In our industry, we spend a lot of time thinking about the now. The urgency of scarce funding, political whims, and butts in seats often does not allow for much dreaming. However, with this future-focused issue, I invite you all to dream of a brighter tomorrow for the American theatre. As this is my last letter to you all as the interim CEO for TCG, I want to take a minute to share some thoughts about the future that I see for our beautiful ecosystem—and to share some of my history, so that we don’t continue to make the same mistakes I’ve witnessed in the last two decades.
For the last few years, I have acted as a freelance strategic resource for theatres in transition and have operated as a fractional C-suite executive for organizations. I have been jokingly referring to my recent life as firefighting for American theatre, extinguishing the organizational, financial, and personnel crises which are all too pervasive in this profession. While the highs of transformation have brought immense joy, I also have had my own share of experiences with the very ugly, harmful underbelly of this industry. I carry the burns from working with some of our scorchiest people. Yet despite those scars, I have renewed hope and joy for our collective future.
One of the ways that TCG is positioned to support our ecosystem, as we all rise from the past few years of chaos, is by continued investment in professional and leadership development for theatre workers at all levels.
I envision an ecosystem where we build up organizational leaders who have actual experience running integrous people and culture departments before ascending to executive director roles; folks who will build humane working environments, pay equitably and transparently, and honor each other’s differences; folks who can read a balance sheet, think strategically about a company’s holistic assets, and pivot accordingly.
I dream of an ecosystem where I stop hearing stories from theatre workers, mostly BIPOC individuals—usually, disproportionately Black women—about navigating wrongful severance or termination situations with what can only be classified as the lowest-common-denominator type of managers on the other side of their situations. This pattern must stop.
As our ecosystem’s collective phoenix rises, it will have no use for harmful nonsense. What if all organizational leaders realized you shouldn’t solely ask, “Is this legal?” in one’s decision making, but also, “Is it compassionate?” and “Is this ethical?” (Thanks, Parent Artist Advocacy League for Performing Arts + Media (PAAL) for this framework!) You can absolutely leverage employees’ assets, hold folks accountable, make hard decisions (like restructures), and still be a decent human being.
My hope for our collective future is one that I have for my younger self, a Latine kid from a Los Angeles suburb where theatre literally saved my life. Because she deserves to see herself not only on the stages but everywhere in between. And because she deserves to know and believe in her fierceness and smarts throughout her life, not only after she turned 40 and had been scorched or gaslit too many times from this industry’s cast of characters.
Making a way for more people to live their wildest dreams is what I will be trying to accomplish with the time I have on this planet. I hope you’ll join me in this next stage of metamorphosis for our ecosystem. It’s an exciting one full of opportunity and hope. Pa’lante!
Karena Fiorenza is interim CEO of TCG.
