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Contact Information
308 Prince Street, #270
St. Paul, MN 55101-1437
Phone: (651) 789-0787
Fax: (651) 292-4315
Email: alliance@springboardforthearts.org
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Founded in 2010, and currently a program of Springboard for the Arts, the mission of the Minnesota Theater Alliance is to leverage the collective strengths of
Minnesota's theaters and theater professionals to promote, support, and advocate for the Minnesota theater industry locally, nationally, and internationally,
believing that theater is an essential public good, critical to a healthy and truly democratic society and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth.
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Programs
Coming soon:
Membership services focused on audience development, convenings, and information resources
A member-oriented Web site with detailed information about companies, venues, and resources
An audience-oriented Web site with detailed information about shows, companies, and venues, with links to company sites for reservations and more information
Distribution and promotion of show information to various outlets, particularly those not currently reached by all, such as hotels, convention and visitors associations, playbill inserts, corporations, other media outlets
Free Night of Theater, building on last year's pilot
Frequent (quarterly to bi-monthly) events with specific topics, speakers, and time to network, in various MN locations, aiming for first one in July 2010 focusing on MTA itself
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Staff
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Leah Cooper, Program Director
Leah Cooper has been a theater practitioner for 25 years, currently as a freelance stage director and non-profit administration consultant.
She serves on the Minneapolis Arts Commission and is a co-founder of MinnesotaPlaylist.com, Minnesota's first online trade magazine devoted
to performing arts across the state.
Leah was previously the Executive Director of the Minnesota Fringe Festival from 2001-2006. She led the organization from a deficit crisis
to a budget surplus, doubled its annual operating budget, grew its audience to more than 15,000 people who bought more than 45,000 tickets,
and increased artist income 165% by diversifying artists, audiences, and revenue streams. The Minneapolis Advisory Committee on People with
Disabilities recognized her for increasing accessibility at the Fringe. In 2005, she hosted the inaugural meeting of the United States Association
of Fringe Festivals, bringing together for the first time the directors of all U.S. fringe festivals from New York to San Francisco and
everywhere in between.
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Board of Directors |
| Sandy Boren-Barrett | Stages Theatre |
| Hal Cropp (Chair) | Commonweal Theatre Company |
| Michelle Hensley | Ten Thousand Things Theater |
| Ben Krywosz | Nautilus Music-Theater |
| Suzy Messerole | History Theatre |
| Liz Neerland | Nimbus Theatre |
| Heather Stone | Sandbox Theatre |
| Laura Zabel | Springboard for the Arts |
Vision
The Alliance seeks to become a model of unique partnerships, fostering collaboration and cooperation between Minnesota theaters and theater professionals,
striving to provide resource sharing, advocacy throughout the general public, a strong network of communications between members and between the membership
and the public ( both existing and potential audiences), while supporting the individual visions of its members and partners.
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Values
The Alliance holds dear the core values of community, collaboration, diversity, access, and interdependence.
Community consists of not only member theaters and theater professionals but all who recognize that theatre is an essential good and work to broaden its capacity for providing health and the public good.
Recognizing that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the alliance strives to promote collaboration throughout the industry in an effort to broaden our members' impact at an economically feasible level.
The alliance embraces the multitude of forms, ideas, and expressions that the theater can embrace without preference or regard to the nature of the work.
The alliance believes that elimination of barriers to access is a driving principle behind the establishment of a vibrant theater ecology.
The alliance believes that interdependence, the ability to allow members to function at their highest degree of independence while providing the strongest platform for all members to function, is the most evolved state of existence to be attained.
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History
In 2007, a volunteer group of non-profit theater artistic directors came together to explore how a formal theater alliance might bring the theater
community together to advance their shared interests. Working with funding support from the McKnight Foundation, and feasibility planning consultation
from Cincinnatus, they eventually formed a partnership with Springboard for the Arts to be an incubator for this community-driven initiative.
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Thank You
Activities of the Minnesota Theater Alliance are supported by The McKnight Foundation and the Travelers Foundation.
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