If you missed A.R.T./New York’s Spring 2026 Community Forum, or you’d like to revisit the conversation, you’ve come to the right place. This edited transcript captures a thoughtful discussion on building meaningful partnerships, fostering collaboration, and strengthening connections across New York’s theatre community. Featuring leaders from A.R.T./New York, Flushing Town Hall, IndieSpace, Producer Hub, and the Howard Gilman Foundation, the conversation explores practical strategies, shared challenges, and big ideas for the future of our field. 

*The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving the speakers’ intent and voice. 

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Welcome & Introductions

Emily Sproch (Senior Program Officer, The Howard Gilman Foundation):

Welcome, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us this afternoon.

Before we dive into the conversation, let’s introduce ourselves. We’ll share our names, pronouns, a brief visual description, the organization we work with and our role there, and then answer one fun question:

What’s a surprising—but unexpectedly successful—pairing or combination?

It doesn’t have to be theater-related. It could be food, music, relationships—anything.

I’ll start. My name is Emily Sproch, and I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Senior Program Officer at The Howard Gilman Foundation.

For my visual description: I’m a white woman with long, slightly wavy brown hair and side bangs. I’m wearing a navy blue wrap dress with white polka dots and silver earrings, and I’m seated facing both the audience and my fellow panelists.

As for my pairing, I have to go with Janet Jackson sampling Joni Mitchell on “Got ‘Til It’s Gone,” featuring Q-Tip. If you haven’t listened to it recently, it’s well worth revisiting—the song and the music video are both incredible.

Now I’ll turn it over to Sami.

Sami Abu Shumays (Deputy Director, Flushing Town Hall):

I’ll try to remember all the prompts!

I’m Sami Abu Shumays, and I use he/him pronouns. I’m the Deputy Director of Flushing Town Hall, a multidisciplinary arts presenter based in Queens. We operate a 300-seat theater, an art gallery, and present work across multiple artistic disciplines.

For my visual description: I’m a light-skinned Palestinian American man with short hair, square glasses, a blue floral shirt, and blue pants.

My unexpectedly successful pairing is mangoes and tomatoes in a salad.

Emily Sproch: Has anyone here tried that?

Sami Abu Shumays: If not, my runner-up is onions and strawberries in a salad.

Emily Sproch: Thank you, Sami.

Randi Berry (Executive Director, IndieSpace):

Hi, everyone. I’m Randi Berry, and I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Executive Director of IndieSpace, a service organization and community organizer supporting individual artists, small-budget organizations, and independent venues throughout New York City.

For my visual description: I’m a white woman with gray-blonde hair, thick-rimmed cat-eye glasses, pale skin, a black dress layered over a black T-shirt, and a colorful beaded necklace.

My favorite pairing is interspecies friendships—dogs and ducks, raccoons and lizards, squirrels and just about anyone. I love an interspecies friendship.

Talia Corren (Executive Director, A.R.T./New York):

Hi, everyone. I’m Talia Corren, and I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Executive Director of A.R.T./New York.

For my visual description: I’m a white woman with curly light brown hair, and I’m wearing a green jumpsuit.

As for my unexpectedly successful pairing—I love a good highbrow/lowbrow combination. My favorite “girl dinner” is Haribo gummy bears and Sauvignon Blanc.

Dani Barlow (Program Director, Producer Hub):

Hi, everyone. I’m Dani Barlow, and I use she/her pronouns. I’m the Program Director at Producer Hub.

Producer Hub is a nonprofit arts service organization for independent arts producers. We provide programming, resources, and support specifically for independent producers.

For my visual description: I’m a Black woman with waist-length black-to-white ombré braids. I’m wearing a black sweater over a cream-and-black checkered blouse with blue jeans, and I’m seated at the end of the panel.

As for the pairing—I spent far too much time thinking about this and eventually turned to the internet for help. Apparently, olive oil and ice cream are an excellent combination. Judging by everyone’s reaction, I should probably try it.

