History Theatre
October 11, 2023
Amount Requested$20,000.00
30 East 10th Street
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101
Rob Thomas
Director of Development
Email hidden; Javascript is required.
- Broaden Perspectives Through Art, Culture, Literature or Extracurricular Experiences
General Operating
History Theatre entertains, educates, and engages through creating, developing, and producing new and existing works that explore Minnesota's past and the diverse American experience. Its work provides a unique lens which links our past to the present, explores our common heritage, and illuminates our understanding of what it means to be American.
$20,000.00
$3,092,597.00
Yes
In May 2023, the NAEP reported only 13% of students scored proficient or above in U.S. history along with only 22% in civics and geography. Historic exclusion from textbooks makes BIPOC histories even more unknown.
History Theatre’s mission, vision, and future under the leadership of our new Artistic Director Richard Thompson is an antidote, using the arts to preserve and share the often-unheard stories of our common past and catalyze dialogue in communities across the state. Richard took HT’s artistic helm in Jan 2023 after the board and succession committee enthusiastically rallied behind his vision to continue to broaden and deepen the histories, communities, and types of stories we tell about diverse MN. In his words: “I'm interested in stories of cooperation, resilience, triumph and joy, and in exploring the intertwined fabric of communities that is America."
Meanwhile, we are surviving an environment where two to three performing arts orgs are closing each month, according to Greg Reiner, the director of theater and musical theater at the National Endowment for the Arts. The pandemic-caused decline in subscribers and slow return to live performance combined with skyrocketing costs (inflation, labor market issues, and a necessary push toward more equitable working conditions) has brought about a serious inflection point for our field.
With support, HT will accomplish our mission through Richard’s vision and continue to impact audience members - telling powerful stories that change perspectives and catalyze change. An audience member from our recent production of Diesel Heart shared: “Once again, HT has succeeded in raising my awareness of the ongoing fight for what’s fair and equal.” Our productions have inspired meaningful change in communities - for example, a recent production of Not for Sale about historical housing discrimination inspired a local church to formally take actions to help their congregation connect with Just Deeds to remove racial covenants on their homes.
Anticipated around 40,000 patrons a year. In addition, we reach ~200 adults and students through education and outreach.
Twin Cities metro and surrounding area
History Theatre is charting a course for continued excellence in the years ahead. Overarching goals encompass:
Goal 1: A commitment to productions of the highest possible artistic quality while producing work that explores familiar and untold stories reflecting the true diversity of our region and its people.
Goal 2: Transforming our organization into one that embodies diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in programming and all areas of the organization.
Goal 3: Sustaining financial stability through this difficult time, keeping our artists and staff supported
● Increasing the visibility of the Theatre and the artists who work here.
● Keeping audiences engaged and attracting new audiences through wide reaching events and programming.
● Expanding educational opportunities for adults and youth
Goal 1: A commitment to productions of the highest possible artistic quality while producing work that explores familiar and untold stories reflecting the true diversity of our region and its people. History Theatre is a national leader in commissioning and producing new works by playwrights. In an environment where new work often flounders in “development hell,” and new work about and by BIPOC communities is often relegated to second stage and blackbox productions, History Theatre produces nearly every script we commission, and everything we produce goes up on our mainstage. We clearly communicate to writers our intent to produce new works at an early phase, and then provide substantial support aimed at preparing scripts for their world premieres. Our development process is baked into our contracts and conversations; each play we commission and produce receives at a minimum two separate development workshops (including space, artist fees, dramaturgs, printing, etc).
As more and more playwrights turn to television and film to ensure their livelihoods and to ensure that their work is seen, we have received feedback about just how valuable and rare this commitment and process is. Our commitment to writers extends to our budget; in the past ten years, we have increased commissions for musicals by 40%, and for plays by 50%. We are proud members of the National New Play Network which connects artists to theatres across the nation and works to procure second and third productions of the plays we premiere.
We value equitable compensation for all artists working on or behind our stage. We partner with unions including Actors Equity and IATSE to provide equitable pay, pensions, health benefits, and bargaining rights to artists. All artists from interns to veterans receive weekly paychecks. Over the past decade, we have steadily increased artist fees: AEA actors by 32%; non AEA actors by 50%; designers by 19%; and directors by 40%.
Goal 2: Transforming our organization into one that embodies diversity, equity, and inclusiveness in programming and all areas of the organization. As outlined in our mission, History Theatre has a mandate to produce stories about the diverse American experience; one of our core values is: Illuminating Diverse Voices and Viewpoints by producing work that explores familiar and untold stories that reflect the true diversity of our region and its people. In 2020 a 16-member antiracism committee made up of board and staff, was created to expand History Theatre’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness work by honoring our values, ensuring accountability and deepening community engagement. The committee met eight times and emerged with a plan that prioritizes:
1. Identifying, building trust, and engaging with current and new audiences.
2. Engaging and empowering more diverse playwrights, designers, cast, and crew to ensure we produce high quality works that explore familiar and untold stories that reflect the diversity of our region and its people.
