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The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage

Counting New Beans with WolfBrown and Theatre Bay Area

Posted by Jordan Shue | April 2, 2012

On Friday the 23rd of March The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage hosted Alan Brown of WolfBrown, and Brad Erickson and Clayton Lord of Theatre Bay Area for an event that brought together 150 arts leaders from all over Philadelphia. Alan and Clayton presented the findings of an important national study on the intrinsic impact and value of the arts. The study took place over the course of two years and focused on 18 theaters around the country, including Philadelphia-area theaters Bristol Riverside Theatre, the Arden Theatre, and People's Light & Theatre Company. The study resulted in the publication, Counting New Beans: intrinsic impact and the value of art.

The research conducted at theaters within the Philadelphia region received support from the Center through the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative and the Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative. Additional support for the study came from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources.

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Labels:  alan brown  arden theatre  brad erickson  bristol riverside theatre  clayton lord  counting new beans  intrinsic impact  new beans  pcmi  pcmi from the field  people's light and theatre company  philadelphia cultural management initiative  philadelphia theatre initiative  professional development  pti  theatre bay area  wolfbrown 

Measuring the Intrinsic Impact of Live Theatre

Posted by Roy Wilbur | March 9, 2012

"We make art because we believe it makes better human beings. We make art because we believe it makes being human better. So why do we spend so much energy quantifying the economics of what we do, and so little time quantifying the impact?" from Theatre Bay Area's Website

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Labels:  experience  impact  interview  intrinsic  marketing  philadelphia theatre initiative  research  theater  theatre 

Paula Vogel “Boot Camp” Heads to NYC

Posted by PTI | February 15, 2012

Last year, PTI helped to fund a boot camp led by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel and hosted by Philadelphia Young Playwrights. Vogel’s boot camp exercises are designed to spark the creativity of participants—including, in Philadelphia, students as well as professionals like Wilma Theater Artistic Director Blanka Zizka, 1812 Productions Artistic Director Jen Childs, and People’s Light & Theatre Company Associate Artistic Director Pete Pryor—and to generate spontaneity and ingenuity in playwriting.

Last week a New York Times article covered a playwriting boot camp that Vogel led at the Second Stage Theater, the same venue where her Pulitzer Prize-winning play How I Learned to Drive is having a much-heralded revival. As she did during the PTI-sponsored boot camp in Philadelphia, Vogel pushed the New York participants to think outside of the perceived limitations of playwriting, first challenging them to come up with a scene that would be impossible to stage.

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Labels:  boot camp  paula vogel  philadelphia theatre initiative  philadelphia young playwrights  playwright  playwriting  pti  theater  theatre 

Hidden Stories, part 2

Posted by Jacque Liu | January 19, 2012

by Cornelia S. King, Curator of Women’s History, Library Company of Philadelphia

I was intrigued to be invited to join a field trip sponsored by Heritage Philadelphia Program (HPP) and the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative (PTI), which I described to my colleagues at the Library Company as a mash-up between people like us (special collections librarians and archivists) and people in the performing arts. I imagined wonderful outcomes; wouldn’t it be great to collaborate on programming that would re-create the singing, dancing, and theatrical staging that is documented by the printed sheet music, playbills, and programmes in our collection? 

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Labels:  beth nixon  cornelia king  dawn falato  germaine ingram  heritage philadelphia program  historical society of philadelphia  library company  philadelphia theatre initiative  susan glassman  wagner free institute 

Fallow Now Showing at People’s Light & Theatre

Posted by Nicole Steinberg | January 13, 2012

This week saw the opening night of Fallow at People’s Light & Theatre, which will run through February 5 and has been supported by The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage through the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative.

Penned by Kenneth Lin and directed by Jackson Gay, Fallow follows the journey of a mother whose son, an Ivy League graduate, has been murdered after finding work as a beekeeper and migrant worker, mistaken for a Hispanic man by his killers. The play is inspired by real-life acts of violence that speak to the racial and cultural disparities that exist all over the United States. On the People’s Light website, Lin states, “Our dreams for a better, more inclusive America have not died [but] we need to keep fighting for it. Fallow is my dog in the fight.”

Lin has been named as one of six finalists for the Smith Prize, an annual award of the National New Play Network for plays focused on American politics. Fallow is a world premiere, as well as Lin’s first production in the Philadelphia region. People’s Light will host a variety of events that touch upon themes of the play, including “The Road Not Taken,” a panel discussion featuring Philadelphians who have embarked on new and surprising directions in their lives, and “Finding One’s Identity,” a discussion with Lin about self-discovery, an important aspect of Fallow.

To purchase tickets to Fallow, and to read about the full calendar of ancillary events, visit the People’s Light & Theatre website.

Images courtesy of People's Light & Theatre.

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Labels:  2011 grantee  fallow  jackson gay  kenneth lin  people's light & theatre  people's light & theatre company  philadelphia theatre initiative  play  playwright  theater  theatre