Stepanie McKee

JUNEBUG PRODUCTIONS | NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

by Stephanie McKee. Photo by Melisa Cardona.

“How ‌ can we improve the conditions to allow a new generation to thrive?”

IN THE ARTS, we see a new spirit of cooperation, collaboration, and participation that has been bubbling underneath the surface. There is a blurring of lines in the professional and amateur, folk, fine, and commercial arts work. We have gone back to being a city of makers, creators, tradition forgers, catastrophe survivors, unashamed grievers and unhesitant celebrants of anything remotely life-affirming. This sober-eyed sense of community, of peoplehood, is almost imperceptibly shaping a new New Orleans, where we now acknowledge our vulnerabilities openly and give ourselves to efforts that strengthen and support each other — egos and clannishness be damned. If this new sensibility lasts, we as a people could be ready for some real truth-telling, reparations, and healing. Some people say the world aged five years in 2020; if that’s true, let’s hope we’re that much wiser and closer to transformations that are sustainable and just. The old order hasn’t died yet and the new one is still fighting to be born — but it’s coming, there’s no doubt about that.

Thinking about nonprofit leadership, I am excited about the growing number of incredible young Black women and People of Color in leadership positions and how this will shape our future. I am curious about how my own generation can be a bridge for this new generation. I have learned quite a bit in my own rocky and painful leadership transition at Junebug, and I wonder, “How can we improve the conditions to allow a new generation to thrive?”

The audaciousness of a new vision requires a stable organization with sustained investments in talented staff and artists, quality programs, effective marketing, and physical and digital infrastructure. To secure vision investments, our capitalization approach should broaden beyond the traditional philanthropic fundraising toward a diverse contributed and earned revenue portfolio. To do this we need to be in partnership with philanthropy for our individual and collective learning and for our growth. If we continue to work siloed we will never advance. If the various disruptions have taught us anything, it is that we can’t go it alone.

My work is steeped in traditions and practices of a culture fighting against its own erasure. The Catalyst Collective program has allowed me the much needed space and time to be seen and heard, and for my own full humanity to be displayed and respected. This program has mastered the alchemy of a healing community for leaders of color.

Junebug Productions Team.

“The ‌ old order hasn’t died yet and the new one is still fighting to be born — but it’s coming, there’s no doubt about that.”

The Junebug Productions Team; New Orleans, LA (2019).

ABOUT

Stephanie V. McKee-Anderson is an artist, organizer and cultural strategist born in Picayune, Mississippi and raised in New Orleans. She is the Executive Artistic Director of Junebug Productions, Inc. an organization birthed out of the Free Southern Theater (FST), which was formed in 1963 as one of many cultural arms of the Civil Rights Movement. FST would eventually be a tremendous influence on the BlackArts Movement. McKee has a long history of creating powerful performances that she strategically leverages for social change.