. The timeframes for confirming these contracts are nationally driven, and our small company is unable to take the financial risk to continue business as normal without notification of rollover. Throughout the life of the programme, we have argued with many contract managers that delaying the contract until so late in the year jeopardizes our ability to deliver the project at all. We are also aware that perseverance on this point might just become the argument to sever funding. If we want to continue doing the work we must live with the uncertainty, the delay and the stress that it puts across the company, although perhaps the biggest impact of this is the precariousness our staff have around ongoing employment.

The precarious world of applied theatre workers In the past year ATCo has employed seven staff, each with a minimum of a Master’s degree in a relevant area. They have all been highly skilled, experienced and committed applied theatre practitioners who have been generous in their loyalty to the company in continuing to work on the programme through growing uncertainty. All staff are on short-­ term or casual contracts. The disconnect between school and funding cycles means that staff contracts end when the funding ends, which is in the middle of the school year and in the lead up to our busiest period. To employ staff beyond the end of the funding contract risks being very costly to us should the funding not come through. At the very least, we renegotiate immediately after funding is assured. But we also know that if we do not contract them at a time when they have other work offers,

Waiting on a Miracle

141

staff may well have to take that work as they have known from the outset that once the fixed-­term contract is completed there is no guarantee of ongoing work. Last-moment contract negotiations are stressful for all concerned: several times staff have put off applying for other opportunities which, should funding not be continued, would be suitable replacement employment. Late notice also makes it difficult for the company to seek other funding streams. If other funds are not sourced, staff will have to go. If other streams do come in, staff may have already committed to other work and new staff will need to be recruited and trained with very little notice. Retaining highly qualified, highly skilled and already-­trained staff is of utmost concern to us throughout the year, but even more so as we await funding confirmation. Although we are committed to working in socially just ways with our employees, the deregulated economies heralded by the neoliberal revolution in the 1980s means our staff have few legislated protections. We can offer casualized and non-­permanent contracts, that last in some cases for many years, on the basis that the now annualized government-­ funded contract does not allow us to do anything differently. Delicate negotiations ensue, requiring compromise on both sides. Other work that does not conflict with ours is taken by staff to give them enough of an income to survive. This can then create issues if we want to take on further projects, or offer our programme more widely than originally planned. The timing of the funding year means that the middle of the contract period is over summer – and the long school vacation. What then happens to the staff who have no daily delivery from the end of November until well into February? If they are on a day-­by-day casual contract, this is less of a problem to the company, especially if they are self-­employed and have other streams of income. One alternative is to agree that there are no payments over the summer. In some cases we have continued to pay staff over this time, as it has been pragmatic to keep them on the books, rather than to have to recruit and retrain four months later – and of course, it is preferable to hold on

142

Applied Theatre: Economies

to reliable, already-­trained staff. And who wants to run a company committed to social justice but not pay its staff over the year-­end holiday period? Long-­term staff commitments are optimal, but we cannot reciprocate with a long-­term employment commitment. The casual nature of our contracts goes against our personal ideals and philosophies. Potential is left untapped. We want to, and often do, provide professional development for staff – but it is impossible to make this a planned and stepped programme that can be truly meaningful for employees who are employed only on a casual or fixed-­term basis. There are significant costs for a small company in recruitment and training. If we could know further in advance whether funding would continue, and if funding was offered for longer periods, we could work out annual wages for current staff. As it is, to attract quality staff to whom we can only offer insecure short-­term contracts, we must pay them more for each delivery they are available. To put it another way, if we could offer more job security then we could retain the best staff, provide a regular income with more benefits, and give them more opportunities and support to develop and deliver more programmes, as well as gain greater professional development. Instead, we are obliged to pay more and have staff work only on the outputs associated with each contract.

Business development The nature of fixed-­term contracts has had large implications on attempts to expand the company. We could expand and offer Everyday Theatre elsewhere if the same staff were employed, but it is hard to expand at low cost when staff need to be sourced and trained. Attempts to gain secondary funding for Everyday Theatre separately to our government contract are costed out with an expectation that staff will be available and already trained. If a second project does not come through before core contract continuation is confirmed, then there is

Waiting on a Miracle

143

the possibility of losing out financially should recruitment and training have to be conducted for staff to work on a much smaller – and lower budget – programme. This, in turn, creates company and individual uncertainty, making it difficult to expand the company as it has to be done within the length of existing staff ’ contracts, and alongside the government funding year. Figure 7.1 illustrates the funding/staffing dilemma faced each year.

Figure 7.1  Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd’s annual funding/staffing dilemma

144

Applied Theatre: Economies

Programme development There are gaps in our schedule when we cannot deliver the programme in schools. This time should be spent on creating new programmes and opportunities for the company. With limited and uncertain funding, however, this can be risky as spending time, energy and resources on the work then leads to frustration and disillusionment if the work cannot be delivered. This work has an opportunity cost too, as it takes focus and resources away from the core programme which has a better chance of receiving funding. The core business of the company, delivering high-­quality applied theatre projects, can so easily become endless rounds of grant applications and contract bids, undertaken without the surety of staff, nor the freedom of surplus cash to spend on raising more. Expansion is difficult without having ongoing funding commitments. Staff on fixed-­term or casual contracts are employed for one programme. Engaging them to work on another entails further HR negotiations and contracting changes which, in turn, impacts upon their own other work commitments, should they have any. And commitments cannot be made until the funding is confirmed, which often takes up to a year from the date of application, and so the cycle begins yet again. Without secure, longer-­term funding the company is largely paralysed. We cannot grow or develop new programmes unless we know at the outset we are funded completely – including all recruitment and training costs – by the new programme, or with funding surety from the core programme. Furthermore, a new programme can only occur concurrently with the primary programme delivery. The programme risks becoming stuck in aesthetic form due to the expense of redevelopment, and if there is no further funding known or imminent, all spare funds are held back to enable core staff to be able to seek other opportunities and pay for necessities like insurance, compliance obligations and business development. In other words, there may be a profit at the end of delivery outputs but it is rarely distributed.

Waiting on a Miracle

145

The flexible economy does not promote flexibility or growth, but fear and stasis, even as all those involved work harder to stay in the same spot. In 2016, staff had finished their contracts before we knew about funding for the 2017 funding year. They were perfectly placed to develop and continue delivering the programme but we had to let them go. Because of the precariousness of the work they chose not to re-­apply for positions when they became available three months later meaning recruitment and training had to begin again.

The precarious state of the everyday The term precariat was originally used in 1980s France to describe temporary and seasonal workers. It now describes an ever-­growing feature of Western economies where casualized, deregulated, de-­ unionized workers are left without any of the protections and benefits won by organized labour over the past 100 years: Those in the precariat have no secure occupational identity; no occupational narrative they can give to their lives. And they find they have to do a lot of work-­for-labor [sic] relative to labor, such as work preparation that does not count as work and that is not remunerated; they have to retrain constantly, network, apply for new jobs, and fill out forms of one sort or another . . . This is also the first working class in history that, as a norm, is expected to have a level of education that is greater than the labor they are expected to perform or expect to obtain.7

The ongoing assault on working conditions in New Zealand since 1984 sees over 30 per cent of the workforce – over 630,000 New Zealanders – attempting to live off insecure work.8 This is most often found in casual, zero-­hours, seasonal, contracting (including labour hire) and fixed-­term types of work, but it also affects many other kinds of work. Insecure work includes uncertainty over how long the job lasts, fluctuating hours, low and/or variable pay, limited access to benefits

146

Applied Theatre: Economies

such as sick leave and domestic leave, limited opportunities to gain skills, and a lack of rights and union representation. The precarious nature of work is sold by the neoliberals as something completely different. For them, it is about celebrating the entrepreneurial, flexible worker who is prepared to take risks, and to sell themselves on the market to the highest bidder. At the British Labour Party conference of 2005, Tony Blair claimed, ‘The character of this changing world is indifferent to tradition. Unforgiving of frailty. No respecter of past reputations. It has no custom and practice. It is replete with opportunities, but they only go to those swift to adapt, slow to complain, open, willing and able to change’.9 In the language distortion of New Labour, deregulation and de-­unionizing becomes a charge to demonstrate a willingness to adapt, and a willingness to reveal a character of and for the new order of globalized capital. In the New Zealand context, this has played out in multiple ways by successive governments who have unashamedly embraced the doctrine of market-­driven economies; regularly blaming the poor for their poverty and celebrating the spirit of individualism and entrepreneurship. It is within this environment that applied theatre committed to social justice attempts to gain a foothold. Jenny Hughes suggests: perhaps social theatre-­makers, making nests in such structures, can also provide access to and protective cover inside a social world under siege, as well as fabricate lines of flight from the social factory. At its most potent, perhaps this nestling also provides artist-­inhabitants with opportunities to work in solidarity with other socially sentient workers to transform cosy habitation into quiet and noisy forms of occupation.10

The reality for us is that there is no cosy nesting, no lines of flight from the social factory. Highly skilled and proficient applied theatre workers are too busy attempting to survive, make their art, and make the difference in the world that first drew them to this work. The precarious, shaky state of the company has had a knock-­on effect on our lives and wellbeing as directors of the company. Precarity is not simply an economic situation. It is realized in deeply human ways,

Waiting on a Miracle

147

and ATCo’s precarious existence impacts strongly on us as owners and managers of the company. The funding uncertainty leads to lowered satisfaction in, commitment to, and enthusiasm for the work. It creates a yearning for safety. The facility to pay mortgages and other bills in the future cannot be taken for granted. We bear the burden of knowing that the facility of our staff to pay their mortgages and bills beyond the next few months cannot be taken for granted either. For Peter, the precarious nature of running an applied theatre company became too much to sustain. He successfully gained full-­time work within the university sector in 2011. Briar retrained as a teacher and took three years out of the company so as to ensure regular income. But other members of our Everyday Theatre team have not had the same opportunities, and they continue to live lives where, although highly educated with significant skill sets, they precariously balance these ideals with the everyday needs of their families.

Relationship with funders In addition to managing funding, ATCo manages the relationship with the funders, particularly the government funding managers, who often change every year or two. We have reported to about seven funding managers over the years, and as each one has gone we have needed to meet their replacement, hear their views, begin a dialogue, and convince them that the programme is worthwhile, without overselling it. This creates huge stress. Our small budget line could be easily discarded and the current funding manager told us in September 2016 how she had had to argue for the continuing funding of the Everyday Theatre in this financial year. It could so easily have gone the other way had the manager not seen the programme in action in classrooms, as seeing it enables more convincing arguments to advocate for the programme’s continuation. We were lucky our current manager has a personal commitment to the project and this counts in the fine lines of budget trimming that permanent austerity demands.

148

Applied Theatre: Economies

Yet, often funding managers have not seen the programme at the time contract renewal is up for discussion. In these cases, considerable time is spent advocating, meeting, and presenting to demonstrate the programme is worthwhile – all of which could be more easily done by simply observing the programme. With annual funding decisions, and many other parties seeking funding, managers are put under inordinate pressure to understand, quantify and judge which programmes will get funding and which will not. To be fair, providers are increasingly expected to audit their own work; information is then used to determine the worth – and future revenue – of each company. Government-­led funding restructures also impact on the programme which was originally commissioned by the Department for Child, Youth and Family (CYF). The programme was then asked to request funding from the Ministry for Social Development (MSD), and then from the Community Investment fund of MSD. We are the only educational programme currently being funded by this department. From April 2017, the new Minister for Vulnerable Children (Oranga Tamariki) has taken over management of our programme, and although our funding manager appears to have been retained, her line of management has changed. The change of department to whom we report creates further impact as we must familiarize ourselves with different people, cultures, protocols, paperwork, expectations and policy priorities.

Secondary funders We could expand by seeking other sources of funding – and we do. This year, our government contract obliges us to provide a minimum number of classes in Auckland, Christchurch and Gisborne but we can fill our books elsewhere. Secondary contracts from local government agencies or philanthropic organizations can be entered into with lower cost structures if delivery dates can fit around the primary government contract and we have trained staff available. We have been able to maximize opportunities for staff to earn more money whilst offering

Waiting on a Miracle

149

more of the Everyday Theatre programme at a lower cost. We think of this as a win–­win situation. It takes considerable time and energy to cultivate relationships with secondary funders as the same issues we face with government funding apply to all sources. In the past, we have paid for a fundraising role in the organization to grow this side of the business, but this failed to bring in sufficient funding to cover themselves, never mind a revenue stream that offered a chance to substantially develop the programme, reach many more children and provide greater security for other staff.

Everyday ethics The funding process is highly competitive. We compete for the same funding pools that provide frontline services to children in care, for counselling and for suicide prevention services. Each year the government, on permanent austerity footing, calls for demonstrable effectiveness and a wider reach with a smaller budget. We justify our competitiveness by arguing that investment in educating children about family violence is as important as funding for frontline assistance and rape crisis lines. At times we question the merits of this, especially when we see cuts to core services. To justify our belief in the work, we have asked repeatedly for evaluation of our programmes. With a thirteen-­year investment in Everyday Theatre, it might be reasonably expected for external independent evaluations to be regularly required. Apart from one independent review undertaken nearly ten years ago and a second a year later (paid for by the company), Everyday Theatre has never been externally evaluated. Instead, the effectiveness of our work is measured by cross-­government accountability criteria, which we feel does not relate directly to the work we do. We fill in compliance documents that speak at length about numbers of ‘clients’ and little about the value of the programme. It is a game that we need to play as the government increasingly talks about an evidence-­based approach,

150

Applied Theatre: Economies

but the standardized evidence they require does not relate to the programme we deliver. It has been further suggested for 2017 and beyond that any projects funded under our current department should include the name, age, ethnicity and iwi11 affiliation of every participant. This may work for one-­on-one social work support but in a population-­ based programme such as Everyday Theatre, this will be impossible (and largely unethical) data to collect. We resist presenting hero narratives of our work in academic publications, but the government reporting mechanisms compel us to tell a story of continuing success. Compliance and a non-­critical approach to the work are required to ensure continued funding. When we discuss if/how we might expand as a company, the issue of profit often sits at the heart of that discussion. We ask ourselves: are we wanting to expand simply to make a larger profit? – the fundamental, capitalist basis of owning any company. As directors, our answer is always no. Increased work opportunities are sought for two reasons. The first is because we believe in the value of our work, and want to offer the programme to as many schools and communities as we can. More secure funding over longer timeframes will help us to book our schedules further in advance, providing greater security for our staff. It would mean we could avoid most of the pitfalls of casualization, as discussed above. Every time we need to renegotiate our primary contract, it is done in the first instance with the focus of continuing staff employment – for their sakes, as well as for the company and its focus on creating applied theatre of the highest order. How do we manage the profit we make from our work? To run a business on a yearly basis, some profit at the end of the year needs to be carried forward to have something to start a new year with. We need to negotiate contracts, and spend time making the bookings with schools as well as organizing flights and staffing for the year. At a deeper ethical level, we recognize that ATCo would not be necessary and would not be a viable business without family violence, so to some extent we profit from it. We often ask ourselves, how can we run a business based on other people’s suffering? We always ensure to

Waiting on a Miracle

151

reconcile with what we consider to be reasonable salaries and wages to rightfully recompense staff, including ourselves, with an awareness that we are using taxpayer money to address a significant social issue. How much should we be paid? How much do you value trained artists? We would argue at least as much as a teacher. We want to retain and develop staff by offering them certainty, professional development, and to keep morale high. We are motivated by a passion for the product, for what we do. We make money to achieve that end. If you do not make money you cannot make the work. We carry on because we believe in what we do but it is difficult as there is a constant battle for existence.

Waiting for another miracle As we write this chapter, our contract has nearly expired again. We are waiting for the government decisions that will determine whether Everyday Theatre will continue. We have been here many times before, with staff wondering about their jobs, their rents, their mortgages. They believe in the work, they hang with us. We have no ability at all to impact on the government decision. If we fail to be funded it will most likely not be an evidence-­based decision. It will not be because we have not been successful in delivering the only government-­funded education programme about family violence to and alongside children. It will most likely be a casual red line through a small budget item that can trim some fat off government expenditure by someone who knows nothing about our work. Our sense is that if we do survive, it will be because our funding manager will tell of the day she spent in schools with us and will tell the hero narrative of our work to her managers, with the numeric of the accountability forms we fill in being supplementary evidence only. Rather, as it was when the Minister saved us nearly eight years ago, it will be a naïve belief in our work, a growing relationship with us as people committed to the same work that brought her to work for vulnerable children. We wait for a decision. We wait for the miracle to be renewed.

8

A Difficult Fit: The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong Molly Mullen and Bonnie Y. Y. Chan

Hong Kong theatre company FM Theatre Power 好戲量 (FMTP) engages in an array of creative, organizational and financial activities to sustain their work in a political and economic system to which they are ideologically opposed. At the same time, through what we call a strategy of never quite ‘fitting in’, these different activities can be understood as actions intended, in part, to call these systems into question. Amidst what appear to be increasing limitations to freedom of expression in Hong Kong,1 FMTP attempts to translate the radical ideals of people’s theatre into a multiplicity of performance practices as interventions in the city’s highly managed public spaces. Their use of hybrid, multimodal forms means that this work has been difficult to place in the categories that structure Hong Kong’s cultural sector. Their refusal to be labelled as either amateur or professional, community arts or contemporary performance compounds this. FMTP’s organizational/ business model is also hard to categorize. They hold on to the ideal of an inclusive, egalitarian collective and produce performances with as few financial demands and constraints as possible. At the same time, they have received government arts funding, set up commercial enterprises, and astonished other arts organizations with seemingly expensive marketing campaigns. Rather than seeing these economic activities as failures to live up to their social ideals, we focus on the way in which their artistic and political ideals inform these performative economic actions. This co-­authored chapter is one outcome of a continuing critical dialogue between FMTP, represented by Bonnie Chan, and Molly

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

153

Mullen – a researcher based at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. This conversation began in 2012 when Molly spent three months working with FM Theatre Power as part of a multi-­sited ethnography exploring the economies of applied theatre. The issues discussed in this chapter arose during this fieldwork. We include interview transcripts, narratives and poems that were generated at that time. Bonnie also reflects on the current context and how issues affecting freedom of expression in Hong Kong have affected the company since 2012.

Producing people’s theatre in twenty-­first-century Hong Kong Mo Lai Yan Chi, FM Theatre Power President: FM Theatre Power is not only a theatre group it’s like a school, it’s like a community centre and now we’re trying to make it like a film production company maybe? So, it’s like a mix of all these things that are based on one concept: it’s people’s theatre, it’s based on the people, of the people, of us, or by us or for us.2

Founded by Banky Yeung Ping Kei in 2002, FMTP is a collective of theatre makers and activists. They produce plays and musicals, devised theatre, street theatre, Playback, Playforward and Forum Theatre, theatre education and community-­based arts projects. They work out of The Drama Factory, a studio theatre and rehearsal space fitted out from scratch in an industrial unit in Tai Kok Tsui. They regularly perform in this venue, but also across the city in official venues and unsanctioned sites. Banky’s original aim was to create new forms of theatre, combining the classic and contemporary performance methods he had learnt when studying scriptwriting at the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, the only tertiary institution for performing arts in Hong Kong. He wanted to combine this training with the people’s theatre practices he learnt from Mok Chiu Yu. Mok is recognized as the most important figure in people’s theatre in Hong Kong; he

154

Applied Theatre: Economies

introduced Playback Theatre, Theatre of the Oppressed and many other forms to Hong Kong activists and theatre makers in the early 1980s. FMTP is relentlessly experimental, developing hybrid practices, combining media and translating established methods into new forms. David Bradby and John McCormick3 describe people’s theatre as a movement that pursued aesthetic and social reform through democratising the spaces, structures and practices of theatre. In Hong Kong, people’s theatre emerged in the 1960s when radical youth groups started to incorporate performance into their anti-­colonial, pro-­ democracy activism, and began raising awareness and promoting solidarity around international socio-­political issues.4 In 1994, the Asian People’s Theatre Festival Society was established, involving many local Hong Kong groups in international collaborations and tours.5 Helen Nicholson6 suggests that the ideals of people’s theatre live on in contemporary applied theatre, but have been ‘recast’ with an awareness ‘of the new political, ethical and educational challenges posed by undertaking practice in contemporary and postcolonial settings’. In many ways, FM Theatre Power continues a tradition of people’s theatre in Hong Kong that is internationally connected, rooted in radical activism, focused on local and international social justice issues, and engages ordinary people in theatre making to ‘voice out’7 in civic society. From the outside, however, some of their work feels at odds with this tradition. We suggest that FMTP translates the ideals of people’s theatre into new forms of practice to comment on and respond to contemporary conditions and culture in Hong Kong. Their stadium-­scale musical, Beyond the Horizon, about iconic Cantonese pop band Beyond, is one example. FM Theatre Power challenge established conceptions of people’s theatre in Hong Kong when they produce what appear to be professional productions in mainstream venues with commercially priced tickets. This work does not have an immediately visible ‘democratising aesthetic’, but Banky is clear that: Mo [translating for Banky]: . . . every production is actually an action.8

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

155

Beyond the Horizon is often billed as a tribute performance, but it also engages young audiences and performers with contemporary social issues through popular music. The band Beyond became a significant cultural icon in Hong Kong and other Chinese-­speaking regions in the 1980s and early 1990s. They are more than just a pop band. Their music closely relates to the society and people of Hong Kong during a particular moment in time, and the themes and ideals expressed have enduring relevance.9 Beyond’s songs became unofficial anthems at protest sites during the Umbrella Revolution of 2014 and the late lead singer Wong Ka-­kui remains a popular role model for artists and activists. Beyond the Horizon expresses the spirit of the band, their music and Ka-­kui.10 The production has been staged four times by actors recruited from open auditions. Each revival focuses on a contemporary social issue with new material devised by the cast. This chapter explores how FM Theatre Power’s organizational and financial processes can also be understood as actions that are part of, not adjunct to, their people’s theatre practice.

Sustaining a democratic collective: ‘The FMTP way’ This is the FMTP way: donation, if not borrow, if not hire, if not buy. Work over night. 24 hours = 12 hours FMTP work, 12 hours other life, studying, working, family. FMTP members have self-­determination. We are all in the self-­management department.

156

Applied Theatre: Economies

We all do everything. We avoid the alienation of working in fixed roles. Making theatre is a risk. This is the FMTP way. Not eating not sleeping not going to the toilet, this is also the FMTP way. No one has eaten or slept for two days. ‘You’ll have to put that in your research’, says Mario.11

FMTP was suggested as a site for Molly’s research because her advisors in Hong Kong could not understand how the company sustained such a high level of activity. Her fieldwork began in August 2012. FMTP was preparing to rerun a Cantonese translation of Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist,12 devising a new production, producing two solo shows, making a film with migrant families and preparing two theatre education projects. Further work developed weekly, responding to personal and political events. In September 2012, protests erupted against the introduction of a Moral and National Education Curriculum. Teachers, students and parents feared the curriculum would promote the Chinese government and question the value of democracy. Overnight, FM Theatre Power created performances to generate discussion at protest sites. To reach a wider audience, they staged a full-­ scale production of an existing play, Hi Education, which was re-­written and staged in just two weeks. Nobody got much sleep. Plans were worked out some time between midnight and 3 am. An economy can be understood as a manner of conceiving and managing resources.13 FMTP has attempted to cultivate an economy that is consistent with its artistic and social ideals, enabling this immediacy and responsivity. FMTP’s fast-­moving creative process depends on the time and energy contributed by members, none of whom are paid. FMTP has between six and fifteen members at any one time. People who contribute over a sustained period are known, in English, as core members. Some core members now have job titles which will be explained further in the next section:

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

157

Artistic Director: Banky Yeung Assistant Artistic Director: Fung Sai Kuen Research Director: Bonnie Chan Design Director: Yukko Chan President: Mo Lai Yan Chi. In practice, roles and responsibilities change over time and between projects. The ideal is that members can determine the roles they take and the amount of time they commit. Day to day, self-­determination is balanced by availability; who can commit time and energy, as most members have full-­time jobs, families and/or study. They fit work for the company around other commitments or, more accurately, struggle to fit other commitments around work for FMTP. There is no typical working day. One member might come for two hours between 7 am and 9 am to load a van; another arrives at the theatre at 4 pm for the technical rehearsal and leaves at 4 am the next morning after the production meeting. In 2008, some members lived at the studio and contributed income from their full-­time jobs, above what they needed for basic daily needs, to running the company. One of the challenges faced by the company in 2012 was sustaining its membership. Membership is open; anyone can decide to join and active recruitment is ongoing. At the end of most FMTP events, the audience and participants are invited to get more involved. Once someone has experience in a role and the running of the company, they take responsibility for organizing and supporting new members. In 2012, FMTP were finding that newer members had more demands on their time, making it hard for them to get sustained experience or to take responsibility. Established core members were also becoming less available. Many had full-­time jobs, children, or had moved overseas. Those who remained needed to work more hours and hold more responsibility. While the programme outlined above seems full, the company had placed a number of key areas of their work on hold due to the pressure on its key resource – members.

