From the Executive Director

The Essentials By Ben Cameron

Those of you who have been TCG members, or have been reading American Theatre for the past eight years will remember the emphasis we have placed on core values—that handful of essential values that define an organization, that will be pursued every time (not just when convenient), that will be upheld even if we are punished for doing so.

After working hard to define those values—while urging individual theatres to do the same—the TCG board of directors in 2001 agreed enthusiastically on a set of three to mold our work. We proudly proclaimed them to the field and set about manifesting them in our every practice.

Recently, however, a visiting theatre leader chastised me, saying that with so many changes in our undertakings and activities, he no longer knew what we stood for—a statement that made me realize with a shock that our values (which I hope have been tacitly apparent in our work) could bear reaffirmation, especially since many of you may have joined us since they were so clearly articulated.

And so, now that we're at the start of a new year, let me take a moment to renew our commitment to those values that define us.

We stand for diversity—diversity of organizational size, geography and aesthetic; diversity of race, sexual orientation, physical ability and culture; diversity of perspective—artistic, managerial, technical—these and more. It's a commitment that guides our hiring practices, the composition of our grant panels, the range of possible stories we cover in these very pages. It means that we approach problem-solving in diverse ways, that we try never to merely mindlessly replicate programs or activities year after year. Indeed, we believe that the diversity of our field is our greatest collective strength, and we celebrate that diversity both in affirmation and in practice.

We stand for collaboration. Theatre is, of course, a collaborative form by its very nature, and TCG as a service organization is arguably a collaborative construct—indeed, we believe that at heart we exist to undertake services and activities that theatres need to survive, but that no one theatre can undertake alone. On an ongoing basis, collaborative practice is apparent in the way we assemble grant panels to offer the collective judgment that results in grant awards, in the gathering and interpretation of research, and in the field conversations we convene periodically to define our ongoing priorities and needs. An array of committees makes decisions ranging from conference theme and structure, to interpretation of Theatre Facts every year, to decisions in play publication. Our board meetings are open to our staff, and board members make departmental visits at meeting times to better understand and work with our various divisions, all reinforcing a more collaborative staff-board relationship. Collaboration is key to our role in the American Arts Alliance, our partnership with Americans for the Arts, our role in the Performing Arts Research Coalition and the National Performing Arts Convention, and more. It's why we have so eagerly embraced Barry Nalebuff's idea of "co-opetition"—cooperation by the field to grow the resources for the entire community—an approach underlying our audience initiative described in last month's editorial and that we hope to expand in October 2006.

We stand for quality, challenging ourselves at all times to do our work better, to maximize our resources for the highest possible achievement, to nurture those artists and managers and technicians who exemplify the highest standards of the field, even while recognizing the very different ways in which quality can be measured, defined and cherished.

To these, I would add only my personal pledge and bias: that TCG as an organization—and I hope our member theatres as well—stand for responsibility. We will use the resources entrusted to us in a responsible manner, of course, and we will take seriously your confidence in us. And while we will inevitably misstep, we will own up to our shortcomings and strive to correct them. Perhaps most to the point, we will take full responsibility for the impact of our work and of the field—an important declaration in a time when media conglomerates can dismiss excessive violence in video games or films by saying, "It's only a game/TV/movie." In my mind, at least, either theatre changes lives or it doesn't—we are either mindless amusement with no impact, or we have profound power to shape and change attitudes, to nurture those delicate threads that bind us as a society, to plumb the depths of what it truly means to be human and to inspire us all to recognize our role in creating a better world. As a field, we can't have it both ways—and we stand firmly in the camp that our work as theatre practitioners does make a difference, does have immense value, does change lives.

On this foundation, we build our work. We pledge in the months to come to pursue these values to our utmost ability and urge you to help us by holding our feet to the fire, holding us accountable, and letting us know not only when we fail you but how we can serve you better. If you don't call us in order to guide us, or when you need our help, you don't allow us to do the job we were created to do. Our lines and e-mail inboxes are open and our welcome mat is always out.

Here's to a great year for us all.