NC22 Highlight: It’s Broken, So Let’s Fix It: A Collective and Radical Reimagining of Theatre Boards
Check out this conference highlight from the session, “It’s Broken, So Let’s Fix It: A Collective and Radical Reimagining of Theatre Boards.”
Practitioners, leaders and board members across the field are thinking deeply, sometimes in silos, about the purpose and necessity of non-profit boards, and the reality that – especially as theatres everywhere build toward greater equity and racial justice – they often do more harm than good. TCG’s own Trustee Exchange has been meeting in trustee affinity spaces, examining these questions for years, framing their thinking in resources on purpose-driven board governance. Now it’s time to get together in a shared space and get real about what needs to change with our boards, and if we should even keep our board models at all.
Led by Michael J. Bobbitt (arts leader, artist, TedX Speaker, and author of a provocative American Theatre article challenging our thinking around boards) this panel of trustees will do some mythbusting and hole-poking around our assumptions about what we need from our boards and how they must be structured and supported. They will also share their experiences and perspectives on radical reimagining of boards, including some of the ones on which they sit. Our speakers will then support Michael in leading the (virtual and in-person) room through some collaborative exercises designed to crack open our thinking about what is possible as we consider transformative change for the role of boards in our field, and collectively acknowledge that such change is tangible and within reach – if we just do it.