158

Applied Theatre: Economies

There are multiple reasons why people join and continue to dedicate time to FMTP. One member, Mario, explains how he got involved as a university student because he was interested in performing and was inspired by the social commitment of the company. Now a lecturer in mathematics, he still enjoys performing with others and feels that it is important to voice out about social issues in Hong Kong. He also describes a familial sense of belonging and responsibility: I grew up here . . . from the time when I was still a teenager to when I became an adult, so this is . . . well . . . part of my family in a sense, so that’s why I would participate here . . . I would help them no matter what or no matter where I am, as far as I can. And so it’s a kind of intimate relationship, can I say that?14

The ideal of self-­determination is, perhaps inevitably, muddled by feelings of care for and obligation towards others. However, sporadic rumours that FMTP is a ‘cult’ that coerces young people to work for no pay are unfounded. For FMTP, this rumour represents a failure to understand that people choose to work and create together for reasons other than immediate or future financial gain. FMTP recognizes the spreading culture of dependency on free labour in the arts and creative industries. They are also aware that sustaining equitable conditions in collectives requires ongoing care. Their response is to ensure their organization is not financially exploitative. No one directly profits from the company; either all members are paid the same or no-­one is paid. Any income generated through grants or earned income goes to production, projects and running costs. They also find ways to involve all members in organizational and creative decision making. FMTP want people to contribute to the company because of their passion for the work and feel this cannot happen if people calculate time, effort or outcome against an amount of money: Mo: So, we don’t want to value your efforts, or your concentration, by the amount of money, but it’s just by your attitude maybe? So concentration is relating to your attitude and also relating to your passion.15

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

159

Passion (熱誠) involves emotional drive, the capacity to concentrate thought and effort, and active commitment to creative and political ideals. It is frustrating when people cannot work as much as needed, but what is most important is that a member concentrates their passion on the task at hand. Cultivating this attitude is one reason set and props are rarely purchased new: Mo: other theatre companies would just give you a certain budget and then you would just count what kind of thing you could do within that budget and so your possibility is less . . . I don’t want to say just give them no budget, but I think this is a very good training . . . thinking of more possibilities and to make miracles.16

This discipline of resourcefulness is pragmatic and ideological. Running the FMTP way enabled the company to survive for nearly ten years with minimal outside funding. It meant they could produce work immediately, rather than waiting for the next funding round. It is also an organizational action intended to unsettle the norms of Hong Kong’s arts sector.

Being a difficult fit in Hong Kong’s arts funding system When asked how FMTP fits into Hong Kong’s theatre scene, board members Mok Chiu Yu and Estella Wong Yuen Ping respond: Mok: They don’t fit in! [Laughs] How they do or do not fit in! Estella: I think it’s . . . we can’t describe them as in the mainstream, can we? Mok: No, not in the mainstream, definitely not.17

As outlined above, FMTP’s approach to making theatre and running as an organization went against the norms for Hong Kong. Their minimal participation in the arts funding system also contributed to the view that they were outsiders. Then, in 2011, the company began to apply

160

Applied Theatre: Economies

to Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) funding programmes. They received a one-­year grant of HK$200,000 to subsidize administration costs. In this section, we explore the complex reasons why FMTP sought this funding in spite of the tensions they expected it to create. Hong Kong’s theatre sector depends on a small amount of government funding that is unevenly distributed.18 In 2014/15 the government’s estimated expenditure on arts and culture was $3.5 billion, excluding capital works expenditure, which is 0.8 per cent of the total government expenditure of $435.8 billion. Of this, $463.1 million is subvention for arts groups, and funds public venues and programmes. The Home Affairs Bureau distributes $334.6 million of this sum to nine major performing arts groups as three-­year grants of $10–30 million. The HKADC distributes the remaining $128.5 million to the rest of the arts sector through its grant programmes. Observations that this system generates a fragmented and competitive arts sector have been largely unaddressed.19 The Venue Partnership Scheme, for example, gives selected arts organizations priority use of public venues and other support such as workstations, but has had only marginal effects on the overall sector.20 Other funding options are limited. Hong Kong Jockey Club, a large private charitable donor, funds arts events, programmes and infrastructure. Some project funding is available from government departments and charitable trusts. Corporate support for the arts in Hong Kong is limited.21 Government subsidy for cultural development in Hong Kong has historically aligned with the priorities of the government.22 In the late 1960s, the colonial government saw providing widespread access to the arts as a way to divert anti-­colonial, left wing sentiments, promote ‘a sense of belonging’ and develop more ‘civilised communities’.23 They also invested in flagship ballet, opera and orchestra companies to make Hong Kong a more attractive base for international corporations and workers. In the decades either side of the handover, cultural development focused on fostering ‘Hong Kong’ culture and growing the creative industries. More recently, efforts to grow the market potential of the

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

161

arts seem to have intensified, but the historical emphasis on high culture has endured.24 FMTP did not primarily apply to the HKADC grant because they needed the money. They did need money, to pay a basic salary to staff and to get better equipment. But the one-­year grant would not have covered these costs, nor would the grant restrictions have allowed for it. Consequently, FMTP did not see the possibility of the grant being taken away as a problem: Mo: Even if next year the government is saying: ‘You are too political or you are too rebellious’ or maybe they will just stop the funding, we are prepared because we can just continue on our own running system, and we will regain our freedom.25

Non-­dependence on government funding is important to FMTP’s sense of freedom; freedom to be politically critical in their art, and freedom to develop creative and organizational processes that reflect their ideals. The HKADC was set up in 1995 to protect freedom of expression for artists and preserve the independence of the arts sector.26 But, as a statutory body founded by the government, FMTP sees the HKADC as representing a political system and cultural elitism they oppose. They were alerted to the possibility the HKADC may not be comfortable with their more explicitly political work. And so, they resolved to become more politicized after receiving the grant: Mo: We have to fight against ADC to show that: ‘OK, we’re using your money but we’re still working our own way.’ We are still doing Hi Education which is very critical, and also the Anarchist show of course . . . which is totally against the government.27

FMTP applied for the grant, in part, so that they could experiment with enacting their political freedom within the relationship. Their determination to challenge the limits of the HKADC’s promise to protect artists’ free expression is antagonistic as they opposed the HKADC, but also wanted to be recognized by it.

162

Applied Theatre: Economies

Funding systems create categories that play a part in the way artists and groups articulate their work and relate to others.28 FMTP refuse to be called volunteers, resist the label amateur, and rarely publicize staged works as people’s or community theatre – FMTP has long resisted categorization. However, being difficult to categorize makes it difficult to get funding. Some HKADC grant assessors questioned FMTP’s eligibility because they work with untrained (non-­professional) performers, and perform in ‘non-­theatre’ spaces. Receiving the grant was celebrated by the company as recognition that their approach was of professional standard: Mo: Oh yes, I remember . . . the point for which we try to apply for this funding . . . we want to let the others know, other so called professional theatre groups know, we are at the same banding as you. You can’t judge us anymore as so called non-­professional. So now we are a ‘professional’ theatre group, but still we will do the same that we did before.29

As indicated above, Hong Kong’s arts funding system has predominantly funded ‘professional high culture groups’, rather than experimental or community-­based practice.30 Applying for and receiving the grant was an act aimed at challenging the categories and hierarchies established by the arts funding system. FMTP wanted to fit in and be recognized, but only as a difficult fit, to call the criteria by which they were recognized into question. The tensions that did emerge through this funding relationship were not those most expected. HKADC did not express concerns about the political nature of any performance in 2011–12. FMTP received another grant for 2012–13. Tensions emerged within the company, resulting from the conditions of the grant aimed at professionalizing arts organizations. HKADC’s one- and two-­year grants strategically support the professional development of Hong Kong arts organizations. Funds must be used to enhance artistic output and improve arts administration.31 The HKADC wanted to see FMTP making changes towards the goals of artistic excellence and better administration.

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

163

In 2011–12, FMTP far exceeded the quantified targets of the grant: Mok: . . . but what Banky has done, or what FMTP has done, is that they have done a lot more than they have promised to the ADC, so they don’t even have to record it, just say we have done these things extra, they are well received.32

In the annual review of the grant, FMTP were asked to reduce their annual number of performances. From the funder’s point of view, to become professionalized, FMTP needed to focus resources on a pre-­planned programme and concentrate on fewer performances to make better quality shows. As mentioned earlier, most of FMTP’s performances are produced in very short timeframes. For FMTP, this is a political necessity; theatre for them is a platform to voice out on current issues and events. The few staged productions scheduled for each year are always pre-­planned because of the need to book performance venues well in advance. For FMTP, limiting the number of shows and pre-­ planning most performances as suggested by the HKACD contradicts their commitment to responding to current social events. At the time, this was the aspect of the HKACD’s expectations for funded organizations that was the most difficult to accommodate without making fundamental changes to the company’s artistic and organizational practices. The grant was designed to support the company’s administrative capacity, which was welcomed to a degree by FMTP’s overstretched members. They quickly found that the process of complying with organizational and administrative demands of the grant was an additional drain on their manpower. FMTP started as an informal collective that was registered as a ‘non-­profit-making organization’ under the Societies Ordinance in Hong Kong. To apply for the grant, the company was required to register as a limited company with not-­ for-­profit objectives. This involved appointing a board of directors and a president, to which an artistic director would report, and installing a manager to oversee administration. Again, this organizational structure sat in tension with FMTP’s ideals, as unpaid members had no meaningful status in the company:

164

Applied Theatre: Economies

Mo [translating for Banky]: We are not the staff, and we are not the board members, so we cannot make true decisions, we have to ask our board members. So after this funding it seems like we are nothing.33

FMTP considered their response to these requirements. They established a board of people who understood their way of operating. The board could potentially act as stewards of the FMTP way if the directors recognized its value. But the members were left with less formal control overall. While we argue that applying for and accepting the grant from the HKADC was actively based on the creative and social ideals of the company, we have also highlighted how this action had consequences for their freedom in all aspects of the company’s practice: We are independent, We can survive by ourselves, But now We have to depend on you. Still We will do the same thing that we did before Using your money, but working our own way. We will not change a bit. We are still fighting, I think.34

Acting commercially FMTP sees theatre as a platform for people to voice out in civil society. This ideal arises in a context where protected civil liberties enable economic not political participation.35 A British colony since 1841, Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China in 1997. The Sino-British Joint Declaration36 is based on the principle of ‘one country, two systems’, meaning Hong Kong remains capitalist until at least 2047. Hong Kong consistently ranks as

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

165

the freest market in the world.37 The SAR’s minimally regulated economy, largely independent judiciary, strong property rights and proximity to China makes it attractive to international and Chinese business. Basic Law protects civil rights and liberties, but participation in elections is limited and there are increasing indicators that market and political conditions constrain freedom of expression and political dissent.38 FMTP engage in a range of apparently commercial activities: selling market-­rate tickets to productions, producing and selling merchandise, T-shirts and books. They are known as the first Hong Kong independent theatre company to use commercial advertising. Such activities can be seen as a necessary response to a limited pool of arts funding and as adaptation to the opportunities of a market-­driven society. These activities occasionally generate surplus income, but mostly they do not and there are other reasons for their use. In 2008, FMTP set up 2 Goods, a T-shirt shop in one of Hong Kong’s busiest shopping streets. That year, their street performance work had received negative attention on an influential anonymous online chat forum. This had knocked members’ morale and temporarily made it harder to secure the workshop contracts that funded running costs. As they needed a new focus and source of income, they opened a shop. 2 Goods is a separate company where all surplus goes into supporting FMTP’s social theatre work. By 2012, the rapidly escalating commercial rents meant they could not make any money from the company and the shop closed. The impact of the closure on members indicates that 2 Goods was more than an entrepreneurial project: It’s 8pm. Sai Yeung Choi South Street in Mong Kok is brightly floodlit. The humid air buzzes with noise and light. The narrow street is lined with tall buildings that house shops up to the fourth story or more. Ground floor windows glisten. Crowds and sales stands fill the temporarily pedestrianised road. Next to the large Adidas store is a narrow doorway, a small woman and large sales stand are jammed half in and half out of it. 2 Goods is on the 2nd floor. The stairwell is plastered with FMTP flyers and posters. The shop is long and narrow,

166

Applied Theatre: Economies

filled with young people sitting on the floor, watching a band play and singing along. Then Yukko speaks, who designed most of the T-shirts and ran the shop. She has many memories of the shop, they did everything to fit it out and run it, they rehearsed here, gathered before and after productions. 2008 was one of the hardest times for FMTP, but having to close it is harder.39

Over the following weeks, the loss of the income from the shop was not a prime concern. Yukko mentioned the possibility of an online store. The loss of the social space created through their shared activity was deeply felt. It was also a symbolic loss as 2 Goods was a platform from which FMTP could call into question the commercialized nature of public space in Hong Kong. 2 Goods sold T-shirts, but Wong Yee Man, long-­term member as well as chairperson of the board, explains that these were not just products designed to generate income: Wong Yee Man: They use the message shown on the T-shirts; it is another kind of . . . A way to join arts and life; another way to, to express their feelings, to express their ideas.40

The T-shirt designs use popular imagery and Chinese characters to comment playfully on social and political issues. For example, one of the designs is a tic-­tac-toe game with the numbers six and four as the cross and circle in the grid. Six and four represent 4 June, which is the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. The grid shaped as the Chinese character 廿 also means 20, to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the incident. 2 Goods was also a good base for many of the regular street theatre performances where passers-­by are invited to participate creatively or in discussing the theme/issue. Mo: So, doing street performance is about trying to regain the public space for the citizens and we are, as artists, trying to create spaces for performance.41

Researchers have described how urban planning in Hong Kong, supported by the state, resulted in ‘a shrinking public realm, which has

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

167

long been seen as counterproductive to profit making since it plays no part in wealth creation’.42 It is hard to go anywhere in Hong Kong without passing through a shopping mall. Shopping malls, and other spaces that appear to be public, are usually privately owned. The ability of private owners to determine and police activity can be a problem for freedom of expression and civic participation. FMTP’s street performances are playful, performative interventions in commercialized and privatized public spaces.43 They exploit what Lisa Law44 sees as the ‘dynamic potential’ of such spaces to be appropriated and redefined in ways that enact democratic politics or civic participation. The T-shirts sold by 2 Goods and the shop itself can also be understood as performative acts that appropriate and redefine Hong Kong’s commercialized spaces and surfaces. FMTP is thought to be the first theatre company to advertise at bus stops, on the MTR (Hong Kong’s rail network), and billboards. They receive a discount as a charity, but still spend a large proportion of their income on marketing, particularly when compared to their minimal budgets for productions. Members are also expert at guerrilla marketing, relentlessly pasting posters and hanging banners around the city, negotiating permission when they can or swallowing resulting fines. Impact on ticket sales is negligible as this strategy is more about public visibility than sales. They aim to produce marketing materials that disrupt the visual surface of the city: We walk down a spiralling roadway to the East Gate and find a low metal fence along the road, opposite the bus stop, to hang the banner on. Bonnie tells me that some of this space is reserved for the election banners, and indeed these take up most of the space. I smile at the juxtaposition of the election banners, with their smiling, suited candidates, and the banner for Accidental Death of an Anarchist.45

Basic Law promised full democracy. In the run-­up to the 2012 Legislative Council (Legco) elections, concerns about Hong Kong’s autonomy from China and future prospects for democratic reforms were heightened. The recently appointed (in 2012) Chief Executive, C. Y. Leung, had taken

168

Applied Theatre: Economies

his oath and given his inaugural speech in Mandarin Chinese, taken by many as a signal of his loyalty to the Chinese government in Beijing. A pro-Beijing Legco and Chief Executive would make the chances of achieving full suffrage remote. The slick campaigns of the Legco candidates belie the limitations of the election process. FMTP’s translation of Accidental Death of an Anarchist is set in a future Hong Kong where the current system has not been challenged. Staging this production in the City Hall and placing publicity materials alongside election banners were both creative acts of dissent. FMTP consider the T-shirts and promotional materials they produce as forms of performance practice. This is reflected by the time, energy and critical and creative attention that go into producing these materials, and the functions they play in the life of the company that outweigh their economic function. They serve a semi-­commercial purpose and are carefully crafted with playful interventions intended to counter political and commercial limits on free expression and civil participation.

A risky economy? Responding to contextual change Recent changes to political and economic conditions in Hong Kong have implications for FMTP’s economy of practice. In 2012, there were a few indications that the freedom of expression for Hong Kong artists was being threatened. The possibility of active or more subtle forms of censorship was certainly a concern for artists and other cultural workers at that time.46 There were some indications of increasing police intolerance towards political demonstrators and that the government was failing to act to protect press freedom.47 In December 2013, police interrupted a festive street performance created by FMTP and made arrests. The performance was not political in content or theme – it was a solo performance using the popular human statue form of street performance. FMTP started a petition to criticize the police’s unnecessary use of force during the arrests and subsequent interrogation,

The Economic Actions of FM Theatre Power in Hong Kong

169

and received support from various cultural institutions. The HKADC made no public response. In 2014, HKADC stopped funding FMTP. One of the reasons given was that FMTP’s work was too controversial and might affect the name of the council. The Press Freedom Index of Hong Kong fell as the Chinese Communist Party’s subjugation over the Hong Kong executive grew and its pressure on media is increasingly compromising media pluralism.48 In 2014, the pro-­democracy Umbrella Revolution broke out, leading to the three-­month protest and occupation of main roads. This highly performative protest pushed issues of democracy and freedom in Hong Kong into the international spotlight. The civil disobedience movement not only aroused awareness of the political situation of Hong Kong, but also catalysed creative forms of protest and resistance including: installations, sculptures, and sketches in the occupation sites; designs using the iconic umbrella; online videos; and protest songs. FMTP conducted Playforward Theatre several times in the streets and occupation sites, listening to stories from protesters, using theatre to reinforce solidarity, to channel emotions, and to ‘play it forward’ through the confusion of the apparent stalemate. None of this work was subsidized by government funds, not because of the political stance, but because it was impossible for funding to support such spontaneous acts. The twentieth anniversary of the British departure from Hong Kong in 2017 brought further fears for freedom of expression and democratic participation in Hong Kong.49 It seems to be a context in which being openly critical in the media or arts is an increasingly risky business. Currently, FMTP remains committed to piecing together an economy that enables working ‘the FMTP way’, refusing to fit tidily into any cultural, political or economic space.

Conclusions FM Theatre Power has cultivated a distinct economy of practice for creating people’s theatre in twenty-­first-century Hong Kong. These organizational and economic practices are considered integral to their

170

Applied Theatre: Economies

peoples’ theatre practice. FMTP reflects on economic and organizational decisions in the light of their social and artistic ideals, and examines the effects financial relationships might have on their creative process and political freedom. Typically, we suggest, these actions involve a strategy of being a difficult fit, appearing to fit (but not quite) into an existing system to call that system into question. FMTP’s economy of practice is not problem free. FMTP has responded to tensions that have emerged from their collective model and from a funding relationship and, in both instances, this has not involved finding a single, simple resolution. Rather, there is an ongoing process of finding ways to sustain and rearticulate the FMTP way as conditions change – continuing to identify as independent, but achieving this freedom through the negotiation of a range of (inter)dependencies.

9

The Long Tail/Tale: Seven Thought-­provoking Mind-­sets to Reframe your Applied Theatre Practices Paul Sutton

Attempting to establish your own theatre company – as I did in 1988 – is always an act of faith rather than one based on cogent business planning. Those of us inspired to work in theatre do so primarily from creative motivations, not because of a love of cash flow forecasts or profit and loss accounts. For me, the motivation to set up Collar and TIE Theatre-­inEducation Company (now simply C&T) was driven by possibilities. My imagination had been captured by a form of drama, Theatre-­inEducation (TIE), which seemed unconstrained by conventional theatre’s (that we might associate with buildings, tickets, ovations and adults) rules or conventions. In TIE, the efficacious end justified the creative pedagogic means. Whatever it took to achieve inspiring creative learning through drama was justifiable on that premise alone. Form followed content. The medium was not the message, achieving change was. Over time, as C&T integrated itself into the wider TIE and arts education landscape of post-Thatcherite Britain, I realized that, for many, the medium was in fact the message. The Arts Council of Great Britain was defensively pulling back its progressive policy position of supporting TIE (a 1976 report had already described TIE companies as ‘understaffed, overworked, under subsidised’1 – and this proved a high point) to one where it would nurture learning about theatre not through theatre. Countering this, the Standing Conference of Young People’s Theatre (SCYPT) doggedly defended TIE as a

172

Applied Theatre: Economies

movement of companies, whilst in return required those dwindling numbers of companies to commit to a common use of typical methods, forms and efficacious values. As TIE provision declined these trench warfare positions becoming more solidly drawn; for C&T, this felt a long way from the open possibilities the field had first promised. The same was true of the business of Theatre-­in-Education. Almost from the outset, C&T was encouraged by important strategic funders such as West Midlands Arts (our regional governmental arts body) and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to aspire to the classic Theatre-­inEducation business model: partnership funding from the arts and local authorities. This dogged enthusiasm for a model in terminal decline seemed only to indicate the paucity of original thinking in these agencies rather than a willingness to invest in the thing they espoused to both value: innovation. Whilst other TIE companies (such as Birmingham’s Big Brum TIE and Leeds’ Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah) could negotiate these tensions, by the mid-1990s it became clear to C&T that it was impossible to square this externally imposed circle and re-­invention was necessary to move forward.

Forging the way forward Our conclusion was found by returning and reframing our initial educative libertarian vision of a theatre practice driven by efficacy, not form. The company had always harboured an interest in the modern media landscape. Within its TIE practice, it had staged several programmes that dissected the values of broadcast and print news media, as well as exploring through its youth theatre work the possibilities offered by documentary drama forms such as Living Newspapers and Verbatim Theatre. It had even published its own drama-­based interactive comic book, The Dark Theatre.2 What if the synergies and possibilities opened up by this hybrid mix of educational drama and media literacy could be extended beyond creative classroom practices to the business model of Theatre-­in-Education?

The Long Tail/Tale

173

Hence, the need for reframing. C&T’s creative instincts were to be playful with notions of what drama might mean in a media-­rich (and increasingly digital) culture. What if these media practices, which offered C&T new creative templates to experiment with for efficacious purposes, could also offer new business models on which we could build or adapt? This was not an argument easily won with strategic funders. One Arts Council officer (whose mantra was always to support innovation and to be ‘cutting edge’) challenged C&T with the question: ‘What is the precedent for this approach?’ To which the reply was, ‘There isn’t one. It’s innovative’. Now, twenty years later, C&T’s playful re-­invention of these rules of engagement chimes with Arts Council priorities in a system again facing declining resources and rising expectations of delivery from central government: We therefore anticipate that the majority of NPOs that remain in the portfolio for the 2018–22 investment round will receive standstill funding. Of course, some organisations may receive less than previous years. In exceptional circumstances, very few will receive uplifts, and some existing NPOs may leave the portfolio altogether.3

C&T has progressed an unusual but distinctive route where it creates online participatory applied theatre projects, linking schools, universities, youth groups and social justice agencies across the UK and internationally. Digital distribution and content creation are central to this practice, rooted within a distinctive paradigm of educative drama and process-­ driven methodologies. Our core values remain consistent with our origins in TIE, even as the terrain of the digital landscape (platforms, devices, technologies) shift beneath our feet at an increasingly rapid pace. This pace of change, forward momentum and creative innovation continually offers challenge to our business model. However, C&T seeks to engage as successfully with the thinking of today’s digital entrepreneurs as we do with the creative possibilities their technologies offer us.

174

Applied Theatre: Economies

C&T’s is a digitally reflexive model of practice that requires a similarly reflexive model of business. However, despite the ebb and flow of digital culture, a number of consistent hallmarks have emerged to C&T’s approach to business. So, in keeping with the Buzzfeed generation’s habits of offering snappy, eye-­catching lists of pithy life-­ changing soundbite philosophies, I present some of these hallmarks here as seven thought-­provoking mind-­sets to reframe your applied theatre practices.

The Long Tail The Long Tail is a seminal piece of business theory in the digital realm, originally coined by Chris Anderson in Wired magazine. He argues that our cultures and economies are moving from the production of a relatively small number of products and services at the head of the demand curve, towards vast numbers of niche products and services at the tail end of this curve: With unlimited [digital] supply, our assumptions about the relative roles of hits and niches were all wrong. Everywhere I went the story was the same: Hits are great, but niches are emerging as the big new market.4

This long tail is only getting longer. Production costs are falling, goods and services are being more closely targeted: we are in a post-Fordist era. The long tail is a commonly used term in online businesses, where niche products can easily be stocked virtually (Amazon or iTunes, for example) as opposed to shops, where shelf space and product range is limited. Such trends are observable in the UK’s education system (C&T’s primary audience and market). At the start of C&T’s evolution, the classic Theatre-­in-Education business model promoted by funders and agencies required block local authority investment in a common TIE product which could tour extensively. Today, schools operate in a comparatively free market, seeking to differentiate themselves from

The Long Tail/Tale

175

other local institutions, which, for better or worse, operate in competitive league tables – fighting over resources and students. A one-size-fits-all TIE provision does not afford these localized, institutional priorities. Schools are interested in niche, differentiated services that reflect their own priorities. They look to the Long Tail. The question for applied theatre practitioners is how niche should our work be in this ‘long tail’ of increasingly fragmented and diverse cultural and educational offers? Is a single-­product offer (one project at a time) enough to sustain organizations, or does digital offer new ways to offer multiple programmes, extending audiences, partnerships and opportunities for efficacious practice in the ‘long tail’? C&T offers a digital repertoire of our online drama applications, affording us the capacities to engage with these niche interests.

The 80/20 principle Richard Koch, author of The 80/20 Manager, argues: If you divide the world into causes and results, relatively few causes (roughly 20 per cent) nearly always lead to the most results (roughly 80 per cent) . . . by selling more of the highly profitable products to the ultra-­profitable customers it is often possible to multiply profits many times.5

Setting aside profit motivations, Koch’s 80/20 ratio offers a useful template for applied theatre makers working in the digital realm. Practitioners used to working spontaneously in classrooms or community settings, responding to the immediacy of participants’ imaginations and needs, might see the upfront investment of time or resources required by digital development as off-­putting or debilitating. An 80 per cent investment in a digital tool for a time-­limited, durational project might feel wasteful for something that might represent, say, only 20 per cent of a company’s annual programme or workload. However, when viewed through the perspective of the Long Tail, that same investment might represent a rewarding niche, paying

176

Applied Theatre: Economies

huge creative dividends over a longer timeframe. In C&T’s experience, a well-­developed digital tool should be considered a structural asset. For projects like C&T’s livingnewspaper.net, re-­inventing the classic documentary drama for the internet age has required revisions and new iterations over a fifteen-­year period as and when technologies advance. However, each new version consistently engages new partners and audiences, drawing new participants to our work. The livingnewspaper.net website is not a luxurious expensive 80 per cent investment that only ‘pays’ at 20 per cent reward. It is the most valuable 20 per cent that drives opportunities to work in new ways, supporting and enhancing 80 per cent of our activities.

