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Field NotesFebruary 2001 Cornerstone Theatre Company is a grassroots theater ensemble founded in 1986. The core of its mission is to "build bridges between and within diverse communities." Cornerstone's operation is two-fold. Their primary work is the creation of large, high-profile "community collaborations" that depend upon community interaction and involvement. The company also creates "ensemble shows," which are smaller productions that focus more on experiment and social commentary than on community interaction. Cornerstone began as a small, itinerant group of theater workers, moving from one residency to the next, creating productions in communities across the U.S. They eventually made a home in Los Angeles. Although their work still encompasses an extensive residency schedule — sometimes including several cities at once — Los Angeles is the company's home, and the largest segment of its focus is there. Their office is located in Los Angeles’ Skid Row district, which gives them easy access to many of the communities with which they have ongoing relationships. Partnerships
For each community show, the company depends upon developing new partnerships within the collaborating community. In developing these partnerships, the company's working principle is this: The more the community is engaged with the work, the greater its emotional and intellectual investment in the project. In turn, greater community investment sharpens the production’s aim and potential for impact. Cornerstone company members have become adept at the partnership-development process, and their stable organizational presence also increases their ability to involve communities in the work. It is one thing to encourage an individual to tell a story, and quite another to encourage an entire community; but if one can offer stability, the job is easier. Grassroots theater work often brings community participants and partners into contexts and situations that are wholly new to them, which requires a kind of audacity that is best underpinned by a solid organizational presence. A dependable, comprehensive organization guided by a strong artistic and cultural mission can lend tremendous confidence to community participants and partners who have no experience in the arts. Not coincidentally, stability is vital to acquiring and maintaining community partnerships in any nonprofit undertaking. In grassroots theater with community participation, this is perhaps especially true. Cornerstone has a very impressive roster of community partners, reflected in its ongoing relationships with organizations and individuals. Equally impressive are the arts organizations and individual careers that have spun off from the company's contact through the community shows. Cornerstone's ability to succeed in community work, and its organizational stability, enable the company to maintain and refine relationships over time, even long after a project has ended. Cornerstone not only builds bridges, but through its thematic and institutional integrity makes itself into a bridge, a growing, permanent and valued feature in the American cultural landscape. Audience By and large, audiences for a Cornerstone community collaboration are drawn from the participant community. General theater-going audiences are always part of that audience profile, however, as are participants from past projects, but Cornerstone estimates that people from the participant community make up 90% of the audience for community shows. The target audience for an ensemble show, on the other hand, is largely the general theater-going audience, as well as past participants of community and ensemble shows. Membership The ensemble comprises 17 artists (actors, writers, administrators, directors, designers, stage managers). Ensemble members who are not up for review take turns sitting on a committee that reviews each ensemble member on a regular basis. All members of the ensemble have input in this process, and the entire ensemble body votes to retain or dismiss members after the reviews. Another committee recommends new members, who are subsequently voted on by the entire ensemble. Administration Cornerstone has two separate governing bodies: the board of trustees and the artistic ensemble. The board performs the duties as required by law, and the ensemble is responsible for artistic guidance of all the company's work. The company is led by managing and artistic directors, who report to the board. Alongside governing artistic programming, the ensemble works on a consensus basis to choose new projects, support artistic collaboration and ensure the work's alignment with the company's overall mission. The board meets quarterly, approves an annual budget and is involved in compensation policy. The ensemble meets biweekly and is also involved in compensation policy. The ensemble is involved in about two-thirds of programming decision making and about one-third in administrative (and other) decision making. The ensemble meets biweekly, and holds a semiannual retreat. The staff also has weekly meetings, with and without the ensemble. Overall, pains are taken to keep everyone informed about all aspects of the company's work. There are 17 core ensemble members at this writing, and 41 people have been members over the company’s history. The average length of time that an individual ensemble member remains with the company is five years, and only four current core-group members have been with the ensemble for its entire history. In an average year, all members of the ensemble are involved in one or more projects. All positions are paid, although only six are salaried, with the balance paid on a per-project basis. There are four administrative members who are not part of the core ensemble. Last year, the company’s annual expenses were $657,000. This year (2001) they were $934,000, which represents a 40% increase. Only 10% of income is earned (7% from commissions and 3% from admissions), while 84% is contributed (49% from foundations, 15% from individuals, 14% from government sources and 6% from corporate sources). In-kind contributions make up 6% of the overall income. The company operates with no deficit. The long-range planning process involves the board, staff and ensemble equally, and the long-range planning committee is made up of representatives