18/08/2015
Cleveland Public Theatre not into playing it safe: Reinvention (video)
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Stepping into the beautifully restored lobby of Cleveland Public Theatre, it’s hard to imagine that just several years ago, the oldest theatre in Cleveland was nearly out of business. Entryway at Cleveland Public Theatre on W. 65th StreetMarcia Pledger Raymond Bobgan, executive artistic director at the Westside theatre, has a reputation for championing diverse voices, by hosting regional and world-premiere work of emerging local and national playwrights. But lesser known is that he played a huge role in turning the theatre around in the last five years. The organization was several hundred thousand in debt when he joined it 10 years ago – and income basically matched the debt. “It was not good. It was bad. Payroll was getting deferred,” Bobgan recalled. “It took about four years just to plug holes in the ship. The organization was in so much crisis… I thought if we were going to go down, I want it to be mission controlled.” Today this vibrant theatre has nearly a $2 million income budget, with increasing interests from more segments of the community than ever before. About a month ago, the Gordon Square District theatre was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Our Town program. From left to right, Willie Riddle, facilities coordinator with Raymond Bobgan, executive artistic director at Cleveland Public Theatre. Willie first joined CPT through a partnership with Y-Haven Transitional Housing as a part-time employee and later became the first full-time employee in the history of the program dedicated to building and facilities issues. Marcia Pledger Bobgan attributes the turn-around to first working on financial difficulties, then making efforts to find new ways to engage different segments of the community in theatre, ranging from younger audiences to minorities. Many of the plays are original work. In the last couple of years for instance, the theatre has created a new theatre company called Teatro Publico De Cleveland, that has helped draw in a missing crowd of Latino theatre-goers. Now, regular community citizens are becoming actors after participating in free workshops. “The idea was to work with a model to engage communities who are not part of theatre to get them to make their own theatre,” he said. ” We ended up making a Latino theatre company. Since then we’ve had four productions – one play was all Spanish. Most have been family-friendly, but one was almost like a Saturday night live comedy that was completely inappropriate. They sold out.” “A lot of people said it would never work. Now we’re hoping to use that model to engage other segments of the community,” he said. Finding new ways to get more people interested in theatre is always on Bobgan’s mind. Two years ago the theatre started offering a free open bar with wine and beer on Fridays, following shows. Next they came up with the idea to offer performers the opportunity to buy $5 tickets for a year for future performances. “We didn’t expect ‘the artist card’ to be so successful,” he said. “But now patrons find themselves sitting next to someone they saw in a play two months earlier. They love the connection.” The recent $150,000 grant for “Station Hope,” is a multi-arts event that celebrates hope, Cleveland’s Underground Railroad history and explores current day struggles for freedom and justice. “It’s a whole new way of thinking about arts activism,” Bobgan said. “It’s not really about supporting protests, but arts engaging community to explore history in order to inspire us to rethink our issues today.” People who know Bobgan well, probably aren’t surprised by the grant, building renovations or the many ways he seeks to develop new programs that reach people that include public housing tenants and former addicts and homeless men. After all, this is a man who was interviewed four times for his position 10 years ago, and encouraged the board to fire him if he wasn’t taking risks in efforts to move the theatre forward. “I told the board, if you don’t hate at least one of my plays every year then you should fire me, because I’m not taking big enough risks because that’s part of what CPT does,” Bobgan said. “Some of it involves investing in young artists or really weird work. And some people are going to say, that is just way too weird. But mostly, everybody loves it and thinks it’s awesome.” Q. What makes a leader? You have to make efforts to get your team to buy into your vision. Three of my colleagues, were already tapped into the theatre’s mission before I came here. It’s never about one person. But after we started resolving our financial challenges, I reached out to way more people. About five years ago I called a meeting with all of our artist contractors. I’m talking about actors, directors, playwrights, set designers, basically everybody who works here who make the art. I said this the financials and you’re our stakeholders. You might not have a financial investment, but you’re like our investors. I gave them an entire financial rundown of where we were and the financial plan to move forward. And I said to them, I’m going to need your help and I’m going to have to ask you to go above and beyond what you’ve ever done before. ..And they did. Q. You went from running a theatre that was in serious crisis financially to becoming one of the most stable midsize arts organizations in the area. How did you get your team to believe that they could be part of this transformation? The financial turnaround was just good ole’ fashioned good business. It was let’s know how much money we have. Let’s not budget things beyond what our capacity is. Let’s be conservative with our income projections. The other thing was we started investing in customer service. There was already a great vision for the theatre. The theatre’s mission was to nurture compassion and raise consciousness through groundbreaking performances and life-changing education programs. We had a great foundation. My vision was to return to our core mission, which also gives us a market niche of do things that nobody else is doing. Q. Reinvention is all about tapping into new markets. What made you decide to find ways to engage the Latino community in theatre? A. Teatrico Publico De Cleveland was created, because we were looking at the theatre community in Cleveland, and it’s primarily African American and white. And we’re located in the middle of a Latino neighborhood. While we’ve made a lot of efforts to engage with that community, nothing really stuck. One of our greatest assets is creating original plays. So a couple of years ago, we started reaching out to community partners and started offering free acting workshops. At the end, we asked if any of them would like to be in a play. The first play was a comedy with lots of stories packed inside, and it sold out. The backdrop was a funeral home, and that allowed us to tell stories of three different stories from people’s lives – real stories. Q. What’s the next big thing coming up in your life? I’m most excited about reaching more people than ever with Station Hope (multi-arts event)that’s going to take place in April. It used to be a one-day event, and now it’s going to expand over several weeks with little performances in neighborhoods throughout Cleveland and culminate with a one-day event. It’s going to be even bigger and better and we’re going to be able to engage more artists with original work. Q. Do you have one piece of advice for someone considering reinventing? Know what you’re super great at and what has made everything you’ve done so far great and use those things as the foundation for your reinvention. It’s not about changing everything, but saying what do I already have at the table. Think – how can I use these new tools to accomplish a new end or to address an intractable problem. source
http://clevelandintimes.com/cleveland-public-theatre-not-into-playing-it-safe-reinvention-video/
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Stepping into the beautifully restored lobby of Cleveland Public Theatre, it's hard to imagine that just several years ago, the oldest theatre in Cleveland was nearly out of busin...