Invitation to the Party

Building Bridges to the Arts, Culture and Community

Donna Walker-Kuhne

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781559366366
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts & Business

Acknowledged as the nation’s foremost expert on audience development involving America’s growing multicultural population by the Arts and Business Council, Donna Walker-Kuhne has now written the first book describing her strategies and methods to engage diverse communities as participants for arts and culture. By offering strategic collaborations and efforts to develop and sustain nontraditional audiences, this book will directly impact the stability and future of America’s cultural and artistic landscape. Donna Walker-Kuhne has spent the last 20 years developing and refining these principles with such success as both the Broadway and national touring productions of Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk, as well as transforming the audiences at one of the U.S.’s most important and visible arts institutions, New York’s Public Theater. This book is a practical and inspirational guide on ways to invite, engage and partner with culturally diverse communities, and how to enfranchise those communities into the fabric of arts and culture in the United States.

Donna Walker-Kuhne is the president of Walker International Communications Group. From 1993 to 2002, she served as the marketing director for the Public Theater in New York, where she originated a range of audience-development activities for children, students and adults throughout New York City. Ms. Walker-Kuhne is an Adjunct Professor in marketing the arts at Fordham University, Brooklyn College and New York University. She was formerly marketing director for Dance Theatre of Harlem. Ms. Walker-Kuhne has given numerous workshops and presentations for arts groups throughout the U.S., including the Arts and Business Council, League of American Theaters and Producers, the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for Arts to name a few. She has been nominated for the Ford Foundation’s 2001 Leadership for a Changing World Fellowship.

Chapter 1

YOU MUST BEGIN WITH A VISION AND A PLAN

If you don’t have a clear picture of your destination and a precise map to get there, you won’t even begin the trip.

—STEVEN K. SCOTT Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams

 

 

 

 

 

During one of my first meetings with writer and director George C. Wolfe, soon after he was named Producer at The Public Theater/ New York Shakespeare Festival in 1993, he shared his vision for his theatre, one of the country’s leading cultural centers: “I want to create a theatre that looks and feels like a subway stop in New York City. I have been here three months and notice that the audiences are predominately white—how would you change it? That’s as simple as it is. People might call it multiculturalism or diversity. To me, it’s just creating theatre that looks and feels like the people we serve. This theatre is part of a cultural institution that is as committed to serving its community as it is to putting on plays.”

The night following my meeting with George, I had a dream that I can, to this day, still see vividly. It took place in the lobby of The Public during a brightly lit party. There were people from all different walks of life, from neighborhoods throughout New York City as well as from all over the world. They were speaking many different languages, but their common bond was joyous laughter and the sharing of a good time. This dream remains the motivation for my work. I replay it in my mind daily, and each day I recommit to taking whatever steps necessary to translate it into a reality.

Since 1993, The Public Theater has expanded its mission to be a theatre where all the country’s voices, rhythms and cultures converge. It is a theatre that embraces the complexities of contemporary society and nurtures both artists and audiences through its commitment that The Public should be a place of inclusion and a forum for ideas.

An effective audience development initiative begins with a vision—a dream—and a plan. The more specific and detailed the blueprint you create, the more effective you are going to be. Take a minute and think about this: What is your vision? Is it personal or institutional? What do you need to make it happen? With whom do you share this vision?

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The answer to the last question is critical, not only for theatre companies but for all of today’s arts institutions. Indeed, it is the basis of a central philosophy of the groundbreaking Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund publication, Opening the Door to the Entire Community: How Museums Are Using Permanent Collections to Engage Audiences. The report, published in 1998, was the result of a 7-year, $32-million initiative dedicated to audience-building strategies at 29 museums around the country. Complete institutional investment in the process of community engagement became a mandate of the study. Many of the executive directors and managing directors echoed this sentiment. The report states:

Chartering a new course for audience development can’t just be the passion of a museum’s director or its marketing or education department. It requires the commitment of the entire institution to conduct business in new ways that reach far beyond the walls of the museum.

The most important component of audience development is a spirit of collaboration among every department of the arts institution—a willingness to invest the time, labor and resources needed to be successful. That spirit begins at the top, with the management team, board of directors, department heads, etc. Every department and every employee must have a vested interest in the vision and, once united, advance single-mindedly toward that goal. If an institutional leader commits to diversifying audiences because he or she loves the idea (or simply to appeal to a funder) but is not willing to commit staff, creativity or a plan to that process, the objective will fail.

