Theatre Takes Center Stage Southeastern theatre conference is coming to Lexington

Lexington, KY - In March 2010, Lexington will become a focal point of the American theatre community as it hosts the 61st Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) Annual Convention, the largest regional theatre event in the nation.

More than 4,000 theatre artists and enthusiasts, representing 10 southeastern states, will gather March 3-7 in Lexington to share, compete, present and celebrate all aspects of the art of theatre. The SETC Convention will hold five Theatre Performance Festivals presenting 46 theatre productions, as well as its "Job Creating Service," which features more than 80 companies looking to fill academic, administrative, backstage, design, front-of-house and technical jobs, as well as intern and apprentice positions.
 

More than 800 singers, actors and dancers seeking employment at one of SETC's professional theatres will audition for professional companies, while numerous high school juniors, seniors and transfer students will have a chance to audition and/or interview with multiple colleges, universities and training programs. The SETC's First Annual Digital Cinema and Television Festival will also be held during the 2010 Convention.

SETC's choice to hold this event in Lexington is the result of a careful selection process, conducted far in advance and requiring in-depth consideration of all aspects of the conference's complex needs. SETC places high demands on the quality, size and proximity of lodging and conference facilities available to the participants; the peak night is expected to demand over 1,000 hotel rooms, and the variety of festivals, workshops and commercial exhibits requires a substantial number of  facilities to accommodate the variety of presentations.

"Lexington has a remarkable cultural center, which is ideal for the Southeastern Theatre Conference's annual convention," said Betsey Baun, SETC's executive director. " Not only does Lexington have the right mix of meeting space for three-and-a-half days of programming, as well as facilities for the 46 theatrical productions, but our events can be centralized around a charming city center with many restaurants fitting a wide range of budgets and palettes. The Lexington Opera House is ideal for the High School Theatre Festival, as it is within a block of the convention center and our main hotels. The Community Theatre Festival is a short drive away at the Guignol Theatre on the University of Kentucky campus, and the Lexington Children's Theatre's artistic and management team have gone out of their way to help create more than a convention for our 61st annual event. In addition to their sponsorship, providing us with a theatre location for events typically held in a ballroom, their creative ideas are already enhancing the upcoming events."

Baun also praised the city's readiness to accommodate the conference.

"The Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau hasn't missed anything, from introducing us to the potential of the city, to helping us plan the details," Baun said. "It wasn't hard to be convinced that we could bring 800 performers and 150 professional companies to Lexington in order to find and give work, and there was enough meeting space to have 25 parallel workshops and presentations. So far, this is adding up to a most perfect location."

For Lexington, hosting an event of this importance and magnitude is not only a source of pride and artistic inspiration, but much-needed revenue.Jim Clark, the CEO of LexArts, Lexington's umbrella arts organization, said, "It is a tremendous honor and a shot in the arm for Lexington to host this year's conference. In addition to being good for Lexington's percolating theatre community, it will demonstrate how the arts can benefit the local economy in a direct and measurable way."

David Lord, president of the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau agreed.

"While it is difficult to assign economic impact to a specific convention, with more than 4,000 theatre enthusiasts attending the southeast's largest theatre conference, we know it will have a very positive impact on Lexington's tourism community. There are five host hotels, and the block of rooms required for this event is twice the size of Coal Prep, traditionally one of Lexington's largest annual conventions," Lord said.

Though the general rough estimate for a conference attendee, including the price of accommodations and meals, is $200 per day (bringing the estimated impact of this conference to $2.4 million), Lord said he prefers to stay on the conservative side in his projections,  putting it at between $1 million and $2 million. His caution is understandable, since it is difficult to predict how much cutting costs in today's economic climate would influence a visitor's decision to share hotel rooms, stay with friends or choose cheaper restaurants to eat. However, according to Baun, the overall economic impact of SETC's 2009 Convention in Birmingham, Ala., is listed at $3,080,000.

As we begin to place a higher value on the arts as an integral part of our economic prosperity, Central Kentucky artists' participation in the conference is in itself representative of the "state of the theatre arts" in the region.

According to Tim X. Davis, Bluegrass Community and Technical College theatre and film program director and SETC audition coordinator, who attributes his own successful educational theatre career to connections he made through SETC, Kentucky will be well represented in all aspects of the convention.

