ASP's 2024-26 Strategic Plan

ACTORS’ SHAKESPEARE PROJECT’S

2024-26 STRATEGIC PLAN Christopher V. Edwards, Artistic Director Jen Babcock Davis, Managing Director Lindsay Williams, Director of Education Evan Turissini, Director of Marketing & Communications Jean Cummings, Board President

MISSION: OUR WORK Actors’ Shakespeare Project deploys the creative energy of theatre artists and the power of language and stories to create shared experiences for our community. Our artistic productions and education programs challenge and interrogate long-held expectations about Shakespeare and classic work; build bridges between diverse viewpoints; and empower people to more deeply empathize with each other.

• Our theatre artists include the Resident Artist Company, local theatre professionals, teaching artists, and artists in training in our productions and education programs.

• Our language and stories consist of narratives that invite invention, exploration, and risk taking.

• Our shared experiences are built on theatre work that challenges, deconstructs, and reimagines, accomplished in equal measure by our artistic productions and education programs.

• Our community includes Greater Boston’s current and future theatre artists, audiences, and students, particularly those that have been excluded from the theatrical experience.

VISION: OUR IMPACT Actors’ Shakespeare Project envisions that our work contributes toward: • A more unified Greater Boston that can embrace differences.

• An inclusive community where theatre artists of all ages and identities are empowered to express themselves.

• A theatre landscape that offers audiences exposure to a wide range of powerful writing in intimate, accessible settings.

• A more sustainable, diverse, and inclusive space for our community, with clear pathways for theatre artists to advance their careers.

These statements of mission, vision, and value were conceptualized and vetted by ASP’s staff, RAC, and board.

VALUES: OUR BELIEFS Actors’ Shakespeare Project believes that:

• Language and storytelling, in their many and varied forms, are building blocks for debate, communication, collaboration, understanding, and empathy.

• Shakespeare’s plays are one powerful trove of language and storytelling that everyone should be able to question, own, and enjoy.

• We must also highlight other playwrights whose voices need to be amplified, and shift the focus of the narratives we share, so that underrepresented people and stories have equitable presence in our work.

As we carry out our mission, Actors’ Shakespeare Project strives to: • Be actively anti-racist and decolonize Shakespeare to the best of our ability.

• Interrogate, reinterpret, and reimagine Shakespeare.

• Advance respectful dialogue between: fresh ideas/experience, audience/artist, student/ teacher, tradition/experimentation.

• Build a human-centered community in our staff, ensembles, and classes that is both generous in spirit and accountable to our shared commitments.

• Compensate the labor of our artists and staff fairly.

• Steward our financial resources responsibly.

Genevieve Simon and the cast of As You Like It (2023). Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

ASP has newly articulated our mission, vision, and values. In that endeavor, we examined the concepts in our past foundational statements, making the decisions to reinforce or reimagine some and to retire others. We will work in the coming three years to fully embody our mission, vision, and values through the following key strategies:

Photo from ASP’s Breakspeare Camp Presentation of Twelfth Night (2023).

1. Continue to establish ASP’s artistic brand by: • Taking on artistically risky work that pushes our boundaries.

• Exploring plays in creative, intentional, and anti-racist ways.

2. Advance the value of fair compensation for artists by: • Working towards paying artists a livable wage.

• Helping to realize a sustainable teaching artist model by standardizing rates, consolidating teaching hours into fewer positions, and building partnerships with other arts education programs.

3. Integrate artistic and education programs to a greater degree by: • Re-envisioning the out-of-school programs for high school students to create deeper opportunities for training and access to professional productions.

4. Continue to reach out to BIPOC and other underserved audiences for our productions and education programs.

1. Open up the RAC to theatre professionals beyond actors.

2. Define responsibilities and tiers of engagement.

3. Implement and hold members accountable to the new responsibilities and tiers.

1. Solidify ASP’s brand by upgrading the website and investing in rebranding if necessary.

2. Reimagine the concept of itinerancy by: • Consistently scheduling the same production venues each year to build relationships with specific neighborhoods and towns.

• Identifying in-school and community-based locations for education programs.

• Keeping occupancy costs level by identifying a location for rehearsals where ASP can control schedule, but managing administrative operations virtually.

• Exploring options for a longer-term home.

3. Implement the anti-racism plan by: • Investing in training for the board, staff, artists, and teaching artists.

• Creating staffing recruitment policies that ensure diverse hiring pools.