from each of those bodies. With information gathered from each group, the committee articulates the goals, objectives and actions of the long-range plan. The company owns no real estate. The shows are often site-specific and/or are performed in nontheater spaces, which are adapted to the needs of the production. Rehearsals are held in the collaborating community whenever possible, and community rehearsal and performance spaces are rented or donated. When traditional theater facilities are used, they are often shared with other groups. Community Collaborations Cornerstone's community collaborations, also called "community shows," endeavor to help a particular community find the story that it most needs to tell, and then facilitate that telling. The community collaboration mechanism has been refined over the years to adapt to the particular nature of each community it enters. The company's mission recognizes that "communities can be both geographic and nongeographic." An example of a nongeographic community would be Los Angeles bus commuters, whose experiences were the subject of a Cornerstone show. Additionally, Cornerstone has a project category referred to as "bridge shows," which are specifically designed to bring three or more communities into a single collaboration. The community shows bring professional actors, directors, composers, producers, designers and playwrights together with community residents to conduct research, gather materials in workshops and focus groups, develop and eventually stage a fully mounted production that is "by, for and about the community." Cornerstone’s aesthetic defines success in these projects as having enthusiastic, full and passionate commitment from community members in nearly every aspect of artistic development and production, and the company has become adept at making this possible. Although the company uses professional producers, directors and playwrights, the research and development processes are continually informed and shaped by direct interaction with the community. Community performers are encouraged to work alongside the ensemble's professional actors, and in a majority of cases most of the performers onstage are community members, many of whom have little or no performance experience. It is emblematic of Cornerstone’s aesthetic that amateurs share the stage with professional performers, and it is often the case that there are more amateurs than professionals onstage. To generalize, it is the goal of a Cornerstone production to enable a community to witness itself in two directions: Through the production, a community tells its own story, to itself, for itself, about itself. Company professionals serve the technical function of lending craft to the rendering of the community's story into art, and delivering that to the community. From the other direction, the community has the opportunity to find its own story, hear it told, see its life enacted and have its own mirror held up by its own hands, so to speak. Developing Community Involvement
In the early phases of this work, an enormous amount of energy must be spent in developing the participation of individuals from the community. Although early conversations with organizational partners –– beginning as early as a year prior –– will get word about the project out to individuals, this phase sometimes requires ensemble members to approach neighborhoods directly, canvassing for potential participants. Once scriptwriting is underway, the same sort of street-level interaction takes place. During the script-development phase, the text is not only reviewed by community members who are in the cast and crew, but also community partners and focus groups. In some cases scripts are actually put in bars, cafes and other community meeting places, where patrons can jot notes and comments in the margins. The development strategy for a community collaboration will typically include about 20 meetings with community focus groups and community leaders. Ensemble members not only meet with community members as part of the play-development process, but throughout the production process continue to meet regularly with them. After the production closes there is an evaluation session with the cast and crew, many of whom are community members. Although Cornerstone states the aim of its community work clearly — "building bridges," etc. — their mission also defines the overarching goal of any project as essentially artistic. Articulating the goals of an artistic project can be troublesome, especially when the project takes credit for its social impact, which Cornerstone does. A more in-depth examination of the company's goals can be found in the document, "Reflections on Research: Cornerstone Theatre Company." Cornerstone produces an average of four to five shows per year. Of these, two or three are community collaborations. At this writing, the company was creating a citywide "Festival of Faith" in Los Angeles, which will generate community collaboration pieces at five or more sites around the city, plus one additional piece that will tour to all the sites. Concurrent with this large development process, new projects in central California and the Midwest were also underway. Ensemble Shows Cornerstone has developed a remarkably effective administrative and artistic mechanism that enables the company to successfully realize projects of enormous scope. The company maintains itself well, but experimentation remains central to its artistic and organizational processes. Cornerstone is an excellent example of a grassroots theater ensemble that has attained the fine balance between organizational stability and continual artistic growth, in part because each project remains essentially an experiment. An integral source of this experimental spirit is the company's ensemble shows. Like many longtime ensembles, Cornerstone sometimes makes work outside the strict definition of "grassroots theater." Cornerstone, however, clearly defines its two types of work by dividing all of its programming into two categories, "community collaborations" and "ensemble shows." Ensemble shows tend to include fewer community members, if any, and instead feature ensemble members who have a passion to pursue a particular project. Ensemble shows are conceived and initiated by Cornerstone's ensemble members. The ensemble projects serve two vital functions.
