Community Arts

We achieved our artistic goals of engaging, entertaining, and educating our community through this project. A strength AND challenge of our artistic process is having 10 different artists directing 10 different plays - each with different actors. This results in a variety of artistic visions for each play, each unique and engaging for the audiences, and each resulting in different learning experiences for the artists. The challenge in this process is coordinating all the different artists and volunteer actors through the rehearsal process, and "tech week" as each production worked through different sound, lighting and other tech needs. The end result was a highly successful festival with performances filled to 91% of capacity. Attendees were engaged, as shown by their response in voting for their favorite play: 791 voted (62%) for a fun show called "Gram Scams" which looked at perceptions and misconceptions between generations. Of the playwrights with plays selected for performance, nine were from across the United States from Maine to California, and one was from the Twin Cities metro community of Little Canada. The Festival included comedies and dramas with diverse topics from aging to speed dating to theater ghosts to a murder mystery spoof. We feel this activity was a tremendous success and we would not do anything differently for future festivals. We successfully reached our intended community of audience, volunteer actors and directors. Actors of all ages, abilities, and levels of experience were invited to audition, with a total of 52 actors coming out to try out to be in a play. Actors ranged in age from 17 to 70, with 14 men and 13 women cast in 27 roles. Most of the actors were Caucasian, with two Latino, and one African American. At least one of the artists self-identifies as gay. One of our directors, who is legally blind, was driven to and from the theater with his service dog. Of the 1278 attendees, 84 (7%) attended with a half-price or pay-what-you-can ticket, and 147 (12%) attended free of charge. There was no fee for actors to participate in the Festival. We exceeded our attendance goal of 75% of capacity, with the Festival filled to 91% capacity. The number of actors was 27 (8 fewer than anticipated), a result of plays selected for performance having fewer roles than in past years. Artists outcomes were as expected with 10 directors, 10 playwrights and 5 staff and contracted artists engaged. Two playwrights attend the Festival.