Harlem Stage Case Statement

CASE STATEMENT

THE CAMPAIGN FOR HARLEM STAGE AT THE INTERSECTION OF ART AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

“Harlem Stage is an institution founded to amplify the creative voices of performing artists of color. We commission and present the most talented and the most thoughtful artists — both those that are well established in their careers and those that are just emerging in the field. Through their individual work and in collaboration with others, they seek to create, and produce transformative works of art on stage. This creativity opens our minds to fresh new concepts, to innovative ways of thinking, and to ideas that foster the spirit of equity, inclusion, and fairness in our society. Today, this role is more important than ever as communities in New York and across the country come to grips with profound societal fissures — along racial and economic lines.”

HARLEM STAGE… A LEADING EDGE CULTURAL TREASURE

Since its founding in 1983, Harlem Stage has sought to level the playing field for artists of color. This founding premise remains valid today — the challenge is still with us. We are determined to push the voices of artists of color forward. At Harlem Stage, as in our society as a whole, addressing these issues — equal recognition for comparable talent and access to funding opportunities, to name two, come with some introspection, and ultimately, a call to action. In many ways, great and small, it is like ripping the bandage off of a long festering sore. Just as the pandemic highlights the depth of the racial and economic inequities in our society, so too, these forces will influence the vision, planning, and finances of virtually every performing arts institution in the country.

Located in the West Harlem section of northern Manhattan and housed in the historic Gatehouse, Harlem Stage is a performing arts complex that was creatively reimagined in 2006 — in an abandoned building that was once part of New York’s Croton Aqueduct Water Supply System. For the first 23 years of our history, before opening the Gatehouse, Harlem Stage managed and established a pioneering reputation for programmatic innovation and artistic excellence, in the nearby Aaron Davis Hall, the performing arts center of The City College of New York.

We have, for years, envisioned ways to expand the reach of our programming so that it is more accessible to nontraditional audiences and to regional and national audiences as well. This expansion would bring our artistic and educational programming to new audiences beyond the walls of our intimate Gatehouse Theater. The pandemic has caused us to accelerate this initiative. Using a digital strategy, we are intentionally looking for ways to enhance the role of visionary artists, to strengthen our reputation as a premier performing arts organization at the cutting-edge of creativity, and to highlight, for the communities we serve, the path toward a more just and inclusive future.

As we think ahead, past the pandemic’s grip, Harlem Stage will continue to concentrate on working with deep-thinking artists to create new and intellectually challenging work. We will work to build communities and audiences who want to engage with artists in ways that serve to promote dialogue and challenge the status quo. We also want to scale up our efforts to become more sustainable and empower our staff and board as we work toward our most creative aspirations and expand our digital and national reach. We will accomplish this by strengthening our institutional capacities and resources so that we are poised to become an even more important and high-performing cultural institution in the decades ahead.

THE TRANSFORMATION THE HARLEM STAGE

TRANSFORMATION OF STAGE GATEHOUSE

A GROUNDBREAKING INSTITUTION: INNOVATION, EXPERIMENTATION, COLLABORATION, AND CREATIVE THINKING

PATIENT(CE)—A Physical Requiem by Stefanie Batten Bland and Company SBB (2015)

The New York Times has called Harlem Stage “an invaluable incubator of talent” and, to demonstrate the point, five (5) artists who have been awarded Harlem Stage’s WaterWorks commissions have gone on to become MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award recipients. We’ve played an essential role in amplifying the voices of these and other artists of color who use their art, and the Harlem Stage platform, to bring greater awareness to the critical issues of the day. Together we seek social change — to overcome racial injustice and to confront inequality wherever we find it throughout our society. Not infrequently, Harlem Stage has served as a cultural bridge — linking the creativity embodied in the Harlem Renaissance with the imagination of contemporary artists of color. This is achieved while maintaining an intentionally diverse audience for our programs and productions.

We’ve produced high-quality programming and provided support to gifted artists on par with the most successful Black-led cultural organizations around the country. We have celebrated distinguished artists like: Harry Belafonte, Maya Angelou, Abbey Lincoln, and Tito Puente; and we have lifted up artists like: Mumu Fresh, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Stew, Meshell Ndegeocello, Jason Moran, Geri Allen, Vijay Iyer and Kyle Abraham, among many other artists at critical junctures in their career.