Applied theatre as intellectual property Forget about theatre being ephemeral in the sense of a fleeting live event; it is ephemeral in the sense it exists as ideas: intellectual property. We tend to think of theatre projects as being time-­limited, ephemeral experiences: opening nights, Last Chance To See, Closing Tonight. Theatre is a limited commodity and often constrained by an actor’s availability and (in professional theatre) the finances to pay them. To extend the run of a successful production, or to re-­stage it at a later date, only commensurately increases these staging costs. For commercial producers, there may be a valuable return on such extensions. In applied theatre, where the economic model is usually more fragile, such returns are rare and rarely sought. However, digital – and the Long Tail – allows us to reframe these notions. C&T sees its digital applied theatre projects – described as Dramatic Properties6 – as conceptually driven intellectual property. These fictions can be represented and re-­presented across multiple digital platforms, taking what Rob Walker calls a ‘media agnostic’ approach: ‘all media are used, television, radio, print, the web and real-­ world events’.7 Under Walker’s definition, C&T sees theatre as a ‘real-­ world event’ and our virtual resources as the Intellectual Property that inspire these.

The Long Tail/Tale

177

C&T frames these Dramatic Properties less as a tangible product, more as sets of ideas, techniques, narratives and activities that can hold their value in ways beyond (but not instead of) their staging. How do you deploy this value and continue to benefit from it? For example, C&T’s Living Newspaper project started life as a series of documentary plays staged by young unemployed people in our home town of Worcester. The techniques and frames first developed in these live experiences have been reframed many times: as CD-ROMs, websites and social media. Investment in the initial IP has generated ongoing possibilities from which C&T – and young people – continue to benefit.

Applied theatre can be media agnostic In the taxonomy of modern culture, the arts and media are often categorized in competing segments. C&T frames theatre as a form of media. Walker’s notion of intellectual property operating in media agnostic realms offers C&T’s Dramatic Properties innovative ways of engaging audiences across platforms and through alternative business models. For example, whilst The Walt Disney Company has its roots in one art form – film animation – the twenty-­first century has seen it evolve to become a diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It owns Marvel Entertainment, itself previously a single art form company: a comic book publisher. This ownership allows Disney to deploy Marvel’s comic-­book-inspired intellectual property (superhero characters like Spider-Man) across films, T-shirts, soundtrack albums – even Broadway musicals. Marvel need not measure its success by how broadly it operates in its horizontal market – how many comics it publishes – but by how well it integrates its IP vertically across new business sectors and media – for example, through licensing or franchising. Another example, another subsidiary of Disney, is Pixar, the Hollywood studio responsible for digitally animated films such as

178

Applied Theatre: Economies

Finding Nemo (2003) and The Incredibles (2004), which founds its creativity on commercially driven, NASDAQ 8-listed principles: A single animated feature film has the ability to generate billions of dollars’ worth of consumer spending. Such revenues are derived from marketing campaigns surrounding the theatrical release of the animated film, which, in turn, drive demand for home videos, television, toys, and other film-­related merchandise.9

It’s perhaps not surprising both these examples derive from one of the world’s largest media conglomerates. As Neil Postman points out, America was perhaps always likely to be the natural breeding ground for this marriage of creativity and capitalism: ‘[the media] has found in liberal democracy and a relatively free market, a nurturing climate in which its full potentialities as a technology of images could be exploited’.10 But this has not prevented numerous theorists and artists decrying the global cultural hegemony that they see as having emerged from these conditions and the corporations they have spawned, regardless of any overt political motivation. Barber is typical of these pessimistic hyper globalizers, describing a ‘superficial American popular culture assembled in the 1950s and 60s driven by expansionist commercial interests . . . transforming the world into a blandly uniform market’.11 Applied theatre practices often place themselves in opposition to such motivations and practices, with Augusto Boal12 typifying this antagonism. Boal correlates Aristotle’s coercive system of tragedy (designed for ‘the intimidation of the spectator’ with ‘TV soap operas and Western films: movies, theatre, and television united through a common basis in Aristotelian poetics, for the repression of the people’).13 Even observers of Boal’s theatrical enemy – the so-­called bourgeois theatre – are drawn to compare like with unlike to help theatre score the knock-­out blow to its upstart global-­mediated dramatic rivals: We can . . . scarcely calculate the mutations in our experience of texts . . . in the new world of CD-ROM, of virtual reality, of cyberspace and

The Long Tail/Tale

179

the internet . . . yet these changes will put a fresh premium on physical immediacy.14

For C&T, as practitioners at work with the concept of the Dramatic Property and seeking to draw efficacious benefit from digital technologies, this is a highly negatively orchestrated reading of the fabric of the globalized dramatic culture. Whilst it is true that capitalism has its own motivations, and these are not always as altruistic as Bill Gates might want us to believe,15 it is also true that Postman’s identified hallmark of this system, the free market, is anarchic and fluid. While Boal sees these dramatizing media corporations acting as a unified force of repression, it is also possible to see them as competing elements, battered by the ebb and flow of the market: youth culture. Are young people the pawns of these corporations or do their fluctuating tastes dictate the activities of these market suppliers? Paul Willis argues the latter: The cultural industries in helter-­skelter growth and anarchy are hardly in any shape to dominate and plan their own consciousness and future, never mind those of ranks of refractory and restless youth.16

Or as Len Ang puts it: The capitalist world system is not a single undifferentiated, all-­ encompassing whole, but a fractured one, in which forces or order and incorporation . . . are always undercut . . . by forces of chaos and fragmentation.17

In a media agnostic world with young people fluctuating between YouTube, SnapChat and Netflix, seeking content that resonates, C&T attempts to be playful with this chaos and fragmentation: exploiting the business innovations most commonly exploited by commercial electronic media enterprises and thereby embracing the possibilities that digital offers for our ends. We are not alone: NT Live [the National Theatre of Great Britain’s live streaming digital platform distributes productions to over 2,300 cinema screens globally] will never replace the thing itself . . . it was driven like our commercial

180

Applied Theatre: Economies

operations in the West End by the contradictory ambition to make theatre for the privileged few on the night, and instead spread that privilege as widely as possible.18

C&T sees applied theatre as being naturally and vertically integrated, attempting to exploit (for the benefit of children, young people and disadvantaged communities) the virtues and opportunities media corporations like Disney, Marvel and Pixar exploit for commercial ends. C&T’s Dramatic Properties may have their genesis in theatre, but they spawn activities that cross art forms, technologies, media and curriculum areas: they are media agnostic. C&T frames its projects as IP from the outset, maximizing the interdisciplinary possibilities through vertical integration. Projects can be made scalable and customizable across digital platforms: social media, gaming, mobile and virtual and augmented reality.

Re-­framing our sense of community: The Wisdom of Crowds In opposition to the bland, generic values of corporate media products, applied theatre is most commonly rooted in local communities. Theatre companies invest heavily in relationships with schools and teachers with whom they share common values, or with community leaders with whom they aspire to achieve common goals for local neighbourhoods. Applied theatre aspires to bring about change within the particularities of specific communities rather than aspiring to produce culturally homogeneous theatrical experiences. These communities may be geographic, ethnic, pedagogic or institutional, but in each case the applied theatre experience must engage with the ideology that underpins the community. As Baz Kershaw puts it: ‘performance deals in the values of its society, it is dealing with ideology’.19 The applied theatre practitioner seems unlikely to have an inclination to seek creative solutions to these specific conditions within a bland, uniform, profit-­motivated culture.

The Long Tail/Tale

181

However, digital offers us a way to reframe notions of community. How can online communities, which are often communities of interest rather than geographic communities, be designed to advance our goals for applied theatre? Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, describes this process of design as ‘elegant organisation’ – supporting existing communities to do things better.20 Amazon uses elegant organization to create communities around consumer opinions, and Google organizes our needs around search, using our communal data derived from these searches to drive communal benefits through maps, documents, email and more (as well as their profits, of course). C&T seeks to learn from these business models to shape, through its Dramatic Properties and technologies, ‘elegant organisation’ for its applied theatre activities. We see the fluid definitions of community provoked by digital business models as mechanisms through which we can help our applied theatre managers reshape relationships with audiences for their benefit. An example of this is our Wisdom of Crowds social media platform.21 Wisdom of Crowds translates the form of ‘un-­conferencing’ known as Open Space Technology (OST) into the digital realm. OST is a system for hosting meetings where ‘a diverse group of people must deal with complex and potentially conflicting material in innovative productive ways’.22 Created in the 1990s by Harrison Owen, the system has been adopted in numerous contexts, including in the UK theatre community – prompted by Improbable Theatre’s Devoted and Disgruntled events.23 Wisdom of Crowds uses the same architecture but in a virtual space, enabling communities of interest engaged by C&T’s practices to ‘elegantly organise’ themselves around the challenges, content and issues facing them. The Wisdom of Crowds methodology offers many creative opportunities for C&T’s practice, but it also enables us to manage and interact with audiences in new and disruptive ways: better understanding their needs and priorities, anticipating challenges and opportunities and gathering feedback and evaluations. The ‘one night stand’ mentality of some TIE touring has been supplanted by an ongoing, self-­sustaining relationship with our audiences.

182

Applied Theatre: Economies

Digital first or theatre first? The digital revolution has impacted on almost every aspect of contemporary life, but one industry that has experienced more turmoil and transformation than most is that of print news media. With UK newspaper sales and advertising revenues steadily declining, the industry is experiencing structural decline. The internet is widely identified as the culprit, with websites like Buzzfeed gaining traction, credibility, a young demographic audience and a growing expectation amongst readers that news is a free service: News organisations should stop presenting themselves as destinations and start seeing themselves as services, pushing out feeds, offering content to networks of sites, getting their news to where people are.24

Some newspapers have tackled the decline head on, with publications such as the Guardian adopting a digital first policy over print, and the UK’s Independent has ceased its print publication entirely. Such organizations frame themselves as teams of journalists telling news stories through the most relevant and appropriate media, rather than simply as newspapers. They are driven by different values and objectives. As Jeff Jarvis sees them: ‘be a platform, join a network, collaborate, listen well, kill inefficiency, long live niches, elegant organisation, encourage, enable, and protect innovation’.25 How might such a rubric be applied to applied theatre? For C&T, they resonate with our values and our approach. C&T does think digitally first, framing itself as a team of theatre practitioners who create applied drama experiences through relevant, appropriate media. For C&T, this has been both creatively and organizationally liberating; freeing resources to direct priority tasks and activities, building the most relevant productive partnerships and keeping our values at the centre of our vision. There is less administrative and organizational entropy, and more drama activity – but less live theatre. For C&T, within our paradigm, this approach is a productive constraint yet it might not reap similar rewards for companies with different values and creative priorities.

The Long Tail/Tale

183

Disruption In conclusion, all of the above are defined by one common hallmark: disruption. In the digital business, world disruption is the holy grail of strategy – it’s almost a cliché. Uber disrupted the taxi and cab market by cutting out the middle man. iTunes disrupted the music business by selling songs at ninety-­nine cents each – and Spotify disrupted Apple’s model by streaming songs for free either with advertising or a monthly membership. Clayton Christensen defined this disruption as ‘a less pricey product or service, initially designed for less-­demanding customers which catches on and captures its market, displacing incumbents’.26 For C&T, the motivations are not the same but the benefits can be as valuable. Reduced costs can mean enhanced (or more affordable) interventions, which enable us to work with more vulnerable or isolated participants. Being media agnostic allows us to frame our work to young people as cultural product rather than purely as theatre. Our digital first approach makes us focus on the value of what matters to us: the impact our IP can have on the people we work with. It is a radically different model to the one our company began with as a Theatre-­inEducation company, though many of our methods, processes and values are the same. One thing proudly remains constant: to use our organization to be constructively disruptive, bringing benefits to those our work seeks to support and champion.

10

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies Paul Bonin-Rodriguez

An economy familiar to US applied theatre artists has been adopted more broadly in recent years. In a growing trend, increasing numbers of US artists are migrating into the non-­traditional spaces, adopting the dialogical practices and addressing the social concerns long staked out by applied theatre professionals.1 Studies of US artists increasingly document careers devoted to hybrid work, the umbrella term given to artists who apply their creativity to a variety of public practices or perform their work in non-­arts sectors including community development, health, technology, transportation and public safety.2 In more recent years, these hybrid approaches, essentially artistic practices applied to community contexts, have been tracked within scholarly discourse as social impact art in performance and visual arts studies and creative placemaking in policy and planning. Such distinctions reflect the discipline from which the terms emerged. Whereas social impact art, or social practice, refers to artists’ intent to impact a broader social circumstance, creative placemaking marks the effects of artists’ work on the social, economic and physical nature of a community, as well as its contributions to social cohesion.3 With their focus in grassroots or community-­based practices,4 applied theatre artists, in particular, may define their work as social impact or placemaking depending upon the circumstance of funding, the identifications of collaborators and the goals of the project. As these brief examples demonstrate, the greater social turn in artistic practice has complicated the traditional definitions and modes of study alike. US economists and policy analysts agree that the

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

185

measures used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Current Population Survey and the US Census’ American Community Survey (ACS) to track artists maintain a relatively narrow focus on such aspects as discipline-­based practices, primary jobs rather than mixed or portfolio careers, and pay from art making specifically.5 Consequently, data returning from the surveys rarely accounts for how each particular artist’s mix of jobs contributes toward a productive and rewarding whole. Problematizing the issue further, urban policy analyst Maria Rosario Jackson contends that much contemporary arts policy discourse dedicated to applied practices has focused on how artists are working in community contexts while ‘little attention has been paid to structures and mechanisms that enable artists to participate in communities and make contributions’.6 In other words, a more comprehensive economic framework explaining how applied artists shape and think about their practices, with respect to costs and reward, remains a future prospect at best. In response to this challenge, I argue that an economy for US applied theatre can be illustrated by analyses of the organizations that channel opportunities to community-­based artists and regularly rehearse their transactional and relational experiences. Drawing on studies that include and assess resources for artists working in community contexts as well as interviews with applied theatre artists and arts administrators, this chapter focuses on the history and practices of ROOTS (1976–present), a multi-­disciplinary, intermediary – or artist support – organization with applied theatre origins. It illustrates two key network structures of functioning as mechanisms to shape the economy for US applied theatre artists. One structure can be read as a dynamic network system for distribution; the other is a network of relations devoted to maximizing resources and supporting productive partnerships. Both are accounted for in ROOTS’ forty years of research and development in community cultural contexts, with a heavy emphasis in applied theatre. Founded as Alternate Regional Organizations of Theaters South and located in Atlanta, GA, ROOTS operates equally as a national service

186

Applied Theatre: Economies

organization, a regional resource, a hub, a training ground and a home for a vast community of applied artists. Artist-­driven and artist-­led, ROOTS’ memberships and publications, as well as its highly popular Annual Meeting (ROOTS Week) held each August, bring together cultural workers from across the United States. As a performing artist who began work in applied and community-­based theatrical contexts and is now a scholar of arts policy, I have been learning from ROOTS since attending my first Annual Meeting in 1991. This chapter draws as much from those formative experiences as my scholarly research, allowing me to follow the organization with a deep appreciation for its continued social and cultural relevance, its organizational leadership nationwide, and its ambition for modelling a pluralistic vision for US culture – even at a time of increased aggression towards communities historically marginalized with respect to race, religion, class, nation, gender and sexuality. Most importantly, perhaps, I am impressed with how ROOTS supports artists who create work by, for, about and within communities of ‘place, tradition, affiliation, and spirit’.7 To demonstrate how the organization proposes and shapes an ethical economic practice for artists, this chapter begins by situating ROOTS’ distributive dynamics within the context of its emergence, as well as its development of an articulated system of values. To show how ROOTS doubles down on these resources, I turn to its structure as a network of partners in the context of contemporary policy discourse on artists. Focusing on two key programmes, Partners in Action and ROOTS Week, I argue that this partnership ethos is fundamental to applied theatre practice on an economic level as well. ROOTS’ history also reveals the ways applied theatre and applied art are aligned, and demonstrates how organizations like ROOTS help to encourage increased hybridity and interdisciplinarity. By combining these two dynamics, this chapter explicates an economic infrastructure for applied theatre artists that can be strategically navigated; it is also a reminder that the work of applied theatre is rooted in social interactions responding at each moment to a history of arts policy manoeuvres.

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

187

Formation context: Community-­based theatre artists ROOTS emerged directly from the work of theatre practitioners in the Southern part of the United States, a region outside the cultural mainstream and burdened by a legacy of slavery and racial and social injustice. These artists were activated by the social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s and committed to collective action. Its origins connect to a specific theatrical event similar to the ones the nascent organization would stage. In 1976, the Baltimore Theatre Project presented the New Theatre Festival, which highlighted so-­called ‘alternative’ theatre companies that were rarely produced outside of their home communities. Among those in attendance were Tennessee theatre artists’ The Play Group and playwright Jo Carson (1946–2011), a community-­based theatre artist who was once lauded as the most produced playwright in the United States.8 Some months later, the Highlander Center, a grassroots and movement-­building organization in Tennessee, worked with Carson to stage a gathering of Southern theatre artists. The companies in attendance were a diverse group. They included community-­based theatre companies such as Tennessee’s The Road Company and Carpetbag Theater, Louisiana’s Free Southern Theater (by way of Mississippi), Kentucky’s Roadside Theater, West Virginia’s New World Theater Company, and Florida’s Studio Theater. They also included more traditional repertory theatres and summer musicals, as well as multidisciplinary performance companies like Tennessee’s genre-­defying Little Marrowbone Repair Corp. and Louisiana’s experimental Otrabanda Theatre Company. In addition to the early applied theatre artists who populated these companies – including Carson, Linda Parris-Bailey, John O’Neal and Bob Leonard, to name a few – the meeting held space for visual artists, dancers, jugglers and musicians.9 Kathie de Nobriga, a former Executive Director of ROOTS who attended the first meeting, recalls that those who lasted for the duration of the first meeting staked the organization’s focus from the outset. Although the weekend meeting began with representatives from

188

Applied Theatre: Economies

professional theatre companies, summer stock musicals, and university theatre programmes, by Saturday night only those working in community contexts and focused on social justice remained present.10 Through its membership and programming, the nascent organization offered artists an aggregation of resources, an effort to construct a network of colleagues who regularly negotiated values together and supported each other, effectively maximizing opportunities and building knowledge for artists, many of whom led artistic companies. Under the leadership of the first Executive Director, Ruby Lerner (1981–1986), ROOTS launched a series of major festivals, training programmes for cultural workers, information sharing through its newsletter, and fostered the close cooperative alliance of its membership through activities.11 In the late 1980s, ROOTS introduced its Artistic Assistance Program, providing small amounts of unrestricted support to catalyse artists at a critical juncture in new work development. In 1993, ROOTS rolled out its Community/Artists Partnership Program (C/APP), one of the first programmes in the United States to promote equal partnerships in arts-­based community work. Along with project funding, C/APP offered information and training in applied practice.12

Formation context: Federal roots The artists who built ROOTS were responding to the emergence of a vital federal support system for US artists in the latter half of the twentieth century, a system that remains a key referent to contemporary artistic practice. A number of scholars has observed that the 1965 establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was equally a Cold War political manoeuvre, and the effort of cultural workers committed to reaching into the US heartland where fewer arts resources existed.13 The presence of the NEA and its early programming offered what are now recognized as the key support domains to artists and other arts professionals: a system for national validation; hyperlocal methods for professionalization and information sharing; material

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

189

supports to spaces and operations; the development of new markets and demands; as well as the coalescence of communities into functional networks.14 From the standpoint of resource distribution, the NEA’s structure informed, and even reflected, how ROOTS offered support to its artists. During its first years, ROOTS received its direct federal funding from the NEA’s Expansion Arts programme (1971–1995), which ‘nurtured community based arts organizations from America’s inner-­city, rural, and tribal communities’.15

Distributive network What the NEA modelled and ROOTS extended to the applied theatre artists in its embrace were the basic elements of what network theorist Christopher Vitale labelled as a ‘distributive network’.16 I use this term to counter complicated notions of ROOTS as simply a ‘pass-­through organization’ and to point to the seeds of social practice in early arts organizing.17 The significance of this network is its function as a relatively stable, time-­based structure of support in which risk is valued and anticipated through measured approaches to resource distribution and supplementation. Distributive networks, which have been referred to in philanthropy as ‘funder driven networks’,18 aggregate and channel resources to cultural workers. These resources are not limited to material support, but also the validation that comes from recognition on a national scale, as well as productive, outcome-­promoting guidelines. Through their time- and rule-­based operations, distributive networks also serve a pedagogical function, contributing to each artist’s knowledge of their own administrative and artistic practices, but also those of their support entities. To leverage support, artists may fundraise across the non-­profit, commercial and community sectors. Their reporting practices and adherence to fiscal year guidelines mirror the efforts of their supporting organizations. In the words of economist John Kreidler, these dynamic requirements expose the leverage grant-­ making world as a money-­earning enterprise that draws from multiple

190

Applied Theatre: Economies

sources and sectors, and has the capacity to build coalitions of support in the process.19 Distributive networks remain a foundational dynamic for applied theatre in the United States. Recognizing this historical model is critical to artists who seek to account for the entire value of their work, because it sheds light on the inherent trickle-­down economic structure and invites them to leverage the capital of seed investments from entities like ROOTS with other sources. This knowledge also challenges artists to consider how the spirit of reciprocity (common to applied theatre practices) extends to the support systems.20 Artists and intermediary organizations validate and capitalize each other through their work. They are equally invested in building and maintaining their support systems to the benefit of each other. From the beginning, the NEA was an intermediary breeding enterprise, establishing a network of artist support organizations and agencies across disciplines that could take resources, multiply them through local fundraising and redistribute support to their constituencies. Taking up that charge, ROOTS was helping to establish what Margaret J. Wyszomirski and Joni M. Cherbo have deemed the ‘associational infrastructure for the arts and culture’.21 Although professional associations were very much in existence in the 1830s when political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville was documenting democracy in the US, the majority of arts service organizations in community emerged in the 1970s and 1980s largely in response to long-­overdue federal support. The NEA’s definition for these enterprises reveal that its own understanding did not fully account for how ROOTS chose to do its work: those that exist not to produce, present, or preserve arts, but to help others do so . . . [by providing] information, opportunities to community, advocacy, public education, professional and volunteer training and various forms of technical and managerial, and support services.22

More critical to applied theatre is how ROOTS provided all these services. ROOTS’ method of operating as a non-­hierarchical space for

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

191

experimentation, peer sharing, and resource generation extended the organization’s work beyond the standard practices of granting and convening to advocacy and social change. From performance festivals to the less formal ROOTS Week, and now regional ROOTS Weekends, the organization’s producing and presenting efforts are coupled with large group dialogues and group singing – a ritual that marks the beginning and end of every ROOTS meeting.23 The organization continuously blends social, organizational and artistic practices, inviting all members to see the organization not as a separate entity, but as a collective enterprise, an embodiment of mutual care and a family.24 Throughout its own development, ROOTS also extended its support to other organizations. M. K. Wegmann, former President and CEO of the National Performance Network/Visual Arts Network (NPN/VAN), who has been a ROOTer since its founding, recalls ROOTS’ presence and input in the development of other artist organizations, including NPN/VAN in 1985.25 NPN/VAN’s method of aggregating national and local resources, as well as its focus on supporting artists in the development of new work, is inspired by ROOTS’ own early granting programmes. Today, the NPN/VAN’s focus on access and equity, as reflected by its Leveraging a Network for Equity programme, resonates with ROOTS’ initiatives. Wegmann also recalls ROOTS’ input on the development of the National Association of Artist Organizations (NAAO), an organization founded in 1983 to support alternative arts spaces. NAAO would eventually serve as co-­plaintiff in Finley et al. vs. the National Endowment for the Arts, the case that capped off the culture wars of the 1990s.26 These stories reveal an infrastructure for applied theatre emerging not from the commercial theatre hubs, or from the academy, but from the communities where support for theatre practice had to be built. As these examples show, ROOTS’ methods of field building in community instantly problematize the transactional aspects of a distributive network. Among ROOTS’ supported applied theatre works, for instance, there exists an array of differently funded/supported organizations.27 Also, a number of ROOTS-affiliated artists live outside

192

Applied Theatre: Economies

of the US South and so ROOTS’ contributions to their work include social and artistic collegiality and engagement. Moreover, once firmly established in a distributive network of funders, ROOTS would deepen its commitment to the practice and ethics of partnership through its programmes. In 2003, ROOTS recognized that attendance at ROOTS meetings reflected a demographic that was largely white and older, so a concerted effort was made to increase the number of youth and people of colour.28 During that same time, ROOTS adopted into its organizational strategies the lessons from Resources for Social Change, a ROOTS programme introduced in the 1990s to prepare artists to apply the principles of social justice to their work.29 These shifts reflect ROOTS’ ongoing commitment to undoing systems of oppression both within the organization and the communities in which its members live and work – a commitment that stretches the bounds of what a distributive network’s concerns might be. These changes would also be catalytic to a new period of development.

