BEN CAMERON
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THEATRE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP
MARCH 16, 2001
Excerpts
. . .we know that kids that work in theatre do 80 points better on SATs than
kids who don't. We know that. We've got the studies.
But our mission is always to--to enhance intellectual achievement and creative
potential. And we choose to do that through live theatre.
Our mission is to contribute to the economic vitality of our towns, because
we know that for every dollar you spend on a theatre ticket, it will generate
five to seven for the local economy.
But we're about economic vitality, and we do that through theatre.
Or our role is about racial understanding. A recent study that I love out of
UCLA shows that twelfth-graders who have been active in creating theatre are
40-percent less likely to tolerate racist behaviors than kids who have not had
that theatre experience.
So our mission is about bridging cultural understanding, and we do that through
theatre.
. . .
One thing I got to do when I was at Target was, I got to travel around the country,
because every time Target goes to a new marketplace, they send a S.W.A.T. team
in, which I was part of, to go and assemble the local nonprofit community and
say, "We're coming to town. We're going to give away a bunch of money.
Here's how you get a piece of the pie." And I mean it's very popular, as
you can imagine. But every city I went to, somebody would say--raise their hand
in the Q-and-A afterwards and say, "I have to say this to you: In our city,
we have a fire department without enough fire trucks. We have a library system
without enough books. We have an AIDS shelter that--that is exploding through
the ceiling. We have welfare-to-work issues. We have a food shelter without
enough food to feed people. We have a homeless shelter without enough beds.
Why the hell do you people give so much money to the arts?"
And I would always say, "Okay. Well, how many of you grew up singing in
the church choir or painting pictures, acting in the school play, whatever?"
Given that these were nonprofit leaders, most of who were over 40, almost every
hand would go up. And I'd say, "Okay. Well, what did you learn from that
experience?"
Somebody would say, "I learned to exit stage left."
Somebody else would say, "I learned how to read a treble-clef" or
whatever.
And then somebody else would say, "Well, you know, I really think I learned
punctuality, because, you know, you can ditch class, you can come late. But
when the curtain's going up at eight, you don't show up at 8:15."
Somebody else would say, "I learned teamwork." Especially in church
choirs--you've heard this one--heard in choirs a lot. You've heard a lot of
stories about squeaky-voiced tenors making bad entrances in "Worthy is
the Lamb."
But, still, you also heard people say, "I learned teamwork, because when
you sing in a choir, it's not about how well you sing. It's about how well you
listen to everybody else and blend in."
Somebody else would say, "I learned delayed gratification. I practiced
those scales a hundred times, and one day they just bloom in a way I never thought
they would."
You know, my all-time favorite was a Jacksonville, North Carolina, Marine muckety-muck
who had retired, who said, "You know, I didn't learn discipline in the
Marines. I learned discipline playing the French Horn."
. . .
And when it came to theatre, people would say, "I learned to see the world,
I learned to taste the world, I learned to feel the world through somebody else's
eyes and ears, ears and nose and throat, other than my own."
If we are going to solve the problems of AIDS and welfare-to-work and homelessness
and starvation, if we don't have the ability to see and hear and feel the world
through someone else's eyes and ears than our own, we can't even have the conversation.
Being involved in theatre is about entertainment, but it's also about social
activism at its most profound and essential level . . .