Building Partnerships

Emily Sproch:

Those are great answers.

Today’s conversation is all about partnerships, collaboration, and relationships—how we build them and how we make them successful.

It feels especially fitting that we’re gathering here at Signature Theatre, with A.R.T./New York partnering with such an important community resource to host this conversation.

Theater is, by its very nature, a collaborative art form. None of us can do this work alone. Whether you’re a producing organization or an arts service organization like the leaders on today’s panel, collaboration is fundamental to what we do.

For today’s discussion, we’re defining collaboration as partnerships between organizations—relationships that extend beyond your own institution.

Let’s begin with the basics. How do you build the relationships that eventually become successful collaborations? How do you meet potential partners while moving through your work and your community?

Who’d like to start?

Building Relationships Before Building Collaborations

Randi Berry:

I’ll jump in. Honestly, conversations like this are where so many collaborations begin. I’ve already met wonderful people today.

One of the most important things is simply getting out of our apartments and into shared spaces whenever we can. Showing up matters.

At IndieSpace, we host IndieSpace Together once a month so people can gather, meet one another, and build relationships. We also meet regularly with other arts service organizations—about once a quarter—to talk about what’s happening in the field, what our communities are experiencing, and what challenges we’re facing as organizations.

And then there’s the simplest thing of all: go to each other’s shows.

I think Ralph is here somewhere—he usually is, because he’s everywhere. Ralph is always reminding us how important it is to show up, and he’s absolutely right.

Emily Sproch:

Could you tell us a little more about IndieSpace Together for anyone who isn’t familiar with it?

Randi Berry:

Absolutely. IndieSpace Together is a monthly co-working, networking, and community-building event. We’ve hosted it here at Signature a few times, and we also hold it at our West Village Rehearsal Co-op.

Anyone is welcome. You can stop by for an hour or stay all day. We have a potluck, so people bring food and we get to share a meal together. We usually co-work from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.—although “co-work” might be a generous term. It’s definitely not quiet, so if you’re hoping to get work done, bring noise-canceling headphones!

After that, we spend time networking and catching up, and we often invite special guests. Last month, the Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs joined us. This month was much quieter—we actually managed to get some work done.

The gathering is also helping us prepare for our new space, where we’ll be co-working seven days a week. We hope it becomes a soft landing place for artists across the city.

Talia Corren:

When I started at A.R.T./New York in the winter of 2022, I made a point of accepting every invitation I received.

I showed up, listened carefully to the people whose ideas resonated with me, and then followed them into other conversations. Honestly, I mostly just attached myself to Randi.

I think that’s an important lesson: find the places where the people you admire are already gathering, and think about what you can contribute. Ask yourself, What do I have that someone else needs?

One of those naturally occurring communities for many of us is the Cultural Equity Coalition, which formed after changes to the Cultural Development Fund at the Department of Cultural Affairs several years ago. It’s grown into a vibrant network where we not only work together on advocacy, but also celebrate birthdays, share meals, and support one another as people.

Breaking bread together, showing up consistently, and building genuine relationships—that’s what makes collaboration sustainable.

Dani Barlow:

The only thing I’d add is that when I started at Producer Hub, I met a lot of people in our immediate community. Then I kept hearing the same names come up over and over again.

At a certain point, I thought, Why don’t I just reach out? No one told me to. I just noticed that five different people had mentioned the same person, so it seemed worth making the connection. People have been incredibly responsive, which has been wonderful.

I also think it’s important to listen carefully to the people you’re trying to serve. Pay attention to who has already been helpful to them. There may be opportunities to formalize those relationships or provide additional support to organizations that are already doing valuable work.

Emily Sproch:

Let me ask a follow-up. Is it ever intimidating to reach out to someone you’ve never met, especially when they’ve only been recommended by someone else?

Dani Barlow:

Honestly, not really. The worst thing that can happen is they don’t respond.