Growth through partnership – an economy of each other Between 2003 and 2017, ROOTS underwent a period of sustained growth and expansion. These changes were due in large part to greater shifts in the cultural sector, with additional emphases on artist support and issues of access. With its long history of work in both areas, ROOTS emerged as a national leader in both thought and practice, garnering attention from a host of philanthropies.30 From the standpoint of arts and cultural policy, the seeds to ROOTS growth began in the 1990s, at a moment when contemporary cultural policy activated around three significant concerns. First, the culture wars of the mid-1990s, which pitted social conservatives against public funding for art, instantiated calls for an era of research and development reflected in documents such as the American Assembly’s 1997 meeting, ‘The Arts and the Public Purpose’.31 Around that same time, arts advocates, philanthropies and

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

193

scholars sought the inclusion of arts and culture in studies about community development to demonstrate that cultural practices are as vital to community cohesion and well-­being as housing, jobs, education and health.32 Finally, writing in 1999, in ways that foreshadowed creative placemaking, cultural studies scholar George Yúdice also anticipated that the increasingly market-­driven nature of society would also usher new criteria for cultural support – criteria that drew legitimation narratives based on the capacities of cultural workers to work in partnerships among ‘government, business and [. . .] the nonprofit sector’.33 To artists working in community contexts, these confluent forces offered both provocation and promise – an opportunity to articulate values-­based and collective-­based approaches to art making, i.e. art for community’s sake. At the same time, research supported by the National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy showed that the funder-­driven networks still favoured largely white, elite organizations.34 The linking of creative placemaking to community economic development lent itself to critiques of exploitation, displacement and cultural insensitivity outcomes associated with gentrification.35 With its stated focus on ‘Equitable Partnership, Shared Power, Open Dialogue, Individual and Community Transformation, and an Aesthetic of Transparent Process’,36 as well as its history of peer engagement in the field, ROOTS was ready to step into this breach with substantive insight and offer new strategies and ethics for the applied artist economy. The arts and culture sector took an increasingly social move as well. The publication of the landmark study, Investing in Creativity, represented a watershed moment in terms of articulating the arts and culture economy. The study’s six precise domains for artist support – ‘validation, markets and demands, communities and networks, material supports (such as space, health insurance, and grants/awards), training and professional development, and information’ – offered up the artist economy as a series of negotiations among vested parties. No domain was solitary. The grants and awards named as material supports also offered validation, for instance, just as information sharing was critical to training and professional development.37 Similarly, markets and

194

Applied Theatre: Economies

demands might follow from communities and networks. Funded by thirty-­eight public and private philanthropies, the study’s social elements not only looked outward but also extended to its origins. Investing in Creativity’s stated goals of being empirical, conceptual and practical were rendered through sections that not only marked systemic challenges, but also pointed to the assets and organizations doing exemplary work. ROOTS and the insights of its members are included throughout the report. What becomes clear when reading Investing in Creativity is that the economic framework for artists is a coordination of multiple stakeholders sharing the vision, burden and opportunities of cultural practice, forming a shared economy that is both nimble and stalwart in supporting cultural work. ROOTS’ growth in the twenty-­first century reflected its clear use of the study’s domains, as well as its acknowledged history of activism and leadership at a time when the cultural sector sought models for both. In particular, ROOTS’ responsiveness to the South’s legacy of racial segregation and systemic economic, social and political marginalization and oppression through its ongoing programmatic innovations also rendered it an exemplar of twenty-first-century cultural activism through artistic practice. In addition to adopting Resources for Social Change as an organizational ethos, ROOTS transformed its signature grant programme, C/APP, to Partners in Action (PIA), a programme reflecting ROOTS’ deeper commitment to each project’s unique needs and its recognition that many ROOTS artists work from areas remote from cultural support. Innovations introduced by PIA included simplified applications that could be delivered in video or audio forms.38 This change intervened a long history of grant-­making that privileges artists with superior writing skills. ROOTS also adopted a practice long used by the NEA – offering peer site visits to applicants who had advanced past preliminary review. Award amounts were increased from US$5,000 to $20,000. To awarded grantees, ROOTS lent its infrastructure and the skills of its staff to assist artists in finding additional resources, including partners and funders, especially for those artists coming from under-­resourced communities. The organization also offered its own

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

195

infrastructure for guidance and technical assistance, including marketing and publicity. PIA grantees met annually in cohorts, and the substance of their engagements contributed to the theme of each year’s ROOTS Week. Through these applied acts for applied artists, ROOTS put multiple generations of arts leaders into conversation with each other. While the variable application processes, the site visits and PIA’s influences on ROOTS Week were unique, many of PIA’s shifts reflected other support initiatives occurring in response to the 1990s and Investing in Creativity. The Creative Capital Foundation launched in 1999 in direct response to the defunding of the NEA’s Individual Artist Fellowship programme and piloted many of the partner-­based practices – including increased awards, direct technical assistance and cohort meetings.39 Investing in Creativity contributed to two major ten-­year, artist-­focused initiatives: Leveraging Investments in Creativity (2003– 2013) and ArtPlace America (2010–2020). Both efforts have lent significant research and programmatic innovation to artists working in community contexts across the US.40 Two other programmes also applied the study’s findings to new artist awards. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Performing Artist Awards41 and United States Artists fellowships42 both offer large awards, combine technical assistance and training to the prizes and convene grantees on a semi-­regular basis. In short, a number of artist support initiatives adopted ways to partner with artists at all levels of the process and to bring their artists together regularly. The presumption is that these partnerships will serve artists as they plan, develop, fundraise and capitalize on future work. Situated among these national efforts, ROOTS’ lifelong commitment to social justice, along with its openness and availability to numerous cultural workers – and not just its grantees – rendered its insights distinct and valuable to an arts sector attending to issues of access and equity.43 In particular, ROOTS advocated for countering all forms of oppression, undoing racism and honouring the natural world,44 and these stated positions made it a natural incubator for applied artmaking, with heavy emphasis on theatre. ROOTS Week, which represents a

196

Applied Theatre: Economies

genealogical through-­line from the first meeting in 1976, served as a key medium for this kind of advocacy and activism. The meeting assembles a majority of the membership to rehearse commitments, determine the organization’s methods of engagement and guide artists working in community contexts. The Voting Members, located in the Southern states, serve as the Board of Directors for the organization, with ROOTS Week functioning as the Board’s annual shareholder meeting.45 ROOTS cultural workers rely so much on ROOTS Week for sustenance and for partnership that ROOTS Week has spawned similar efforts within the organization.46 Between 2015 and 2017, ROOTS introduced six geographically dispersed ROOTS Weekends into its repertoire. Roughly half the duration of ROOTS Week, the three-­day programmes combine the same mix of performance and visual art exhibition, workshops, dialogues for shared learning and growth. As a result of these efforts, the membership functions independently of the organizational leadership as an associational resource-­sharing mechanism, effectively offering the means for continued growth and change. As evidenced by these practices, ROOTS’ particular modes of engagement increase the links across its membership and effectively shorten the distance between individuals of similar interests. ROOTS’ methods also invite its recognition as an effective ‘small world network’, a term used to describe the densely interconnected relationships among large numbers of individuals.47 These connections may be forged by geographies, cultural practices and identities, among others – in other words, place, tradition and spirit. A key dynamic of such small worlds is the principle of ‘weak ties’ wherein at least two individuals, without prior knowledge of each other, may forge productive relations based on their shared familiarity with a third party in the net.48 Such weak ties are one of ROOTS’ strengths – the infrastructure wrought by ROOTS’ membership, its colleagues and allies allows individuals to access a wide variety of resources by knowing one link, or individual, who may connect them to someone else. ROOTS’ practical and guiding principles testify to the nature of these partnered peer relations, as they are worked out in artistic practice and community engagement.

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

197

Speed Killed My Cousin To consider the benefits of the combined distributive network and partnership ethos in the context of an applied theatre work, consider Speed Killed My Cousin (2013), a play and community engagement programme focused on the experiences and effects of post-­traumatic stress (PTS) on a returning African-American female veteran attempting to re-­integrate into civilian life. The work reflects a partnership of ROOTers, a layering of ROOTS support programmes, as well as the greater public partnerships made possible by ROOTS allies, values and practices. It was produced by The Carpetbag Theater of Knoxville, Tennessee, and written by Carpetbag’s founding director Linda ParrisBailey (also a founding member of ROOTS), and directed by ROOTer Andrea Assaf, Artistic Director of Art2Action in Tampa, Florida. With respect to the distributive network, the play received ROOTS seed support (funds and services) through PIA ($15,000),49 the New England Foundation for the Arts’ (NEFA) National Theatre Project ($49,950),50 NPN’s Creation Fund ($13,000), as well as NPN’s Community Fund51 to support community engagement activities. These efforts included dialogues, story circles and theatre workshops. The play was also workshopped at the Ko Festival through their residency programme.52 Both NEFA and NPN support came with commitments to tours in Tennessee, Florida, Louisiana, Vermont, Massachusetts and Texas. With respect to distribution, one could easily argue that key developmental support followed from ROOTS’ longtime collegial status with NPN, as well as the efforts of both organizations, and their NEFA successor, in identifying, channelling resources to, and promoting regional artists. With respect to the social network, organizational (ROOTS, NEFA and NPN) support, as well as Ko’s residency, helped fund and facilitate meetings between creating artists and veterans, veteran services, affected friends and families, and arts presenters to deepen the play’s inquiry and expand its reach.53 Along with the touring dates, these meetings helped the creating artists refine the play and its engagement activities, which came to be known as the Community Arts Reintegration

198

Applied Theatre: Economies

(CAR) project. Parris-Bailey and Assaf drew on the CAR to connect Speed Killed My Cousin to broader public policy spheres and resources, including the Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Recovery Centers (PRRC) and Americans for the Arts’ Arts Health, and the Military Conference.54 In public showings, individual veterans stepped forward to shape the storytelling circles, a foundational practice brought to ROOTS by the ROOTS Founding Member, John O’Neal, of the Free Southern Theater.55 While lecturing on the play at the University of Tennessee, the artistic team met doctoral student Patricia Jones, a veteran, who first volunteered to work on the production. With Carpetbag’s support, Jones received training in digital storytelling. Eventually, Dr. Jones took leadership of the digital storytelling aspect of the project, joined ROOTS as well as the staff of Carpetbag Theater, and began working as a consultant to Arts2Action. In another partnering move, a psychologist working with veterans in the PRRC helped the creators to see that the work used PTS as a lens to query ‘moral injury’, a notion tied to the broader social and ethical impact on individuals affected by sometimes multiple deployments in the Middle East.56 Parris-Bailey notes how at the beginning of the process the play had only the artistic and political commitments of its anti-­war creators, as well as their shared ties through ROOTS and NPN. The artistic team’s commitment to community engagement and growing ties to veteran communities through supported programmes brought them through a long and complex process.57 While this show reveals a partnering of resources, it also reflects an exceptional level of commitment from its supporters, which begs the questions: what gaps in support remain and how does ROOTS respond to those gaps?

The work remaining The benchmarks of support established by Investing in Creativity in 2003, and practised by the artist support organizations like ROOTS since, have also made way for more cogent study of the gaps in support

The ROOTS of US Applied Theatre Economies

199

for US artists, particularly applied theatre artists. Creativity Connects, the earlier study’s update, locates four key challenges at this moment, which ROOTS’ programming has variously addressed through its most recent work: Technology is profoundly altering the context and economics of artists’ work. Artists share challenging conditions with other segments of the workforce. Structural inequities in the arts ecosystem mirror that of other parts of society. Training and funding systems are not keeping up with artists’ evolving needs and opportunities [emphasis in original].58

To read the report is to recognize how these four concerns locate the artist negotiating a series of binaries: between the ease of communication and crowd-­funding technologies afforded by the net and the challenges to live performance in a mediated age; between the long history of discounted labour and debt burdens for artists and the rising costs and workforce challenges overall; between the decade-­plus efforts of countering systemic racism in US arts and culture support and the dominance of white, elite organizations; and between the challenges of maintaining a system of support while anticipating how to advance a future model. In response, ROOTS recently partnered with the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Pa’I Foundation, and the First People’s Fund to develop the Intercultural Leadership Institute. Since its pilot sessions in 2015 to its first class in 2017, these organizations have been working collectively to train a following generation ‘to address culturally relevant and equitable practices in arts management and leadership’.59 In other words, the future remains a shared proposition, one that will be worked out by a multi-­racial and largely self-­identified interdisciplinary cohort of professionals working in collaboration and sharing a commitment to equity – from the grassroots up, not the top down. In a recent essay, Maria Rosario Jackson touched on the same concern as she follows the process of a single artist residency. One

200

Applied Theatre: Economies

finding in particular should resonate with applied theatre artists. Noting that the preparation for community-­based art generally progresses through stages that include courtship, negotiations over mutual objectives and boundaries, planning, and even trial periods, Jackson suggests that third party mediator[s] may serve to ‘vent frustrations, help provide perspective and brainstorm ways of overcoming difficulties, and also negotiate terms of the residency and related agreements at the outset’.60 I submit that ROOTS – as a partnership of allies, a hub for resources, an ethos of ethical practices, and a platform for productive partnerships – functions as a collective third party in Jackson’s recommendations. Through its distributive channels and partnership networks, ROOTS offers both the distributive structure and partnership mechanism to shape a thriving applied theatre economy. Its methods of distribution, community-­building efforts and advocacy continue to shape and offer possibilities for applied theatre artists. In other words, ROOTS responds to the challenges identified in Creativity Connects using the same processes that applied theatre makers use – by working with community to envision, articulate and implement a shared future.

11

The Theatre Dividend: Reflecting on the Value of a Theatre and Social Housing Partnership in Bolton (UK) Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes

‘Housing committee at its November 1996 meeting made an “in principle” commitment to allocate 1% of its capital expenditure to art and cultural activity’. This note, taken from the minutes of the Housing committee of Bolton Metropolitan Council, marks the inauguration of a twenty-­year period of financial support for arts activity in contexts of social housing in Bolton, a former mill town in the north of England. Since that moment, ‘Percent for Art’ has become embedded into the core business strategy of social housing in Bolton, initially led by the local authority and latterly, following the transfer of council housing stock from local authorities to housing associations, by a housing association called Bolton at Home.1 At the time of writing, Bolton at Home owns and manages 18,000 homes, many in areas categorized as economically deprived. In its first ten years, Percent for Art generated almost £1 million to support 152 projects involving over 100 arts practitioners and organizations, and more than 8,000 people, leveraging additional funding of at least £1.25 million.2 An extraordinary range of arts activity was supported, from major public art projects, one-­off festivals and processions, art installations, community craft groups, amateur performance groups, participatory photography and film-­ making initiatives, as well as, in partnership with the Octagon, Bolton’s state-­subsidized producing theatre, a number of theatre projects. The partnership with the theatre has led to community productions of Shakespeare on housing estates, theatre projects tackling

202

Applied Theatre: Economies

social issues in youth and community centres, neighbourhood theatre clubs, regular theatre trips for tenants, visits of professional actors to community sites, and the casting of young people from community projects in the Octagon’s professional shows. This level of sustained support for the arts from a social landlord is, to the best of our knowledge, unique in social housing provision. The economic model underpinning this support has antecedents in Percent for Art programmes elsewhere in the UK, as well as in Europe and Australia. It is especially prevalent in the US, originating in Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, and incorporated into the legislation of several cities and states through the 1960s.3 In this chapter, we reflect on Bolton at Home’s circulation of a percentage of capital expenditure as cultural and social dividends to tenants, with a focus on points of translation between economic and non-­economic forms of value. In the committee minutes cited, these dividends are discoursed in material, social and subjective terms – enhancing urban regeneration, involving people in improving their neighbourhoods, ‘humanising’ public spaces, and providing opportunities for personal development.4 We focus here on the partnership between the theatre and social landlord and in particular, on a women’s theatre club called Melodramatics. Following a discussion of the economic context of the partnership, we examine an eight-­month theatre-­making project in 2015 during which the women created a play, Seeing Red, exploring domestic violence.5 The play was conceived, devised and performed by the women in collaboration with a Percent for Art Officer from Bolton at Home and an Associate Director from the Octagon, with the performance supported by a professional actor. We pay attention to this play-­making as a practice of economy underpinned by non-­monetary exchanges and appreciations of ‘investment’ in time, friendship, conversation and shared experience, leading to perceptions of improved community security and personal well-­being. This ‘home space’ economy helped to keep open, extend and protect spaces for communal recognition and connection, articulated by the women involved as important sources of support in their everyday lives.6

The Theatre Dividend

203

We draw in our analysis on J. K. Gibson-Graham’s point that ‘capitalocentric’ discourses of economy obscure an economic landscape that is populated by the diverse languages and practices of a community economy. Drawing on feminist and Marxist accounts of the sociality of economic relations, Gibson-Graham argue that economic practices arise in specific socio-­historical contexts, constituted by interdependent flows between economic and ‘non-­economic’ activities – social, cultural and relational – that need to be ‘contingently rather than deterministically configured’ in analysis.7 We are also drawn, however, to a counterargument provided by Miranda Joseph in her discussion of ‘the complicity of community with capital, of culture with economy’.8 Joseph examines how community practices enact a ‘supplement’ to (rather than supplanting of) capitalist economy – giving rise to non-­ economic flows that a capitalist economy relies on, but does not value, and that leave socio-­economic inequalities unaddressed. GibsonGraham describe Joseph’s conclusions as ‘disappointing’,9 however, Joseph’s attention to the constraints, alongside the potential for resistance (via disruption and displacement) of flows of capital, is important for our analysis. Interestingly, the respective arguments of Gibson-Graham and Joseph come together in their privileging of contingency, as evident in Joseph’s comment that the disruptive potential of community as supplement might emerge via ‘contingent efforts, responsive to particular constraints and opportunities’.10 As Nicolas Ridout suggests in his own discussion of Joseph’s work, perhaps the critical potential of the social practice of theatre arises, then, not because it exists ‘beyond’ capitalism but because it ‘nestles so deeply inside it’.11

Theatre and social housing: Good business and sensible goods To support [a] person to be happier and healthier, and more active and productive, makes them a better tenant for us . . . it makes sense for us as a business.12

204

Applied Theatre: Economies

The Octagon Theatre is a state-­funded producing theatre built in 1967 as a community theatre, its construction supported by a grant given by a wealthy industrialist in the town combined with contributions from local authorities, businesses and charities as well as a grassroots funding campaign. Inspired by Peter Cheeseman’s Victoria Theatre in nearby Stoke-­on-Trent, the Octagon was, and continues to be, driven by an intention to provide an ‘artistic service’ to the town and its people.13 This is manifested in the design of the building, with a glass front wall creating a sense of openness, and a flexible main stage that provides audience members with equivalent levels of visibility wherever they are sitting and an intimate sense of connection with performers. It is also manifested in a history of outreach and engagement activity, including the Octagon’s partnership with Bolton at Home. Since 2014, Bolton at Home has given the Octagon an annual sum of £20,000 to pay for theatre trips for tenants and neighbourhood theatre clubs. The funding for Percent for Art comes from a small percentage of the Housing Association’s capital expenditure, and the money for the partnership with the theatre comes from a related source. The receipt from the first or second sale of a social housing property each year is tithed to the Octagon to support theatre activity with tenants. Sales of social housing are a condition of the UK government’s controversial ‘right to buy’ scheme, established by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1980. Right to buy puts obligations on housing agencies to provide tenants with opportunities to buy their homes at a reduced rate. Over time, this has arguably represented a substantial transfer of publicly owned housing stock to private ownership, and is a move that fosters the neoliberal forms of self-­entrepreneurship, productivity and subjectivity critically examined by political philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Wendy Brown. With the theatre and social housing partnership, the enclosure and exploitation of this common resource is translated into the provision of an artistic service to the community. This might be understood as a re-­socialization of a surplus gleaned from capitalist enterprise in a way that reflects that surplus’ origins as a publicly owned resource, as well as an expression of the original

The Theatre Dividend

205

community ethos of the Octagon. It can also be understood as enacting a translation of commonly owned value into a private realm of economic and social transaction. The economic framework of the partnership, and the questions it raises, reflects the historical context of the Percent for Art initiative. A series of urban regeneration initiatives, led by John Major’s Conservative government through the 1990s, allowed housing authorities to develop public–private partnerships so as to support the regeneration of long-­ neglected housing estates and former industrial sites. Bolton Council’s successful bid for £37.5 million in 1991 was used to draw in private investment, attracting an additional £225 million, an extraordinary outcome facilitated by good relationships between the local authority, businesses and the voluntary sector across the borough.14 The Labour government elected in 1997 continued a policy of public–private enterprise and released additional money to improve housing stock and tackle social exclusion, reframing a baldly neoliberal housing policy as a ‘third way’ political alternative. Third way politics embrace ideals of entrepreneurship, wealth creation and enterprise concomitant with a free market economy, but combine these with policies that seek to enhance ‘social capital’ and ‘social entrepreneurship’ as well as the values of community, equality and personal responsibility. The circulation of a monetary surplus as a cultural and social dividend represented by the theatre partnership is, arguably, an apposite expression of the newly economized social domain opened up by third way politics. Tension between the economic and the social, private and public, was repeatedly highlighted in our research, in ways that do not reveal any neat or straightforward argument for or against the potential of the partnership to disrupt exploitative and enclosing flows of capital. Interestingly, Gibson-Graham distance their model of community economy from third way politics, seeing the latter as aligned to an enclosure of social value that arises from the diverse economic practices that exist inside a capitalist economy. Instead of understanding social value via the language of capital, Gibson-Graham aim to ‘resignify all

206

Applied Theatre: Economies

economic transactions and relations, capitalist and noncapitalist, in terms of their sociality and interdependence, and their ethical participation in being-­in-common’.15 Here, diversity, contradiction and tension in capitalist economic discourse signal the presence of alternative economic practices that are often ignored or obscured. What emerged when we considered the discourses drawn on to describe the value of the theatre and social housing partnership by those most closely involved, was a frequent juxtaposition of economic and pragmatic registers, as well as shared insistence that the value of the activity could not be measured in monetary form. The idea that investment in the arts makes ‘good business sense’ for a social landlord, as articulated by Percent for Art Officer, Dawn Yates-Obe,16 was oft-­ repeated by Bolton at Home staff. However, it is clear that this argument was also a tactical move that provided a platform for articulating a more diverse set of values. When asked why Bolton at Home sustains its commitment to the arts, even in times of economic difficulty, Jon Lord (CEO of Bolton at Home) commented that ‘if I was speaking to different audiences, which I do, I give a different reason for every audience’,17 continuing on to articulate three separate arguments for the value of arts in social housing. The first argument, for right-­wing policy audiences, emphasized the role of arts participation in building soft skills and enhancing employability. The second, for community arts activists, stressed the vitalization of arts practice that can arise from community engagement, and the third, for social workers, drew attention to a community arts project that helped tenants express their thoughts and feelings. Lord concluded that ‘it’s multi-­beneficial . . . those things don’t sit exclusively separate from each other’.18 This embrace of multiplicity is echoed by George Caswell (former CEO of Bolton at Home and involved in establishing Percent for Art) in a way that refuses to be ideologically straight-­jacketed by views of the relative benefits of public and private capital, and insists on the importance of an affective, community-­based economic practice: what we tried to do is work to a business ethic, there will never be private good, public bad, or vice versa. Whatever makes sense, you use,

The Theatre Dividend

207

but what we have had is, right down the centre, is a set of values, which are people-­centred, we have a responsibility not just to help our customers realize their potential, but also our staff . . . part of the values are around people development, treating people as adults, as human beings, strangely enough, sentient beings, not as numbers.19

This pragmatic use of coexisting discourses powerfully reveals the inherent performativity of languages of value. Lord and Caswell’s professional abilities to improvise across distinct discourses of value, is underpinned by a commitment to the principle of equality and appreciation of the potential of tenants. Lord notes that the arts are ‘a great leveler’, allowing people from very different backgrounds to collaborate on equal terms. This commitment to equality is also clearly communicated in a comment oft-­cited by other interviewees contributing to our research (frequently attributed to Jon Lord): ‘We don’t build houses for people to enjoy poverty in, there’s got to be more to a community and a neighbourhood than bricks and mortar.’ Expressing his commitment to the value of the theatre dividend, Lord himself commented that: ‘a lot of our tenants walk past the Octagon everyday . . . but they never saw it as a place for them . . . one night a month or one night a couple of months, going to the theatre, that’s an immeasurable step forward in terms of the quality of their life’.20 A term associated with the cooperative movement, the dividend has played an important role in historical struggles for economic justice and social equality. Following political turmoil in the 1830s in towns surrounding Manchester, including Bolton, and the failure of the Chartist movement in the area to secure political enfranchisement, working people turned to a democratization of the economic domain. The cooperative movement that emerged gave members equal control over capitalist enterprise regardless of economic stake, and sought to regulate the surpluses produced by guaranteeing a fixed return per member, directing profits beyond this return to initiatives for the benefit of members, including social and educational activity. This model thrived inside a capitalist economy and, from its roots in the North of England, has been exported internationally. The historical

208

Applied Theatre: Economies

figure of the dividend, then, is a locally driven response to and supplement of the capital relation. For a historian of the cooperative movement, Peter Gurney, ‘the dividend was part of the “practical knowledge” used by working people to cope with and simultaneously reconstruct capitalist social relations’.21 Perhaps what is most important here is the repeated iteration of a ‘whatever works’ pragmatism, which prizes adaptation and improvisation in order to create, sustain and distribute the value of the theatre dividend. Here, the value of the dividend is not in its operations as a financial tool, but in its generation of a social and cultural surplus that can only be understood contingently. Interestingly, contingency is not only useful in order to understand the economics of this theatre and social housing partnership, but is also a feature of actual practice on the ground. The Octagon and Bolton at Home’s commitment to community leadership means that activity emerges in response to changing circumstances. Depending on the value base of those involved on the ground, these adaptations can be more or less protective of common resources in localities. Contingency is also important in the history of Percent for Art. The integration of the arts into the core business of social housing became possible as a result of entrepreneurial housing policy in the 1990s, but it was inspired by an unplanned conversation in a pub between two housing professionals in Bolton in the early 1990s.22 One of those involved – George Caswell – had grown up in a working class family with a passion for the arts, and wanted to puncture the mythology that the arts were for the middle classes. This led him to employ community artist Brian Lewis,‘a bit of a revolutionary, a good guy’, to run day-­long taster sessions with housing staff.23 Of course, the performativity of a language of value has varying effects depending on the status of the person wielding that language, and their position inside networks of power. Some voices are more powerful than others, and those powerfully positioned tend to be responsible for ensuring that the needs of capital are privileged over those of community. In the end, is the social and cultural supplement too driven by the need to service capital to nurture a community

The Theatre Dividend

209

economy? To explore this, we turn to the activities of Melodramatics, and to how the women reinvested the dividend in response to the particular pressures of their own time and place.

