Building Theatres We Deserve

Building Theatres We Deserve: Management Tools for Meaningful Work and Livable Lives takes a comprehensive, pragmatic, and forward-looking approach to designing and revising systems of theatrical production to ensure the longevity, wellbeing, and success of theatre companies and individual artists.This book aims to support emerging theatre artists and academic theatre spaces in bridging the gap between the cultures we dream of and those we can achieve in our theatrical practice. The authors use their own program’s experiments in centering consent, wellbeing, equity, and joy in theatrical production as well as broader advances in the areas of intimacy, mental health, cultural competency, and labor management to provide accessible tools for theatre artists and emerging arts leaders. Covering everything from season selection to preproduction, design, rehearsal, tech, problem-solving, conflict resolution, and organizational leadership strategies, the authors gather strategies and techniques for all phases of theatrical practice that help build joyful, responsive, supportive, environments in which artists can safely and sustainably take creative risks and achieve artistic success without risking their fundamental wellbeing.This book is written for students in theatrical production, arts management, and stage management courses, theatre educators, and emerging theatrical artists.