TCG Announces 2009 Conference ROOTS. RENAISSANCE. REVOLUTION

Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for professional, not-for-profit theatre announces its 2009 conference: Roots. Renaissance. Revolution. From June 4-6, 2009, the theatre community will come together in Baltimore to investigate how generational perspectives affect the entire field, including the choice of plays produced, the atmosphere created in workplaces, the appeal of various leadership styles, and the processes used to identify, attract and retain audiences.

For over 30 years, the TCG National Conference has offered the only forum in which the national American theatre community comes together for this kind of artistic and intellectual exchange. Within the conference, attendees meet in large plenary sessions designed to expand the field's thinking and contextualize the moment in which it operates; and in breakout sessions largely designed to address the immediate concerns of the field. The event also provides time for attendees to connect with their colleagues and form relationships that will sustain them between conferences.

As the resident theatre movement nears its fiftieth anniversary, and as new artistic and administrative leaders emerge, the field stands on the verge of a generational shift. Additionally, theatre leaders are surrounded by opportunities to be inventive in the ways organizations are structured and work is presented. In an art form based on telling stories and engaging in the discourse of ideas, the time is ripe for the field to share its own stories with each other and encourage the mentorship of both the younger and the older generations. This is a moment filled with possibility, urgency, and passion. Where will this potential take theatre, and what are the new possibilities afforded by advances in technology, communication, leadership, demography, and the study of generational differences? What are the stories, the legacy and the traditions which all generations must know, and carry on?

"We so look forward to each year's conference, when theatre professionals from all over the country can come together as colleagues and address the issues of the day," said Teresa Eyring, TCG executive director. "This year's theme has the potential to be instructive as well as provocative as we specifically connect the founders of the regional theatre movement with its future leaders."

As in past conferences, TCG invites a variety of experts from across professional lines to address and engage with this unique and dedicated gathering of theatre professionals. In 2009, guest speakers include legendary filmmaker, John Waters; award-winning journalist Nadira A. Hira; and futurist Andrew Zolli.

John Waters will take this audience of theatre practitioners on a trek through his inspired life. Called "This Filthy World," his presentation recounts the fascinatingly bizarre journey of random discovery that accompanied each of his films and his life alongside them.

The ultimate Baltimorean, Waters remains transfixed by the odd, and still delights in telling tales no one else dares to tell. Although he says his goal is to surprise, not shock, he clearly revels in his own willingness to be daring.

Insidiously clever and armed with one of the sharpest, funniest, and yet off-the-wall minds, John Waters may be the spark that ignites this conventions' collective imagination.

Award-winning journalist Nadira A. Hira is a general assignment writer at Fortune, where she has focused increasingly on stories for and about Generation Y, the fastest growing segment of the American workforce.

Certainly, Hira will provide much food for thought as the theatre industry tries to recruit, retain and entertain Gen Yers. More importantly, her insights will illuminate new ways to communicate and collaborate across generational barriers.

Andrew Zolli is a young, brilliant, globally connected leader of the next generation of futurists. He has a gift for seeing patterns and the strategic opportunities emerging at the intersections of brands and demographics, creativity and innovation, design and technology.

In his presentation, Zolli will outline the trends that will shape the not-for-profit theatre industry's future, and help industry leaders respond intelligently to the emerging complex changes that will matter most to them.

As TCG membership delves into the past, assesses the present and charts the future of its art and leadership, Zolli seems an ideal guide.

TCG's 2009 conference - Roots. Renaissance. Revolution. - is designed for attendees to take advantage of the great mix of experience and innovation from within its own field as well as those of its guest speakers. The goal of the conference is to stimulate intergenerational discourse which will in turn inform, enlighten and inspire the next generation of theatre artists and audiences.

For more information and registration, go to www.tcg.org/conference.

Roots. Renaissance. Revolution.
TCG's 2009 Conference

About the TCG National Conference:
The TCG National Conference brings together approximately 800 theatre professionals from across the nation and around the world for meetings, speeches, performances, and a chance to explore the local theatre community. The 2009 Conference will be held in Baltimore, Maryland on June 4th, 5th, and 6th at the Hippodrome Theatre, part of the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, located on 12 N. Eutaw Street. A Pre-Conference, focusing on cultural diplomacy and advocacy, will be held in Washington, D.C. on June 3rd.

