STAGE TUBE: I AM THEATRE Project - Michael John Garcés

BroadwayWorld.com is excited to share a weekly series developed by the Theatre Communications Group! This week Michael John Garcés shares pivotal moments in his theatre career and why the arts matter to him!

Michael John Garcés has been the artistic director of Cornerstone Theater Company, a community-engaged ensemble based in Los Angeles, since 2006. For Cornerstone he has comissioned and produced new plays by a wide range of writers including Alison Carey, Eisa Davis, Sigrid Gilmer, Julie Hèbert, Peter Howard, Naomi Iizuka, Tom Jacobson, Page Leong, Lisa Loomer, Lynn Manning, Julie Marie Myatt and KJ Sanchez. He has directed shows at theaters across the country, including, most recently, OEDIPUS EL REY by Luis Alfaro at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. Recently featured in a cover story in American Theatre, he is on the executive board of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, an alumnus of New Dramatists, and the recipient of the Princess Grace Statue, the Alan Schneider Director Award, and a TCG/New Generations Grant. Current projects include the world premiere of Marc Bamuthi Joseph's RED, BLACK AND GREEN: A BLUES at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the launch of "The Hunger Cycle", Cornerstone's ambitious multi-year, nine play exploration of issues of food security, equity and eating across urban and rural California. His play, LOS ILLEGALS, created for Cornerstone in collaboration with communities of day laborers and domestic workers, has recently been published in Yale's Theatre Magazine (Summer, 2011).

I AM THEATRE spotlights the stories of theatre practitioners, in their own words. With 50 videos over the next 50 weeks, TCG is celebrating its 50th anniversary by sharing stories from a diverse group of people who are creating, supporting, and engaging with theatre. YOU ARE THEATRE: We want to hear your stories! TCG will release a new video each week of individuals sharing pivotal moments in theatre - and hope they will inspire you to tell your stories too. Join us as we seek to raise the international awareness of the depth, diversity and impact of the theatre field. WE ARE THEATRE! Today, not-for-profit professional theatres in the U.S. employ 130,000 people annually, inspire more than 30 million attendees and contribute $2 billion directly to the U.S. economy. What if thousands of theatre artists across the world posted their own video testimonies of why they do what they do and why theatre matters? How might that transform communities' awareness of our work? Please share the stories we've recorded, and we'll share the videos you make, and together we'll testify in a voIce That everyone will hear...I AM THEATRE. YOU ARE THEATRE. WE ARE THEATRE!

For 50 years, Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, has existed to strengthen, nurture and promote the professional not-for-profit American theatre. TCG's constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to nearly 700 member theatres and affiliate organizations and more than 13,000 individuals nationwide. TCG offers its members networking and knowledge-building opportunities through conferences, events, research and communications; awards grants, approximately $2 million per year, to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and serves as the US Center of the International Theatre Institute, connecting its constituents to the global theatre community. TCG is North America's largest independent publisher of dramatic literature, with 11 Pulitzer Prizes for Best Play on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning AMERICAN THEATRE magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. In all of its endeavors, TCG seeks to increase the organizational efficiency of its member theatres, cultivate and celebrate the artistic talent and achievements of the field and promote a larger public understanding of, and appreciation for, the theatre. www.tcg.org