Recent News

---

Author: Adam Parker- aparker@postandcourier.com or 937-5902
Publisher: The Post and Courier
08/30/2009

Art of survival
Charleston area groups increasingly look to one another as partners to ensure long-term stability

Artists are by nature collaborators. They have to be. Music typically is made by ensembles, small and large. Dance and theater are group affairs. Even a painter who works in solitude sooner or later must rely on others if he hopes to show or sell his work.

So it perhaps comes as no surprise that some arts groups in the Charleston area, shaken by recession, have begun a careful, tentative effort to work together, to streamline their operations, identify opportunities for artistic partnership and make it easier for donors to provide support.

The coalition idea

One way for arts organizations to advance their cause is to join forces in limited ways without sacrificing any autonomy. Theatre Charleston is a three-year-old coalition of nine area theater companies. It is modeled after the League of Chicago Theatres.

In 2005, the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, which supports the arts and land conservation in the Lowcountry and Chicago area, arranged a trip to the Windy City for local theater leaders. The working premise was that cooperation among organizations can lead to better marketing, promotion and ticket sales. In Charleston, where Fortune 500 companies are few and arts groups must rely heavily on individual patrons and donors, a centralized information clearinghouse and marketing initiative made good business sense.

The League of Charleston Theatres, now called Theatre Charleston, was founded in spring 2006. Its core consisted of Charleston Stage, Footlight Players, Village Playhouse, Pure Theatre and Art Forms & Theatre

Concepts.

Emily Wilhoit, executive director of Theatre Charleston and a working actress, said the nonprofit's Web site includes information for patrons (performance schedules, ticket information, company profiles and contact information) and for theater professionals (job postings, audition schedules, biographies and performance resumes).

The strength-in-numbers thesis is proven by the organization's purchasing power. While individual companies usually cannot afford to buy glossy magazine advertisements or launch ad campaigns aimed at tourists, Theatre Charleston, with an annual budget of about $75,000 and no full-time staff to pay, regularly pursues large-scale, joint marketing initiatives, Wilhoit said.

Board members meet monthly and always are exploring new ways to work together, she said. Ideas such as setting up a discount ticket booth or consolidated ticketing function are broached. It requires a bit of a balancing act, she said.

"Of course there's competition there, but at the same time, our theaters try to stress their differences ... and try to remain really supportive of each other," Wilhoit said.

So far, music organizations such as the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Music Charleston and Jazz Artists of Charleston have not pursued a similar coalition model, though collaboration is nothing new. In February, the symphony and ballet teamed up for a presentation of "Masterpieces of Dance," featuring Benjamin Britten's "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and Gershwin hits.

Two years ago, Charleston Stage and the symphony worked together on a production of "Fiddler on the Roof." And Chamber Music Charleston recently partnered with the Charleston-based Actors' Theatre of South Carolina for a music-drama hybrid performance of "Beethoven: His Women and His Music," part of the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.

Self-produced, the Beethoven show turned a profit, according to Sandra Nikolajevs, director of Chamber Music Charleston. The originality of the program, good pairing of two organizations of similar size and doubled up marketing efforts likely were the impetus for uncommonly strong ticket sales, she said.

"With collaborations, the biggest hazard is you might pair up with an organization that might not view (the partnership) the same way, and might not do the same amount of work," Nikolajevs said.

On Tuesday, the newly formed Charleston Arts Coalition held its first town hall meeting at the College of Charleston. The theme was "Nursing Creativity Through the Economic Slump," and the purpose was to bring arts leaders and patrons together to share ideas.

The coalition, led by Jessica Bluestein, "unites the creative arts community in the Greater Charleston area through advocacy, outreach, promotion and educational programming," according to its Web site.

It's a coalition made up of individuals, not organizations, whose purpose is to offer a centralized hub of information and enable artists to network with one another.