In 2023, Harlem Stage will celebrate its 40th Anniversary. Four decades of a pioneering commitment to artists of color whose work spans the disciplines of music, dance, theater, film, and spoken word (including readings and poetry). These artists have also collaborated to produce wonder-filled forays into cross-disciplinary performances. At no time in Harlem Stage’s long history has our work been more important. We have succeeded in creating a cherished artistic home for performing artists of color — each of their careers rooted in the values of what it means to be genuinely socially conscious. In all aspects of our work, we offer a platform to artists where they can continue to speak, in an uncompromising voice, advocating for change.

Together we seek social change – to overcome racial injustice and to confront inequality wherever we find it throughout our society.

LOOKING AHEAD OUR STRATEGIC VISION

Programmatically, we serve artists and audiences through three (3) major programs: our WaterWorks: Commissioning and Artist Development Program, our enormously creative Presenting: Productions and Performances Program, and our Arts Education and Community Engagement Program — which includes our Early-Career Professional Training Program.

WATERWORKS: COMMISSIONING AND ARTIST DEVELOPMENT

Our signature program, WaterWorks, was created to identify, cultivate, and nurture the talents of artists of color — ranging from artists that are just emerging in the field to artists who have well-established careers. Our role is, by intention, to shine a light on these artists and to light the path on their road to important artistic achievement.

WaterWorks Commissioning Program: Carrying-on the tradition of the Fund for New Work, this program identifies and commissions artists from around the country, and occasionally from around the world, in two (2) areas:

its premiere. Harlem Stage provides a substantial commission for each artist and a project budget for the development of the work. Harlem Stage will commission two (2) artists each year for a total of ten (10) artists over a five (5) year period.

• WaterWorks: Emerging Artists: A significant one-year commission designed for emerging artists of color. Each artist will spend the year developing their artistic and business skills, all-thewhile developing and refining their craft as, for instance, a musician, a playwright, or a choreographer. Harlem Stage will offer commissioning, mentorship, and performance development opportunities for each artist. Harlem Stage will commission five (5) artists of color each year for a total of twenty-five (25) artists over the five (5) year period.

• WaterWorks: Established Artists: A major two-year commission designed for established artists of color. Typically, the first year is spent developing and refining the work, and the second year is designed to prepare the work for

The Artist Development Program identifies and recruits distinguished artists in three (3) program areas:

• Associate Artistic Director/Curatorin-Residence: A significant curatorial and producing program designed for established artists of color who bring, or agree to take on, a major project to be developed at Harlem Stage; the Curator will also share their experience and creative imagination with WaterWorks artists and with other artists who are engaged with various presenting and educational programs at Harlem Stage. This program will identify and recruit one (1) artist for one or more years to serve as an Associate Artistic Director/Curator-inResidence, or up to five (5) established artists over a five (5) year period.

• Assistant Artistic Director/Artist-inResidence: An important curatorial assignment designed for creative artists of color who are just entering the field and want to strengthen their management and project coordination skills as well as their business skills. This assignment is specifically designed to create relationships with younger or newer artists in the field so that Harlem Stage can lift up these newer creative performance ideas and, occasionally, a new aesthetic. This program will identify and recruit one (1)

artist per year to serve as an Assistant Artistic Director/Artist-in-Residence, or up to five (5) artists over a five (5) year period.

• Artist Circle Program: A program established several years ago and reimagined through Harlem Stage’s recent strategic plan, the Artist Circle is designed to engage Harlem Stage’s core community of artists behind its founding vision: that Harlem Stage is an artist-driven organization. This program engages a select group of thirty (30) to forty (40) artists of color who have been commissioned by, or been offered presenting opportunities by, Harlem Stage over its long history. Many of these artists consider Harlem Stage their “creative home.” To build on and nurture this professional relationship, the Artist Circle provides members with the opportunity to serve as mentors, advisors, and/or collaborators for artists with current WaterWorks or other commissions underway. In addition, the Artist Circle hosts a variety of lectures, open discussions groups, and master classes to engage the community in Harlem Stage’s education programs. The Artist Circle will be overseen by a revolving five (5) to ten (10) member coordinating committee of artists.

PRESENTING: PRODUCTIONS AND PERFORMANCES

Through this, our most visible program, Harlem Stage offers a variety of performances at the Gatehouse, at other venues throughout New York City, and increasingly at regional and national venues.