Having a clear vision has made all the difference for some prominent arts institutions. Here are a few examples:

Years ago, the late Alvin Ailey said: “Dance is for everybody. It came from the people; it should always be given back to the people.” Since its founding in 1958, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has held fast to this principle. Through its dance school, training programs and commitment to touring, the company has remained fully accessible while maintaining a level of artistic brilliance and excellence that touches its audiences’ hearts. Judith Jamison, a heralded former member of the American Dance Theater and its current artistic director, says, “Dance is the language that reveals the heart—the language of approach and convergence, the vocabulary that makes visible our truest selves.” She encourages audiences to get to know the company’s dancers, whose fearlessness and grace is astonishing. Though the company’s composition is international, it has remained true to its original mandate to promote the uniqueness of black cultural expression and showcase the works of black choreographers. The company has displayed agility in retaining its identity, while uniting all people in dance. It has also remained true to its commitment to promote and present its art to underserved communities.

Another wonderful example of staying true to a mission is the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, IL, which was founded in 1957. I believe Jim Hirsch (former executive director) exemplifies what it means to be a visionary. This institution has a community outreach department and a mission statement that reads: “The mission of the Old Town School of Folk Music is to serve as a local and national resource for the teaching, presentation and encouragement of folk music and folk culture of all countries; to collect, preserve and display folk music and folk-related materials; and to introduce folk music to new audiences of all ages, cultures and abilities by appealing to the universal human need for musical expression.”

After taking the position of executive director in 1982, Hirsch became aware that, given the changing demographics of Chicago at that time, specifically in the Latino and African American communities, expanding his marketing efforts would be essential to the school’s growth. He was also aware that many arts organizations were using outreach to get involved with communities of color, and that the bulk of this effort was underwritten by grants. In his model, he used consistent marketing tools and long-range thinking to expand his audience. He also made a twenty-five-year commitment to accomplishing this goal.

Among the steps undertaken by his institution were targeted programming for Latino communities, including bilingual marketing materials; ads in local Spanish media; and flyer distribution in traditionally underserved neighborhoods. Hirsch created a community outreach department and developed community ambassadors to build contacts, share dialogue and make recommendations for programs. Hirsch notes an important lesson he learned: “Executing a diversity plan in one community does not always translate exactly to every other target community. The principles of sensitivity, respect, open-mindedness and risk-taking are fundamental to audience development. Having someone on staff who is permanently responsible for diversity is a necessity—it helps to institutionalize the effort and keep all staff sensitized to this commitment.”

It’s important to have not only a dream, but also a plan. I have worked with arts organizations who were eager to expand their audiences but had no mission or sense of investment in the process. Ultimately, their efforts never took root and were, in fact, wasted, because although the potential audience was there, the institutional resources were never committed to the effort.

Your goal is to welcome these new audiences into your institution. Your job is to discover how and when to make this happen. It is not simply an acquisition of new mailing lists or stuffing programs with flyers (although, as we will see, such steps are of critical importance). It is much broader than that. You want to make sure you have established goodwill that is based on sincerity, honesty and the ability to make whatever you’ve outlined a reality.

Audience development requires a strategic plan that is holistically integrated into the fabric of your arts institution. The strategic plan must be grounded in the history of the institution, as well as the history of the audiences you are seeking to attract. It must be based on an understanding of and a willing openness to multiple cultures. More important than “filling seats” or meeting “the bottom line,” the purpose of executing a strategic audience development plan is to build a long-lasting foundation for your institution grounded in the very communities you are opening your doors to serve.

And why is the arts so important? I believe it is the only tool we have that successfully crosses ethnic and cultural barriers, bridges misunderstanding, erases social strife and celebrates diversity. I have learned from experience that when diverse groups of people come together and experience the arts as one, that not only are they enriched by the experience, they also develop an appreciation for our shared humanity. Making the arts accessible to as broad an audience as possible helps us build a better society.

Those of us currently engaged in the effort to open the doors of our institutions to every segment of our community; those of us working to create an environment where people can support, enjoy and learn from the arts; and those of us fighting to maintain and grow the bottom line for our arts institutions have an arduous but essential, and even noble, mission.

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Chapter 2

UNDERSTANDING THE LANGUAGE AND HISTORY OF AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

The essence of art is its communication with the audience member. Therefore, arts organizations must shift their focus to enable, expand and enhance this communication. They must shift from a pure product focus to one that balances the artistic decision-making process with audience needs and preferences.

—JOANNE SCHEFF AND PHILIP KOTLER “Crisis in the Arts: The Marketing Response”

To ensure we share the same understanding of the terminology used in the field of audience development, I want to spend some time discussing the terms that will be used continuously throughout this book.

