HowlRound: In June 2008, I resigned my position as a Shift Supervisor for the Chicago Rape Crisis Hotline in the Women Services Department at the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago to move to Cincinnati, Ohio and work as a Field Organizer for the 2008 Obama For America Presidential Campaign. I still remember the shock of the phone call and how scared I was to leave a job that I loved (one that I had held for five years) to move to a city I had never been to, to organize people I knew nothing about. My father is a politician in Chicago and I grew up working on my dad’s campaigns. As a young teenager, I knocked on doors, stuffed envelopes and attended press conferences with “Citizens for Prince,” a grassroots organization that my father had created, based on outreach to various churches on the Southeast Side of Chicago.
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Theater is a powerful medium. For an allotted amount of time, we have the audience’s (hopefully) undivided attention. Effective creativity and execution enables audiences to become vulnerable and invested, and in this investment we, as theatre practitioners, derive the power to move, anger, offend, console, scare, challenge, bring to tears etc. our audiences. While some theatre experiences never extend beyond the lobby, I truly believe these are missed opportunities. Following the opening of Doubt, John Patrick Shenley was quoted as saying “My favorite act in the show is the second.” The joke being it is only a one act show, however there is a potent discussion to be had after viewing. Yet even beyond discussion, outreach, collaboration and learning can help expand the theatre community. All of the sudden, theater goers find themselves at events with non-theatre goers. Various ages who have never seen a show before find themselves at a production. Dialogues occur, and social change becomes possible. Theatre gains a relevance and progress, integrating itself as more than an artistic experience but a vital part of the communities it serves. This is part of the reason I got myself into theatre, and remains a personal professional challenge to stay relevant and remain engaged.
I've now read several of the articles from the "Community in Action" series, and I think that one aspect that shows up in almost every single one of them is the need to connect to THE community that your theater is a part of, not A community. Prince really emphasizes that when talking about her multiple experiences reaching out to a community, be it as campaign organizer or connectivity director. Connecting with an audience isn't just about bringing them into our world, but also discovering theirs and reaching out to them via common interests. You can't create a strong organization-audience relationship if only one of the sides can relate and connect to the events.
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