From the Executive Director

Final Things

By Ben Cameron

While every editorial column during my tenure at Theatre Communications Group has generated floods of self-doubt and panic, never has the weight felt more crushing than it does this month. For this is, of course, my last.

After eight fantastic years at the helm of this organization, I am moving on—and like anyone else with even a modicum of ego, I want to move on in style. Consequently, I'm alternately flooded by memories of unforgettable television finales—the group hug on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," or the image of Bob Newhart, after a lifetime of innkeeping with Mary Frann, waking to find Suzanne Pleshette beside him in bed—and crushed by assorted "famous last words" that have trivialized entire lives and careers in one fell swoop. With this column, how will I fare? Will I be unforgettably clever or dismally inane? And do I really have anything to say?

After months of worrying about this moment—and weeks of watching the American Theatre staff nervously biting nails but trying not to hound me too much about meeting my deadline—I've decided to let myself off the hook. Nothing I can say will transform the field or radically advance our thinking at this point. Frankly, there's nothing burning in me that remains unsaid, precisely because you (both the magazine's readers and the staff here) have already been so generous in letting me cavil and whine, exult and despair in these pages about whatever may have been front-of-mind for me.

And so this is really a simple thank-you, I guess. These eight years have been professionally the richest of my life in every conceivable way. Many of you have invited me to your communities, to your theatres, into your audiences and into your boardrooms—places where I was inevitably enriched by your insight, inspired by your passion, humbled by your dedication. Many of you have been powerful partners in shaping my own thinking, sometimes by sharing with unstinting honesty the depth of your own experience, at other times by calling me to task when I have listened clumsily or reasoned faultily. Many of you have given me and TCG your vote of confidence by joining us as members, by participating in our research and by attending our convenings. To each and every one of you, my deepest thanks.

But I want to also offer a few special thanks before I turn out the proverbial lights.

In ways I could not have appreciated before I began, so much inspiration and counsel has come from theatre trustees and board members—those fantastic individuals who, in the face of so many competing claims for time, energy and resources, intellectual as well as financial, choose to dedicate such things to the theatre. None of us could flourish and thrive without you. You are our strongest allies.

I had the great fortune to experience this even more immediately with our own TCG board—a group whose every convening I anticipated with excitement and genuine happiness. They have never failed to provide their most generous counsel, their most rigorous thinking, and their most open hearts. TCG has been enriched by their work, and my own life enriched beyond measure by their friendship.

At the heart of all we accomplished is, of course, the TCG staff—that group who threatened to put my picture on a milk carton along with "Have You Seen This Child?" in response to my 15-20 days per month of travel. I can only hope that I was able to convey to them the extraordinary respect, affection and esteem in which our members hold them.

Above all, the successes we have had would simply have been impossible without Joan Channick, TCG's managing director. The precision of Joan's thinking and her patience with the messiness of mine, her astonishing capacity for detail and her simultaneous power to define and grasp the whole, her careful nurturing of our own staff and of emerging professionals, are without parallel in my experience. The greatness of her mind is matched by the greatness of her heart: She has been a godsend, and I hope we all recognize the field's good fortune in her decision to return to its ranks as managing director of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Conn.

To my partner Scott—whose infinite patience and love I will always strive to repay—I'm coming home at last: I just pray that, in having me around more, you don't come to realize how insufferable I can be.

The pressure on this column was additionally mitigated by my own realization that this was not really an end at all. Unlike those television shows that came to a halt forever, TCG will continue and flourish. We stand at the brink of an exciting new chapter—one poised for a new leader—and it's precisely because of this strength that I feel the confidence and certainty of the rightness of my moving on. While I will not be part of the TCG family, I look forward to seeing the organization blossom in fantastic new ways under its new leadership.

I can only hope for each of you that life brings you the same richness of opportunities it has brought to me. These past eight years have reminded me of the power of this field. Of how lives are changed when we come together, breathe together, feel together.

There is greatness in this field. Greatness of talent. Of skill. Of heart and spirit.

Thank you for inviting me into your circle and letting me bask in that greatness. It has been an honor, a privilege, a blessing I will never forget.

God speed you all in your work and bless you in every aspect of your lives.