Tax credit to benefit Off-Off Broadway

On the morning of January 21st, members of arts, cultural and theatre tasks forces from Manhattan Community Boards (CB) gathered at Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office to present a proposal that is currently being considered by the CBs that would help financially pressed Off-Off-Broadway theatres.

This demonstration was in response to a challenge that President Stringer made in February of 2009 at a joint public forum on the state of small to mid-sized theatres in NYC that was hosted by Community Boards 1 – 5. “Hold us [elected officials] to a higher standard” he said, “give us a roadmap to the products you expect.” The Community Boards took this challenge to heart.

Committees were mobilized in an effort to find “innovative solutions to remedy the current fiscal and real estate crises that are endangering… theatres and other performing arts organizations throughout New York City.” Over the last year hundreds of emails have been sent and dozens of roundtables and meetings were held to gather information and prioritize the needs of the independent theatre community. At the top of the list was affordable rehearsal and performance space...READ THE FULL STORY

Shop to help the NYIT Foundation!!

If you're avoiding department stores and heading straight to Amazon.com for your 2010 holiday shopping, think of your favorite (and only) New York Innovative Theatre Foundation!

By following the Amazon.com logo via this link on our website to make your purchases, 10% of your purchase is donated to the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation, at no cost to you! It's the simplest way to help the Off-Off Broadway community this holiday season. Spread the word!

2010 holds promising things for all of us - we are so proud to celebrate this community year round, and we thank you for celebrating us!!

OOB theatre needs idea bank

The New York IT Awards is collecting needs and suggestions from the NYC theatre community to the City of New York, and asks for your contributions.

It is our hope to collect the community's needs as a whole, and put together a master list of items when making presentations to community boards, arts task forces, and city officials.

If you are inclined (even one suggestion), copy and paste the following information into the comments below. If you prefer anonymity, email your suggestions to community@nyitawards.com.

COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING TEXT
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Name:
Organization:
Email:
Date:
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SUGGESTIONS:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Thank you for your participation, and don't forget to spread the word!

Good News! CB3 Arts Task Force Resolution Passed Unanimously March 24th

A resolution composed by the Community Board Arts Task Force that was the result of the CB 1-5 Public Forum on small theatre in NYC & a March 10 Arts Task Force meeting, passed unanimously last evening by Community Board 3, paving the way for other Community Boards to use this language to adopt similar resolutions.

The community board can now bring the resolution to elected officials, requesting further support:

WHEREAS: Arts and Entertainment is one of the largest industries in New York City with the economic impact of non-profit estimated to be $5.8 Billion and 40,460 jobs (NY Alliance for the Arts, 2005);

WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations are an integral part of the Arts & Entertainment industry: A) as an entry point for actors, playwrights, and other artists, B) for the expression and exploration of the diverse culture of New York City communities, C) sites of creativity, experimentation and innovation, D) jobs;

WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts venues are a closely tied to their local neighborhood small businesses, for instance one theater in CB3 had 70 restaurants contribute food to a recent festival;

WHEREAS: Small to mid sized theaters and other arts venues are economic drivers of local neighborhoods, and are a crucial to the cultural and economic resilience and diversity of our neighborhoods;

WHEREAS: A cyclical economic downturn is the TIME TO INVEST in our neighborhood economic drivers and NOT TO DISINVEST in local economic drivers;

WHEREAS: The proposed disinvestment by the City and the State in community based arts may have an adverse multiplier effect on the small businesses and neighborhoods that they are based;

WHEREAS: Foundation funding and government funding are down by 20-40 percent, yet small to mid sized theaters and other non profit arts venues have fixed real estate costs;

WHEREAS: Government funders recommendations to small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations to cut back on programming in this time of crisis will not work, as programming constituted the revenue for fixed costs and employment;

WHEREAS: CB3 has been a historic incubator and concentration of Off Off Broadway theaters and has lost much of its small theaters in the late 90s and other performing arts venues in the last decade due to real estate competition and speculation, resulting in spaces constructed for performance to be repurposed and irretrievably lost;

WHEREAS: Areas (CB2, CB4, CB5) surrounding CB3 have recently lost 25-30 percent of their small to mid sized theaters in the last five years predominantly due to real estate competition (New York Theatre Innovative Theatre Awards study, Dec 08);

WHEREAS: CB3 remains an important viable center for theater and performing arts;

WHEREAS: There exists innovative policies (land use, tax, public buildings) to sustain and retain theater and other performance venues that other cities and states have successfully used;

WHEREAS: The New York State Assembly member O’Donnell, and NYC Council member Alan Gerson’s office are proposing bills to create a property tax abatement for commercial landlords that rent to non-profit cultural groups;

WHEREAS: CB3 Art Task Force Town Halls, and the recent joint Community Board Forum on small to mid sized theaters have been well attended with extensive expert and public testimony on the loss of theater and arts venues, the importance of theater and arts venues for local communities, and the severe financial crisis hitting small to mid sized theater.