Melodramatics: Home-­place economies of tea, conversation and making theatre It’s nice to walk down the street and say hiya to people, it builds your confidence and sense of security where you are living, knowing other people. [. . .] We’ve come together, and we probably wouldn’t in other circumstances, and we really get on, and it boosts all our confidence and gives us other social circles and stuff and it’s brilliant. You just wouldn’t have that otherwise. I’d probably have been stuck at home, cleaning up on my own and being fed up, and instead I’m getting out and doing something and having a better quality of life for it.24

The community centre in which Melodramatics rehearse is positioned on the corner of George Street and Moorside Avenue in New Bury, a largely residential area of Bolton. To the left, a post office and corner shop attract a steady but modest flow of customers. To the right is the length of George Street: a short road of two-­story, semi-­detached houses, punctuated by the occasional chip shop, disused mill or industrial edifice. The building is one of Bolton at Home’s Urban Care and Neighbourhood (UCAN) Centres, spaces that are deliberately positioned in residential areas to act as a localized, responsive interface between Bolton at Home, the services they offer and the communities they serve. The outside of the building is clad in plain red brick, unadorned save for a metal plaque in honour of George Caswell. The interior consists of four spaces: a reception area, kitchen, toilet and large meeting room. UCAN centres are at the forefront of Bolton at Home’s response to the reduction of public spending and welfare reform at the time of writing. The majority of Bolton at Home’s income is generated through rent collection.25 As a charity that aims to provide housing for people with low incomes or insecure employment, the organization is

210

Applied Theatre: Economies

vulnerable to changes in the housing benefit system that affect tenants’ ability to pay rent consistently. In their 2016–21 strategy document, Our Plan,26 Bolton at Home’s UCAN centres are identified as sites that provide an enduring opportunity to work with tenants to improve their skills, health and personal circumstances, increasing their chances of finding employment. Bolton at Home’s investment in the education and well-­being of their tenants is, in this way, formally connected to the organization’s financial prosperity and we can see the UCAN centre itself is a site for the generation and circulation of social and financial capital, in line with the entrepreneurial principles of third way politics. Additionally, however, the UCAN centre in New Bury acts as a site for the development of vernacular economies, in which the monetary is redistributed in social, relational and ontological terms. This happens via formal activity offered by Bolton at Home – job clubs, IT training, well-­being groups – and through community-­generated activity. Often, the distinction between these two realms of activity is difficult to discern, as staff aim to engage community members as collaborators in addressing social needs and shifting policy priorities. We consider the UCAN centres, then, and the activities that take place within them, as a mode of economic distribution that operates in ways that are consistent with a neoliberal paradigm and at the same time allows extra-­monetary territories of production and exchange to emerge. Glenys Campbell, former regeneration manager for Bolton at Home and responsible for the development of the UCAN centres, explains that the buildings were designed to support informal modes of social interaction: ‘No desks. No formal structures at all. People walk in, they can sit, they can chat, they can do whatever.’27 The blurring of distinctions, through an embrace of informality, between the exterior environment of the estate, formal spaces of a social housing organization, and the interior space of the centre is an important feature of the extra-­ monetary economic territories that we trace here. From a strategic perspective, the lack of formality is designed to encourage tenants to make use of services offered by Bolton at Home, but it also frames the centre itself as an adjunct to economies of care

The Theatre Dividend

211

and responsibility as they are practiced on the estate. In addition to its institutional role, the New Bury UCAN centre is used to distribute free lunches to children during the school holidays,28 as a food co-­op, and as a ‘Not-Shop’ swap shop, set up by local residents to exchange clothing, toys and food within the community. These activities are often conceived by tenants, who work in collaboration with community development officers and, at their best, they convey a sense of being owned, managed and regulated by tenants. Here, the infrastructure provided by Bolton at Home is redeployed to serve localized practices of relation and exchange that respond to broader inequalities in the distribution of economic wealth. These initiatives do not displace the influence of Bolton at Home. Rather, they nestle within the institutional mechanisms of the centre whilst also establishing independently organized practices of economy that invoke the local and the social within a monetary context. If we see, in the Not-Shop, for example, a vernacular economy in which the resources of the UCAN centre are turned towards the benefit of the community, Melodramatics demonstrate a similar model of redistribution, in which the building is implicated in creative and social praxes that affirm the group itself as a discrete economic environment. Melodramatics is the self-­designated name for a group of around eight women who live in the neighbourhood, meeting for two hours every Thursday for the primary purpose of making theatre together. The group that became Melodramatics began in 2014 as part of an effort by staff at the newly opened centre to establish a women’s group. After a series of taster sessions that covered crafts, music and song writing, puppet making and creative writing, the group decided to focus their efforts on writing and drama, and Lisa O’Neill-Rogan, Associate Director at the Octagon, was invited to support their practice. Lisa’s involvement provides an important framework that helps to establish and protect a field of extra-­monetary interests. As has been noted, the Octagon receives £20,000 from Bolton at Home annually. A large portion of this sum is used to pay for theatre tickets that are made available for free, or at a reduced cost, to tenants. Bolton at Home’s financial contribution to the theatre allows Lisa to prioritize work with

212

Applied Theatre: Economies

their tenants and we can, from this perspective, see her cultural expertise, the group, and their social and cultural output, as contained within a monetary exchange. However, this economic framework, and Bolton at Home’s commitment to the arts, means that the Melodramatics are not tied to funding cycles and associated outputs. The group are allowed time and space to develop their practice, in relationship to the personal circumstances of their members. This unique context offers a flexibility that makes room for attentive practices of being together that do not wholly belong to a capitalist environment. This context and the activities that it supports embody the characteristics of what Sue Mayo describes as a ‘home space’.29 Writing about theatre practiced outside of theatre buildings, Mayo differentiates the process of rehearsal from the process of producing a play. As she suggests, a home space is a physical, social and ontological environment. It is established through the repetition of activities which, over time, exceed themselves as a technique for creating theatre and give rise to a communal praxis of identity-­making or, as Mayo writes, a ‘temporary community’ that is formed in relation to the contingencies of the group. What is produced by Melodramatics in this context is a home space as a discrete socio-­economic entity that encloses the material and monetary value of the UCAN centre within hyper-­localized practices of social, ontological and economic exchange. To explore this environment we turn to the economies of care, self and relation that contributed to the making of the play Seeing Red. Seeing Red was Melodramatics’ second project, coming after a soap opera that was written and performed by the group. As Percent for Art Officer Dawn Yates-Obe noted, it was during filming for this project that the group began developing ideas for what would become Seeing Red: ‘When they were making the film, they soon realized that there’s quite a lot of time waiting around. You know, if you’re not in that scene, there’s quite a lot of down time, so they just started to write.’30 What emerged were the beginnings of a play that took, as its foundation, the group members’ experiences of domestic abuse. The decision to make a play with this focus was motivated by a sense that their experiences

The Theatre Dividend

213

were not unique, and that they could use the understanding they had developed to communicate with, and potentially protect, other women in their community. In the first instance, therefore, the performance represents a strategic contribution to discourses of care and responsibility as they exist within the socio-­cultural environments of New Bury and Bolton. The performance and the process of making it, however, also represent an exercise in autobiographical praxis. Kelly, who played the sister of the protagonist in the first performance, comments: ‘we just wanted to show, really, that although [domestic abuse] happens to a lot of people, there’s a way to get through it and build and get past it – show people that there’s a life after that’.31 The play itself explores a character’s descent into an abusive relationship, telling the story of a young mother who is isolated and controlled by her abusive partner. After a climactic act of violence, the play leaves the protagonist’s situation unresolved. The narrative turn that Kelly describes does not, therefore, take place in the play itself. Rather, her interpretation of the play’s value refers to the significance of the women’s representation of themselves, as themselves, on stage. In addition to its educative function, therefore, the play could be seen as a non-­fictional representation of the members’ lives ‘after’ abuse, and the practice of making and performing the play as a renegotiation of self in collaborative, contingent relation to the others in the group. From this perspective, the practice of rehearsal becomes part of an ontological economy, as individual experiences are brought to bear in a communal, creative praxis. As a consequence of the multi-­functional space of the UCAN centre, Melodramatics conducted most of their practice sat on high-­backed office chairs, gathered around a large table. Scenes were developed and revised through detailed discussions that aimed to establish a realistic progression of events based on the lived experiences of the women in the room. This expertise informed the portrayal of family and abuse to a precise degree, informing details such as the list of household tasks the protagonist – Julia – had to fulfil each day before her boyfriend came home from work, the ways in which

214

Applied Theatre: Economies

her anxieties about not upsetting her partner isolated her from her friends, and a scene in which Julia serves a meal of beans on toast after forgetting to defrost some steak, causing her boyfriend to lash out. This attention to detail was both educative, in terms of sharing awareness of how somebody might come to be controlled by somebody else, and empowering, in that the group were in charge of what was being depicted, and how those experiences were represented. Clarke Mackey uses the term ‘vernacular’ to identify a category of cultural production that exists in unique praxis with localized socio-­ cultural contingencies.32 As he suggests, vernacular culture sits in contrast to commercial culture as a category of practice limited to a geographically determined sphere of social and cultural understanding. It functions, to this extent, as both a communicative event and an articulation of shared identity. The opening scene of the play takes place during an Ann Summers party. From a narrative perspective, the function of the scene is to establish the inter-­relational dynamics of the characters and to demonstrate the first signs of the protagonist’s loss of confidence. It also makes use of a format – a house party with sexually explicit party games, product demonstrations led by an Ann Summers representative and alcohol – that members of the group were familiar with and, in many cases, had experienced together. Practically, this provided a framework that was added to by re-­staging the group members’ own experiences. Through a process of improvisation and repetition the scene became populated with games that Melodramatics had played at these events in the past, reactions – ‘I’m not putting that on I’ll look like a whale caught in a fishing net!’ – and comments that were born out of the actual friendships within the group. We see vernacular culture as key to how Melodramatics mobilize extra-­ economic value. A conversational and improvisatory approach in rehearsals foregrounded the vernacular, relying on extant relational dynamics, regional turns of phrase and culturally specific humour. This approach to play-­making blurred the distinction between the performance and the affective dynamics of friendship and, in doing so, associated the performance itself with themes, practices and concerns

The Theatre Dividend

215

that were illustrative of the broader socio-­cultural milieu within which the women live. Alongside these practices, Melodramatics concentrated on many activities that are only peripherally related to the practice of making theatre, but wholly related to the home space economies created by the group. These activities were not specialist, but, rather, convivial iterations of common social practice. They included the practical use of time to organize events, such as a raffle, collect savings for a Christmas saving club, and arrange childcare, as well as the less formalized use of space for conversation between friends over a cup of tea. The practice of making tea, and the time and labour relations specific to this moment in Melodramatics’ practice, offers important insight into the UCAN centre as home space and the ways in which the transitions between life experience and creative exploration were negotiated. Writing of the role of tea within symbolic discourses of lesbian identity, Amber Musser posits tea as an example of symbolic consolidation. As she suggests, though tea is ‘not necessarily significant’33 as a symbol in itself, when implicated in vernacular discourses of relation and identity, it can represent a communicative nexus that informs the socio-­affective interior of the group involved in making tea. In Melodramatics’ practice, tea functioned, in a literal and metaphorical sense, as an articulation of a commitment to spend time together: a material manifestation of time, space and relation that expressed a socio-­affective commitment. The weekly activity of making and drinking tea took place at the beginning of the session. This routine represents, firstly, a beginning – a mark of differentiation between time and context as they apply outside the centre, and the cultivated environment of the centre in relation to the contingencies of the group. Secondly, in the absence of a rota or formalized obligation, making tea was a proactive contribution to the group dynamic. In this way, and in reference to personal relationships within the group that extended beyond the specific context of Melodramatics, making tea alluded to the role of tea in the home, infusing the centre with familiar practices of sociability and relation.

216

Applied Theatre: Economies

The time allocated to these activities contracted or expanded as necessary, creating an open-­ended space of transition that both moved towards the practice of theatre, as the ultimate goal of the group’s meeting, whilst allowing personal experience to linger and inform the constitution of that practice. This effect was apparent in both representational and relational terms. In the first, experiences discussed over tea were incorporated into the narrative of the play, occasionally to the extent that members repeated the exact words of their discussion. Relationally, issues brought up during tea informed the dynamic of the group thereafter, as members affected by a particular issue were allowed different levels of commitment or engagement with the practice, dependent on their needs. In this way, making tea could be allied with a ‘beating of the bounds’ that marked out particular social, relational and affective consistencies, whilst also acknowledging the ways in which ‘individual sensation and experience’34 in the interim required the constitution of the group as a responsive, intimate, communality to adapt or change.

Conclusion We have presented an account of the economics of theatre-­making in a localized time and place, and argued that the forms of resources being generated, exchanged and protected in this time and place have shape-­ shifting values as they flow through communities, moving from a percentage of capital revenue or profit from a sale, to a material site (a building), to the affective and social relations of care and creativity evident in Melodramatics. At each point of translation, there is a break or schism, and so whilst the flows are interdependent, they are experienced as distinct. These distinctions can be seen as micro-­ economic contexts, invoking adaptable, improvisatory practices of exchange and distribution based on a principle of ‘whatever works’. As Melodramatics demonstrate, however, they also give rise to new and unpredictable categories of economy and productivity. Beyond the

The Theatre Dividend

217

socio-­affective parameters of the group itself, Seeing Red has been restaged at the Octagon to coincide with the UN-backed initiative ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’, and recorded as a radio play, publicly available on the Bolton at Home website.35 These outputs create bridges between the specificities of practice and wider audiences, and begin to map out what might be possible for creative practice operating within a socially oriented dividend model. As we ended our period of research with the group, points of tension in flows of value were becoming increasingly evident, with Bolton at Home’s need to reassign the space of the centre for administrative purposes starkly highlighting the power differences in play across the economic landscapes mapped here.36 The urban regeneration context that Percent for Art came from, as George Caswell told us, ‘is all lost now’, and, at the time of writing, social housing is under sustained attack by a right-­wing government. In this precarious economic environment, new concerns about cost-­effectiveness at both the Octagon and Bolton at Home threaten the economies of time and place that were the foundation of the group’s practice. In many ways, the extra-­economic zone opened up by the way the partnership ‘nestles inside’ flows of capital (to repeat Ridout’s useful phrase, cited in our introduction), thrives on the provision of time for conversation and conviviality with no agenda in mind, loose ends and purposeless meanders, facilitating a slow process of making relationships and theatre – all comprising a neighbourly inhabitation of space and time. Here, the women make use of the dividend through the care-­full expenditure of free time, that is, time without the constraint of a productivity drive imposed from outside, which is absolutely not the same as being unproductive. Our exploration has revealed an historical thread in the economies of social theatre in which diverse forms of wealth released by the dividend, as a means of mitigating, disciplining and socializing a capital relation, may be worthy of further investigation. A significant factor arising from this study is the importance of contingency, in the operations of the partnership as well as its economies, as a means of mobilizing flows of value that traverse the domains of public and private enterprise, public and private

218

Applied Theatre: Economies

space, social relationships and intimate experience. Contingency is a term semantically associated with specific sets of circumstances, as well as with the idea of saving, securing and planning – for what may or could happen. These traversals, perhaps, effectively reveal the common forms of wealth that might be generated and put to use as part of a practice of saving (in) communities. Traversals of distinct categories of value create an insistent and resilient interruption of flows of capital that disavow monetary limitations on our understanding of what life is worth, and allow alternative meanings, narratives and practices to emerge.

Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to Melodramatics, Lisa O’Neill Rogan, Dawn Yates-Obe, the Octagon Theatre, Bolton at Home, and everyone willing to participate in interviews with the researchers. Part of the research for this chapter was supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Early Career Fellowship: ‘Poor theatres: A critical examination of theatre, performance and economic precarity’ [Grant Ref: AH/ L004054/1].

Afterword Molly Mullen

As explained in the introduction, this book began its journey as a research project involving three theatre companies. My engagement with the people and practices of these companies informed, shaped and challenged my thinking about applied theatre’s relationship to the economic conditions in which it is produced, and the ways in which socially committed theatre-­makers fund, finance or otherwise resource their work. It pushed me to look more deeply at aspects of applied theatre practice I thought I understood and to find new perspectives on questions that seemed to have been addressed, if not answered, in the literature. The aim of that research project, to develop an understanding of the economies of applied theatre that is theoretically informed and grounded in the complex, day-­to-day realities of practice, has also underpinned the production of this book. The case study authors ask searching, critical questions about the economies of their own practice, or examples of practice they have been involved with in a sustained way. In doing so, they generate new insights into the implications of donor relationships or other modes of income generation. Each case study examines modes of resourcing applied theatre that have previously gone un- or under-­examined, from community gardening to e-­commerce, for-profit business models to contemporary collectives. Importantly, most of the cases offer an expanded view of applied theatre’s economies by examining the role, operations and perspectives of donors and intermediary organizations and/or by illuminating the many other relationships that sustain a particular project or company. Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes explicitly re-­theorize the relationship of applied theatre to the conditions of neoliberal capitalism, proposing the

220

Applied Theatre: Economies

theatre initiatives they write about ‘nestle inside’ the institutions of capitalism, ‘establishing independently organized practices of economy that invoke the local and the social within the monetary contexts’. Briar and Peter O’Connor also take up the metaphor of nestling within, but argue that, in their case, the room to enact alternative practices of economy is ever diminishing. Across the case studies, no simple, singular understanding of applied theatre’s relationship to the economic conditions in which it is produced emerges. In their own way, however, each author approaches ‘economic relationships as something to be contingently rather than deterministically configured’.1 All of the case studies present financial activities, funding relationships and organizational practices as sources of tension for applied theatre-­ making and there is a strong indication of the urgent need to improve the nature and conditions of funding for applied theatre through research and advocacy. But, each case study also presents financial decision-­making, funding relationships and organizational activities as productive sites of creative and critical action. In Justin O’Connor’s reflection on the state of the cultural and creative industries in 2017 through the lens of postcapitalist theory,2 he argues: It is time to give up on the fiction of the creative industries delivering post-­industrial capitalism. Instead, we should acknowledge the new ways of making and sharing, the commitments to community and place, the social labour involved in creative work as a powerful resource for wider transformation of our culture.

The creative industries are often critiqued for being culture co-­opted in the service of capitalism. In this short article, O’Connor reframes the creative industries as a potential resource for creating a post-­capitalist future. Similarly, this book attempts to rethink and reframe the economies of applied theatre in a way that is consistent with a ‘politics of possibility’,3 rather than a politics of compromise or defeat. Reflecting back on the poem presented in the Introduction, the metaphors of ‘vulture’ or ‘unwitting dupe’ seem insufficient for describing the

Afterword

221

economic motivations and identities of the theatre makers, groups and companies featured in the seven case studies. Nor does the economic subjectivity of homo economicus suffice. I find few, if any, examples where economic relationships are treated as disembodied, instrumental transactions, or where financial and organizational decisions are fuelled by competition, driven by a profit motive or motivated by self-­interest. Instead, there are diverse examples of how theatre makers and theatre companies are ‘resocializing’ their economic activities and relationships (or are attempting to do so).4 This does not mean they are acting on a kind of naïve optimism, or as entirely free agents. They are engaged in a rigorous praxis of politically, ethically, aesthetically and pedagogically informed decision making, negotiating the conditions in which their practice is embedded to find the means to ‘perform economy in new ways’.5

Notes Foreword 1 See: http://urbantheatre.com.au/news/home-­country/ (accessed 26 February 2018).

Introduction 1 2 3 4

Molly Mullen, Research journal, 1 February 2012. Mullen, Research journal, 15 May 2012. Mullen, Research journal, 3 September 2012. Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 5 Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston, ‘Applied Theatre: An Introduction’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009), 9–15. 6 Helen Nicholson, ‘Applied Drama/Theatre/Performance’, in Key Concepts in Theatre/Drama Education, ed. Shifra Schonmann (Rotterdam, Holland: Sense, 2011), 241–245. 7 Michael Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347–359. doi:10.1080/13569780903072125. 8 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 347. 9 Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre, 5. 10 James Thompson, Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect (Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 11 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’. 12 Peter O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 4 (2009): 583. doi:10.1080/13569780903286105. 13 Thompson, Performance Affects.

Notes

223

14 Jonothan Neelands, ‘Taming the Political: The Struggle Over Recognition in the Politics of Applied Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 3 (2007): 305–317. doi:10.1080/13569780701560388. 15 Peter O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, 583. 16 I assembled this found poem as part of my literature review process (see Monica Prendergast, ‘Found Poetry as Literature Review: Research Poems on Audience and Performance’, Qualitative Inquiry 12, no. 2 (2006): 369–388). The poem is comprised from short phrases that include some of the metaphors and idioms used to describe the implications of funding and financial relationships for applied theatre practice. Apart from the words in bold, all of the material in the poem is taken directly from the texts referenced in the following notes. 17 Jenny Hughes and Simon Ruding, ‘Made to Measure? A Critical Interrogation of Applied Theatre as Intervention with Young Offenders in the UK’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009), 217–225. 18 Asma Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill: Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan: The Work of Karachi-­based Group Tehrik e Niswan’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 149–160. 19 Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘ “Fitting the Bill” for “Helping Them”. A Response to “Integrated Popular Theatre Approach in Africa” and “Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan,” ’ Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 211. 20 Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World Without “Theatre for Development”: Demystifying the Case of Bangladesh’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 7, no. 2 (2002): 214–216. 21 Ahmed, ‘ “Fitting the Bill” for “Helping Them” ’, 211. 22 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 347–357. 23 Owen Kelly, Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels (London: Comedia, 1984), 97, quoted in Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 24 Ahmed, Wishing for a World, 214, quoted in Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 25 Bill McDonnell, ‘Towards a Theatre of “Little Changes” – A Dialogue About Dialogue’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and

224

Notes

Performance 10, no. 1 (2005): 72, quoted in Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 26 Anthony Haddon, ‘A Long Story With a Happy Ending’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11, no. 2 (2006): 190. 27 Prentki and Preston, Applied Theatre: An Introduction, 14. 28 O’Connor, Unnoticed Miracles, 583. 29 Ibid., 583. 30 Mundrawala, Fitting the Bill, 158. 31 Ahmed, Wishing for a World, 215. 32 Balfour, The Politics of Intention, 351. 33 O’Connor, Unnoticed Miracles, 596.

Chapter 1 1 Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 2 Waring, Counting for Nothing, 15. 3 Oxford English Dictionary Online, s.v. ‘Economy’. See www.OED.com (accessed 12 January 2017). 4 Ibid. 5 Gillian J. Hewitson, Feminist Economics: Interrogating the Masculinity of Rational Economic Man (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1999), 47. 6 OED, s.v. ‘Economics’. See www.OED.com (accessed 12 January 2017). 7 Jack Amariglio, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff, ‘Division and Difference in the “Discipline” of Economics’, Critical Inquiry 1, no. 1 (1990): 115. 8 Amariglio, Resnick and Wolff, ‘Division and Difference’, 119. 9 Waring, Counting for Nothing, 18–20. 10 Michael Rushton, ‘Artistic Freedom’, in A Handbook of Cultural Economics, ed. Ruth Trowse (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), 64–68. 11 Rushton, ‘Artistic Freedom’, 64. 12 Julie. A. Nelson, ‘Feminism and Economics’, The Journal of Economic Perspectives 9, no. 2 (1995): 131. 13 Amariglio, Resnick and Wolff, ‘Division and Difference’, 126.

Notes

225

14 Nelson, ‘Feminism and Economics’, 136. 15 See, for example: David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 29. 16 Jason Read, ‘A Genealogy of Homo-Economicus: Neoliberalism and the Production of Subjectivity’, Foucault Studies no. 6 (2009): 25–36. 17 Hewitson, Feminist Economics. 18 Jenny Hughes, Jenny Kidd and Catherine McNamara, ‘The Usefulness of Mess: Artistry, Improvisation and Decomposition in the Practice of Research in Applied Theatre’, in Research Methods in Theatre and Performance, ed. Baz Kershaw and Helen Nicholson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 186–209. 19 Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 2011). 20 Williams, Keywords, 34. 21 Hughes, Kidd and McNamara, ‘The Usefulness of Mess’, 190. 22 Interview with Peter O’Connor, Director of Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd, March 2012. 23 Interview with Max Allsup, Assistant Director of C&T, July 2012. 24 C&T Funding Ethics, unpublished document (2011), 2. 25 Interview with Mo Lai Yan Chi, President of FM Theatre Power, October 2012. 26 Amariglio, Resnick and Wolff, ‘Division and Difference’, 112. 27 Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (New York: Routledge, 2003). 28 Schechner, Performance Theory, 11. 29 Ibid., 12. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 13. 32 Ibid. 33 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’, New German Critique 6 (1975): 12–19. 34 Adorno, ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’, 13. 35 Pierre Bourdieu, ‘The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed’, Poetics 12 (1983): 311–356. 36 Bourdieu, ‘The Field of Cultural Production’, 321. 37 Michael Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347–359.

