ASC Receives $120,000 DDCF Grant

Adventure Stage Chicago (ASC) is honored to be the recipient of a $120,000 Continuing Innovation Stage II grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

ASC, a program of the Northwestern University Settlement House (NUSH), received a $39,000 EmcARTS Innovation Lab Grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in February 2011. The philanthropy dollars were used to help engage fellow West Town neighborhood residents in a theater-making process centered on storytelling. ASC envisioned using the process as a catalyst for investigating important community issues and challenges that ASC could then bring to life onstage in a community-based performance that adhered to ASC's high production values and artistic vision.

Three prototypes were implemented during the Summer of 2011: Summer Adventure Camp, Head Start Family Workshops and Neighborhood Perspectives. Summer Adventure Camp occurs every year at NUSH, but ASC worked with NUSH staff for the first time to develop a curriculum for twice-weekly theatre classes that culminated in an original show written, performed, and designed by camp students. NUSH’s Head Start program offers a number of workshops to parents throughout the school year, and ASC worked with Head Start staff to develop three workshops based on the concept of family literacy. ASC also conducted a series of story circles with various NUSH neighbors that formed the basis for Neighborhood Perspectives, a theatrical piece created for and by community members with the help of ASC and NUSH staff.

The Continuing Innovation Stage II grant allows ASC to further the theatre’s organizational transformation of integrating social service delivery with artistic practice. Although many aspects of ASC’s original concept remain, the project has evolved from a means of audience development into the start of an organization-wide transformation that will obliterate the divide between arts and social service programs, fundamentally alter how NUSH thinks about social service delivery, and reveal the profound impact artistic practice can have on social service. What initially began as a potential one-time success has turned into something much bigger for both organizations. ASC and NUSH will continue to honor their respective missions while also making systemic organizational changes to work towards a greater “We.”

In addition to the $120,000 grant, ASC has also been awarded $30,000 in general operating support and $2,050 to support a cohort learning circle that will convene in New York sometime next year. ASC has hired Allison Latta Lashford, an artistic ensemble member with the company, to serve as Associate Artistic Director during the 18-month grant period and focus on the management of projects that emerge from this initiative.

“We are so grateful to Doris Duke for affording us the opportunity to demonstrate the vital role we play in the health and well-being of our community. Because of this grant, the important work that we started with EmcArts can continue and, because of that, Adventure Stage will continue having an impact on the lives of West Town neighbors and be recognized as a valuable and reliable resource,” says ASC Producing Artistic Director Tom Arvetis.

In addition to ASC, other grant recipients include Columbia University’s Center for Jazz Studies (New York, NY), Denver Center Theatre Company (Denver, CO), Jazz Arts Group of Columbus (Columbus, OH), STREB Inc. (Brooklyn, NY), Theatre Bay Area (San Francisco, CA), Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company (Washington, DC), and The Wooster Group (New York, NY).

The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and the prevention of child abuse, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties.

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