It should be noted that although ensemble projects don't require direct community collaboration, they are still well within the definition of the company's "bridge-building" mission. A recent ensemble project, for instance, "Foot/Mouth," was an experimental staging in a shopping mall of two intercut texts, Beckett's "Footfalls" and Pirandello's "Man with the Flower in His Mouth." Although these plays may not seem immediately relative to the idea of community, the extraordinary manner in which they were staged caused audience members to consider the role of community — or striking lack of it — within the shopping-mall context. The company produces one or two ensemble shows per year, none of which tour. Some visiting artists who have worked with Cornerstone over the years:
Respect: the Lynchpin of Mutual Dependence Cornerstone's administrative structure is designed to support its ensemble, and the ensemble is organized to support its mission, and all three elements — mission, administration and ensemble — are absolutely integrated around the central idea of what I would call "transformation through respect." Bill Rauch referred to respect during our interviews, and I am expanding the term to indicate the set of practical principles upon which Cornerstone depends in all its dealings with communities, and itself. Transformation through respect does not refer here to a pie-in-the-sky ideal, but rather a very practical strategy that defines and motivates Cornerstone's work. Cornerstone's organizational structure shows respect to each individual member of the ensemble and the administration by requiring them to devote time and energy to the ongoing refinement of the company's mission. This means that each member has a personal investment in that mission, and by extension, in the company and its day-to-day work. Further, formalized peer review encourages members to invest in the success of their colleagues. Also, ideas for projects come from the natural inspirations that occur within the group, rather than from a sole artistic director or artistic committee. One important effect of these strategies is to make the company's mission not so much a manifesto that must be shored up or defended, but a way of being in the world, for which each member feels some responsibility. As the mutual dependence and sense of community between members increases, so does their individual confidence and expressiveness. I have observed that whether they are part of the creative ensemble or not, Cornerstone members feel respected enough to initiate and pursue creative ideas within the structure of the ensemble. As a company dedicated to "community-building," Cornerstone makes certain that it is itself first a healthy and effective community, before beginning outside collaborations. The work of much grassroots art-making is in part defined by the egalitarian idea that all people have the ability to make art, and should have the opportunity to do so. For Cornerstone this is as true in its organizational strategies as it is in its community collaborations. When community leaders approach Cornerstone with a collaboration in mind, it is because they bring with them a story or wound or dream of their community's which they desire to have respected through the attention inherent in the artistic process. Similarly for Cornerstone's ensemble members, respect is the primary guide through a collaboration's long research phase, in which the artists enter the unfamiliar community with a maximum of deference for the traditions, customs and rituals that are found there. The project's writer is encouraged to have as much contact as possible with the community's idea of itself, and to hear as closely as possible the voice with which the community speaks. All of this amounts to a comprehensive respect within which community and ensemble members feel safe and encouraged to collectively develop the artistic medium with which they will articulate the community's story. That respect, however, is not enough to enable the kind of transformation for which Cornerstone has become known. Cornerstone makes art within the gap between the need for community and the isolating realities of daily life, and, as such, is often responsible, directly or indirectly, for an increase in the cohesion, insight or action of a community. However, there can be no formula for producing that cohesion, because community transformation begins with personal, individual transformations that are the result of unpredictable aesthetic experiences. The idea that an aesthetic experience can inspire personal transformation is at the heart of all art-making, although there are many different models for it. Here is my description of Cornerstone's: First, respect provides opportunities to be in a position of awe before something that the individual does not understand. Second, the emotional experience of awe puts that individual in a desirable position of humility, which allows fresh perspectives, sudden connections, unexpected