Theatre Puget Sound Programs
A majority of arts producers are grassroots collectives with little capacity to execute the many operations necessary for sustainability, such as affordable advertising, rehearsal space, affordable performance venues, organizational partnerships, innovations to reach new audiences, high visibility showcases, professional development, and a gathering forum to address collective needs.
TPS provides these essentials, leveraging an alliance stronger than each individual organization acting alone. As a regional arts leader at the forefront of innovative audience engagement, TPS is redefining artistic excellence to include community relevance. In fact, it is our belief that this investment is key to future audience development in our field. With TPS, a broader diversity of artists exist, reimagining ways to give arts back to the audience and invest in the creativity and vitality of local communities.
Theatre Puget Sound
- Promotes theatre and performing arts through Arts Crush, the Seattle Performs website, Live Theatre Week, and the TPS Stage at Bumbershoot. Each are designed to cultivate new and diversified audience involvement with our many theatre and performing arts organizations.
- Strengthens theatre and performing arts organizations and practitioners with education and professional development opportunities, affordable co-op advertising rates in local media, web listings, affordable rehearsal spaces and performance venues, local and national advocacy, and access to quality of life needs such as health care, legal services, and housing finance.
- Unifies our theatre and performing arts community by acting as a physical and virtual gathering place. We host tpsonline.org, one of the region’s most active online peforming arts communities. We produce the Gregory Awards, honoring local excellence. We also produce a Unified General Audition annually, efficiently connecting performers and organizations.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
Since 2010, TPS has invested in Arts Crush, driving the trend to give arts back to the audience and redefine artistic excellence to include community relevance and active participation. Through a month-long festival each October, Arts Crush brings hundreds of new experiences in theatre, music, literature, dance, visual art and more, offered by more than 130 organizations across the Puget Sound.
This investment is stimulating expansion and diversification of arts participation in our region. In 2012, 71% of the 11,000+ Arts Crush patrons connected with their host organization for the first time. Over half of these were under the age of 45. Beyond the month of October, Arts Crush also serves as an incubator to inspire arts organizations to incorporate new approaches and interdisciplinary partnerships from the highlights discovered during the festival, spawning many more community driven projects throughout the year. Arts Crush highlights arts in our communities in a new, positive, and engaging way that strikes a chord with the public:
- Arts Crush is a fantastic idea. It is too easy to get sucked into the tedium of humdrum existence so it's nice to get a little fill-up once in a while to remind you of the opportunities that are on your doorstep. – Gerry Tierney
- Thank you so much for having very diverse and cultural events. Arts Crush makes me proud of living in Seattle. Keep us entertained/educated!” – Sachie Saito “I loved seeing a play while sitting on a hotel bed! – Kristian Kofoed
- My favorite part was getting out into the city, enjoying something new. Watching the art created in front of me. – Luci Delesbore
Arts Crush lays the foundation for cultivating new arts audiences and fostering a more vibrant, unique and collaborative arts ecology. Yet it is costly to produce! Your donations help ensure continued advancement of this groundbreaking effort.