• Dedicating a percentage of Board giving to cover these costs.

4. Implement the anti-racism plan by: • Increasing staff capacity so that: » Senior staff can focus on fundraising and strategy. » Artistic productions and education programs are adequately supported. » Staff members’ job descriptions and responsibilities represent reasonable expectations, are accurate, and hours worked are livable.

• Instituting across-the-board increases to salaries and benefits to adequately compensate our staff and contractors, as revenue growth allows.

Johnnie Mack, Regine Vital, Dereks Thomas, Anthony T Goss, and Maya Carter in August Wilson’s Seven Guitars (2023).

Photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography.

GOAL 2:

Build a Financially Sustainable Business Model ASP has a new base of financial resources that we need to translate into an ongoing business model that will sustain our work. In the coming three years, we will work toward this goal through the following key strategies:

1. Increase profitability of productions by: •

Growing ASP’s audience base by establishing a regular schedule of shows in 200+ seat venues (such as the Roberts, Arrow Street, and Mosesian) that can command a higher ticket price.

•

Leveraging show development costs by considering a three show schedule with runs extended to five weeks.

•

Identifying grant funding and corporate sponsorships, and increasing lead time for fundraising.

•

Continuing to develop co-productions.

2. Re-envision recruitment model for education programs to increase the pipeline for fee-based programs •

Focus on programs that are working and reimagine those that are not.

1. Mature the fundraising function by: •

Delegating existing fundraising functions to Development Manager.

•

Investing in prospect research to better qualify ASP’s donor and subscriber base.

•

Focusing senior staff time on building relationships with major donors and corporate sponsors.

•

Providing the board and staff with training on fundraising.

2. Develop the board by: •

Expanding to 12-15 members.

•

Defining the board role in the organization, including committee structures and purpose, and updating the board guidelines to reflect the commitments.

•

Instituting training requirements for all board members, with specific learning goals determined for each committee.

Lydia Barnett-Mulligan, Esme Allen, and Avery Bargar in Much Ado About Nothing (2018). Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRESIDENT

Jean Cummings TREASURER

David Sandberg CLERK

John Affleck Carolina Cardillo Jeremy Gooden Bruce Herrmann Jean Dany Joachim Omar Robinson Luke Salisbury Sheryl White

ASP STAFF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Christopher V. Edwards INTERIM MANAGING DIRECTOR

Jen Babcock Davis DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION

Lindsay Williams DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS

Evan Turissini ASSOCIATE PRODUCER

Regine Vital GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Jules Talbot COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ASSOCIATE

RESIDENT ACTING COMPANY Esme Allen* Lydia Barnett-Mulligan* Marianna Bassham* Allyn Burrows* Paige Clark* Jade Guerra* Brooke Hardman* Jesse Hinson* Jennie Israel* Doug Lockwood* Marya Lowry* Johnnie Mack Nael Nacer* Sarah Newhouse* Maurice Emmanuel Parent* Paula Plum* Omar Robinson* Mara Sidmore* Alejandro Simoes* Richard Snee* Bobbie Steinbach* Adele Nadine Traub* RAC EMERITI

Robert Walsh* ASP FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Benjamin Evett *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

ADDITIONAL PHOTO CREDITS

Victoria Omoregie

FRONT (left-to-right): Omar Robinson in Hamlet (2016), Jennifer Rohn in How I Learned To Drive (2023), Nael Nacer in Macbeth (2018), and Anderson Stinson III in The Bomb-itty of Errors (2022). Photos by Nile Scott Studios.

LEAD TEACHING ARTIST

BELOW (left-to-right): Patrice Jean-Baptiste and the cast of The Taming of The Shrew (2023), photo by Ken Yotsukura Photography; Equiano Mosieri and Sarah Newhouse in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2017), photo by Nile Scott Studios; Robert Walsh and Doug Lockwood in Richard II (2016), photo by Stratton McCrady; and Marianna Bassham, Liz Adams, Bobbie Steinbach, and Marya Lowry in Julius Caesar (2017), photo by Maggie Hall Photography.

Emily Thibodeau BOOKKEEPER

Louise Croteau

617-241-2200 info@actorsshakespeareproject.org www.actorshakespeareproject.org 442 Bunker Hill St, Charlestown, MA 02129