contexts, new meaning and inspiration. The power of the aesthetic experience explains why Cornerstone doesn't merely do workshops (sans production). Rather, the company undertakes the enormous task of making a piece of theater in collaboration with a community because without the art making, Cornerstone's community interactions would be merely social work, which seeks to maintain a community, rather than transform it. Like the community members, Cornerstone's ensemble members are affected by the research phase, but ultimately they are artists who are there to make a work of art, and to reap the benefits that this implies. As Alison Carey told me, "If you're in this context and you're not producing the art that you want to produce, you're going to burn out. You've gotta really want it for you." Throughout history, the most enlightened societies have valued the aesthetic experiences delivered by art, music, theater, dance and storytelling. In Los Angeles, a geographically uncentered city famous for hindering the notion of community, a recent study by USC's Annenberg School for Communication ironically reveals that the perennially troubled inner-city Crenshaw District is in fact the most cohesive community of six L.A. neighborhoods polled. The Crenshaw District is held together, it turns out, by what the researchers call "a tradition of storytelling." Residents attest that despite the neighborhood's problems, they wouldn't live anywhere else. In fact, the Los Angeles Times reported on former residents who had chosen to move back, drawn by the need for community. The results of the Annenberg study are no news to Cornerstone and the other grassroots ensembles for whom community-building-through-storytelling is the raison d'être. On the other hand, the study could defend the idea of the aesthetic experience from those who oppose its being supported with public funds. Societies periodically go through times when the unquantifiable nature of aesthetics is held up as a challenge to art's right to exist, and the United States is drifting deeper into one of those periods. In such a time, we require reminders that respect is the lynchpin of mutual dependence, and that the opportunity for transformation is implied by the very idea of liberty. The Annenberg study, like the artistic mechanism that Cornerstone has created, is an effective reminder of both. Funding Issues for Grassroots Ensemble Theaters The most powerful transformations that a human being can undergo are intensely personal, and therefore essentially quantifiable only by anecdote. Although Cornerstone Theater Company exemplifies many of the ideals to which a new grassroots ensemble might aspire, it is also an exemplar of the latest difficult situation in which arts organizations find themselves in their search for public funding. The situation is worth analyzing briefly here, as it reveals some of what young American ensembles will face in the early 21st century. It is essential to analyze the situation to some degree, in that there is already evidence that the new National Endowment for the Arts' (NEA) guidelines could ultimately slant funding unfavorably against grassroots ensembles. There are two issues: The reporting guidelines for the NEA's new Arts Learning category and the NEA's plan to apply those reporting guidelines to all its other funding categories. Unfortunately, the scope and timeframe of this reporting only allows for analysis of the first issue, although I will comment on the second. The NEA's new reporting guidelines are standardized testing of the arts. In the same way that standardized tests are slanted toward students on the dominant side of a cultural bias, so the new reporting guidelines will favor larger theaters over smaller. Opening their funding guidelines packets for the 2001-2002 NEA funding cycle, arts organizations found that a number of programs previously classified under "Education" had been condensed into a single category called "Arts Learning." This was a shock mainly because the guidelines for the Arts Learning category announced a new reporting method called "Outcome-based Evaluation," which charts "changes in skill, knowledge, attitude, behavior, life condition or status." Although the NEA has always required its grantees to report on their successes and failures, the new system calls for "Indicators" like "concrete evidence, occurrence, or characteristic that will show the desired change occurred," and "intended outcomes (changes in skill, knowledge, attitude, behavior, life condition or status)." They additionally ask for "data sources" and "data intervals." The hyper-precision demanded by this analysis-oriented language is more akin to the social sciences than the arts, and is new in NEA funding. It requires arts organizations to prove that education has taken place. As an NEA spokesperson explained to me, "The tax-payers want to know that their money is being well-spent." The question of "accountability," used so effectively