Meanwhile, through Equitable Dinners, we gather thousands of people every year for vital conversations on racial equity and other equity topics over meals, shared after viewing short plays. Equitable Dinners is a collaboration among Out of Hand and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the King Center, the Mayor’s Office, and many others. Our annual citywide public Equitable Dinners are funded by grantors including the Arthur Blank Family Foundation and now Bloomberg, but we also provide paid private events for government agencies, including the City of Brookhaven, universities such as Emory and Oglethorpe, nonprofits such as United Way and YMCA, and corporations including Coca-Cola, BlackRock, Audible, Georgia Power, Seyfarth Shaw, Google, Mercedes-Benz, UPS, EY, Bain, Veritiv, and the Arbor Company.
We measure our success by the extent to which attendees learn something new, are moved, and are inspired to take action on the issue at hand, not solely on artistic quality. High-quality programs are necessary for effective and impactful programming, as evidenced by our surveys, which show over 90 percent of respondents respond positively in all three metrics.
Out of Hand’s collaborations have meant that our 23-year-old company has operated with a budget surplus for more than a decade, building cash reserves to maintain at least four months of working capital as our budget grows. Our success can also be measured by the understanding, empathy, and action around social justice, and a cultural shift around anti-racism, they’ve helped to engender. Our collaborations also increase our visibility and elevate the role of art in our community, making theatre a valuable and sought-after tool for advocacy, dialogue, and story-sharing. They help us reach thousands of diverse people each year who do not usually attend theatre, serving our partners’ missions as well as our own. More than 90 percent of our survey respondents also say they feel more connected to others after our events. Out of Hand’s programs increase feelings of connectedness and social cohesion through positive personal interaction with strangers around the subjects that matter most—all of it fueled by theatre.
Theatre is an art form most often driven by artists’ inspiration, but it need not be. As folks from Harvard Business School, who recently published a case study titled “Out of Hand Theater: Monetizing Creativity,” concluded when they brought me in to teach our case study for the first time, theatre is no less theatre if it’s commissioned by a corporation or government agency, just as the Renaissance masterpieces are no less art because they were commissioned by popes and aristocrats.
I would also argue that as nonprofits, our primary responsibility is to serve our communities, not our artists. And we can best serve our communities by addressing the issues that are most important to them, using the tools of storytelling and emotional engagement for the greater good. We can capitalize on the live presence of the audience, something television and increasingly film cannot do, by pairing our art with the social connections we are missing in our increasingly divided and lonely world. Fulfilling former TCG executive director Ben Cameron’s vision of our role as theatre producers being “social orchestrators” for whom performance is a piece, but only a piece, of what we’re called to do.
In short, Out of Hand’s work shows one way to make theatre financially viable while also increasing its community value and serving community needs. While not every theatre could adopt our entire model, I believe there are elements of our success that any theatre company, or any nonprofit arts organization, can learn from and use.
Ariel Fristoe is the artistic director and founder of Out of Hand Theater. She won the Atlanta Women of Influence Award in 2024 and has been named one of Georgia’s Most Influential Leaders. She is a graduate of Leadership Atlanta, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution named her an “everyday hero.” She teaches arts management at Emory University.