The regional model

Nella Barkley, president of Crystal-Barkley Corp. and a longtime supporter of the arts, recently formed the Charleston Regional Alliance for the Performing Arts after a traumatic 2008-09 fiscal year threatened many local arts groups.

Barkley said she was frustrated that the status quo had left many organizations ill-prepared for economic turmoil.

"Traditional groups lost a lot of funders who no longer want to give to solve the same problems over and over," she said. "Common grief and mutual hurt has enabled a spirit of cooperation that heretofore has not existed."

The Regional Alliance hired consultants "to verify what we know," compare Charleston to other regions and come up with a workable model for long-term success.

The goal of the new organization, Barkley said, is to become a regional resource involved in training, promoting the arts as an essential aspect of every community, helping arts groups adopt and sustain good business models, foster arts-infused school curricula that use professional artists and musicians, and develop funding solutions that can be used by multiple arts organizations.

"The vision is to promote a viable and growing arts community in the greater region," she said.

To do so, Barkley expects the Regional Alliance to find ways to fund programs, not individual organizations, and to measure deliverables and outcomes. The last thing she wants to do is to see money thrown into a black hole, she said. Collaboration will be a key component to future success.

This sort of enterprise is essential everywhere, but particularly in the Lowcountry, she said. "Charleston should be a cultivator and incubator of arts and culture."

As a first step, the Regional Alliance, in cooperation with the Coastal Community Foundation, is analyzing donor lists for local arts groups in an effort to isolate more reliable supporters from those least likely to give. The result should be a more efficient fundraising process that reduces wasteful spending and does a better job of targeting likely donors, according to Barkley and George Stevens, president of the Coastal Community Foundation.

Judith Stockdale, executive director of the Donnelley Foundation, said she supports Barkley's efforts as well as any initiative that enables arts organizations to become more effective fundraisers.

"We are always encouraging collaboration," Stockdale said.

Just as conservation stakeholders develop regional plans for land use, so should arts groups pull together to design cooperative marketing and fundraising plans, she said.

As for the Donnelley Foundation, it will continue to support the arts in the Lowcountry, she said. In July, the board met to define a new set of grants.

"The foundation is not an ATM, any organization that looks at it like that doesn't understand," Stockdale said. But grants will remain available to those who qualify for them. "We are not stopping funding at all."

Consolidation

Some in the Lowcountry, citing operational inefficiencies, limited demand among audiences and a finite funding pool, have been talking about a consolidation of key arts organizations.

Julian Wiles, executive director of Charleston Stage, said consolidation has been the subject of conversation, on and off, for years.

"Communities that fundraise together, sell tickets together, that can be a great advantage," Wiles said. "Merging staffs and facilities may well have advantages, but it does not necessarily generate huge cost savings."

In an effort to strengthen the arts in Charleston, local leaders have studied what other cities do, he said. Some have pursued formal consolidation; others have relied on external nonprofits to help with fundraising and marketing. There does not appear to be a silver bullet, he said. Each city has its own challenges.

"We haven't figured it out yet," Wiles said. "We're looking at a lot of examples, but everybody understands (more cooperation) is a good idea."

Ted Legasey, president of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra board, said he is open to the idea of consolidation, but wants first to stabilize symphony finances and achieve other short-term goals.

Stockdale said complicated logistics can impede efforts at consolidation. Mergers can be difficult because each arts organization typically has spent years cultivating its audiences and designing programming, she said. Each board of directors tends to be interested in the particular art form they serve.

But at a minimum, many back-office functions can be shared, such as donor research, accounting and ticketing, she said.

Wiles said it's important not to rush into anything. Rather, he said, arts organizations need to develop sustained strategies to eliminate debt, build a cash reserve and secure appropriate performance venues.

For too long, local arts groups have merely struggled to survive, he said. Now, they are forced to think long-term. "We're going to have to have an unprecedented amount of collaboration," Wiles said.



Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902 or aparker@postandcourier.com.


Copyright © 1995 - 2009 Evening Post Publishing Co..