"We had 148 students from the state of Kentucky go through the screening auditions this year, and of those, 60 were selected to audition for over 100 professional theatre companies who will be attending the festival," Davis said. "Hundreds more from the state will come for the other aspects of the festival, including a job contact service for technical and backstage positions, hundreds of workshops, and auditions for graduate theatre programs from all over the U.S. In addition, two Kentucky high schools — Owensboro and Lexington's own P.L. Dunbar — will compete in the high school play competition, and hundreds of high school students from our state and beyond will be on hand for the play festival as well as the opportunity to audition for undergraduate theatre programs."

Lexington Children's Theatre will play the key role in the Theatre for Youth Festival, and Lexington's own Balagula Theatre, the winner of the Best Performance Award at the 2009 Kentucky Theatre Conference, and Shelby County Community Theatre, KTA runner up, will represent Kentucky at the Community Theatre Festival. Ryan Case, Balagula's artistic/managing co-director and presenting director and actor at the festival, said, "We are excited that a Lexington-based theatre, whose mission is focused on nurturing actors' talent and creativity, will represent our state at the SETC event that celebrates and showcases the best professional-quality community-based theatre across the region. And, of course, as any 'home team,' we hope to win and make Lexington proud to be the hometown of an award-winning theatre."

 For more information visit www.setc.org/.

Economic Impact of the Arts

SETC's upcoming convention puts the question of theatre's role in the economic well-being of Kentuckians back into public view. Without understanding the positive effect of the nonprofit arts on the economic growth of the community, job creation, and increase of local and state government revenues, some may question if society should continue investing in the arts-related nonprofit sector in tough economic times. 

Statistics provided by Matt Porter, public relations manager of Actors Theatre of Louisville, give a good example of both the intangible and tangible effects of Kentucky's leading professional theatre on the well-being of the region.

"Actors Theatre of Louisville serves a broad range of people in the Kentuckiana region as well as across the country," Porter said. "We produce a variety of programming from what we are known for internationally — the Humana Festival of New American Plays to musicals, comedies, drama, classics and contemporary work."

"We serve 200,000 people annually," Porter said. "We employ 255 people annually as seasonal staff, craftsmen, designers, directors, actors, educators, sales people, administrators and such. We spend more than $4 million annually with community businesses on materials and services, such as steel, lumber, paint, printing and travel. Actors Theatre and our audience generate annually $696,000 in municipal revenue and another $720,000 in revenue for the commonwealth."

Americans for the Arts, the nation's leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America, has recently conducted an Arts & Economic Prosperity III study of the nonprofit arts and culture industry in 156 communities and regions (116 cities and counties, 35 multi-county regions, and five states) that represent all 50 states and the District of Columbia. With findings of national nonprofit arts and culture industry generating $166.2 billion in economic activity every year — $63.1 billion in spending by organizations and an additional $103.1 billion in event-related spending by their audiences — this study demonstrates that "the nonprofit arts and culture industry is an economic driver in communities — a growth industry that supports jobs, generates government revenue, and is the cornerstone of tourism."

The analyses of the research findings from the 156 communities and regions that were part of Arts & Economic Prosperity III resulted in creating a calculator enabling nonprofit arts and culture organizations located in communities that did not participate in the study to estimate their local economic impact. Estimates can be derived for both spending by nonprofit arts and culture organizations and event-related spending generated by their audiences.

The calculations can surprise even seasoned arts advocates, who traditionally focus their advocacy on the intangible benefits of the arts in the community. Budget cuts in seemingly "non-essential" areas are translated into real jobs lost and real household and municipal income reduced. Applying the Art Economic Impact calculator to the data about expenses and audiences, (provided by LexArts President and CEO Jim Clark; Joe Cannon Artz, President of SummerFest and the Kentucky Classic Theatre Conservatory; and Balagula Theater's Artistic/Managing Co-Director Ryan Case) shows the economic impact on the local and state economy made by five, diverse, presenting organizations: an umbrella organization with a multimillion dollar budget (LexArts), Lexington's only fully professional theatre (LCT), Lexington's largest community theatre at the time of reporting (AGL), the largest outdoor theatre festival in Central Kentucky (SummerFest) and Lexington's smallest nonprofit community studio-type theatre with a budget of less than $50,000 (Balagula Theatre).

Natasha Williams is a co-founder and an artistic and managing co-director of the Balagula Theatre Company. She is president of Balagula LTD and a founding partner of Natasha's Bistro and Bar. She also co-owns and manages Props Lifestyle Gallery.