BLOG DU JOUR: THE <100K PROJECT

GIA’s Economic Turmoil and Change blog was originally conceived in early 2009 as a place to round up recession-related news and share information about the ways that funders were responding. That remains this blog’s focus, but as the year goes by, the stories and opportunities have changed, The recession is no longer “news” it is the landscape we work in. As a result, we’re expanding the nature and content of what is posted here. – Tommer

That said, I continue to run across interesting and intelligent blogs in my web travels. Today I’d like to introduce you to the <100K Project, the work of theater artist Scott Walters.

About the <100K Project

The <100K Project is an attempt to “bring the arts back home” to small and rural communities with populations under 100,000. The organization will have three main areas of focus:

Education: the skills necessary for creating healthy, engaged arts organizations in smaller communities will require a set of skills and a general artistic orientation that usually go untaught in traditional theatre departments. The <100K Project will devise a curriculum to support this mission, and promote it to colleges and universities throughout the US, possibly including a distance learning component.

Support: the goal of the <100K Project is to provide salaries to artists staffing arts organizations created by this project in small and rural communities. The <100K Project central organization will provide centralized fundraising, bookkeeping and marketing services, health insurance and retirement benefits, as well as continual training and support.

Promotion: It is important that the arts in small and rural communities be promoted throughout the US as an alternative to the Myth of Broadway that currently dominates the imaginations of young artists. This will be accomplished in a variety of ways, including publications, speeches, residencies, and the documentation of art work, processes, and organizational strategies.

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