226

Notes

38 Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011). 39 Jackson, Social Works, 29. 40 Roswitha Mueller, ‘Learning for a New Society: The Lehrstück’, in The Cambridge Companion to Brecht, ed. Peter Thomson and Glendryr Sacks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 101–117. 41 Ibid. 42 Bertolt Brecht, ‘Notes on the Opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny’, in Brecht on Theatre, 3rd ed., trans. Jack Davis, Romy Fursland, Steve Giles, Victoria Hill, Kristopher Imbrigotta, Marc Silberman and John Willett, ed. Marc Silberman, Steve Giles and Tom Kuhn (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015), 62. 43 Mueller, ‘Learning for a New Society’, 102. 44 Ibid., 103. 45 Nicola Shaughnessy, Applying Performance: Live Art, Socially Engaged Theatre and Affective Practice (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 46 Gregory Scholette, ‘Interventionism and the Historical Uncanny: Or Can There be Revolutionary Art Without the Revolution?’ in The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, ed. Joseph Thompson and Gregory Scholette (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004), 109–114. 47 Scholette, ‘Interventionism’, 111. 48 Gabriele Klein and Bojana Kunst, ‘Introduction: Labour and Performance’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17, no. 6 (2012): 1–2. 49 Jen Harvie, ‘Democracy and Neoliberalism in Art’s Social Turn and Roger Hiorn’s Seizure’, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 16, no. 2 (2011): 29. 50 Martin Parker, ‘Arts as Work’, Journal of Cultural Economy 6, no. 2 (2013): 120–136. 51 Schechner, Performance Theory. 52 Jackson, Social Works, 14. 53 Ibid., 27. 54 Ibid. 55 Jackson, Social Works, 42. 56 Gareth White, Applied Theatre: Aesthetics (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015), 60. 57 White, Aesthetics, 25.

Notes

227

Chapter 2 1 In addition to the literature discussed in this chapter, Anthony Jackson has examined the development of TIE in relation to economic changes in the UK. See: Anthony Jackson, ‘Education or Theatre? The Development of TIE in Britain’, in Learning Through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in Education, 3rd ed., ed. Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013). 2 Eleonora Belfiore, ‘ “Defensive Instrumentalism” and the Legacy of New Labour’s Cultural Policies’, Cultural Trends 21, no. 2 (2012): 103–111. 3 Baz Kershaw, The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (London: Routledge, 1992). 4 Raymond Williams, Culture (Glasgow: Fontana, 1981). 5 Kershaw, Politics of Performance, 252. 6 Ibid., 147. 7 Ibid., 138. 8 Ibid., 168. 9 Ibid., 172. 10 Ibid., 172–174. 11 Ibid., 210. 12 Ibid., 89. 13 Jonothan Neelands, ‘Taming the Political: The Struggle Over Recognition in the Politics of Applied Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 3 (2007): 305–317. 14 Caoimhe McAvinchey, Performance and Community: Commentary and Case Studies (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 5. 15 Eleanora Belfiore and Oliver Bennett, ‘Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 13, no. 2 (2007): 135–151. 16 Neelands, ‘Taming the Political’, 312–314. 17 Ibid., 306. 18 McAvinchey, Performance and Community, 6. 19 Jenny Hughes and Simon Ruding, ‘Made to Measure? A Critical Interrogation of Applied Theatre as Intervention with Young Offenders in the UK’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009), 221. 20 Kershaw, Politics of Performance, 251.

228

Notes

21 Ibid. 22 Hughes and Ruding, ‘Made to Measure’, 221. 23 Helen Nicholson, Theatre, Education and Performance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 24 Ibid., 94–95. 25 Ibid., 92. 26 Ibid., 99. 27 Ibid., 88. 28 Ibid., 73. 29 Ibid., 8. 30 Belfiore, ‘Defensive Instrumentalism’. 31 Jenny Hughes and Helen Nicholson, ‘Applied Theatre: Ecology of Practices’, in Critical Perspectives on Applied Theatre, ed. Jenny Hughes and Helen Nicholson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 32 David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3. 33 Jamie Peck, Constructions of Neoliberal Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), xi. 34 Peck, Neoliberal Reason, xi. 35 Jane Kelsey, The FIRE Economy: New Zealand’s Reckoning (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books and the New Zealand Law Foundation, 2015), 110. 36 Wendy Larner, ‘Guest Editorial: Neoliberalism?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21 (2003): 510. 37 Paul Maunder, Rebellious Mirrors: Community-­based Theatre In Aotearoa/ New Zealand (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2013). 38 Maunder, Rebellious Mirrors, 186. 39 Jane Kelsey, The New Zealand Experiment: A World Model for Structural Adjustment? (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1997), 39. 40 Peter O’Connor, ‘Beyond Serendipity: Surviving the Storm’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 16, no. 1 (2011): 96–100. 41 O’Connor, ‘Beyond Serendipity’. 42 Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis: New Public Management, Governance, and the Neo-Weberian State, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 300. 43 Peter O’Connor, ‘Applied Theatre and Disaster Capitalism: Resisting and Rebuilding in Christchurch’, in Critical Perspectives on Applied Theatre, ed.

Notes

229

Jenny Hughes and Helen Nicholson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016): 172–189. 44 James Thompson, Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006); see also, James Thompson, Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); Peter O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 4 (2009): 583–597; and, finally, Michael Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347–359. 45 James Thompson, ‘The Ends of Applied Theatre: Incidents of Cutting and Chopping’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009), 122. 46 Thompson, Performance Affects, 40. 47 Thompson, Bewilderment and Beyond. 48 Kirsten Sadeghi-Yekta, ‘Competing International Players and their Aesthetic Imperatives: The Future of Internationalized Applied Theatre Practice?’ in Applied Theatre: Aesthetics, ed. Gareth White (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015), 156–193. 49 Thompson, Bewilderment and Beyond, 124. 50 Ibid., 124. 51 Sadeghi-Yekta, ‘Competing International Players’, 158. 52 Tim Prentki, Applied Theatre: Development (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015). 53 Prentki, Applied Theatre: Development, 57. 54 Michael Etherton and Tim Prentki, ‘Drama for Change? Prove it! Impact Assessment in Applied Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11, no. 2 (2006): 139–155. 55 Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World Without “Theatre for Development”: Demystifying the Case of Bangladesh’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 7, no. 2 (2002): 207–219; see also, Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘ “Fitting the Bill” for “Helping Them”. A Response to “Integrated Popular Theatre Approach in Africa” and “Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan” ’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 207–222.

230

Notes

56 Asma Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill: Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan: The Work of Karachi-­based Group Tehrik e Niswan’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 149–161; and see also, Asma Mundrawala, Shifting Terrains: The Depoliticisation of Political Theatre in Pakistan (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2009). 57 Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill’, 149. 58 Mundrawala, Shifting Terrains, i. 59 Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World’. 60 Ibid., 214–215. 61 Thompson, Performing Affects. 62 O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’. 63 J. K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). 64 Marilyn Power, ‘Social Provisioning as a Starting Point for Feminist Economics’, Feminist Economics 10, no. 3 (2004): 3–19. 65 See, for instance, both Nelson, ‘Feminism and Economics’, 131–148, and J. K. Gibson-Graham, The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy 1st ed. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006). 66 Power, Social Provisioning, 4. 67 Ibid., 6. 68 Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics. J. K. Gibson-Graham is the single authorial name used by two co-­authors. 69 Susan Donath, ‘The Other Economy: A Suggestion for a Distinctively Feminist Economics’, Feminist Economics 6, no. 1 (2000): 115–123. 70 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 71 Nicholson, Applied Drama, 164. 72 Nancy Folbre and Julie. A. Nelson, ‘For Love or Money – or Both?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 4 (2000): 123–140. 73 Caoimhe McAvinchey, ‘Coming of Age: Arts Practice with Older People in Private and Domestic Spaces’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 18, no. 4 (2013): 359–373. 74 McAvinchey, ‘Coming of Age’, 376. 75 Ibid., 368.

Notes

231

76 Angela McRobbie, ‘Clubs to Companies: Notes on the Decline of Political Culture in Speeded up Creative Worlds’, Cultural Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 516–531. 77 Nel Noddings, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003). 78 Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 10–11. 79 Held, The Ethics of Care, 11. 80 Ibid., 14. 81 Shaugnessy, Applying Performance, xiv. 82 Ibid. 83 Volker Kirchberg and Tasos Zembylas, ‘Arts Management: A Sociological Inquiry’, The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 40, no. 1 (2010): 2. 84 Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics, xxxi. 85 Ibid., xxxiii. 86 Ibid., xxi. 87 Ibid., 52. 88 Ibid., xxxi. 89 Ibid., 53. 90 Ibid., xxvi–xxvii. 91 Ibid., xxvii. 92 Ibid., xxvi. 93 Ibid., xxvi.

Chapter 3 1 Text based on Molly Mullen, ‘The “Diverse Economies” of Applied Theatre’, Applied Theatre Research 5, no. 1 (2017). 2 Helen Nicholson, ‘Applied Drama/Theatre/Performance’, in Key Concepts in Theatre/Drama Education, ed. Shifra Schonmann (Rotterdam: Sense, 2011), 241. 3 James Thompson, Applied Theatre: Bewilderment and Beyond (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), 13. 4 Michael Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347–359.

232

Notes

5 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 347. 6 Ibid., 350. 7 Peter O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 4 (2009): 583–597. 8 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 350. 9 Ibid. 10 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 356. 11 Ibid. 12 Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World Without “Theatre for Development”: Demystifying the Case of Bangladesh’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 7, no. 2 (2002): 207–219; Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘ “Fitting the Bill” for “Helping Them”. A Response to “Integrated Popular Theatre Approach in Africa” and “Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan” ’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 207–222; Syed Jamil Ahmed, ‘Revisiting a Dream-­site of Liberation: The Case of Mukta Natak in Bangladesh’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 16, no. 1 (2011): 5–27. 13 Asma Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill: Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan: The Work of Karachi-­based Group Tehrik e Niswan’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 149–161; Asma Mundrawala, Shifting Terrains: The Depoliticisation of Political Theatre in Pakistan (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Sussex, Brighton, 2009). 14 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. M. Bergman Ramos (London: Penguin, 1996). 15 Mundrawala, Shifting Terrains, 162. 16 Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World’, 215. 17 Mundrawala, Shifting Terrains, 189. 18 David Kerr, ‘ “You Just Made the Blueprint to Suit Yourselves”: A Theatre-­ based Health Research Project in Lungwena, Malawi’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009), 101. 19 Kerr, ‘You Just Made the Blueprint’, 101. 20 Anthony Haddon, ‘A Long Story With a Happy Ending’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11, no. 2 (2006): 185–199.

Notes

233

21 Haddon, ‘A Long Story’, 191. 22 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 23 Haddon, ‘A Long Story’, 192. 24 Education Action Zones were an initiative of the Labour government in the United Kingdom, intended to raise educational standards in disadvantaged areas. Available online: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/ magazinearticle/education-­action-zones-­arts-learning-­curve (accessed 20 February 2017). 25 Helen Wheelock, ‘Walking the Tightrope: The Complex Demands of Funded Partnerships: The Creative Arts Team, New York City’, in Learning Through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in Education, ed. Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2013). 26 Wheelock, ‘Walking the Tightrope’, 229. 27 Ibid., 230. 28 O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, 584. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., 583. 31 Ibid., 586. 32 Interview with Briar O’Connor, Director of Applied Theatre Consultants, February 2012. 33 Wendy Larner and David Craig, ‘After Neoliberalism? Community Acivism and Local Partnerships in Aotearoa New Zealand’, Antipode 37, no. 3 (2005). 34 O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, 588. 35 Thompson, Applied Theatre, 194. 36 Amanda Stuart Fisher, ‘Developing an Ethics of Practice in Applied Theatre: Badiou and Fidelity to the Truth of the Event’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 10, no. 2 (2005). 37 James Thompson, Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 160. 38 O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, 595. 39 Peter O’Connor, ‘Applied Theatre: Pure of Heart, Naively Complicit’, Caribbean Quarterly 53, nos 1 & 2 (2007): 34. 40 Jonothan Neelands, ‘Taming the Political: The Struggle Over Recognition in the Politics of Applied Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 3 (2007): 305–317.

234

Notes

41 Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill’. 42 Ibid., 149. 43 Ibid., 193. 44 Mundrawala, ‘Fitting the Bill’, 160. 45 Ahmed, ‘Wishing for a World’, 209. 46 Ahmed, ‘Fitting the Bill’, 210. 47 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 48 O’Connor, ‘Naively Complicit’. 49 L. Dale Byam, ‘Sanctions and Survival Politics: Zimbabwean Community Theater in a Time of Hardship’, in The Applied Theatre Reader, ed. Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2009). 50 Judith Ackroyd, ‘Applied Theatre: An Exclusionary Discourse’, Applied Theatre Researcher 8 (2007): 5. 51 Neelands, ‘Taming the Political’. 52 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 347–348. 53 Ibid., 353. 54 Michael Balfour and Nina Woodrow, ‘On Stitches’, in Refugee Performance: Practical Encounters, ed. Michael Balfour (Bristol: Intellect, 2013), 15–34. 55 Michael Etherton and Tim Prentki, ‘Drama for Change? Prove it! Impact Assessment in Applied Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11, no. 2 (2006). 56 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 356 57 Thompson, Performance Affects, 5. 58 Kennedy C. Chinyowa, ‘Revisiting Monitoring and Evaluation Strategies for Applied Drama and Theatre Practice in African Contexts’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 16, no. 3 (2011). 59 J. K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 59. 60 Helen Nicholson, ‘Absent Amateurs’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 20, no. 3 (2015). 61 Ahmed, ‘ “Wishing for a World” and “Revisiting a Dream-­site of Liberation” ’. 62 Nicholas Ridout, Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism, and Love (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013), 15. 63 Ridout, Passionate Amateurs, 7.

Notes

235

64 Ibid., 29. 65 Ibid., 139. 66 Nicholson, ‘Absent Amateurs’, 264. 67 Bjørn Rasmussen, ‘Applied Theatre and the Power Play – An International Viewpoint’, Applied Theatre Researcher 1 (2000); Tony Millett, ‘Applied Theatre Taught and Caught: A Program Review’, Applied Theatre Researcher 3 (2002), para. 3; Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 68 Precarious Workers Brigade and Carrot Workers Collective, ‘Free Labour Syndrome. Volunteer Work and Unpaid Overtime in the Creative and Cultural Sector’, in Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity, ed. Michal Kozlowski, Agnieszka Kurant, Jan Sowa, Krystian Szadkowski and Jakub Szreder (London: MayFly Books, 2014). 69 Hans Abbing, ‘Notes on the Exploitation of Poor Artists’, in Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity, ed. Michal Kozlowski, Agnieszka Kurant, Jan Sowa, Krystian Szadkowski and Jakub Szreder (London: MayFly Books, 2014). 70 Abbing, ‘Notes on the Exploitation of Poor Artists’, 84. 71 Precarious Workers Brigade and Carrot Workers Collective, ‘Free Labour Syndrome’, 211. 72 Arlene Goldbard makes a similar case for the funding of theatre for social change in the US; Arlene Goldbard, ‘Memory, Money, and Persistence: Theater of Social Change in Context’, Theater 31, no. 3 (2001). 73 Jenny Hughes, ‘Editorial: Theatre and the Social Factory’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22, no. 1 (2017): 2. 74 Rosalind Gill and Andy Pratt, ‘In the Social Factory? Immaterial Labour, Precariousness and Cultural Work’, Theory, Culture and Society 25, nos 7–8 (2008). 75 Hughes, ‘Theatre and the Social Factory’, 4. 76 Ibid., 2. 77 See Neelands’s ‘Taming the Political’ for an example of this in the UK under the New Labour government. 78 Millett, ‘Applied Theatre Taught and Caught’, para. 3. 79 Anthony Jackson, ‘Education or Theatre? The Development of TIE in Britain’, in Learning Through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in

236

Notes

Education, ed. Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine, 3rd ed. (Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2013). 80 Haddon, ‘A Long Story’, 189. 81 Claire Cochrane, ‘It Stands for More Than Theatre: Claire Cochrane Talks to Paul Sutton About the Work of C&T’, Studies in Theatre and Performance 20, no. 3 (2000): 191. 82 Paul Sutton, The Dramatic Property: A New Paradigm of Applied Theatre Practice for a Globalised Media Culture (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Kent, England, 2005), 12. 83 Luis Francisco Carvalho and João Rodrigues, ‘Are Markets Everywhere? Understanding Contemporary Processes of Commodification’, in The Elgar Companion to Social Economics, ed. J. B. Davis and W. Dolfsma (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2008), 268. 84 Carvalho and Rodrigues, ‘Are Markets Everywhere?’ 268. 85 Ibid., 280; see also Nancy Folbre and Julie. A. Nelson, ‘For Love or Money – or Both?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 4 (2000). 86 J. K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 62.

Chapter 4 1 Jen Harvie, Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 2 Volker Kirchberg, ‘Corporate Arts Sponsorship’, in A Handbook of Cultural Economics, ed. Ruth Trowse (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003). 3 See Chin-Tao Wu, Privatising Culture: Corporate Art Intervention Since the 1980s (London: Verso, 2002); see also Deborah Philips and Garry Whannel, The Trojan Horse: The Growth of Commercial Sponsorship (London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 4 Neelands, ‘Taming the Political’, 306. 5 Ackroyd, ‘Applied Theatre: Problems and Possibilities’, 5. 6 Harvie, Fair Play. 7 Kirchberg, ‘Corporate Arts Sponsorship’. 8 See also Michael Useem, ‘Corporate Funding of the Arts in a Turbulent Environment’, Nonprofit Management and Leadership 1, no. 4 (1991).

Notes

237

9 Harvie, Fair Play; and Kirchberg, ‘Corporate Arts Sponsorship’. 10 Michael Hadani and Susan Coombes, ‘Complementary Relationships Between Corporate Philanthropy and Corporate Political Activity: An Exploratory Study of Political Marketplace Contingencies’, Business & Society 54, no. 6 (2015). 11 Harvie, Fair Play, 157. 12 Hadani and Coombes, ‘Complementary Relationships’. 13 Harvie, Fair Play. 14 Lynn E. Stern, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Arts (Washington and New York: Americans for the Arts, 2015). Available online: http://animatingdemocracy.org/corporate-­social-responsibility-­arts (accessed 17 April 2017). 15 Useem, ‘Corporate Funding’, and Stern, Corporate Social Responsibility. 16 Hadani and Coombes, ‘Complementary Relationships’. 17 See Kirchberg, ‘Corporate Arts Sponsorship’. 18 Ibid. 19 Hadani and Coombes, ‘Complementary Relationships’, 865. 20 Peter J. Adams, Moral Jeopardy: Risks of Accepting Money from Alcohol, Tobacco and Gambling Industries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 4. 21 Munyaradzi Chatikobo and Katherine Low, ‘Applied Theatre from a Southern African Perspective: A Dialogue’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 20, no. 3 (2015). 22 Sarah Saddler, ‘ “Think Differently, Get Creative”: Producing Precarity in India’s Corporate Theater Culture Industry’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22, no. 1 (2017). 23 Leny Woolsey and Yoke Harr Lee, Bold and Brutal: Hilti’s Organisational Theatre Programme, Unpublished report produced by the University of Auckland’s Business School (2016). 24 Online Crowdfunding is a relatively recent phenomena, emerging in the United States in the mid-2000s. It can take a number of forms. Typically, an individual or group sets up a campaign setting a target amount to be raised towards the production of a particular outcome, or to support a particular cause, in a specified timeframe. Other individuals, and sometimes organizations, then use the online platform to contribute a financial sum. The online platform sets up the interface and criteria for campaigns and transactions. The nature of the transaction can vary. In

238

Notes

most cases the ‘backers’ are not formally investors, they do not receive financial returns from their donation towards a project. Donors may receive other material or symbolic rewards, such as a copy of the product, merchandise related to a production/event, or a public acknowledgement. Many platforms suggest rewards are ‘tiered’ to encourage more substantial donations. Equity and profit-­sharing models do exist, as do models that involve loans rather than donations and platforms that allow for non-­ financial donations. 25 David Gehring and D. E. Wittkower, ‘On the Sale of Community in Crowdfunding: Questions of Power, Inclusion, and Value’, in Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Societies, ed. Lucy Bennett, Bertha Chin and Bethan Jones (New York: Peter Lang, 2015). 26 Gehring and Wittkower, ‘On the Sale of Community’, 72. 27 Ibid., 77. 28 Suncem Koçer, ‘Social Business in Online Financing: Crowdfunding Narratives of Independent Documentary Producers in Turkey’, New Media & Society 17, no. 2 (2015). 29 Koçer, ‘Social Business in Online Financing’, 233. 30 Alexandra Stiver, Leonor Barroca, Shailey Minocha, Mike Richards and Dave Roberts, ‘Civic Crowdfunding Research: Challenges, Opportunities and Future Agenda’, New Media & Society 17, no. 2 (2015). 31 Patrick Cohendet and Laurent Simon, ‘Financing Creativity: New Issues and New Approaches’, International Journal of Arts Management 16, no. 1 (2014). 32 Benjamin Boeuf, Jessica Darveau and Renaud Legoux, ‘Financing Creativity: Crowdfunding as a New Approach for Theatre Projects’, International Journal of Arts Management 16, no. 3 (2014). 33 Rodrigo Davies, ‘Three Provocations for Civic Crowdfunding’, Information, Communication & Society 18, no. 3 (2015): 350. 34 Davies, ‘Three Provocations’, 351. 35 Davies, ‘Three Provocations’. 36 Boeuf, Darveau and Legoux, ‘Financing Creativity’; see also, Roei Davidson and Nathanial Poor, ‘The Barriers Facing Artists’ Use of Crowdfunding Platforms: Personality, Emotional Labour and Going to the Well One Too Many Times’, New Media & Society 17, no. 2 (2015). 37 Davidson and Poor, ‘The Barriers’; also, Davies, ‘Three Provocations’. 38 Boeuf, Darveau and Legoux, ‘Financing Creativity’.

Notes

239

39 Gehring and Wittkower, ‘On the Sale of Community’. 40 Davies, ‘Three Provocations’. 41 Boeuf, Darveau and Legoux, ‘Financing Creativity’. 42 Gehring and Wittkower, ‘On the Sale of Community’. 43 Ibid. 44 J. K. Gibson-Graham, ‘Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for “Other Worlds” ’, Progress in Human Geography 35, no. 5 (2008): 615.

Chapter 5 1 INCITE! Women of Color against Violence, ed., The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-­profit Industrial Complex (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007), 233. 2 Angela McRobbie, ‘Clubs to Companies: Notes on the Decline of Political Culture in Speeded Up Creative Worlds’, Cultural Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 521. 3 Alejandro S. Montero, ‘La Autogestión Social en la práctica comunitaria: Encuentros, resistencias y participación/Social Self-­management in Community Practice: Meetings, Resistances and Participation’, in VIII Congreso de Estudiantes en torno a la Psicología Comunitaria, Universidad de Concepción, Chile, Author’s translation, 2008, 228. 4 David Watt, ‘Excellence/Access and Nation/Community: Community Theatre in Australia’, Canadian Theatre Review 74 (Spring 1993): 8. 5 Justin O’Connor, ‘The Definition of “Cultural Industries” ’, The European Journal of Arts Education 2, no. 3 (February 2000): 16. 6 Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007), 155–168. 7 Klein, The Shock Doctrine, 7. 8 Ibid. 9 Clara Han, Life in Debt: Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 20. 10 Organisation for Economic Co-­operation and Development (2015), OECD Economic Surveys: Chile 2015 (Paris: OECD Publishing), 22. 11 Nelly P. Stromquist and Anita Sanyal, ‘Student Resistance to Neoliberalism in Chile’, International Studies in Sociology of Education 23, no. 2 (2013): 172.

240

Notes

12 The Gini index or Gini coefficient is a measure of the income or wealth distribution of a population. 13 OECD, Economics Surveys, 2015, 24. Available online: https://read. oecd-library-org/economic/oecd-economic-surveys-chile-2015_eco_ surveys-chl-2015-en#page1 (accessed 18 August 2016). 14 Alberto Mayol, El derrumbe del modelo: La crisis de la economía de mercado en el Chile contemporáneo/The Collapse of the Model: Market Economy Crisis in Contemporary Chile (Santiago, Chile: LOM Ediciones, 2012), 72. 15 OECD, Society at a Glance 2016, OECD Social Indicators (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2016), 128. Available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/ 9789264261488-en. 16 Arturo Alejandro Muñoz and Luis Casado, ‘Cuando la mayoría se ausenta, la minoría manda/When the Majority Abstains, the Minority Dictates’, published online 25 October 2016. Available online: http://piensachile. com/2016/10/cuando-­la-mayoria-­se-ausenta-­la-minoria-­manda (accessed 31 October 2016). 17 Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR), World Prison Brief: Chile, 2017. Available online: www.prisonstudies.org/country/chile (accessed 15 June 2017). 18 Quenton King, ‘Report details prison woes in Chile, 2016’. Available online: www.insightcrime.org/news-­briefs/report-­details-prison-­woes-in-­chile (accessed 19 June 2017). 19 For ease of reference, I prefer to use this term in Spanish. It can be translated as: poor or marginalized urban suburbs/zones; sprawling, overcrowded and peripheral areas where services, employment and housing are precarious. They are similar to the favelas of Brazil. 20 Montero, Social Self-­management in Community Practice, 228. 21 Frank Mintz, Anarchism and Worker’s Self-­management in Revolutionary Spain (New York: Ak Press 2013), 18. 22 Mikail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 198–217. 23 Montero, Social Self-­management in Community Practice, 228. 24 Mintz, Anarchism and Workers’ Self-­management, 127. 25 Alain Touraine, The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 26 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 53.