3. Ensuring that staff, board and volunteers are effectively engaged and that operational decisions are made through an equity lens.
The committee identified more than 45 strategic action items that range from ongoing DEI training for staff and board, to reviewing and adjusting artist and staff pay, to connecting and consulting with BIPOC community leaders and connectors early and consistently throughout a play’s development processes. History Theatre staff meet bi-weekly to discuss progress, ongoing action and new issues. We have implemented many action items, including institutionalizing the practice of reviewing policies around respectful work environments at the top of every rehearsal process, and creating an HR email address that allows artists to reach out with feedback or needs without needing to go to staff or directors. We hire understudies for both cast and crew and have decreased tech workdays from 10 out of 12 hours to 8 out of 10 hours. We have incorporated an ongoing post-production survey into our artistic process to ensure that there is always an avenue for artists to share feedback in a safe and anonymous way. We’ve changed our family leave policy to include paid and unpaid leave and offer a flexible work schedule that includes hybrid work options. A top priority for History Theatre is recruiting a diverse set of candidates for our Board of Directors. Recruitment is active and ongoing. As staff turn over and when new positions can be created, we work to hire individuals who reflect the communities we wish to serve.
History Theatre has a strong track record of commissioning, developing, and producing plays by BIPOC artists, women artists, queer artists, and other folks from historically marginalized communities. In a national environment where only 20% of produced plays are written by women, History Theatre works toward gender parity in commissioning, and producing new works. Women have written 37% of productions and directed 30%. Each year, at least two of the five plays in our mainstage season are authored by BIPOC artists and tell stories about the complex, often difficult histories of our region. Of the eight projects in our current commissioning pipeline, six are authored by BIPOC playwrights and composers, making this cohort the most diverse in History Theatre’s history. We build and sustain relationships with writers at the forefront of their craft through multiple commissions and productions. Playwrights with whom we have ongoing relationships include: Kim Hines (since 1996), Kira Obolensky (since 2003), Doris Baizley (since 2006), Laurie Flanigan Hegge (since 2007), Brian Grandison (since 2010), Jessica Huang (since 2015), Josh Wilder (since 2017), and Harrison David Rivers (since 2018).
The research and development of plays that depict the margins of history – the history not taught in class or available in textbooks – is often more extensive and demanding for playwrights. For any given question about this history, a simple Google search or trip to the library might not provide answers; instead, information might exist only inside the minds of the people who lived that history, and/or their offspring or friends. Because these stories do not exist in the light of the mainstream, writers must spend considerable time connecting and winning the trust of primary sources and investigating through interviews and conversations. History Theatre is a place that provides resources and a platform to support artists as they confront the many challenges of telling stories from the margins. Providing playwrights with the resources they need to create compelling, detailed works for our stage along with development support to add these untold stories to the canon of American Theatre is an ongoing goal.
Occasionally the playwright for a culturally specific work is right for the project because of their lived experiences, perspective and aesthetic, but they might not have training/experience in writing for the theater specifically. A CRACK IN THE SKY is a good example of this – Ahmed Yusuf is a published author but did not feel familiar/comfortable with the form of theater to be the playwright for the play based on his life. History Theatre offered a commission to him and Harrison David Rivers to co-create the play, ensuring the authenticity of a project with Yusuf at the helm, a well-crafted play about Yusuf’s journey and Yusuf’s comfort with the process.
Goal 3: Sustaining financial stability through this difficult time, keeping our artists and staff supported:
The high-caliber, provocative explorations of a diverse American history that we produce means 40% of our budget must come from contributed income. As a nonprofit, we balance a desire to reach audiences, particularly underserved audiences locally and in Greater Minnesota, at a price point that is affordable yet supports productions of quality and merit. Philanthropic support subsidizes aesthetic risk-taking, stories from non-dominant communities, and creative work that facilitates timely, difficult conversations.
History Theatre had been in a growth phase for the five years leading up to our 18-month closure due to the pandemic. In those five years we added a sixth production in our season, created a new play development program that pipelines new work to our mainstage, began touring to greater Minnesota and launched our engagement program (History Here and Now) that builds relationships with community organizations to ensure the histories we stage reflect and reach diverse Minnesotans. Our workload increased significantly but staff capacity did not. After a challenging pandemic that necessitated furloughs, salary reductions and organizational changes, we are now re-building our organization in a changed environment. A new labor market, inflation, and slow return of audiences has increased our expenses and reduced our revenue.