The Gatehouse presents approximately twenty-five (25) productions with thirty-three (33) show nights featuring both established and up-and-coming artists from a range of performing genres — music, dance, theater, film, and spoken word (including readings and poetry). These productions include a number of very creative presentations that are curated as multi-disciplinary works with multiple artists working in collaboration.

We anticipate that our performance activity will grow to forty (40) productions with sixty (60) show nights in year five. Our most visible offerings will be the heart of the fall and the spring performance calendars, and are presented as single presentations or as a program series.

To make our performances at Harlem Stage more accessible to all audiences, we will offer a new Complimentary Ticket Program so Harlem Stage can be more approachable for a select group of new audiences. In addition to our live performances, as our new digital capability is fully deployed, we will offer many of our live and historical performances in a digital format, to a much broader regional and national audience.

ARTS EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM

Harlem Stage offers educational and community engagement programs to the public in two (2) primary ways: the first way is through the Frances Davis Arts Education Program, a performing arts education program for school children, adults, and the larger community; and the second way is through our Early-Career Professional Training Programs for young adults of color — Fellowship and Internship Programs for students who aspire to a career in the performing arts professions.

• The Frances Davis Arts Education Program: This program is focused on arts education activities for school children and adults as well as on Harlem Stage’s community engagement initiatives. The program is named in honor of an early benefactor. The arts education and community engagement program will be reimagined using an inclusive master planning process. The plan will be designed to enable us to engage and educate over 4,000 elementary, middle, and high school students, and thousands of adults each year (largely from Black and LatinX families in Harlem and in communities throughout New York City for whom access to the arts has, historically, been limited). This access will be enhanced through our free or reduced ticket prices.

࢟ Education Program for School

Children: The education program for children includes classroom sessions and conversations with artists as well as participation as audience members at rehearsals, community dialogues, and workshops. This program also includes tickets to live performances on our main stage. Programs are delivered at the partner school’s location or at Harlem Stage.

࢟ Education Program for Adults: This program is tailored specifically to the interests and time availability of adults — audiences that want to dive deeper into our performing arts program. Features of this program include lectures, rehearsals, master classes, workshops, previews, and discussion sessions which are designed to be based at Harlem Stage. This program also includes tickets to live performances on the main stage.

࢟ Community Engagement Program:

Through seasonal and holiday festivals and celebrations, Harlem Stage invites Harlem-based children, young adults, artists, educators, residents, and local business leaders to be a part of a program that will give them the opportunity to interact with artists and be part of the creative process with artists and mentors at Harlem Stage.

Our

Early-Career

Professional Training Program offers two (2) ways to secure “real life” experience and training in the performing arts field – a Fellowship Program and an Internship Program –both providing rigorous training and work experience to young adults in arts management. These opportunities are available in one of four (4) areas of arts administration: Performing Arts

Programming, Fundraising and Development, Organizational Management, and Marketing and Communications. These programs help to create pathways for, and seed the field with, very talented arts administrators of color who will, ultimately, begin to diversity the field of arts management in important ways. These two (2) programs work as follows:

࢟ The Fellowship Program: Harlem Stage offers six (6) fellowships each year to students who are enrolled in or have finished their graduate school studies at premier graduate schools located in communities across the country. The Fellowship Program is a structured one-year program providing each fellow with broad experience in real world arts management strategies and practice. Each fellow is mentored by a member of Harlem Stage’s senior staff.

࢟ The Internship Program: Harlem Stage also offers six (6) internships each year to talented undergraduate students and recent college graduates from institutions around the country who aspire to a professional career in performing arts management. The internship offers programs that range from a six (6) week summer experience or up to a six (6) month long immersion in several administrative departments at Harlem Stage. It is assumed that the intern will be enrolled in school or have a part-time job while participating in the internship. The program is designed to give the intern the full range of exposure to the experience of what it is like to work in a fast-paced arts administration/management position. Each intern will be mentored by a member of Harlem Stage’s senior staff.

PROGRAM INNOVATION

Uptown Nights: Pedrito Martinez

“Rumba Con Fundamento” (2022)

To make the transition from a local and regional organization to one with substantive national reach, Harlem Stage has determined that it must elevate a range of organizational capabilities to new levels. Over the next five (5) years, Harlem Stage has chosen to focus on enhancing six (6) key assets:

• Deepening the Performing Arts

Experience: For both cultural consumers and for new audience members, we want to build a more dynamic experience and a more connected environment between the artists and the audience through open dialogues, intimate artist-driven cultivation events, participation of the audience in the creative process both in-person and in the virtual world.

