MARCH 2020

Updates and Upcoming Events

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to come to the last Theater Artist Leader Coalition meeting at the History Theater. It was a very productive meeting! Thanks again to Ron and Karen for the use of the space. We had around 30 people show up, not bad for a snowy night, and the small group discussions were very informative. It finally feels like we are in motion!

In this newsletter you will find information regarding the following items:

-The next TALC meeting on March 16th

-Information about MN Theater Standards working groups 

-An interest survey for TALC participation

-Upcoming Webinar for Educators

-Upcoming Events

If you were not able to make the last meeting, you can read the minutes by clicking on the link below.

NEXT MEETING:

MONDAY MARCH 16TH 

7pm at The Ritz Theater

NOTE: There will be a meeting for working groups

prior to the panel discussion at 6pm!!

We are pleased to announce the following people have graciously agreed to sit on our panel:

In alphabetical order;

Rita Boersma- Huge Theater Artistic Director

James Haskins- Guthrie Theater Executive Director

Hannah Holman- Umbrella Collective Producing Artistic Director

Anton Jones- Climb Theater Artistic Director

Peter Rothstein- Theater Latte Da Artistic Director

Eric “Pogi” Sumangil- Actor and trainer in best practices and consent

Laura Zabel- Springboard for the Arts Executive Director

We are still waiting for confirmation for a couple others and will update the website when we have the full list.

 In the first half of the evening we will hear from our panel, moderated by Laura Stearns. After a short break, the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions of the panel. For those that might be uncomfortable asking their questions, you will be able to write your questions down and have them read to the panel.

For those that want to work on the creation of the standards, this will be a great meeting to attend. If you are looking for more information about the standards, keep reading, there is more information to follow! There will be a short meeting at 6pm before the panel for working groups to gather. You are welcome to join us even if this is your first meeting. The more the merrier.

We think this will be a very informative conversation about policies that are already in place, what’s working and what isn’t, and get input from our panel about their thoughts on the MN Theater Standards Document that is being developed. We hope you will be able to make it. The event is free but we do ask that you register for the event.

Please feel free to pass this information on to others, particularly those not on social media. Walk ups on the night of will not be turned away. Here is also a link to directions and parking instructions at The Ritz

Working Groups

We have created a Google Doc of the notes taken during the small break out group conversations on the 17th which you can access below. If you were not able to attend the last meeting, or are simply curious about what we talked about, you can read the notes by clicking the link below. if you want to get involved, decide which areas are most interesting to you and what areas could benefit from your personal expertise. The notes are color coded for easy reference so you can see what category the suggestions from the February 17th meeting fall under. Many of them fall under multiple categories.

From the meeting on the 17th we have identified 6 categories for smaller working groups to tackle. The categories are as follows:

BEST PRACTICES: Policies & Procedures/Communication/Reporting & Processing

HEALTH & SAFETY: Consent/Resources/Training

ACCOUNTABILITY: Oversight/Board of Directors/Community Advisory Council/ Transformative Justice & Power Structures

AREA NEEDS: Production Departments/Stage Crews/Designers/Technicians/Theater Admin & Development/Front of House & Box Office

REPRESENTATION: EDI/Differently Abled/POC/Accessibility/Child Actors/Patrons/Volunteers/Education-Teachers & Students

TECH SUPPORT/IMPLEMENTATION: Social Media/Platforms & Sharing (during development/launching document/long term use & maintenance)

We are asking that those interested in joining or continuing work on the MN Theater Standards Document please go to this survey link below to give us more information on how you would like to participate and sign up to volunteer for working groups. If you need more clarification to decide, reading the categories document at the link above will help you decide which areas are most interesting to you and what areas could benefit from your personal expertise. Small working groups will be developed based on the information you share with us. You can sign up for more than one category but please rank your choices in the special notes. 

We know that there are many people who want to be involved in these conversations that are not able to make it to the meetings because of schedule conflicts or transportation issues. Joanna Schnedler from the MN Theater Alliance has graciously agreed to help us out by offering to set up electronic meeting links for the small groups so people are more likely to be able to attend meetings they might not have otherwise been able to. Thank you, Joanna! If you are someone who would be interested in electronic participation, please let us know in the special notes.

For those that want to work on the creation of the standards, there will be a short meeting at 6pm before the panel discussion on March 16th for working groups to gather. Anyone is welcome to join us, even if you have never been to a TALC meeting.

EDUCATORS

MN Theater Alliance will be hosting a Webinar with MN Theater Educators from across the state on March 18th at 4pm. Laura will be in attendance to talk about TALC and how educators can participate in the creation of the MN Theater Standards and how we can best represent their needs in this document. If you are interested in this, or know someone who would be, please contact Joanna Schnedler for more information. Notes from the Webinar discussion will be posted on the TALC site if you are interested but unable to attend.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Future Meetings

April:

Mark your calendars! Our April Meeting will be an opportunity for the MN Theater Standards working groups to do some work together face to face. Frank Theater has graciously offered for us to use their rehearsal space at the Ivy Building in the Seward area. The meeting will take place on Monday April 20th from 7pm to 9pm . We will also have the use of some other spaces in the building for smaller groups to work.

May:

We are in the process of organizing a session with a powerful community healer to do some work as a community around harms we have experienced in our theater work. Once we have the details locked in, we will make an announcement. Stay tuned…

June:

We will likely do more work together on the MN Standards as we are hoping to keep the pace to present a draft of the document in the fall.

Also, we are submitting a proposal to be a presenter at the

MN Theater Alliance Statewide Theater Conference June 13th - 15th. 

We will let you know what happens with that...

July:
TBD depending on the needs of the community

August:

TBD depending on the needs of the community

September:

Optimistic deadline to present a working draft of the new MN Theater Standards to the community!

Beyond September:

Only time will tell what the future will bring…

Updates for future meetings can be found on the TALC website meeting page.

THANK YOU!!!