We receive public and private sector grants from local, regional, state and national granting bodies. We continue to diversify sources of funding to mitigate the impact of shifting institutional funders. We are embarking on an expanded individual giving and major donor strategy for FY 23-24. Our Board has catalyzed to pursue additional individual gifts. Now, more than ever before, this philanthropic support is critical to History Theatre’s work. As we continue to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our institution, and plan for an exciting next phase with a new Artistic Director, we need the support of individual, corporate, and foundation funders to help us balance our budget and continue to pursue our mission.
Theatrical Season: HT is commissioning and producing some of our most exciting, daring new work about the complex histories of our region. Our bold next season includes:
-
- Premiere of Keith Hovis’ The Boy Wonder: Elected the youngest governor of MN in 1938, Harold Stassen “the boy wonder” was a popular and progressive leader with a vision to unify America. This contemporary musical examines a history not much different than today and asks: Who will stand up for our democracy?
-
- Premiere of Cristina Luzárraga and Denise Prosek’s I Am Betty: As a radio and television personality, letter-writing confidante, and a relatable icon (but not a real person), Betty Crocker has been on the front lines of the question of women's role in American society.
-
- Handprints - Written and performed by Greta Oglesby: A powerful and vibrant autobiographical story written and performed by one of the Twin Cities' most renowned theater artists. Based on her book “Mama ‘n ‘Nem, Handprints on My Life.”
-
- Premiere of Harrison David Rivers’ A Unique Assignment: Two men – Henry Gallagher, white, and James Meredith, Black – are thrust into each other’s lives when, in the aftermath of the Ole Miss Riot, Gallagher is placed in charge of Meredith’s on-campus security detail.
-
- Premiere of Jessica Huang and Jacinth Greywood’s Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters: From Minneapolis to Broadway and Hollywood in the 1930s, the remarkable Kim Loo Sisters gained popularity during the swing era, and fought xenophobia with four part harmony, joy and sisterhood. Co-commissioned and co-produced by HT and Theatre Mu.
- Playwright Kim Hines will create a new touring show for students about Josie Johnson, the “First Lady of Minnesota Civil Rights.” Internationally-renowned award-winning playwright and director Rick Shiomi will write about WW2 Japanese American soldiers who attended MN’s Military Intelligence Service Language School. Brian Grandison will write a new play about the life and work of Justice Alan Page.
-
Keeping audiences engaged and attracting new audiences through wide reaching events and programming:
Community engagement programs build audience engagement through community partnerships and participation. Our Afterthoughts programming brings individuals with lived experience or connections to the history we have presented on stage to a live dialogue with audience members after the show. For example, after “The Root Beer Lady” (22-23 season) (the story of the indomitable Dorothy Molter the last legal non-indigenous resident of the Boundary Waters), Jess Edberg, Executive Director of the Dorothy Molter Museum fielded questions from the audience members, bringing the breadth and depth of a historian to the conversation. Community partners included Friends of the Boundary Waters, Dodd Nature Center and Wilderness Inquiry, among others, and these organizations brought together in the lobby on opening night gave audience members the opportunity to pursue their own first-hand experience of the BWCA and learn more about this treasured MN wilderness. We also collected BWCA stories via social media and email and compiled them into an online book, which can be viewed at https://www.historytheatre.com/sites/default/files/The%20Root%20Beer%20Lady%20BWCA%20photo%20album.pdf
During the run of “Diesel Heart” (22-23 season) we held numerous events through our History “Here and Now” (HHN) program that establishes and grows mutually beneficial partnerships with community and service organizations to present play excerpts and workshops for members of underrepresented communities at cultural hubs - including the East Side Freedom Library, YWCA Saint Paul and the Rondo Community Land Trust. Melvin Carter Jr. (the subject of the play and the father of current Saint Paul mayor Melvin Carter Jr.) took part in Afterthoughts discussions, along with other Black leaders. OnStage discussion involved over 150 students and community members, and additional discussions were held at partner college classrooms and community sites.
These examples represent a small sample of our extensive community engagement work, and we would be happy to provide a more extensive description upon request!
Expanding educational opportunities for adults and youth bring history to life for K-12 students and adult learners. Each year we reach approximately 5,400 students, the majority of whom are BIPOC, through activities held at the theatre, virtually, or in community and school venues. We offer Morning Matinees for K-12 students, teachers, and community partners that offer subsidized tickets to main stage productions, and free, downloadable study guides that link play content to academic standards in history, arts education, and literature. At the Minnesota Independence College and Community (MICC) we work with neuro-divergent young adults, many of them on the autism spectrum, guiding them through personal storytelling that culminates in a staged production. This work was recently honored with the 2023 Community Champion award from MICC, for "educating and encouraging our participants, challenging them to step outside of their comfort zones. The History Theatre is true champion for individuals with autism and learning differences." Seats to Stage residencies teach high school students (the majority of whom come from limited income households and are BIPOC) elements of playwriting and guide them to collaboratively create a play based on their life experiences,. TELLING OUR STORIES residencies are for adult learners to work in memoir and autobiography. LIVING THROUGH HISTORY virtual writing classes invite learners of all ages to record their experiences living through COVID-19 and civil unrest. Cabaret for Seniors consists of residencies at senior facilities that use personal history and music to create cabaret performances. Participants are taught the history of the form as well as techniques for storytelling, song selection, and performance.