• Strengthening our Digital Presence: It has been a long-held dream for Harlem Stage to have the capacity to share its programming with regional and national audiences. The development of a robust digital capacity will not only open up a national audience to Harlem Stage, but optimally, it will enable Harlem Stage to share content in a way that creates new sources of earned revenue.

• Expanding our Audience: Harlem Stage intends to expand dramatically its audience of individuals and institutions. This expansion will strengthen its ticket-buying community, open the door to people interested in supporting Harlem Stage in a significant way, and build a vibrant consumer base for its digital programming. Our goal is to create a carefully chosen and diverse group of

people with an affinity for cutting-edge performing arts and a passion for social justice. These people can be added to the database and strategically engaged in Harlem Stage’s mission. In the simplest terms, this means expanding the audience from 20,000 individuals to 100,000 individuals over a period of five (5) years.

• Deepening Partnerships and Collaborations: To animate the vision articulated in the strategic plan, Harlem Stage must pursue meaningful collaboration so that it can reach its full potential. Key partnerships with schools and educational programs make Harlem Stage’s dynamic educational offerings possible. In addition, Harlem Stage will progressively build collaborations with other arts organizations in and beyond New York, with nonprofits in Harlem and throughout the rest of the City that might offer ideal venues for Harlem Stage performances, and with funding partners who will collaborate with Harlem Stage under a long-term “preferred partner” relationship. Finally, Harlem Stage will collaborate with other, typically larger, performing arts organizations under co-commissioning and co-presenting arrangements which are designed to develop and tour new work for consumption by audiences around the country.

• Becoming a More Artist-Driven Organization: A central feature of the vision for Harlem Stage moving forward is that the organization will, through its presenting function, preserve and enhance its position as an artist-driven organization. Harlem Stage will design initiatives that facilitate a more prominent role for artists of color as curators, animators, and producers of new works of art. In addition, Harlem Stage envisions a new and more intentional role for the Artist Circle as mentors and collaborators as Harlem Stage presents work on our stage or at other venues.

• Securing Long-Term Sustainability: As the new and broader vision for Harlem Stage’s future takes shape, Harlem Stage will have to attract new board members and staff who can bring the necessary imagination, enthusiasm, and skill to the task. Principal among these skills will be the ability to engage and manage the resources needed to fund a progressively more dynamic institution with an enormously creative vision.

WaterWorks: Meshell Ndegeocello’s

Can I Get A Witness?

The Gospel of James Baldwin (2016)

THE CAMPAIGN FOR HARLEM STAGE

Uptown Nights: Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh (Healing Concert, 2019)

Harlem Stage has embarked on a five (5) year $25M campaign to underwrite the transformation of Harlem Stage from a high-quality performing arts organization serving Harlem and communities throughout New York City to a dynamic performing arts presenter that draws artists from around the country to its stage and provides outstanding in-person and digital programming to audiences in New York City and across the nation.

In addition, an important feature of the campaign will be to strengthen and expand the organization’s capital structure. Accordingly, the goal here is to create unique commissioning opportunities, to launch a fund for program development and innovation, to create the operating and capital reserves required to address Harlem Stage’s cash-flow needs, and to assemble the resources for facility care and upkeep.

The Campaign has two (2) tiers – the first tier is focused on attracting $10M in the form of major gifts to fund major program innovations and to secure long-term sustainability for the organization; the second tier will provide $15M in core support for Harlem Stage’s growing operating needs over the next five (5) years.

Major Gift Program

The Campaign’s Major Gift Program is designed to attract significant gifts to address the critical features of Harlem Stage’s Strategic Plan. Most of these gifts will be focused on Harlem Stage’s efforts to strengthen and expand its program offerings over the next five (5) years by making strategic investments in the commissioning of new work and programs offered to the public in the form of live or digital performances presented by Harlem Stage.

Current Support

Much of Harlem Stage’s artistic success and the ability to advocate broadly for social justice and racial equity, is due to the ongoing partnerships and collaborations that we have undertaken with enormously creative and committed artists. In addition, the strong leadership that Harlem Stage has enjoyed under the direction of our Artistic Director and CEO, the management team, and our board has, over the years, produced extraordinary results – stellar, world-class programming, cutting-edge thinking, and the enduring role we have played at the intersection of art and social justice.

