April 13, 2003
To the Town & Gown Players Board of Directors
From Ben T.
50th Anniversary Planning Committee Report
While quite a few of you have been involved in the committee's work, it has been a long time since we formally reported our progress to the board. At present we have activities running on about four tracks. Item 5 concerns the status of some non-projects, and 6 gives a few details on a grant application that is now pending.
(1) It is not formally a committee project, but the Play-Reading Committee has been following up on the decade-by-decade plan for the 2003-4 Mainstage season and we have coordinated with them. We have not begun serious work with the Second Stage Committee.
(2) "Mining" of our historical materials should have begun by now with the aim of learning about what the past 50 years have wrought. We hope to recover memories of the people who started the company and those who have kept it edgy for half a century, illustrate the perils of amateur theater, and revisualize some scenes we have created.
Florence K. has pursued the donation of our archives to the Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection of the University of Georgia Libraries, which will provide a safe, permanent home for them. A grant from the Georgia Humanities Council (GHC), for which Fran T. prepared the application, is supporting a research program in which theater historian Dr. Jessica M. will explore and recap our history.
Florence will also plan and help create a series of exhibits keyed to our decades: stories, pictures and mementos displayed in the theater where playgoers can look them over, maybe recall friends they once saw on stage, and talk about their own Town & Gown experience. Under Fran's leadership, we have applied for a second GHC grant that would, among other things, enable us to place these and similar exhibits in schools, libraries and elsewhere. (See item 6 for details of this application.)
In coordination with the physical exhibits, maybe I should say in imitation of them, I will help create a "virtual exhibit" of web pages where visitors can read about us and view selected images. Bill A. and Eric W. have begun scanning photographs, posters and other materials from the archives for this purpose. Another source for such pages will be materials I prepared for a brief fundraising campaign a few years ago (you can still view them online, permuting the URL to see packet2 through packet7).
(3) Amy M. is working to get funding for special events in the gala year as well as longer-term support for Town & Gown programs. Planning and putting on these events will clearly cost more than we have on hand, so Amy is developing relationships with people, corporations and institutions that can sponsor recurrent events and one-time specials.(*) It will be natural to maintain such relationships once they are established. Amy will report to you on this aspect of the plans and ask you to act on her proposals.
(4) Anyone's fiftieth anniversary is a special event, and ours stands out by lasting a whole year. We are planning several ways to observe it. For example, we have had some success with "First Matinee" forums.(*) The first Sunday of each Mainstage run, we close the curtain at the end of the performance and invite the audience to stay for a while. Speakers—University of Georgia faculty members, for example—give short presentations about the play and open a discussion. Sometimes the audience wants to know more about the playwright, sometimes about what was happening in the world when the show had its premiere, sometimes about how we chose the title or solved some problems in putting it up. This kind of program can both add to the playgoers' experience and help us reach out to new audiences. We'll make contact with schools, retirement communities and other institutions, provide "discussion starters" or study guides on request, and of course invite the public to attend these free events even if they don't buy tickets to the show. If response continues strong, Town & Gown should build on it and make the First Matinee a regular part of future seasons.
March 30, 2004, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the very first Town & Gown curtain. On the weekend following, we will hold a homecoming, inviting everybody we can still find who has taken part in Town & Gown programs over that half-century. No doubt someone will find a way to make a show out of it, but when you ask, "Why do people join a community theater?" the answer always includes the word "Party."
The Georgia Theater Conference will hold its annual get-together in Athens this October, and Town & Gown will cooperate with other organizations to host some events. At last report, GTC would like to put the community theater competition in our house, which would mean a dark week for us while four or five companies load in, perform and load out their entries. Once again the word "Party" sneaks into the consciousness, but the board recently decided to consider including one of our productions in the competition too.
(5) The membership wrote into the Standing Rules a number of activities that the committee recommended last year. The "oral history" effort is not going forward; it seemed like a wonderful idea at a time when we didn't have many wonderful ideas, but in the time since then some of the other projects—First Matinees, archives donation and traveling exhibits in particular—have proved more worthwhile and feasible. I don't know whether we are making any progress on the "necrology" of our membership.
(*) (6) Fran T. prepared and submitted an application to the Georgia Humanities Council for additional fiftieth anniversary funding to support
- Purchase of a portable case for traveling exhibits
- Color photocopying of items for the exhibits
- Postage for invitations to the homecoming
- Fees to our history consultant
| Approved Ben Teague web site |
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Report 06