We evaluate success through quantitative feedback - such as ticket sales, audience demographics, virtual engagement, and social media traffic - and qualitative data through conversations and surveys:
● Feedback from artists on experience, HT's support, successes, and areas for improvement.
● Feedback from community partners regarding the collaborative process, how collaboration helped achieve organizational goals and their interest in future partnership.
● Audience feedback about what they learned about MN history, feelings toward History Theatre, reasons they attend History Theatre productions, and what they want to see more of in the future.
History Theatre’s evaluation plan incorporates techniques recommended at evaluation workshops (focus groups/interviews, surveys, and voting), and tools developed in 2016 by evaluation consultant Christie Treichel. Development staff have participated in evaluation training through the Minnesota Council on Nonprofits and the Minnesota State Arts Board
Managing Director Karen Mueller is responsible for evaluation oversight. We solicit feedback from artists, designers, Board members, volunteers, and staff. We facilitate ongoing check-ins with artists to ensure History Theatre remains responsive to artists’ needs. After every production, we facilitate postmortems with artists and staff to continue to refine development processes. We disseminate an electronic survey to all audience members after every production to collect data on what they learned from the production and how safe they felt regarding COVID protocols. We use this information to shape future programming, as well as accessibility needs and safety protocols.
Evaluation processes help us refine and evolve programming to best serve participants. Regular check-ins with artists, audience members, and participants feed back into program delivery. Planning outlines and timelines have built-in benchmarks that help us meet objectives. Post program evaluations help us improve programming and processes for the future. We share results with the Board and staff for annual and strategic planning. We also share with philanthropic partners as requested.
07/01/2023
06/30/2024
An especially exciting new partnership for this season is with Theatre Mu on a co-production of “Blended Harmony”, telling the story of the Kim Loo Sisters, and their fight against xenophobia through their artistry and their joy in singing. More broadly, History Theatre partners with local education and non-profit organizations to mutually extend reach and impact, develop and cross-pollinate audiences, and build and deepen relationships between artists and audiences. Regular artistic partners include The Playwrights Center, The Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Arts, and the Minnesota Historical Society. Community partners include many metro schools, school systems and youth-serving organizations (Project Success, Neighborhood House), as well as facilities serving older adults (Episcopal Homes in St. Paul, Vail Place, Minnesota Mental Health Clubhouses located in Hopkins and Minneapolis, and Minnesota Independence College & Community).
History Theatre supports affiliated artists/producers in mutually beneficial arrangements under the umbrella of HISTORY THEATRE PRESENTS. Partnership agreements flex to suit the needs of the artists who use our space, but typically involve a ticket split in exchange for free rehearsal and performance space and HT marketing and promotion, and have also included lighting and sound equipment, and personnel as needed and available. We have granted use of our mainstage in between productions, and this season we can negotiate with our landlord on behalf of artist partners to access a 200-seat auditorium adjacent to our stage that is currently between leases. This mutually beneficial arrangement increases History Theatre’s programming capacity and provides an affordable production and earned income for artist partners. HISTORY THEATRE PRESENTS has included performances of “This Way Yonder” by native writer Montana Cypress in collaboration with The Turtle Theatre Collective, and a reading of SAY THEIR NAMES, a new play about missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. by Marcie Rendon. 200 patrons attended this powerful reading and stayed for a panel discussion with Marcie, the actors, Ernest Briggs, and Senator Mary K. Kunesh who, in 2019, was the chief author of the bill to create the Task Force on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, the first state-funded task force of its kind to collect data on this issue and provide annual reports and recommendations on how the state should respond.
Our general operations, along with education and community outreach programs are ongoing. The schedule for the upcoming season is as follows:
The Boy Wonder: October 5-29, 2023; Book, music, and lyrics by Keith Hovis. Premiere.
I Am Betty: Nov 22- Dec 23, 2023;
Handprints: Jan 25- Feb 18, 2024; Written and performed by Greta Oglesby
Music Director: Sanford Moore
A Unique Assignment: March 14-April 7, 2024;
Blended 和 (Harmony): The Kim Loo Sisters; May 4-26, 2024;
Unapproved