in the recent push for standardized testing in this country, is now being applied to NEA-funded arts organizations. The accountability represented by standardized testing I will call "one-way accountability," to distinguish it from actual, useful accountability. In the past, reporting to the NEA has taken the form of anecdotal information, although Cornerstone's Bill Rauch and the leaders of other ensembles told me that they could sense an eminent shift toward more quantitative reporting. That shift has come suddenly, and its effect is already detrimental to ensembles. For instance, because of the new NEA reporting guidelines, Cornerstone finds itself unable to apply for Arts Learning funds. Like standardized testing in the schools, to get Arts Learning funds you’ve got to demonstrate results in black and white. Problem is, to demonstrate the results, small theater companies will have to put in more overtime than they already do, or else be very clever. Or perhaps they will have to be something larger than small theater companies. In a recent conversation with the marketing director of a major regional theater whose main-stage shows are conservatory-oriented (i.e., new productions of the latest Off-Broadway scripts, rather than original or overtly educational work), I asked about his theater's educational program. The marketing director responded, "We don't have one." I pointed out that as a nonprofit, there was bound to be an education office somewhere in the organization, and I prompted him by suggesting that it might have something to do with schools or children in some way. The marketing director then said, "Oh, yeah, we bus in school kids every now and then and give them tours of backstage and we do matinees for them. But I don't have anything to do with that." I consulted the theater’s Web site the next day and discovered what appears to be an aggressive and popular education program for providing art-appreciation experiences to elementary- and high-school children. I include the above anecdote not to deride large theaters. Rather, I hope to illustrate what I suspect will turn out to be one of the NEA's justifications for the new guidelines, which is that they are an attempt to hold non-grassroots theaters genuinely accountable for the educational contribution that all nonprofit theaters are required to make. Up until now, NEA guidelines unofficially allowed that theaters could define arts education as art appreciation, and many non-grassroots theaters have taken advantage of this. There's nothing wrong with art appreciation, of course, except that in terms of education it casts a wide net rather than a deep one, and its effect is to titillate more than educate. The use of an arts-appreciation model was also convenient for theaters whose conservatory mission does not inherently imply education. Now, however, in order to receive NEA Arts Learning funds, a theater's social impact must be measurable. This should not cause a crisis for large theaters. Unlike the grassroots ensembles, whose artistic and educational enterprises tend to be thematically entwined, large theaters have been able to keep their education programs at a distance from their main-stage program, if they so desired. That translates to a separate education office, with a body of specialized expertise, which will enable large theaters to meet the demands of the new reporting guidelines far better than grassroots ensembles. If the ensembles are unable to marshal the necessary resources to respond to the new guidelines, they simply need not apply. For this current round of funding at least, Cornerstone's director of development Scott Vandrick has chosen not to take advantage of Arts Learning funds because he simply doesn't have the staff to devote to servicing them without compromising the company's integrity. In accepting Arts Learning funds, Vandrick said to me, "Artists are going to have to become analysts and administrators instead of artists." The NEA has allowed that a portion of Arts Learning funds may be used to finance the gathering of the reporting statistics. In the case of larger theaters, this could augment the role of the education director. For small ensembles, it could turn out to be an unfortunate Catch-22. Since it is unlikely that these extra funds could be used to finance a full-time education director for an ensemble, the only other course is to pay the ensemble members to become "administrators instead of artists," which could be disastrous. It is unfortunate that the new guidelines appear to suggest that ensembles should simply adjust their programming to suit the new requirements. Those that cannot or will not, the guidelines suggest, were simply not deserving in the first place. When the new guidelines are eventually applied to all of the NEA's funding categories, their actual cost will become more apparent, although by then it will be too late. With its new guidelines, the NEA opposes its own highest mission. One-way accountability is in