TCG Member Theatres in Baltimore and Maryland:

CENTERSTAGE
Baltimore Shakespeare Festival
Everyman Theatre
Theatre Project
Imagination Stage (Bethesda)
Round House Theatre, Inc. (Bethesda)
Maryland Ensemble Theatre (Frederick)
Olney Theatre Center for the Arts (Olney)
TCG Member Theatres in Washington, D.C.:
Arena Stage
The African Continuum Theatre Company
Folger Theatre
Ford's Theatre
GALA Hispanic Theatre
The Shakespeare Theatre Company
The Studio Theatre
Theater J
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
Young Playwrights' Theatre

Roots. Renaissance. Revolution.
TCG's 2009 Conference

John Waters (Writer/Director)
Born in Baltimore, MD in 1946, John Waters was drawn to movies at an early age, particularly exploitation movies with lurid ad campaigns. As a teen-ager, Waters made his first film, an 8-mm short, Hag in a Black Leather Jacket in 1964, starring Mary Vivian Pearce. Roman Candles followed, the first of his films to star Divine and Mink Stole. In 1967, he made his first 16-mm film with Eat Your Makeup, the story of a deranged governess and her lover who kidnap fashion models and force them to model themselves to death. Mondo Trasho, Waters' first feature length film, was completed in 1969 despite the fact that the production ground to a halt when the director and two actors were arrested for "participating in a misdemeanor, to wit: indecent exposure."

In 1970, Waters completed what he described as his first "celluloid atrocity," Multiple Maniacs. Two years later he created what would become the most "notorious" film in the American independent cinema of the 1970's, Pink Flamingos, which went on to become a smash success at midnight screenings in the U.S. and all over the world.

He followed the success of Pink Flamingos with two more pictures during the 70s: Female Trouble (1974) and Desperate Living (1977).

Waters completed Polyester, a wide-screen comic melodrama starring Divine and Tab Hunter in 1981 and in 1988 he created Hairspray. The film was a box office and critical success and starred the then unknown Ricki Lake, Deborah Harry, the late Sonny Bono, Jerry Stiller, Pia Zadora and Ric Ocasek.

The success of Hairspray brought Waters major Hollywood backing for his next feature, Cry-Baby (1990), starring Johnny Depp. Throughout the 90s and into the new millennium he continued to produce a string of films with "no socially redeeming value" including Serial Mom, Pecker, Cecil B. DeMented and A Dirty Shame.

In addition to writing and directing feature films, Waters is the author of five books: Shock Value, Crackpot, Pink Flamingos and Other Trash, Hairspray, Female Trouble and Multiple Maniacs, and Art: A Sex Book (co-written with art critic Bruce Hainley). He is currently writing his next book, Role Models, which will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Concurrent to his careers as a filmmaker and author, John Waters is also a photographer whose work has been shown in galleries all over the world since 1992. Three art catalogs have been published on John Waters' photographs and sculpture: Director's Cut, John Waters: Change of Life and Unwatchable. In April, 2009, he will have a new art exhibition opening simultaneously in New York and Los Angeles.

Award-winning journalist Nadira A. Hira is a general assignment writer at Fortune, where she has focused increasingly on stories for and about Generation Y, the fastest growing segment of the American workforce.

Hira authored Fortune's widely discussed 2007 cover story on Gen Yers and their impact on corporate America. She also writes a blog for Gen Yers on Fortune.com called The Gig.

In 2007, Hira received the NewsBios 30 Under 30 award, which showcases the most promising business journalists. She has twice been nominated for a National Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence award.

Hira's work has also appeared in various other national publications-among them, Essence, Smithsonian, and Men's Fitness magazines. Her media presence extends to television, where she has been a featured personality on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher and ABC's America's Black Forum, a regular contributor to VH1's The Fabulous Life and BET's Black Carpet, and an expert guest on many major outlets, including CNN, CBS, MSNBC, CNBC, and BBC-A.

Andrew Zolli is a young, brilliant, globally connected leader of the next generation of futurists. He has a gift for seeing patterns and the strategic opportunities emerging at the intersections of brands and demographics, creativity and innovation, design and technology.

He is the curator of Pop!Tech, the annual conference of thought leaders exploring the social impact of technology and the shape of things to come. He is a Fellow of the National Geographic Society, where he leads development of a global initiative to envision new scenarios for a sustainable world in 2030 and beyond.

He has been the futurist-in-residence for American Demographics magazine, Popular Science, National Geographic and National Public Radio's Marketplace. He is the editor of The Catalog of Tomorrow.

Zolli is the first Business and Society Fellow of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and was named to Fast Company's Fast 50 in 2005.

 

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