Notes

241

27 McRobbie, Clubs to Companies, 523. 28 People who live in poblaciones. 29 Montero, Social Self-­management in Community Practice, 228. 30 Ibid., 226. 31 Consejo de la Cultura y las Artes (CNCA). Consumo y tiempre libre: Informe anual 2014/Consumption and free time: Annual report 2014 (Santiago de Chile, 2014), 306–310. Available online: www.cultura.gob.cl/ wp-­content/uploads/2016/01/anuario-­cultura-tiempo-­libre2014.pdf (accessed 9 May 2017). 32 Observatorio de Políticas Culturales (OPC), Informe resultados de los Fondos de Cultura del CNCA/Report on CNCA Cultural Funding results (Santiago, Chile: OPC, 2015), 4. 33 See www.fundacionentepola.org (accessed 15 May 2017). 34 See www.facebook.com/Teatro-de-Emergencia-F-i-S-u-r-a-531446830270363 (accessed 15 May 2017). 35 All the men were transferred out, the prison was rebuilt and it is now a women’s remand centre. After a prolonged trial, the court ruled that no-­one was responsible for the tragedy, and families received no compensation. 36 Colectivo Sustento, Populteatro conference paper, 27th International Community Theatre Festival ENTEPOLA, 24 January to 2 February 2013, Santiago, Chile. Author’s translation, 1. 37 Bill Mollison, Permaculture. A Designers’ Manual (Tyalgum, Australia: Tagari Publications, 1988), 507. 38 See www.permacultureprinciples.com (accessed 17 June 2017). 39 See www.huellasverdes.cl (accessed 15 May 2017). 40 All ex-­prisoners names are de-­identified. 41 See www.facebook.com/RedHuertosComunitarios (accessed 9 May 2017). 42 See www.facebook.com/groups/158329657570407 (accessed 17 June 2017). 43 See www.facebook.com/leasur.ong (accessed 17 June 2017). 44 See www.facebook.com/encuentroculturaviva (accessed 14 April 2018). 45 See www.facebook.com/plataformateatrocomunitario (accessed 14 April 2018). 46 Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom, 116. 47 Author’s personal notes, 2014.

242

Notes

Chapter 6 1 Fannina Waubert de Puiseau, ‘On the Drama of Canadian Public Arts Funding: An Analysis of Justin Trudeau’s Mandate Letter to Mélanie Joly’, Canadian Theatre Review 167 (2016): 9. 2 William Baumol, ‘Performing Arts: The Permanent Crisis’, Business Horizons 10, no. 3 (1967): 47. 3 Jen Harvie, Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 188. 4 Harvie, Fair Play, 156. 5 Michael Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’, RiDE: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347. 6 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 350. 7 See ‘About YPT’ at the Young People’s Theatre website. Available online: www.youngpeoplestheatre.ca/about-­ypt/ (accessed 13 November 2016). 8 See ‘About Metcalf ’ at the Metcalf Foundation website. Available online: http://metcalffoundation.com/about-­metcalf/ (accessed 13 November 2016). 9 Sandy Houston (President and CEO, Metcalf Foundation), in a telephone interview with Lois Adamson, Toronto, 7 September 2016. 10 Houston, telephone interview, 7 September 2016. 11 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 352. 12 Waubert de Puiseau, ‘Canadian Public Arts Funding’, 9. 13 Johanna Lawrie, ‘Our Heart and Soul: Social Value and the St. John’s Funding Cuts’, Canadian Theatre Review 167 (2016): 27. 14 Waubert de Puiseau, ‘Canadian Public Arts Funding’, 9. 15 Allen MacInnis (Artistic Director, Young People’s Theatre), in email communication with the Lois Adamson, 16 December 2016. 16 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 356. 17 Ibid., 348. 18 Houston, telephone interview, September 7, 2016. 19 Available online: http://metcalffoundation.com/about-­metcalf/ (accessed 13 November 2016). 20 Madeleine Grumet, ‘Generations: Reconceptualist Curriculum Theory and Teacher Education’, Journal of Teacher Education 40, no. 13 (1989): 13–17, doi: 10.1177/002248718904000104.

Notes

243

21 Houston, interview with L. Adamson, Toronto, 7 September 2016. 22 Carly Maga, ‘A Magic Wand’, Canadian Theatre Review 167 (2016): 50. 23 Yaël Filipovic, ‘Necessarily Cumbersome, Messy, and Slow: Community Collaborative Work Within Art Institutions’, Journal of Museum Education 38, no. 2 (2013): 137, doi: 10.1179/ 1059865013Z.97813500017010015. 24 Jonothan Neelands, ‘Miracles are Happening: Beyond the Rhetoric of Transformation in the Western Traditions of Drama Education’, Research in Drama Education 9 (2004): 47–56. 25 Judith Ackroyd, ‘Applied Theatre: An Exclusionary Discourse?’ Applied Theatre Researcher 8 (2007). Available online: www.griffith.edu.au/_data/ assets/pdf_file/0005/52889/01-ackroyd-­final.pdf (accessed 17 April 2017). 26 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 355. 27 Houston, telephone interview, 7 September 2016. 28 Available online: www.tarragontheatre.com/news-­events/artists/urjo-­ kareda-residency-­grant-for-­an-emerging-­theatre-artist/ (accessed 18 November 2016). 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Available online http://tywf.ca/who-­we-are/ (accessed 18 November 2016). 32 Andrea Donaldson (Former Associate Artistic Director, Tarragon Theatre), in a telephone interview with Anne Wessels, Toronto, 28 November 2016. 33 Philip McKee (Urjo Kareda Resident), in an interview with Anne Wessels, Tarragon Theatre, Toronto, 14 November 2016. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 347. 40 Ibid., 357. 41 Ibid., 356. 42 Shannon Jackson, Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics (New York: Routledge, 2011), 17. 43 Balfour, ‘The Politics of Intention’, 357. 44 Jackson, Social Works, 16.

244

Notes

Chapter 7 1 Jenny Hughes, ‘Theatre and the Social Factory’, RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22, no. 1 (2017): 4. 2 Peter O’Connor, ‘Unnoticed Miracles’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 4 (2009): 583. 3 Pat Hanley, The Case of Focus 2000 and the Failure of Contracting (Wellington: Social and Civil Policy Institute, 2006), 24. 4 Jo Cribb, Being Accountable: Voluntary Organisation, Government Agencies and Contracted Social Services in New Zealand (Wellington: Victoria University Publications, 2006). 5 Peter O’Connor, ‘Beyond Serendipity: Surviving the Storm’, Research in Drama Education, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 16, no. 1 (2011): 96–101. 6 Minister Paula Bennett, personal communication, 2008. 7 Guy Standing, ‘The Precariat’, Contexts 13, no. 4 (2014): 234, doi:10.1177/1536504214558209. 8 NZCTU, ‘Under Pressure: A Detailed Report into Insecure Work in New Zealand’, October 2013, ISBN 978–0–9922639–0–4. Available online: www.union.org.nz/wp-­content/uploads/2016/12/CTU-Under-PressureDetailed-Report–2.pdf, 11 (accessed 28 February 2017). 9 Jo Harris, ‘A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens – A Review’, review of A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens, by Guy Standing, The Guardian, 9 April 2014. Available online: www.theguardian.com/books/ 2014/apr/09/precariat-­charter-denizens-­citizens-review (accessed 28 February 2017). 10 Hughes, ‘Theatre and the Social Factory’, 6. 11 The word iwi describes the largest social unit in Māori society. An iwi is a ‘large group of people descended from a common ancestor and associated with a distinct territory’. See www.maoridictionary.co.nz (accessed 19 December 2017).

Chapter 8 1 Freedom House, Freedom in the World: Hong Kong, report. Available online: https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-­world/2016/hong-­kong (accessed 15 November 2016).

Notes

245

2 Mo Lai Yan Chi (FM Theatre Power President), interview with Molly Mullen, 28 September 2012. 3 David Bradby and John McCormick, People’s Theatre (London: Croom Helm, 1978). 4 Mok Chiu Yu, ‘Hong Kong Community Theatre: Looking Back and Forth’, in Risks and Opportunities: The Tensions in Hong Kong Drama Education Development, ed. Jack Shu and Estella Wong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Drama/Theatre Education Forum, 2007), 170–177. 5 Ibid., 174. 6 Helen Nicholson, ‘Recasting People’s Theatre’, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 17, no. 3 (2012): 319. 7 ‘Voice out’ is the English phrase used by FM Theatre Power members meaning to speak out, speak up, express one’s views or opinions in the public realm. 8 Banky Yeung Ping Kei (FMTP founder) and Mo Lai Yan Chi in an interview with Molly Mullen, 28 September 2012. 9 Joyu Wang, ‘The Story Behind the Hong Kong Protests’ Unofficial Anthem’, The Wall Street Journal, blog posted 1 October 2014. Available online: https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/10/01/the-­story-behind-­thehong-­kong-protests-­unofficial-anthem/ (accessed 19 June 2017). 10 Wong Ka-­kui was the lead vocalist for Hong Kong band Beyond. He died in 1993 following an accident in Japan. 11 Research poem made up of excerpts from interviews and Molly’s research journal. 12 Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist, trans. Simon Nye (London: Methuen, 2003). 13 Marilyn Waring, Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth, 2nd ed. (London: University of Toronto Press, 1999). 14 Mario Chan, in an interview with Molly Mullen, 3 November 2012. 15 Mo Lai Yan Chi, interview with Molly Mullen, 4 October 2012. 16 Ibid. 17 Mok Chiu Yu and Estella Wong Yuen Ping, interview with Molly Mullen, 18 September 2012. 18 Positive Solutions & GHK, ‘Research Study on a New Funding Mechanism for Performing Arts Groups in Hong Kong – Executive Summary 2012’, report for the Home Affairs Bureau. Available online: www.hab.gov.hk/ file_manager/en/documents/policy_responsibilities/arts_culture_recreation_

246

Notes

and_sport/nfm_pag_executive_summary_report.pdf (accessed 18 November 2016). 19 Rozanna Lilley, Staging Hong Kong: Gender and Performance in Transition (Richmond, England: Curzon, 1998); Timothy Yuen, ‘A Decade’s Long March: Reform of Institutional Framework on Culture and the Arts’, in A Decade of Arts Development in Hong Kong, ed. International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong, S.A.R. China: Hong Kong Arts Development Council, 2006), 7–25. 20 Eliza W. Y. Lee et al., ‘Public Policymaking in Hong Kong: Civic Engagement and State–Society Relations in a Semi-­democracy’, in Comparative Development and Policy in Asia Series – Volume 13, ed. Ka Ho Mok, Rachel Murphy and Misa Izuhara (London and New York: Routledge, 2013). 21 Positive Solutions & GHK. ‘Research Study on a New Funding Mechanism’, 2012. 22 Oliver Khoo, ‘Focus: Hong Kong: China – Cultural Investment’, International Arts Manager 18, no. 5 (2006): iv–vi. 23 Lilley, Staging Hong Kong, 53–54. 24 Eliza W. Y. Lee et al., ‘Public Policymaking in Hong Kong’. 25 Mo Lai Yan Chi, interview with Molly Mullen, 4 October 2012. 26 Hong Kong Arts Development Council Ordinance, Chapter 472, Section 4(c). Available online: www.hkadc.org.hk/wp-­content/uploads/ About_HKADC/HKADC%20Ordinance_eng.pdf (accessed 19 June 2017). 27 Banky Yeung Ping Kei (FMTP founder) and Mo Lai Yan Chi in an interview with Molly Mullen, 28 September 2012. 28 Paul DiMaggio, ‘Classification in Art’, American Sociological Review 52, no. 4 (1987): 440–455. 29 Banky Yeung Ping Kei (FMTP founder) and Mo Lai Yan Chi in an interview with Molly Mullen, 28 September 2012. 30 Eliza W. Y. Lee et al., ‘Public Policymaking in Hong Kong’, 103. 31 Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Invitation for proposals – 2012/13 one-­year/two-­year grant, 2012. Available online: www.hkadc.org.hk/en/ content/web.do?id=ff80818134cc31860134e9e5086b000a (accessed 19 June 2013). 32 Mok Chiu Yu and Estella Wong Yuen Ping, interview with Molly Mullen, 18 September 2012. 33 Banky Yeung Ping Kei (FMTP founder) and Mo Lai Yan Chi in an interview with Molly Mullen, 28 September 2012.

Notes

247

34 Research poem created from transcript of Banky and Mo interview, 28 September 2012. 35 Ngok Ma, Political Development in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007). 36 See www.legislation.gov.hk/blis_ind.nsf/CurEngOrd/034B10AF5D3058DB 482575EE000EDB9F?OpenDocument (accessed 25 November 2016) 37 The Heritage Foundation, 2017 Index of Economic Freedom: Hong Kong. Available online: www.heritage.org/index/country/hongkong (accessed 12 July 2017). 38 Ngok Ma, Political Development in Hong Kong; Howard French, ‘Is it Too Late to Save Hong Kong from Beijing’s Authoritarian Grasp?’ Guardian, 21 March 2017. Available at: www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/21/ hong-­kong-china-­authoritarian-democracy-­one-country-­two-systems (accessed 25 November 2017). 39 Mullen, Research journal, 10 August 2012. 40 Wong Yee Man in an interview with Molly Mullen, 8 October 2012. 41 Mo Lai Yan Chi, interview with Molly Mullen, 4 October 2012. 42 Alexander R. Cuthbert and Keith G. McKinnell, ‘Ambiguous Space, Ambiguous Rights: Corporate Power and Social Control in Hong Hong’, Cities 14, no. 5 (1997): 195. 43 See, for example, Frozen Times: Square Reborn, 2008. Available online: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxx8a4MZM48 and http://timeout-­test. candrholdings.com/stage/features/19676/fm-­theatre-power.html (accessed 29 November 2016). 44 Lisa Law, ‘Defying Disappearance: Cosmopolitan Public Spaces in Hong Kong’, Urban Studies 39, no. 9 (2002): 1625–1645. doi:10.1080/00420980220151691 (quote from p. 1629). 45 Molly Mullen, Research journal, 14 August 2012. 46 Real HK News, ‘Cultural Revolution Elements in Hong Kong Ballet’s Latest Performance Was Ordered to be Deleted’, Apple Daily, 31 October 2013. Available online: https://therealnewshk.wordpress. com/2013/10/31/cultural-­revolution-elements-­in-hong-­kong-ballets-­ latest-performance-­was-ordered-­to-be-­deleted (accessed 25 November 2016). 47 Cliff Bale, Mak Yin-­ting, Chole Lai and Stanley Leung, Dark Clouds on the Horizon: Hong Kong’s Freedom of Expression Faces New Threats: 2013 Annual Report. Hong Kong Journalists Association. Available online:

248

Notes

www.hkja.org.hk/site/Host/hkja/UserFiles/file/annualreport/e_annual_ report_2013.pdf (accessed 1 November 2016). 48 Freedom House, Freedom in the World: Hong Kong. 49 French, ‘Is it Too Late to Save Hong Kong from Beijing’s Authoritarian Grasp?’

Chapter 9 1 Lord Radcliffe-Maud, Support for The Arts in England and Wales (London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1976), 120. 2 Paul Sutton, The Dark Theatre, unpublished issues 1–4, 1994/5. Collar and TIE Ltd. 3 Matthew Hemley, ‘Prepare for cuts, Arts Council tells theatres’, The Stage, 18 January 2017. Available online: www.thestage.co.uk/news/2017/prepare-­ cuts-arts-­council-tells-­theatres/ (accessed 10 July 2017). 4 Chris Anderson, The Long Tail (London: Random House, 2006), 28–29. 5 Richard Koch, The 80/20 Manager (London: Piakus Books, 2013), xvi–xvii. 6 Paul Sutton, The Dramatic Property: A New Paradigm of Applied Theatre Practice in a Globalised Media Culture, PhD Thesis 2007. Available online: www.candt.org/research (accessed 1 June 2017). 7 Rob Walker, I’m With the Brand (New York: Constable and Robinson, 2008), 135. 8 The NASDAQ Stock Market is a stock exchange in the United States trading shares in a variety of companies. These companies must meet specific criteria in order to be listed. 9 Bhuvan Lall, ‘The Art of Animation’, Business Standard, 13 July 2005. Available online: www.business-­standard.com/article/technology/ the-­art-of-­animation–105071301105_1.html (accessed 14 July 2017). 10 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (London: Methuen, 1985), 8. 11 Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 73. 12 Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993), xxvi. 13 Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, xxvi. 14 Benedict Nightingale, quoting George Steiner, in Nightingale’s The Future of Theatre: Predictions (London: Phoenix, 1998), 6.

Notes

249

15 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 134–135. 16 Paul Willis, Common Culture: Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990), 11. 17 Len Ang, Living Room Wars (London: Routledge, 1996), 177. 18 Nicholas Hytner, Balancing Acts (London: Jonathan Cape, 2017), 220. 19 Baz Kershaw, The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention (London: Routledge, 1992), 18. 20 Jeff Jarvis, What Would Google Do? (New York: Collins, 2009), 49. 21 See www.wisdomofcrowds.info (accessed 1 June 2017). 22 Harrison Owen, Open Space Technology: A Users Guide (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler 2010), 15. 23 See www.devotedanddisgruntled.com/ (accessed 1 June 2017). 24 Jarvis, What Would Google Do? 126. 25 Ibid., 128–130. 26 Bill Breen and David Robertson, Brick by Brick (London: RH Books, 2013), 114.

Chapter 10 1 Helen Nicholson, Applied Drama (Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave, 2005), 5–8; Tim Prentki and Sheila Preston, The Applied Theatre Reader (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 10; Megan Alrutz, Digital Storytelling, Applied Theater, and Youth (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015), 5. 2 Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), Creativity Connects (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2016), 9–10. 3 CCI, Creativity Connects, 9; Ann Markusen and Ann Gadwa, Creative Placemaking (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2010); see also Shannon Jackson, Social Works (New York: Routledge, 2011), 14–16. 4 Alrutz, Digital Storytelling, 6–7; Jan Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 2–7. 5 CCI, Creativity Connects, 8; Ann Markusen, ‘Diversifying Support for Artists’, GIA Reader 24, no. 3 (Fall 2013). Available online: www.giarts.org/ article/diversifying-­support-artists (accessed 1 May 2017). 6 Maria Rosario Jackson, ‘Brief Reflections on Artist Residencies in Community Contexts’ (Philadelphia, PA: Asian Arts Initiative, 2016),

250

Notes

2.Available online: http://asianartsinitiative.org/wp-­content/uploads/ 2016/11/Consumption_Maria-Jackson.pdf (accessed 1 May 2017). 7 ROOTS, ‘About Us’. Available online: https://alternateroots.org/about-­us/ (accessed 2 April 2017). Prentki and Preston also make this point (The Applied Theatre Reader, 10–11). 8 Jerry Wayne Williamson, ‘Jo Carson (1946–2011)’, Appalachian Journal 39, no. 3/4 (2012): 224–227. Available online: www.jstor.org/stable/43489011 (accessed 1 May 2017). 9 Ashley Sparks, ‘The Voices Pour Down: Our Theater Roots During the 40th Reunion’, Alternate ROOTS, 19 September 2016. Available online: https:// alternateroots.org/the-­voices-pour-­down-our-­theater-roots-­during-the– 40th-­reunion/ (accessed 1 May 2017). 10 Kathie de Nobriga, interview with the author, 13 April 2017. 11 ROOTS, ‘ROOTS Annual Meeting Minutes’ (Atlanta, GA: Alternate ROOTS, August 1982). 12 C/APP, Moving Forward, 26 July 2016. Available online: https://issuu.com/ alternateroots2/docs/arprogram-­nobleed (accessed 1 May 2017). 13 See Michael Brenson, Visionaries and Outcasts (New York: New Press, 2001); see also Donna M. Binkiewicz, Federalizing the Muse (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 14 Maria-Rosario Jackson, Florence Kabwasa-Green, Daniel Swenson, Joaquin Herranz, Jr., Kadija Ferryman, Caron Atlas, Eric Wallner and Carole Rosenstein, Investing in Creativity (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2003), 4–5. 15 De Nobriga, interview, April 2017. For more information on Expansion Arts, see Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham, National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965–2008 (Washington, DC: National Endowment for the Arts, 2009), 49. 16 Christopher Vitale, Networkologies (Winchester, UK: Zero Books, 2013), 40. 17 Carlton Turner, ‘Welcome’, in Moving Forward, Looking Back, 2. 18 Claudia Bach, ‘The Funder and the Intermediary, In Support of the Artist: A Look at Rationales, Roles, and Relationships’, GIA Reader 25, no. 1 (Winter 2014). Available online: www.giarts.org/article/funder-­andintermediary-­support-artist (accessed 2 April 2017). 19 John Kriedler, ‘Leverage Lost: The Nonprofit Arts in the Post-Ford Era’, GIA Reader 6, no. 2 (1995). Available online: www.giarts.org/article/leverage-­lost (accessed 1 May 2017).

Notes

251

20 See Cohen-Cruz, Local Acts. 21 Margaret Jane Wyszomirski and Joni Maya Cherbo, ‘Understanding the Associational Infrastructure of the Arts and Culture’, Occasional Paper Number Seventeen, 2001. Available online: https://aaep.osu.edu/sites/aaep. osu.edu/files/paper17.pdf (accessed 1 May 2017). 22 Quoted in Wyszomirski and Cherbo, ‘Understanding the Associational Infrastructure’. 23 Moving Forward, ‘ROOTS Week’, 58–60; ‘ROOTS Weekend’, 22; ‘Shift in Membership Policies’, 29. 24 According to ROOTS Communication Director, Nicole Gurgel, ROOTS Weeks attendance sells out quickly; to maintain a community atmosphere, the organization generally keeps registration at 250. Correspondence with author, 1 May 2017. 25 M. K. Wegmann, interview with author, 15 March 2017. 26 Eric Brace, ‘A Poet Jumps Into Politics’, The Washington Post, 29 April 1999, B07. 27 To sample ROOTS membership variety, see ‘Member Directory’. See https://alternateroots.org/member-­zone/member-­directory/ (accessed 15 August 2017). 28 Keryl McCord, interview with author, 6 April 2017. 29 Moving Forward. ROOTS articulates its social justice principles as ‘shared power, partnership, open dialogue, individual and community transformation, and aesthetics of transparent processes’. See ‘Resources for Social Change’, https://alternateroots.org/arts-­activism-tools/resources-­forsocial-­change/ (accessed 15 August 2017). 30 Moving Forward, 82. These included the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Ford Foundation, Fund for Southern Communities, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kresge Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Surdna Foundation. 31 American Assembly, ‘The Arts and the Public Purpose: Final Report of the Ninety-­second American Assembly’ (Harriman, NY: Columbia University, 1997). 32 Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Performing Policy (Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave, 2015), 131. 33 George Yúdice, ‘The Privatization of Public Culture’, Social Text, no. 59 (Summer 1999): 17–34.

252

Notes

34 Holly Sidford, Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change (Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsible Philanthropy, 2011). Available online: www.ncrp.org/publication/fusing-­arts-culture-­social-change (accessed 1 May 2017). 35 See Roberto Bedoya, People, Land, Art, Culture, and Engagement (Tucson, AZ: Tucson Pima Arts Council, 2014). Available online: http://kresge.org/ sites/default/files/Tucson-Pima-Arts-Council-­report.pdf (accessed 1 May 2017). 36 Carlton Turner, Resources for Social Change Workbook (Atlanta: Alternate ROOTS, 1996), 4. 37 Jackson et al., Investing in Creativity, preliminary pages, as well as 8–87. 38 Moving Forward, 10. 39 Creative Capital, ‘What We Do’. Available online: www.creative-­capital.org/ aboutus/whatwedo (accessed 30 April 2017). 40 ‘Leveraging Investments in Creativity’. Available online: www.lincnet.net/ (accessed 30 April 2017). ‘ArtPlace America’. Available online: www. artplaceamerica.org/ (accessed 30 April 2017. 41 ‘Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards’, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Available online: http://ddpaa.org/ (accessed 30 April 2017). 42 ‘USA Artist Fellows’, United States Artists. Available online: www. unitedstatesartists.org/ (accessed 30 April 2017). 43 Grantmakers in the Arts, ‘Outlines of GIA’s Work in Equity, 2008–Present’ (2016). Available online: www.giarts.org/outline-­gia-work-­equity–2008present (accessed 30 April 2017). 44 ‘Mission’, Alternate ROOTS. Available online: https://alternateroots.org/ about-­us/ (accessed 30 April 2017). 45 Moving Forward, 58–59. 46 Ibid., 22–23. 47 See Emil Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: Free Press, 1997). 48 Mark S. Granovetter, ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’, American Journal of Sociology 78, no. 6 (May 1973): 1360–1380; Jackson et al., Investing in Creativity, 65, also observes a strength of weak ties. 49 Moving Forward, 13. 50 ‘Grant Recipients – Theatre’, New England Foundation for the Arts. Available online: www.nefa.org/grants_programs/grants/national_theater_ project_creation_touring_grant (accessed 29 April 2017).

Notes

253

51 ‘What We Do – Programs’, National Performance Network. Available online: http://npnweb.org/whatwedo/programs/ (accessed 29 April 2017). 52 Linda Parris-Bailey, correspondence with author, 26 April 2017. 53 Parris-Bailey, interview with author, 3 May 2017. 54 See Americans for the Arts, ‘Speed Killed My Cousin’, 23 March 2016. Available online: www.americansforthearts.org/news-­room/art-­in-the-­ news/speed-­killed-my-­cousin (accessed 1 May 2017). 55 Story circles are still practiced regularly at ROOTS meetings – most recently in a series of UpROOTing Racism and Undoing Oppression workshops at ROOTS Week 2017. Author notes. ROOTS Week, 8–13 August 2017, Asheville, NC. 56 Parris-Bailey, interview, 3 May 2017. 57 Ibid. 58 CCI, Creativity Connects, 1. 59 Ibid., 20. See also, ROOTS, ‘Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI)’. Available online: https://alternateroots.org/intercultural-­leadershipinstitute-­ili/ (accessed 30 April 2017). 60 Jackson, ‘Brief Reflections’, 2.