THEREFORE IT BE RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected officials to acknowledge small to mid sized theaters and other arts organizations to be crucial to the cultural and economic resilience and diversity of our neighborhoods, to recognize the arts as economic drivers and integral to local small neighborhood businesses;

THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 call on its elected officials to develop and adopt land use , tax and other governmental incentives and policies to retain and secure theater and other arts and cultural venue spaces and to retain arts and cultural organizations in our district and the City of New York.

THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected officials, and the Governor, to act in order to restore the 100 percent funding cut from remaining funds of the New York State Council of the Arts (NYSCA) for Fiscal Year 2009, to restore NYSCA funding to sustainable levels in Fiscal Year 2010, and not to discriminate against small to mid-sized theaters and arts organizations.

THEREFORE IT BE FURTHER RESOLVED: CB3 calls on its elected representatives of Congress to include small to mid-sized theaters and other arts organizations in job retention and economic stimulus funding, and not to discriminate against the arts and non-profits in urban stabilization, job retention, and other funding and policies assisting other small businesses.

THANK YOU to all who have attended meetings leading up to these events! It's because of our community that our voices were heard loud and clear through these otherwise distracting and difficult times. And THANK YOU to Shay Gines, John Clancy, Paul Nagel and Tamara Greenfield, who all spoke last night in support of CB3's Arts Task Force's recommendations

The next CB3 Arts Task Force Meeting will be April 7th; stay tuned for more information.

Public Forum UPDATES & ACTION ITEMS (FULL CB3 Board meeting TOMORROW!)

In case you're not receiving updates from the Theatre task force, most recent update with action items:

"Thank you for being one of more than 300 activists who attended the
February 17th Community Board Congress on Small to Mid-sized Theaters
and/or have recently asked to be included on this list.

We told you we would take the ideas from that night and work to put the
power of the Community Boards behind them.

That process began on Tuesday, March 10th. The Arts Task Force of
Community Board 3 met at Theater for the New City to discuss the forum and
events that have occurred since that night.

In attendance were approximately 30 outside observers. Invited guest
Caron Atlas kicked off the meeting speaking about opportunities for
combined community organizing and arts advocacy.

The task force drafted and unanimously passed a resolution in support of
our goals. Resolutions are the community boards’ mechanism for formally
conveying their concerns and policy initiatives to elected officials. A
resolution must first be passed by the appropriate committee. It is then
sent to the Executive Committee for comments and tweaking; and a final
resolution is crafted for presentation and vote at the full board’s
monthly meeting.

Action Steps You Can Take:

Come to the CB3 full Board meeting on Tuesday, March 24, 2009 at 6:30 p.m.
at PS 20 at 166 Essex Street (E Houston & Stanton Streets).

Sign up to speak at Public Session between 6:00-6:30pm. You will be given
approximately 2 minutes in front of the mike.

Submit an impact statement if you were a victim of the NYSCA 2009 100%
funding cuts and bring copies to submit the individual board
members(approximately 40).

This resolution can be used by the other community boards as the basis of
similar letters or resolutions, so that small to mid-sized theaters can be
advocated for on a common basis and at the same time across all affected
Community Boards.

The State Legislature is meeting at the end of this month to specifically
discuss NYSCA Funding and its restoration. They read their mail. Our job
is show them that small to mid-sized theaters demand their support.

If you agree with the idea behind basic resolution (specific wording is
still being worked on by the CB3 Task Force), please considering coming
and showing support at this meeting. And if you were caught in the NYSCA
funding debacle, please consider sending us a one page impact statement
about how your organization was affected.

We will present these to policy makers as a compendium of (anonymous if
requested)documents.

When further resolutions are taken up by the other Community Boards, we
will let you know about those meetings as well.

Thanks again for your interest and support.

David M. Pincus, on behalf of the theater/arts task forces of Community
Boards 1-5."

Check out our resources as well. Hope to see you tomorrow!

Thoughts on Presidential plans for the Arts, contributed by Shay

Presidential Plans for the Arts

President Barack Obama is the first-ever president to enter office with a platform and plan for the arts. His website claims that he "uniquely appreciates the role and value of creative expression." This is an exciting change for the arts. His eight-point plan includes a promise to set an example on how to appreciate the arts, more money for the arts and his "arts corps" and agenda to "expand public/private partnerships between schools and arts organizations" resonates his overall theme of service. All of this bodes well for the Off-Off-Broadway community.

However even more than a general awareness and appreciation of the arts, there are two points in his plan that I think will have the largest and most direct impact on our community.

Provide Health Care to Artists: Finding affordable healthcare for independent artists who don't always have a regular employer/regular employment has not always been easy. Anyone paying attention to the campaign knows that President Obama's plan is to create and make available a subsidy healthcare plan similar to the one that Federal employees now have. Will this make it possible for many OOB artists to spend more time working on their art and less time chained to a "day job?"

