Partnering

Abstract

In Chapter 1, I traced developments in US nonprofit theater from either aesthetic experience or social engagement to the possibility of embracing both. In this chapter, I focus on different ways that theater professionals partner with other experts in social endeavors that are larger than any one discipline — what O’Neal refers to above as the movement being more important than the mover. I am equally interested in what art as an expression of culture offers to social challenges that defy the efforts of single disciplines, as Davis, above, avows, further explaining that

the things we care about as a people, locally, nationally, internationally, are expressed, essentially, not in the number of white papers, not the number of lawsuits, not the number of public works projects, [but rather] in culture. You actually work for or fight for those things you care about. (Cry You One n.d.)

I turn first to what performance offers collaborations that move across disciplinary borders, and some of the challenges of such partnerships.

I was never doubtful that the movement was more important than the mover.

— John O’Neal, co-founder of the Free Southern Theater, about its relationship to the civil rights movement (2014)

I don’t think you can succeed in [social justice] work if it does not become a part of culture.

— Mark Davis, Director of the Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy, Tulane University, New Orleans (Cry You One n.d.)