fact an inquisition, and one of the purposes of an inquisition is to mask fear of the unknown with certainty. The mask of certainty can obscure the obvious, which in this case is the fact that the NEA and its artists share a mutual responsibility to create art of such undeniable impact that its human value is, coincidentally, unquantifiable by charts and bubble sheets. In an optimistic scenario, though, the impending situation could present an opportunity for American arts organizations, especially grassroots ensembles. An attempt by the government to hold arts organizations quantifiably accountable for artistic production has the potential to engage legislators and artists in an aesthetic debate, which of course few politicians would enjoy, and I suspect most would want to avoid. This is precisely why such a debate should be encouraged. Those at whom one-way accountability is aimed should ask out loud, "What exactly is it that artists should be accountable for?" which is to say, "What is the role of art in our society?" To open that up as public debate would be a great accomplishment. This is, however, only an optimistic scenario. Conclusion Social impact has never been optional for grassroots theater. Its cultural value is nearly undeniable to those who have experienced it, though it is best described anecdotally because it affects each person differently. This is true of all art, of course, and also of education, as a matter of fact. One of the arguments against standardized testing in the schools posits that because we all respond differently to education, no standardized test can assess that education's value. An unoptimistic scenario: The changes in the NEA's guidelines signal a political shift that could bode ill for those arts organizations dependent on public funds, no matter what their current situation. While conservative forces in Washington would prefer arts organizations to depend more on private foundations, they simultaneously wish that private foundations would behave more like charitable organizations. (Read "less political.") The squeeze play could be quite effective in the overall whittling down of arts funding. Opponents of public funding for the arts might use Cornerstone's financial stability, for instance, as an example of why arts organizations should be left to depend on private philanthropy. Meanwhile, a simultaneous steering of private foundations toward "outcome-based evaluation" would encourage projects that are more educational and less artistic (which, is to say, again, less political). In this case, public and private funding for art-making would be severely impacted. Small ensembles like Cornerstone would be the first to go. Taking up the argument is grassroots theater's only hope of drawing the public into a dialogue with itself about the role of art in society. The last time the Endowment and one-way accountability were the subject of tremendous public scrutiny, too many easily demonized issues were on the table as ready whipping-posts, and so real dialogue was avoided. The Endowment's current lack of controversy makes for an environment to which its opponents might be more easily invited for debate. Should the time ever come when the government's use of the word "accountability" implies an interchange of responsibility, much will be revealed, including that Cornerstone and ensembles like it have played a unique and invaluable role not only in the arts, but also in the living spirit of democracy that they have embodied. In their remarkable research on American attitudes toward the arts and public arts funding, Paul DiMaggio and Becky Pettit describe the rock and hard place between which ensembles frequently find themselves. At one point, it describes the condition in which arts organizations find themselves, which is that people who support the arts tend to be people who are more successful, and yet people who are more successful tend to not favor government influence in public life, which coincidentally includes the arts. "The natural constituency for public arts programs should be the people who attend arts activities most frequently and value the arts most highly. But because such people are drawn disproportionately from among well-educated, high-income Americans who tend to be skeptical of federal initiatives, they are difficult to recruit to efforts to defend the NEA." The only option is to look to the future, when the next generation, having been exposed to some form of theater thanks to many public and private arts education programs, may look more kindly upon it. There is one other option: Theaters raise their own support by empowering the powerless. Biography of site visitor: Ferdinand Lewis is a founding member of The Ghost Road Company, an educator, writer and theater artist. He is currently at work on two books: "Ensemble Theater: An Anthology" and "Ensemble Theater: Traditions, Approaches, Strategies." He lives in Los Angeles. |
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