How Far We've Come!

As we prepare to head to San Francisco for our Spring Conference, my head is immersed in our five-year strategic plan. The Board and staff have been working together over the past eight months to create a valuable framework to help the National Alliance for Musical Theatre grow. The Board will be discussing the final version at our board meeting next week, and our President Marilynn Sheldon will share some of the highlights with conference attendees.

I have been struck, during this process, by how far NAMT has come. In the past five years, our membership has grown from 130 to 150 organizations; we launched a new website with many more features; and our conferences, Festival of New Musicals, and New Works Summits have helped spawn a myriad of new musicals across the country. I am particularly proud of the National Fund for New Musicals, which has awarded 31 grants totaling nearly $150,000 to support producers and writers in new work development. There is much more we plan to do for our membership with new granting programs. We'll have to use some of the fundraising ideas we learn at the conference to help NAMT grow! Details to come...stay tuned!

NAMT's New Strategic Plan

After a long year of work, the Board of Directors approved a five-year strategic plan in March. The process was thorough and incorporated valuable input from many stakeholders, including the membership. 50% of you completed a survey last fall -- a remarkable result. I was particularly pleased to see that 90% rated NAMT membership as having either High Value or Very High Value– a wonderful stamp of approval for the impact of this organization.

The strategic plan has 3 Key Goals, incorporating the stakeholders’ belief that NAMT become a primary resource for best practices among musical theatre producers; make a bold commitment to growing our funding programs; and evaluate and strengthen our programs in ways that assure even greater impact. This plan will serve as the roadmap for our future, starting with the search for the new Executive Director. We are happy to share the plan with all of you. A summary will be mailed to all the members in the coming weeks, and you can review it online now at namt.org/plan. We remain committed to our mission, our membership, and this art form that we all love.

Have you heard of the controversy surrounding Rocco Landesman's remarks at last week's new play convening at Arena Stage? To simplify, Rocco questions the increase in arts institutions in the last 20 years, when audience participation in the arts has decreased, begging the question -- Is there too much supply and not enough demand? You can read his blog post and comment as well on the NEA's site.

The NAMT Board is about to embark on our strategic plan retreat. One of the key questions raised by our members in the survey you completed in December mirrors the issues addressed by Rocco: audiences. How can we keep current audiences and attract new audiences to the theatre? What innovative methods can we find, as a field, to bring audiences to musicals? What role does new work play? These are big questions. I am excited to tackle these issues with our dedicated board members. Our goal is to have the final plan approved by the Board for our Spring Conference in San Francisco, to present to the membership. NAMT is in a strong position today, as an organization, and we look forward to great things to come.