Ensure Tax Fairness for Artists: This is the one I find really interesting. This will allow artists to deduct (at fair market value) hours of time volunteered from their taxes...... This may mean a whole new game for OOB. How will Equity codes be affected by this? A very interesting proposal.

What are your thoughts?

Go here to see the outline of Barack Obama's plan for the arts.

Also if you haven't heard, Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. This would be a Cabinet-level position that would oversee several federal agencies including the NEA. While many other countries have Ministers of Art or Culture but the United States has never created such a position.

Elizabeth Blair from NPR discusses the Secretary of the Arts here.

What do you think? Do you think a Secretary of the Arts would benefit us or do you agree with David Smith?

Go here to sign the petition.

Shay Gines

Good ideas: The Give List

Ran across The Give List on idealist's blog. The Give List marks 71 ways to give without opening your wallet - a great idea not only holiday recession season, but also great ideas to add to appeal letters.

A favorite of mine that's incredibly easy, from LA Chamber Orchestra:

"If your favorite arts organization has a blog, a facebook page, or some other form of social networking – leave a comment, post on their wall, or just send them an email telling them what you love about that organization."

What other ideas would you add to your Gift List?

Have your say: Arts Infrastructure

Adam Forest Huttler of Fractured Atlas is calling for your Arts Infrastructure ideas for possible inclusion in their Arts Infrastructure proposal. Check out the blog post to post your ideas.

I am SUCH a dork

I ran across this post on smArts & Culture in my reader about this website, Wordle that creates word clouds out of your own copy, and using it as a tool to re-vamp your marketing, press, donor copy. I ran the IT Awards copy to get an idea...



way too much fun...

web suggestions

Website everyone should know about: Doodle! The website with the funny name that offers the EASIEST way to get a scheduling consensus from a group of people...if anyone has other suggestions, let me know...

AND a blog you REALLY should be reading: The Mission Paradox Blog. I would point out some favorite highlights from the last month, but they've all been so good! Just...read it. LISTEN to it.

Good news!

After the not-so good news our latest study found and being in the middle of an economic crisis and all, I thought we could use some good news...The IT Awards staff got this last night right before our staff meeting from John Chatterton: After announcing staff changes, he stated:

"There is no longer any need to pay membership dues. We shall give priority to reviewing shows by our members until the expiration dates of their memberships. During the next year we will switch over to a system in which the reviewers will review shows that interest them, culled from the listings on TheaterOnline. Shows not listed on TheaterOnline will not
be reviewed, and the only way to get a listing on TheaterOnline is to
post it yourself with the online tools provided on the Web site. I
shall assign actual stories and maintain editorial standards. Reviews will continue to be limited
to Off-Off-Broadway shows only, meaning Equity showcases in New York
City or non-union productions of equivalent resources and scope."

Well done, OOBR!

The more things change…

It is Finals week here in the Big Apple. This may not mean much for those of you already embarked on the real, grown-up world of work, but I’m hip deep in over-caffeinated summary and analysis.

As a break from the monotonous hum of my laptop’s internal fan, I attended NYU’s Wagner Alumni Association Annual Holiday Fundraiser. The WAA was screening “HAIR: Let the Sun Shine In”, a documentary about the making of the 40-year-old hippy musical, its cultural impact, and current revival. It was a treat to hear IT Awards presenter Ben Vereen and Honorary Award recipient Tom O’Horgan reminisce about the show.

I’ve heard it said that once you work on a show you either A) get sick of it and never want to hear another measure or B) fall in love with it and carry it with you always. Full disclosure: I stage managed a production of HAIR 8 years ago, and began singing along in my head all over again. The music and lyrics move me every time.

That said - the documentary is far from perfect. Milos Forman, Keith Carradine, Tim Curry, Melba Moore, and Michael Butler talk about their HAIR experiences. The interviews - both archival and new - are completely charming, but are presented without fact-checking. The “political analysis” and “current events parallels” are dubious and have all been said before. And Indie to my core I looked around the audience thinking, “Well, if you folks like radical theater so much, there is plenty of great new work that could use your patronage!”

“HAIR: Let the Sun Shine In” is worth a peek via Netflix one night. Keep making inspiring outsider art, kids, and maybe you, too, will be on French public television in 40 years. Stay warm and have a happy, healthy holiday season.

Peace,
Hillary

AEA Showcase Code reform begins at home

In the spirit of change, community motivation and hard work ahead, I’m happy to spread the word that the AEA showcase code reform movement is again receiving attention. On Theatre and Politics has great information linked to his post regarding this issue.

The showcase code is being re-evaluated by Equity, and Michael Bell - a member of the AEA Off-Off Broadway subcommittee - has announced that he'd like to hear thoughts from code participants on how the AEA Showcase Code works (or doesn’t) for them.

If you've had experiences with the AEA Showcase Code, your voices are instrumental in moving this forward. Share your experiences and suggestions by emailing him or by commenting on his announcement.