$12M goal to secure sound financial future of RI’s Largest Arts Organization

PROVIDENCE, RI: On Monday, April 26, 2010, Trinity Repertory Company launched the Theater for Every Generation Capital Campaign. Co-chaired by Sally Lapides and Jim DeRentis, the goal of the Campaign is to raise $12 million to secure a sound financial future for the non-profit by building Trinity Rep’s endowment and strengthening their capacity to reach a broader base of support. This growth in support would ensure the continued viability of Trinity Rep’s resident acting company and the expansion of arts education throughout the region with the theater’s pioneering educational outreach program, Project Discovery.

Artistic Director Curt Columbus stated, “Our commitment to company, community, and education remain as strong as ever.  By joining us in support of our goal, the community is ensuring the legacy of Rhode Island’s state theater, Trinity Repertory Company, and nurturing a future that makes Theater for Every Generation possible.”

Also announced on Monday evening was a challenge gift from the Carter Family Charitable Trust, which will match gifts from new donors to Trinity Rep this year. As of April 27, 2010, Trinity Rep had raised $2,871,625 towards the campaign goal. For more information or to make a gift, please visit www.theaterforeverygeneration.com.

Grown Locally, Celebrated Nationally
Trinity Rep has deep roots in this community. The theater company was founded by a group of Rhode Islanders who wanted to bring the excitement of live theater to Providence in the early 1960s. Understanding that artists who work together over long periods of time, in a collective environment, create richer, more interesting, more intense lives onstage, Trinity Rep adopted the resident company model, and Trinity Rep’s artists put down roots in this community. 

Trinity Rep has one of the few remaining resident acting companies in the United States. The company boasts 13 of the most well respected professional actors in New England, who are central to Trinity Rep’s identity and at the very core of its work from season to season. With the arrival of Artistic Director Curt Columbus in 2006, Trinity Rep renewed it commitment to the resident company of artists – drawing on their creativity and engaging them in artistic and educational pursuits off the stage as well. Over the past four years, the current acting company has played an integral role in the expansion of in-school and summer education programs, the creation of the Trinity Rep Radio Theater on National Public Radio and the inspiration and co-creation of new plays.

In the coming years, Columbus plans on cultivating more new plays developed by the resident company as not only actors, but playwrights and directors.

Creating A Public Dialogue
In the past few years, Trinity Rep has found more and more ways to connect with their audience and local community. The establishment of forums for group discussion – from the 5,000 people a year that attend the post-show talkbacks to intimate gatherings with Trinity actors and artists throughout the region – has created opportunities for personal expression for every theatergoer. Trinity has also created lifelong learning programs that have had a strong positive impact in the community. Over 144,000 listeners benefit from their RI NPR radio show and circulation for the Trinity Square magazine is almost 30,000.

Despite the recession, Trinity has enjoyed an extraordinary resurgence in audience support in the form of increased subscription and single ticket sales.  However, like most non-profit theaters, ticket revenue subsidizes less than half of the organization's expenses; the balance of costs must be supported by contributed income. 

A key element in the campaign is to increase annual fund contributions to an amount sustainable by the community and sufficient to meet the theater’s ongoing needs. The public has embraced Trinity Rep’s new direction through increased attendance and sales; the campaign will provide an opportunity for the community at all levels to similarly support the theater through contributions.

A Leader in Arts Education
Arts education has always been central to Trinity Rep’s mission. The theater’s K-12 education programs serve more than 10,000 students from schools in RI, MA and CT each year. Since the inception of Project Discovery, the theater has introduced 1.2 million people, (now ages 6 to age 58,) to the experience of live theater these student matinees.  Those first Project Discovery attendees are now adults, bringing their own children - and often students - back to the theater.

Trinity is also expanding many of their programs to include a larger age range of students and students with special needs. This season marked the launch of a new pilot program using drama as therapy with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).  The first of its kind in the state, the program is breaking new ground in exploring ways in which theater therapy may be the future in special education. Trinity hopes to expand its programming to other centers and welcome more ASD students as both audience members and young actors.

Securing a Sound Financial Future
The final goal of the Campaign is create a sound financial future for the theater and its wide range of community programming by strengthening Trinity Rep’s endowment. A meaningful endowment can provide a perpetual source of income for the organization to use wherever the need was greatest – for operations, for programming, or for capital improvements and equipment purchases. Unlike income from ticket sales or one-time donations, gifts and additions to our endowment funds benefit Trinity Rep and the community in perpetuity.

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Trinity Rep Artistic Director Curt Columbus (center, at podium) is flanked by Trinity Rep's Resident Acting Company (back, from left to right: Barbara Meek, Joe Wilson Jr., Anne Scurria, Angela Brazil, Stephen Thorne, Fred Sullivan Jr., Janice Duclos, Brian McEleney, Rachael Warren, Stephen Berenson, Phyllis Kay) and students from Trinity Rep's Young Actors Studio Classes during Trinity's Theater for Every Generation Campaign Kickoff event on April 26.

Photo: Mark Turek

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Students from company member Rachael Warren's weekly singing ensemble class (created for singers from Trinity's Young Actors Summer Institute to meet and hone their talents free of charge during the school year) sing "Mama Who Bore Me" from Spring Awakening during Trinity's Theater for Every Generation Campaign Kickoff event on April 26.

Photo: Mark Turek