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In my twenty-four years of experience, I have heard a lot of definitions of and justifications for audience development work. Some institutions think of it as a means of “putting butts in the seats.” Others think its purpose is to fulfill a grant requirement. It has been viewed as a tool for reaching a specific numeric goal so that diverse audiences can be quantified and touted at the next board meeting. It has been used to target audiences for an ethnic-specific play. I’ve even heard of audience development efforts being used to salvage institutions that are falling apart. All of these purposes are shortsighted, and their results short-term and ultimately ineffective. Why? Because there is little substance at the foundation of these efforts. They lack vision and strategy for implementation.

I define audience development as the cultivation and growth of long-term relationships, firmly rooted in a philosophical foundation that recognizes and embraces the distinctions of race, age, sexual orientation, physical disability, geography and class. Audience development is also the process of engaging, educating and motivating diverse communities to participate in a creative, entertaining experience as an important partner in the design and execution of the arts. Many institutions have been concerned that audience development efforts will somehow compromise or denigrate the integrity of the creative work being presented. But rather than compromise the artistic integrity, stretching beyond traditional boundaries and comfort zones requires that an organization strive for an even higher standard of excellence.

In the book Audience Development: A Planning Toolbox for Partners (Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Washington, D.C., 1994), Romalyn Eisenstark Tilghman notes the following objectives for work in this arena:

• To include adult arts education programs as a way to instill an understanding of and a commitment to the arts and the role of the artists

• To include projects that take place in connection with extended artists’ residencies that involve the community in meaningful ways

• To attract new audiences who have not attended arts events in the past

• To develop culturally diverse or culturally specific audiences

• To deepen existing audiences’ understanding of the arts

• To provide opportunities for audience participation in the arts.

Audience development is a specialized form of marketing that requires more than just the mastery of traditional marketing techniques, such as direct mail, series subscription drives, membership drives or advertising and press campaigns. Audience development is the merging of marketing techniques with relationship-building skills, because in order to have a lasting impact on your prospective audience, the relationship must be both personal and institutional. Your mission is to make a connection with your audiences’ hearts by demonstrating the value of incorporating the arts into their lives. Once that connection is made, the idea of experiencing and supporting the arts and culture becomes organic, enabling the establishment of a long-term and loyal relationship. I refer to this type of action as “soft power.”

Joseph Nye, Jr., former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, coined the term “soft power” in the late 1980s. He used it to define the ability to attract and persuade, as opposed to a country’s military or economic might. In the early 1990s a Japanese scholar and philosopher named Daisaku Ikeda further elaborated on this concept in a speech at Harvard University. He described the process of encouraging people to adopt or change their behavior based on inner motivation rather than through forceful dogma. What is the trigger for that inner motivation? The building of consensus and understanding among people through personal interaction and dialogue. That is the core of audience development work—building a consensus and understanding among people through personal interaction, dialogue and participation in the arts. Real audience development work is labor-intensive; it requires that you get in the trenches. A long-term process by nature, it also requires sensitivity, tenacity, persistence and courage.

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Because audience development is also a collaborative process, the other key component is “internal” marketing. Why? If your audience development efforts are to be successful, every executive in your organization, every member of your board of directors, every department in your organization—from the person who answers the telephone to the person who collects the tickets at the door—must understand and support the initiative. Audience development is proactive (not reactive), socially responsible, internal and external marketing.

Audience development and “outreach” are not the same. Outreach entails an organization’s making contacts and opening its doors. Audience development, on the other hand, is about making contacts, going into the communities you are trying to reach, engaging them in dialogue or activities related to the arts and your institution’s activities, forming partnerships, and creating doors where none existed before.

The creation of those doors is what I will refer to throughout this book as “points of entry.” The approach to effectively diversifying audiences must be fluid, an approach that allows the audience entry to the work, without the expectation that all audiences will respond in the same way. For example, when engaging in audience development work, you should not have the expectation that everyone you approach will be willing to pay for a ticket. Your potential audience may be more comfortable, certainly initially, with the opportunity to sample the work in some way. Your challenge is to create the door, the point of entry that will allow them access to the work, through the creative use of space, productions and resources.

One of the most critical aspects of audience development work, and the most sensitive, is the issue of race. To effectively create points of entry, you must understand your target audience. I’d like to spend some time discussing the historical issues that can (and will) impact any audience initiatives your institution may launch. The purpose of this discussion is not to create guilt, but rather to help develop an understanding of the facts.

Andrew Hacker, in his book Two Nations (Ballantine Books, New York, 1992), notes:

The significance of racism lies in the way it consigns certain human beings to the margins of society, if not painful lives and early deaths. In the United States, racism takes its highest toll on blacks. No white person can claim...