Monthly Archives: August 2012

News from The Dance Belt

by Jini Stolk I’m not sure if the Regent Park/Parliament Street dance companies have officially adopted that term, but it wouldn’t be out of place. Not only is COBA becoming an anchor tenant of the Regent Park Cultural Centre, but Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie is firmly placed in their new space, The Citadel, just across […]

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Basic database needs

by Jini Stolk As we said in our final report on Creative Trust’s Audiences Project, good databases and box office systems are the essential base for effective audience relationships and communications but are, in their own way, the most difficult to put in place and maintain. Altogether, Creative Trust helped more than 30 companies move […]

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2b or not 2b

by Jini Stolk That is certainly one of the questions. How casual is too cas on Twitter? Would your donor followers be upset 2c that your company’s tweets are heavy with Twitter-speak? How do you handle criticisms on Facebook? We all know that some companies promptly remove any negative comments about a show. What about […]

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Greening: a good business decision

by Jini Stolk Broadway Green Alliance has discovered that the arguments for energy efficiency and conservation in theatres are stronger when they’re backed by a convincing business case. A new publication, recently highlighted by Yonge Street Media, agrees that environmental sustainability is a good business decision. Canadian author Bob Willard, whose book The New Sustainability […]

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A good board at work

by Jini Stolk I was listening hard at a recent meeting as Ontario Trillium Foundation board member Dev Sainani spoke about the board’s involvement in the foundation’s recent strategic review. Our work, he explained, was to help the foundation set direction and carry out its priorities; look at its impact; help create a strategic focus; […]

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Canadian playwright Alex Bulmer interviewed on CBC

by Jini Stolk It was a special pleasure to hear Canadian playwright Alex Bulmer being interviewed last week on CBC’s Sunday Edition about her work on the huge installation, Breathe, which launched the Olympic sailing event. Alex, who is blind, was a leader in the Toronto Theatre Alliance’s (now TAPA) diversity and inclusion programs. She […]

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We have to tell our stories

by Jini Stolk One of Donna Walker-Kuhne’s most emphatic recommendations during her recent workshop with Regent Park/Parliament arts organizations, was “we have to tell our stories.” Please note that she didn’t add the word “better” to that pointed message: first and foremost, we have to tell our stories. During this depressing (at least to me) […]

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Rooted in Regent Park, Open to the World

by Jini Stolk Donna Walker-Kuhne, one of North America’s foremost writers and practitioners on diversifying audiences, recently met with eleven new and long standing arts organizations clustered around Regent Park. This was the final workshop of Creative Trust’s 3-year Audiences Project, and Donna made it special. She inspired us all to pursue the creative and […]

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New! Handbook on arts access

Creative Trust and Picasso PRO have just released two handbooks for producers and presenters of Audio Described and American Sign Language interpreted performances. These practical toolkits provide step by step guidance for anyone planning to open their programming to Deaf/hard of hearing or Blind/low vision attenders. The handbooks are the result of an innovative three-year […]

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