Chapter 11 1 ‘Social housing’ is a term used to describe homes offered at affordable rents to people on low incomes or otherwise struggling to meet their housing costs. Allocated on the basis of need, social housing is managed by social landlords – normally non-­commercial organizations such as local councils or non-­profit associations, regulated by the UK government. 2 Parliamentary Review, ‘A Year in Perspective: Bolton at Home’, parliamentary review, 2013. Available online: http://theparliamentaryreview. co.uk/housing/bolton.html (accessed 3 January 2017). 3 According to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies in the US, as of 2016, twenty-­eight US states and territories have Percent for Art programmes. Available online: www.nasaa-­arts.org/Research/Key-Topics/Public-Art/ State-Percent-­for-Art-Programs.php (accessed 3 January 2017). 4 The full minutes, alongside other materials associated with the Octagon Theatre/Bolton at Home partnership, is available on the Poor Theatres

254

Notes

research site. Available online: www.manchester.ac.uk/poortheatres/ mapping (accessed 3 January 2017). 5 Seeing Red was performed at the Bill Naughton studio at the Octagon in September 2015. 6 This chapter is the outcome of a period of research that took place throughout 2015. Ben attended weekly Melodramatics rehearsals and Jenny documented various art activities supported by the partnership during this period. 7 J. K. Gibson-Graham, Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 60. 8 Miranda Joseph, Against the Romance of Community (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), 47. 9 Gibson-Graham, Postcapitalist Politics, 219. 10 Joseph, The Romance of Community, 174. 11 Nicolas Ridout, Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism and Love (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2013), 9. 12 Dawn Yates-Obe (Percent for Art Officer), in an interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, Bolton, 2015. 13 Robin Pemberton-Billing, The Octagon Theatre: Concept to Reality (Leeds: Graphic Press, 2011), 78. 14 George Caswell in an interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, Manchester, 2015. 15 Gibson-Graham, Postcapitalist Politics, 97. 16 Yates-Obe, interview, Bolton, 2015. 17 Jon Lord, in an interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, Bolton, 2015. 18 Ibid., 2015. 19 Caswell, interview, 2015. 20 Lord, interview, 2015. 21 Peter Gurney, Co-­operative Culture and the Politics of Consumption in England, 1870–1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 11, 16. 22 Brian Lewis and George Caswell, Creative Solutions: The Use of Arts in Regeneration (Bolton and Pontefract, UK: Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council/Pontefract Press, 2011), 11. 23 Caswell, interview, 2015. 24 Kelly, in an interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, 2015. 25 Bolton at Home, ‘Our Plan 2016–2021’. Available online: www.boltonathome. org.uk/managing-­our-business, 7 (accessed 3 January 2017).

Notes

255

26 Bolton at Home, ‘Our Plan 2016–2021’, 7. 27 Glenys Campbell, in an interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, Manchester, 2015. 28 In response to the growing prevalence of ‘holiday hunger’ in the UK. 29 Sue Mayo, ‘ “A Marvellous Experiment” – Exploring Ideas of Temporary Community in a Magic Me Intergenerational Performance Project’, in Performance and Community: Commentary and Case Studies, ed. Caoimhe McAvinchey (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013), 40. 30 Yates-Obe, interview with Ben Dunn and Jenny Hughes, Bolton, 2015. 31 Bolton at Home YouTube video, ‘I just thought from then on, “this is something for me” The Willows and New Bury Theatre Groups’, posted by Octagon Theatre Bolton, published June 26, 2015. Available online: www. youtube.com/watch?v=-oDAmcjJIh0 (accessed 3 January 2017). 32 Clarke Mackey, Random Acts of Culture: Reclaiming Art and Community in the 21st Century (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2010), 9. 33 Amber Musser, ‘Lesbians, tea, and the vernacular of fluids’, Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 25, no.1 (2015): 24. 34 Ibid., 25. 35 The radio play can be listened to at www.boltonathome.org.uk/news/ seeing-­red-radio-­play–3109/ (accessed 4 January 2017). 36 It is important to note that these tensions were resolved by Bolton at Home’s provision of an alternative, and larger, community space in the neighbourhood, for use by Melodramatics as well as other groups.

Afterword 1 J. K. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 60. 2 Justin O’Connor, ‘Not Jobs and Growth but Post-Capitalism – and Creative Industries Show the Way’, 26 July 2017. Available online: http:// theconversation.com/not-­jobs-and-­growth-but-­post-capitalism-­andcreative-­industries-show-­the-way–79650 (accessed 21 August 2017). 3 Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics, xxvi–xxvii. 4 Ibid., 87–88. 5 Ibid., 81.

Select Bibliography Ackroyd, Judith. ‘Applied Theatre: An Exclusionary Discourse’. Applied Theatre Researcher, 8 (2007): 1–11. Adams, Peter J. Moral Jeopardy: Risks of Accepting Money from Alcohol, Tobacco and Gambling Industries. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016. Adorno, Theodor W. ‘Culture Industry Reconsidered’. New German Critique 6 (1975): 12–19. Ahmed, Syed Jamil. ‘Wishing for a World Without “Theatre for Development”: Demystifying the Case of Bangladesh’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 7, no. 2 (2002): 207–219. Amariglio, Jack, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff. ‘Division and Difference in the “Discipline” of Economics’. Critical Inquiry 17, no. 1 (1990): 108–137. Balfour, Michael. ‘The Politics of Intention: Looking for a Theatre of Little Changes’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 3 (2009): 347–359. Belfiore, Eleanora, and Oliver Bennett. ‘Rethinking the Social Impacts of the Arts’. International Journal of Cultural Policy 13, no. 2 (2007): 135–151. Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul. Performing Policy: How Contemporary Politics and Cultural Programs Redefined U.S. Artists for the Twenty-­first Century. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave, 2015. Bourdieu, Pierre. ‘The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed’. Poetics 12 (1983): 311–356. Brecht, Bertolt. ‘Notes on the Opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930)’. In Brecht on Theatre, 3rd edition, translated by Jack Davis, Romy Fursland, Steve Giles, Victoria Hill, Kristopher Imbrigotta, Marc Silberman and John Willett, edited by Marc Silberman, Steve Giles and Tom Kuhn, 61–70. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015. Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York: Zone Books, 2015. Carvalho, Luis Francisco, and João Rodrigues. ‘Are Markets Everywhere? Understanding Contemporary Processes of Commodification’. In The Elgar Companion to Social Economics, edited by John Bryan Davis and Wilfred Dolfsma, 267–286. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2008.

Select Bibliography

257

Davies, Rodrigo. ‘Three Provocations for Civic Crowdfunding’. Information, Communication & Society 18, no. 3 (2015): 342–355. Etherton, Michael, and Tim Prentki. ‘Drama for Change? Prove it! Impact Assessment in Applied Theatre’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 11, no. 2 (2006): 139–155. Folbre, Nancy, and Julie A. Nelson. ‘For Love or Money – or Both?’ Journal of Economic Perspectives 14, no. 4 (2000): 123–140. Gehring, David, and D. E. Wittkower. ‘On the Sale of Community in Crowdfunding: Questions of Power, Inclusion, and Value’. In Crowdfunding the Future: Media Industries, Ethics, and Digital Societies, edited by Lucy Bennett, Bertha Chin and Bethan Jones, 65–79. New York: Peter Lang, 2015. Gibson-Graham, J. K. A Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Gibson-Graham, J. K. The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy, 1st edition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. Gibson-Graham, J. K. ‘Diverse Economies: Performative Practices for “Other Worlds” ’. Progress in Human Geography 35, no. 5 (2008): 613–632. Goldbard, Arlene. ‘Memory, Money, and Persistence: Theater of Social Change in Context’. Theater 31, no. 3 (2001): 127–137. Harvey, David. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Harvie, Jen. Fair Play: Art, Performance and Neoliberalism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Hewitson, Gillian J. Feminist Economics: Interrogating the Masculinity of Rational Economic Man. Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar, 1999. Hughes, Jenny. ‘Editorial: Theatre and the Social Factory’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 22, no. 1 (2017): 1–6. Jackson, Anthony. ‘Education or Theatre? The Development of TIE in Britain’. In Learning Through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in Education, 3rd edition, edited by Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine, 21–40. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Jackson, Shannon. Social Works: Performing Art, Supporting Publics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2011. Joseph, Miranda. The Romance of Community. Minneapolis and London: The University of Minnesota Press, 2002.

258

Select Bibliography

Kershaw, Baz. The Politics of Performance: Radical Theatre as Cultural Intervention. London: Routledge, 1992. Klein, Gabriele, and Bojana Kunst. ‘Introduction: Labour and Performance’. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts 17, no. 6 (2012): 1–2. Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2007. Kozłowski, Michal, Agnieszka Kurant, Jan Sowa, Krystian Szadkowski and Jakub Szreder. Joy Forever: The Political Economy of Social Creativity. London: MayFlyBooks, 2014. Larner, Wendy. ‘Guest Editorial: Neoliberalism?’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21 (2003): 509–512. McAvinchey, Caoimhe. Performance and Community: Commentary and Case Studies. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. McRobbie, Angela. ‘Clubs to Companies: Notes on the Decline of Political Culture in Speeded up Creative Worlds’. Cultural Studies 16, no. 4 (2002): 516–531. Mintz, Frank. Anarchism and Workers’ Self-­management in Revolutionary Spain. New York: AK Press, 2013. Mullen, Molly. ‘The “Diverse Economies” of Applied Theatre’. Applied Theatre Research 5, no. 1 (2017): 7–22. Mundrawala, Asma. ‘Fitting the Bill: Commissioned Theatre Projects on Human Rights in Pakistan: The Work of Karachi-­based Group Tehrik e Niswan’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 2 (2007): 149–161. Neelands, Jonothan. ‘Taming the Political: The Struggle Over Recognition in the Politics of Applied Theatre’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 12, no. 3 (2007): 305–317. Nicholson, Helen. Applied Drama: The Gift of Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. O’Connor, Justin. ‘The Definition of “Cultural Industries” ’. The European Journal of Arts Education 2, no. 3 (February 2000), 15–27. O’Connor, Peter. ‘Unnoticed Miracles’. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 14, no. 4 (2009): 583–597. Parker, Martin. ‘Arts as Work’. Journal of Cultural Economy 6, no. 2 (2013): 120–136. Peck, Jamie. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Select Bibliography

259

Philips, Deborah, and Gary Whannel. The Trojan Horse: The Growth of Commercial Sponsorship. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Prentki, Tim. Applied Theatre: Development. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015. Read, Jason. ‘A Genealogy of Homo-Economicus: Neoliberalism and the Production of Subjectivity’. Foucault Studies no. 6 (2009): 25–36. Ridout, Nicholas. Passionate Amateurs: Theatre, Communism, and Love. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. Sadeghi-Yekta, Kirsten. ‘Competing International Players and Their Aesthetic Imperatives: The Future of Internationalized Applied Theatre Practice?’ In Applied Theatre: Aesthetics, edited by Gareth White, 156–193. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015. Schechner, Richard. Performance Theory. New York: Routledge, 2003. Scholette, Gregory. ‘Interventionism and the Historical Uncanny: Or Can There be Revolutionary Art Without the Revolution?’ In The Interventionists: Users’ Manual for the Creative Disruption of Everyday Life, edited by Joseph Thompson and Gregory Scholette, 109–114. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004. Shaughnessy, Nicola. Applying Performance: Live Art, Socially Engaged Theatre and Affective Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Standing, Guy. ‘The Precariat’. Contexts 13, no. 4 (2014): 10–12. doi:10.1177/1536504214558209. Sutton, Paul. The Dramatic Property: A New Paradigm of Applied Theatre Practice in a Globalised Media Culture. PhD Thesis, 2007. Available online: www.candt.org/research (accessed 26 February 2018). Thompson, James. Performance Affects: Applied Theatre and the End of Effect. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Waring, Marilyn. Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women are Worth. 2nd edition. London, England: University of Toronto Press, 1999. Wheelock, Helen. ‘Walking the Tightrope: The Complex Demands of Funded Partnerships: The Creative Arts Team, New York City’. In Learning Through Theatre: The Changing Face of Theatre in Education, edited by Anthony Jackson and Chris Vine, 229–249. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. White, Gareth. Applied Theatre: Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2015. Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. London: Fontana Paperbacks, 2011.

Index Abbing, H. 72 accountability 50, 62–3, 86, 121, 133, 137, 149, 151 Ackroyd, J. 66, 125 activism 36, 39, 45, 69–70, 72, 86, 90, 98, 107, 154–5, 194 Adams, P. J. 83 administration 12, 127, 162–3 Adorno, T. 18–21 aesthetics 17–24, 55–6, 58–60, 61–3, 76–8, 117, 123, 132–4, 138, 144 agency 29–32, 41, 85, 89 Ahmed, S. J. 38–9, 56–7, 65, 68–70 alternative theatre movements 22, 26–30, 73, 187–8 amateur 71–2, 152, 162 ‘passionate amateur’ 70–2 applied theatre definition 4 in prisons 30, 55–6, 97–114 in schools 30–2, 58–60, 76–7, 118–26, 138–41, 144, 150–1, 173–5, 180 with veterans 197–8 Applied Theatre Consultants Ltd 1, 34–6, 45, 50, 60–4, 65–6, 67–8, 74, 91, 135–51 arts councils 27–8, 54, 160–4, 169, 171, 173 arts funding 13–14, 26–9, 32, 54, 79, 105, 115–16, 128–33, 159–65, 184–200 Australia xi, 2, 75, 81, 91, 99–100, 107, 202 autogestión 90, 102–14 autonomy 18–21, 44, 72, 79, 85, 105–14, 124, 167 financial 18–20, 22–4, 49, 72, 85, 124, 161

Bakunin, M. 102–3 Balfour, M. 4, 20, 54–6, 65, 66–7, 117, 122, 125, 132–3 Bangladesh 39, 56, 65, 70 Belfiore, E. 26 Bourdieu, P. 19–21 Brecht, B. 18–22 Brown, W. 204 business development 142–3, 144 business models 28, 34–5, 75, 152, 172–4, 177, 181, 219 C&T 1–2, 46–8, 50–1, 75–7, 171–83 Canada 91, 115–34 capital 19, 31, 35, 50, 71, 82, 146, 190, 201, 202–8, 216–18 capitalism 4, 14–15, 17–18, 21–3, 30–1, 43, 46–8, 65, 70–3, 89, 178–9, 203, 220 capitalocentrism 46, 203 care 12, 42–5, 107–8, 133, 158, 191, 212–13, 216–17 ethic of 43–4 censorship 52, 168–9 change paradigms or models of 55–6, 118, 122–6, 131–4 social change xii, 4, 22, 62, 65–6, 97, 100, 110, 135, 191, 192–6 charitable trusts and foundations 25, 50–4, 87, 118–19, 135, 160 Chatikobo, M. 83 charity 50, 92, 167, 195, 209 Chile 90–1, 97, 98, 100–14 Chinyowa, K. C. 67 collaboration 44, 102, 108–11, 124, 128, 130, 133, 199, 202, 211 collectives 51, 68–9, 72, 97–100, 106–11, 152–3, 155, 163, 191, 193

262

Index

Collectivo Sustento 68, 90, 97–9, 104, 107–14 commercial activity 18, 34, 51, 71–4, 74–5, 80–1, 86, 165, 168, 176–80 commitment 44, 69–72, 97, 109, 113–17, 147, 158–9, 192–9, 206–8, 215–16 commodification 15, 18, 21, 36, 75–8 community arts 34, 99–100, 152, 197, 206 community gardening 90, 107–8, 110, 219 competition 24, 28, 41, 74, 103, 149, 221 Constructivists 22 consultants 1, 135, 137, 198 consumption 12, 14, 18, 19, 31, 83, 85, 89, 105 contingency 45, 48, 203, 208, 217, 218 contracts 34–5, 50, 52–68, 135–9, 140–2, 143–4, 148 co-­operatives 99, 100, 188, 207–8 corporate giving 80–4 partnerships 81, 84 philanthropy 80, 81, 82 sponsorship 28, 80–2, 84 Creative Arts Team 59 creative industries 26, 72, 160, 220 creativity 30–2, 112, 121, 178, 184, 193–5, 216 credit 101 crowdfunding 85–90, 98, 113, 237 n.24 civic 87–9 cultural industries 72, 179 Davies, R. 87–9 debt 42, 101, 107, 199 democracy 20, 21, 35, 45, 62, 80, 154, 156, 167, 169, 190 determinism 6, 29, 40, 46, 203, 220 disruption 183, 203 dividend 176, 201–18 documentary drama 172, 176

donations 82, 87, 107, 116 donor relationships 13, 20, 55, 57, 59, 64, 91, 115–34, 147–9, 190–6 international 38–9, 40 power dynamics 39–40, 54–68, 147–8 economics 11–15, 24, 38, 41, 78, 115, 208 economic subjectivities 24, 48, 78, 221 economization 4, 11, 15, 22, 25, 32, 40, 74, 122 economy 2, 6, 11–15, 16, 19, 22–3, 25, 30, 40, 72 alternative 22, 36, 45, 69–70, 110–11, 156, 202 ‘community economy’ xii–xiii, 203, 205, 208–9 diverse xii, 45–8 mixed 52, 79 employment 31, 34, 43, 73, 84, 103, 140–2, 145–7, 209–10 self-­employment 141 enclosure 204, 205 entrepreneur 46, 75, 135, 173 entrepreneurial activity xii, 146, 165, 204, 205, 208, 210 ethics 42–4, 63–4, 98, 107, 136, 149–51, 192, 193 evaluation 59–60, 64, 66–7, 121–2, 149, 181 exchange xiii, 15–18, 74, 76, 81, 86 barter 99, 111 market 16–18, 38 non-­monetary 42, 69, 108, 110, 111, 202, 210–12 trueque 99, 110–11 exploitation 21, 31, 52, 72, 193, 204 feminist economics 12–13, 14, 40–1, 78 FM Theatre Power 2, 44, 51, 52, 67, 68, 72, 91–2, 152–70 Folbre, N. 42–3

Index for-­profit 35, 41, 45, 50, 78, 135, 219 Foucault, M. 204 freedom 14, 44, 48–9, 52, 81, 97, 161, 167–9, 170 freedom of expression 13, 52, 86, 152–3, 161, 165, 167–9 political 49, 56–7, 64–5, 69, 152, 161, 165, 170 spaces of freedom ix, 108–9 Freire, P. 56, 103 funding applications 24, 57, 105, 131 Gehring, D. 86 Germany 18 Gibson-Graham, J. K. xi, 41, 45–9, 78, 203, 205 gifts xii, 42, 79, 82, 89, 119 globalization 5, 30–1, 38, 40, 65, 103, 146, 178–9 government funding 27–30, 32, 34, 62, 136–7, 147–9, 160–1, 204 grant funding 24, 28, 53–78, 80–1, 105–6, 117, 119, 124–8, 160–4, 189, 193–5 Haddon, A. 57–9, 75–6 Harvie, J. 22, 79, 80, 82, 87, 88, 115–16 Held, V. 44 heteronomy 19, 20, 23, 44, 49 homo economicus 14, 221 Hong Kong 2, 72, 91–2, 152–70 Hughes, J. 15–16, 29–31, 73–4, 92, 135, 146, 219 impact assessment 29, 32, 38, 55–6, 66 inequality 80, 101–2 instrumentalism 26–33 intellectual property 60, 176–7 intentionality 15–16, 19–20, 24, 26–33, 40, 54–6, 61–7, 116, 129, 132–4 intermediary organizations 74, 92, 173, 184–200

263

investments 36, 53, 79–82, 121, 148–9, 175–7, 190, 195, 205–6, 210 non-­monetary 107, 88, 202 Jackson, S. 20, 23, 132, 133 Joseph, M. 93, 203 Kelsey, J. 33, 35 Kershaw, B. 26–30, 180 Keynes, J. M. 13 Kidd, J. 15–16 Kirchberg, V. 44, 81 Koçer, S. 86 labour 17, 22, 30, 42–3, 68–72, 73–4, 111, 158, 199, 220 division of 15, 21, 31, 70 hybrid work 152, 154, 184, 186 immaterial 42–3, 73 precarious 22, 73–4, 104, 145–7 Larner, W. 34, 35 Long Tail 174–83 Low, K. 83 McAvinchey, C. 28–9, 42–3 McNamara, C. 15–16 management 1, 12, 44–5, 100, 102–6, 120–1, 137–8, 148, 199 marketing 31, 76, 118, 152, 167, 178, 195 markets 22, 35, 74–8, 111, 146, 177, 183, 189, 193–4 free 27, 28, 164–5, 174–5, 178, 179, 205 marketization 34, 74–8, 137, 160–1 Marxism 14, 17–19, 29–30, 70, 203 Maunder, P. 34, 36 Mundrawala, A. 38–9, 56–7, 64–5, 69–70 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 188–95 Neelands, J. 28–9, 66, 125 Nelson, J. A. 42–3

264

Index

neoliberalism 14–15, 22, 33–6, 38–40, 73, 79, 103–6, 135–7, 204–5 neo-Marxism 19, 29 networks 37, 57, 98, 100, 110, 182, 185, 188–9, 190–7, 208 New Labour 26, 28–39, 32, 146, 235 n.75 New Zealand 1, 33–6, 50, 62, 65–6, 84, 135–40, 145 Nicholson, H. 30–2, 42, 52–3, 71–3, 154 1980s economic reforms Australia 100 Chile 101 New Zealand 34–5, 135, 141 UK 27–8, 76 Noddings, N. 44 non-­arts funding 53–68 non-­financial resources 69, 73, 87–8, 129–30, 155–9, 188–9, 216–18 non-­governmental organizations 52, 53–4, 56–7, 64, 65, 69, 87 non-­profit 50, 52, 73, 75, 163, 189

political theatre 29, 39, 64–5 politics 29, 38, 64, 77, 130–1, 167 radical 27–9, 64, 65, 70, 99, 154 third way 205, 210 postcapitalism 220 Postman, N. 178–9 power 19, 39, 48, 64, 103, 131, 136–7, 208, 217 precarity 73–4, 136, 138–47 Prentki, T. 38–9, 67 prison theatre 110–11, 112–14 privatization 34, 79–80, 82–4, 137, 167, 204–6, 217 production 17–22, 33–6, 43, 68, 70–1, 79, 103, 174, 210, 214 professional 71–2, 126–8, 152 professionalization 71, 162–3, 188 profit 16–17, 35, 45, 92, 144, 150, 175, 207, 216 programme development 144–5 public policy 15, 26, 30–2, 34, 124, 137, 186, 192, 198, 205

O’Connor, J. 220 O’Connor, P. 35–6, 60–1, 63, 65, 136 Octagon Theatre 93, 201–2, 204–5, 207–11, 217 organization 2, 34, 45, 46, 48, 76–7, 84, 98, 152–9, 161–3, 186–200 elegant 181–2 non-­hierarchical 103, 190–1

resistance 30, 36, 84, 97–114, 169, 203 resourcefulness 25, 159 resources 14, 69, 73, 87–8, 119, 156, 176, 185–98, 211, 216 Ridout, N. 70–1, 203, 217 ROOTS 92, 185–200 Ruding, S. 29 Rushton, M. 13–14

Pakistan 39, 56, 64–5, 69–70 participation 36, 56, 88–9, 104–5, 126, 164, 167, 168, 206 partnership 30–1, 59–63, 80–4, 120, 136–7, 185–6, 188, 192–200, 201–8, 217 Peck, J. 33 pedagogy 55–7, 58–60 People’s Theatre 91–2, 152–5, 169–70 Percent for Art 201, 208, 212–18, 253 philanthropy 79–84, 115–34, 189, 193 Playback Theatre 153–4 Playforward Theatre 153, 169

Sadeghi-Yekta, K. 37, 38 Schechner, R. 17–18, 23 Scholette, G. 22–3 school bookings 118–26 self-­funded theatre 69–73 Shaughnessy, N. 22, 44 social justice 62, 130, 135, 154, 187–8, 192 social media 103, 177, 180, 181 social mobility 103 social practice 20, 31, 184 Soviet Union 22, 37 street theatre 2, 153, 166

Index Stuart Fisher, A. 63 survival xii–xiii, 57, 107, 112–14, 136 sustainability 70, 78, 109–10, 117 Tarragon Theatre 91, 116–18, 126–34 Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah 57–8, 75–6, 172 theatre education 30–2 Theatre for Development (TfD) 38–9, 70 theatre for young audiences 57–8, 59, 62, 76, 77, 119, 149, 155 Theatre in Education (TIE) 75–6, 92, 171–5, 181, 227 n.1 Theatre of the Oppressed 154 Thompson, J. 37, 54, 60, 63, 64, 67 ticket sales xiii, 51, 120, 122, 126, 154, 165, 167, 171, 201, 211 time 70–1, 137–8, 144, 150, 156–8, 175, 189, 202, 215–17 2008 banking crisis 35 United Kingdom 26–33, 55, 57, 75, 79, 87, 201–18 United States 18, 79, 81–2, 87, 92, 184–200, 202 ‘culture wars’ 191–2 unpaid labour 69–73 passion 51, 70–2, 158–9

265

value 13–20, 28–32, 56, 58, 70–1, 76–8, 149–51, 177, 213, 214, 217–18 economic 26, 32, 38, 43, 100, 202, 212 exchange 16, 17, 76, 77 language/discourse 54–5, 74, 78, 115, 121–3, 205–8 social 15, 29, 38, 54, 55, 56, 77–8, 205 symbolic 20, 72 use 16, 18 vernacular 29, 92, 210–11, 214–15 vertical integration 180 voluntary work 69–70, 87–8, 72–3, 110–11, 162, 198 Waring, M. 11–13 Waubert de Puiseau, F. 115, 122 welfare 33, 62, 100, 209 Wheelock, H. 59–60 White, G. 22, 24 Williams, R. 15–17, 26 Willis, P. 179 Wittkower, D. E. 86 Young People’s Theatre (Toronto) 91, 116, 118–21, 123, 125–6 youth service 57, 75–6