As WAM moves from our first five years of grassroots growth to a sophisticated vision of philanthropy through theatre, we asked our Artistic Director, Kristen van Ginhoven, to give us a run down of her joys, challenges and surprises over the past year. This is a grateful update, sharing with you some of the impact of our work, none of which would be possible without the terrific support of our donors, volunteers, friends, and audience members.
Joys:
- Hearing one of our Girls Ensemble participants share a monologue she wrote about owning her ‘geek’ label. I was moved to tears and was so impressed by her confidence and pride. Those girls are so full of zest and passion
- Watching our sold out preview audience enjoying the moment in ‘Holy Laughter’ when Victor comes out and dances- that moment and the moment the confetti burst onto the stage always filled me with complete delight.
- Having a WAM office! I can’t tell you the joy it brings me to unlock the door to an office filled with WAM stuff and how great it feels to not have meetings in my living room!
Challenges:
- Delegating! This is the first year WAM has had a real ‘team’ in the office and I’m so used to doing it all myself that it was a challenge to delegate……which is quickly turning into a real joy! YAY for the WAM Team!
- I worked out of town a ton this year on various freelance gigs and it was really challenging to be away from WAM and the team. I even had to miss our first two Fresh Takes readings. It is SO wonderful that events at WAM can now happen without me, but I sure missed being there in person.
- Time management – I balance a lot of different things in my life – I am WAM’s Artistic Director, I also am a consultant for the International Schools Theatre Association, plus I have various other freelance gigs, like I’m teaching at Williams College next semester. And I have a husband I adore and a home I love and exercise I want to do every day. I am also a person who needs 9 hours sleep, so time management is key! I recently got an app that will hopefully help me track my time and be more efficient in all areas.
Surprises:
- Reaching our goal for Holy Laughter and making the donation we wanted to Sisters for Peace and Hands in Outreach. For a while it didn’t look like we’d get the ‘butts in seats’ that we needed, but the whole WAMily rallied and our efforts paid off with our largest donation to date!
- The incredible happiness I felt at hiring a director for the fall show. For the first five years of WAM, I directed the fall mainstage production. It was time to hire someone else and Megan Sandberg-Zakian did an incredible job – she brought the same kind of WAM energy into the rehearsal room as I do and did a great job telling the story. I felt such complete relief at having to only produce the play – I actually got enough sleep in October for once!
- How much time it takes to manage a team! I am SO happy to have this incredible WAM Team and I know it sounds strange, but it was a surprise to me that it takes so much time to ensure each person has a clear to-do list and clear deadlines and to continually follow-up with everyone about how things are going and ensuring everyone is on track. It was the first year, so it took more time to train everyone, but I know 2016 is going to be smooth sailing because the team is awesome!
All resulting in – Community Impact!
- The 1000 audience members of Holy Laughter made possible a donation of $5,560 to our beneficiaries, Hands in Outreach and Sisters for Peace: This resulted in a direct check of $24 – which can feed a family of four for a month – to 125 Hands in Outreach families impacted by the earthquake in Nepal earlier this year; and our support will keep the five young Nepali women sponsored by Sisters for Peace in school for all of 2016.
- Our Education Program and Teaching Artists provided the opportunity to for two dynamic groups of young women to express themselves through theatre in our Girls Inc. after school program and our inaugural Girls Ensemble.
- We hired 24 theatre professionals for paid contract work on Holy Laughter and included 31 local theatre professionals in our sold out Fresh Takes play reading series.
