There and Back Again: A Journey Through the Regional TheatreMovement in the United States Público
Pettitt-Schieber, Christine (2009)
Abstract
Throughout the 20th century, American nonprofit theater grew rapidly throughout the United States away from New York. Generally referred to as the "Regional Theatre Movement, this growth provided artists an abundance of jobs and provided audiences new opportunities to experience theater. This investigation looks at what major resources were provided to theater artists during this time, and how they shaped American nonprofit theater into what it is today. The four major resources examined are the Ford Foundation and its Division of Humanities and the Arts, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Panel Report, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The Ford Foundation began funding theater artists whose theater companies were housed in buildings and had ensembles of actors who worked in those companies, thereby institutionalizing the theater. Theatre Communications Group, borne out of the Ford Foundation, provided further support by unifying theater artists across the country and giving them a voice, both with audiences and also in the United States government. The panel report promoted the needs of theater artists to the American public and addressed the concerns of various constituencies (i.e. corporations, individuals, etc.) And the National Endowment for the Arts was a test for how effectively these previous initiatives had altered the public's fundamental opinion of the arts: that the arts are only for the elite, and that the arts must be useful in order to be valued. The conclusion of this investigation is that due to the business model set by the Ford Foundation and propagated by TCG, this paradigm failed to be completely shifted, and as a result, American nonprofit theater is highly successful, yet is still lacking in providing sufficient support for individual artists such as actors, directors, playwrights, and designers.
Table of Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................1
The Ford Foundation...............................................................................10
Theatre Communications Group..............................................................21
The Rockefeller Panel Report..................................................................31
National Endowment for the Arts............................................................42
Conclusion..............................................................................................55
Appendix A.............................................................................................64
Works Cited............................................................................................65
List of Tables and Figures
Figure 1: New Theaters Made in the Twentieth Century........................................3
Figure 2: Amount Awarded to Theaters by the Ford Foundation.............................19
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