Current support for Harlem Stage is derived from a variety of sources – board giving, gifts from individuals, the support of foundations and corporations, and proceeds from an annual event, as well as from a variety of earned income sources. The strategic plan calls for progressive growth in these programs over the next five (5) years. So too, the plan requires Harlem Stage to explore a range of creative revenue strategies – such as monetizing our digital content and exploring revenue generating strategies that would flow from programming shared with other arts organizations, regionally, and nationally.

Campaign Goals

Total – The Campaign for Harlem Stage $25,000,000

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Pat Cruz

pcruz@harlemstage.org

eoberstein@harlemstage.org

WATERWORKS SPOTLIGHTS

Antigone in Ferguson (2018)

Artist: Theater of War

Genre: Theater, Music

Translation and Direction: Bryan Doerries

Music Composed by: Phil Woodmore

Antigone in Ferguson was a groundbreaking theater project aimed at bridging the growing divide between law enforcement and local communities. The project presented acclaimed actors, such as Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black) and Tamara Tunie (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit), performing scenes from Sophocles’ Antigone, translated and directed by Bryan Doerries. The production featured a large choir composed of police

officers, teachers, activists, and youth from Ferguson, performing original gospel music composed by St. Louis native Phil Woodmore and joined by NYC choirs curated by Harlem Stage.

Each performance is followed by community panelist remarks and a facilitated audience discussion. Antigone in Ferguson’s five-week run garnered exceptional media attention, including The New York Times and Playbill. Since January 2019, it has been shown on WNET’s new All Arts streaming platform and broadcast channel that offers access to all forms of creative expression from New York and worldwide.

Notes of a Native Song (2015)

Artist: Stew

Genre: Theater, Music

In Notes of a Native Song — written for Harlem Stage’s James Baldwin centenary celebration and named for Baldwin’s 1955 collection of essays on being black in America, Notes of a Native Son — Stew and his mighty band, the Negro Problem, use Baldwin’s work to examine our lingering civil rights woes through a rapturous mix of rock, jazz, and soul.

Harlem Stage presented six (6) performances to sold-out audiences, resulting in triple the projected box office revenue. In addition, Stew performed two (2) student matinees to eighth-graders and high school students. Since its debut in 2015, Notes of a Native Song has traveled nationally to Los Angeles’ REDCAT, San Francisco’s Curran Theater, Nashville’s Oz Arts, and as far away as Abu Dhabi. Stew also released an album of the performance’s songs in 2018.

Pavement (2012)

Artist: Kyle Abraham

Genre: Dance

Modern choreographer and dancer

Kyle Abraham received support from Harlem Stage’s early career commissioning program, Fund for New Work, in 2005/2006, where he developed We, a dance duet for men. Abraham returned to Harlem Stage in 2012 to present Pavement. The work drew its inspiration from John Singleton’s 1991 film Boyz n the Hood and W.E.B. Du Bois’ classic essay, The Souls of Black Folk. Layered with an operatic score comprised mostly of Handel’s Carestini (The Story of a Castrato) and the gun-laden sounds of an urban landscape, Pavement examined the gains and losses in two of Pittsburgh’s historically black neighborhoods. The work went on to travel nationally following its presentation at Harlem Stage.

The Cosmic Synthesis of Sun Ra and Afrofuturism (2019)

Artist: Nona Hendrix

Genre: Music

In September 2019, Harlem Stage launched the one-year initiative, The Cosmic Synthesis of Sun Ra and Afrofuturism, to celebrate Sun Ra, a visionary artist and composer who infused his ecstatic performances with costumes and mythology that looked back to ancient Egypt and forward to science fiction and the African Diaspora. Nona Hendryx created multisensory tributes to Sun Ra, performed at Harlem Stage with

artists such as Moor Mother, BroBot Johnson, and more. Harlem Stage presented one of the performances, Sun Ra’s Disciples at the Temple of Dendur, in partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in February 2020. It was an immersive performance featuring Nona Hendryx with Craig Harris’s music direction, choreography by Francesca Harper, costume/set design by Virgil Ortiz, and invocations by Carl Hancock Rux. The Park Avenue Armory was also a partner in the initiative, in which Hendryx honored Afrofuturist artist Grace Jones with special performances by Esperanza Spalding and others.