Back in April, the League of Chicago Theatres celebrated its 45th birthday with a disco party, and the festivities have only continued with an invigorating Community Empowerment Series (CES).
CES aims to strengthen Chicago’s creative ecology by enabling theatres to share resources like set or costume pieces, rehearsal and performance spaces, and ideas around growth and sustainability. The league’s director of programming, Tony Bondoc, said CES was born when an annual membership survey asked theatres, “What do you need? How can we best be of service and support?” Bondoc said there “was a lot of realization that there’s alignment between what our members have and need, and want. We identified a lack of space for facilitating that conversation or those connections.”
They started with a March event on budgets and resource sharing. The next event in the series, on neighborhoods and communities, will be held in September.
“What we want to do,” said Bondoc,” is to create connections beyond membership into advocacy. We invite aldermen and representatives at city, state, and federal levels. In the first half, we’ll gather the membership to discuss our own neighborhoods, communities, and needs, and then move from there to have those conversations with representatives, bridging those relationships. Within communities, we’ll identify a given geographical location, what resources and advocacy opportunities exist, and where to venture out with the leverage of our members.” Among the things the league is advocating for: internal communities, such as box office associates, and external communities, prospective audiences/participants.
This September’s incubator space will be focused on how alliances between community partners and creatives can carry the industry and people forward.
Gabriela Furtado Coutinho (she/her) is American Theatre’s digital editor.