What matters is being specific about why you’re reaching out. If I send someone a message that just says, “I’d love to chat sometime,” they’re probably not going to answer.

But if I explain exactly why I’m contacting them and why I think the conversation would be valuable, people are usually very receptive.

Everyone’s inbox is overflowing. If you can be respectful, thoughtful, and specific, you’re much more likely to receive a response—even if that response is simply, “Not right now.”

Emily Sproch:

I can confirm that’s how Dani works. I’ve received those emails myself, so she definitely practices what she preaches.

Sami, what does relationship-building look like at Flushing Town Hall?

Sami Abu Shumays:

Honestly, I agree with everything that’s been said. This is basically dating advice. Put yourself out there. Meet people. Be thoughtful. Be specific about what you’re looking for.

One thing I’d add is that you can build community before you build a collaboration. Flushing Town Hall is part of the Latinx Arts Consortium of New York (LXNY). During the pandemic, we started meeting every two weeks without a specific project in mind. We simply wanted to stay connected and support one another.

Over time, those regular conversations naturally evolved into programmatic collaborations because we had built trust first. Sometimes you have to play the long game.

The other thing I’d encourage is developing a reputation for being collaborative. Many of our partnerships begin because someone says, “You should talk to Flushing Town Hall—they’re great to work with.” That’s incredibly valuable. So yes, reach out to people yourself—but also become the kind of organization that other people want to collaborate with.

Emily Sproch:

Flushing Town Hall is a little different from some of the organizations represented here because you’re so deeply connected to the broader Queens community.

Are many of your collaborators organizations outside the performing arts?

Sami Abu Shumays:

Absolutely. Flushing Town Hall is multidisciplinary—we present music, dance, theater, visual art, and film—so collaboration is built into how we operate.

Film is a good example. We don’t have extensive in-house film programming expertise, so we partner with the Queens World Film Festival. They were looking for venues, and we were looking to expand our film programming. It was a natural fit.

One of the things I enjoy most about collaboration is that we work with organizations of every size. We’ve partnered with larger institutions like Carnegie Hall and Queens College, while also collaborating with small theater, dance, and music companies throughout Queens.

Sometimes we’re presenting their work. Sometimes they’re presenting work in our space. Sometimes we’re simply supporting artists through our regranting programs. Those relationships all grow from staying connected to artists and remaining open to opportunities.

Emily Sproch:

Once you’ve met someone and established that relationship, how do you know it’s time to move from simply knowing one another to actually collaborating?

Moving from Relationships to Collaboration

Emily Sproch:

Once you’ve met someone and built a relationship, how do you know it’s time to move from simply knowing one another to actually collaborating?

Dani Barlow:

One of the simplest things you can do is attend each other’s events. You may discover that your organizations have similar missions or goals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll work well together. Sometimes you start getting to know one another and realize your values, communication styles, or ways of working are completely different—and that’s okay.

There’s a reason each of our organizations exists, and not every partnership is meant to happen. Attending one another’s programs, introducing staff members, and spending time in each other’s spaces gives you a chance to ask: Are we actually a good fit?

Sometimes that’s the most valuable thing you can learn.

Talia Corren:

Sometimes collaborations begin in a very transactional way. You have a space that I need. I have a curator that you need. Those kinds of practical needs can create an opening.

But if you’re willing to get curious about why that gap exists, the collaboration can become something much richer.

We all have something to offer, and we all have gaps that need filling. The strongest partnerships happen when you realize you’re aligned not just because of a practical need, but because you share values, communicate similarly, and approach the work with the same sense of urgency and responsibility.

That’s when a collaboration becomes durable. And yes—it really is all dating advice.

Sami Abu Shumays:

I’d add one thing: have the detailed conversations early.

Talk about money.

Talk about responsibilities.

Talk about marketing.

Talk about production.

Talk about who’s staffing the event, who’s covering costs, who’s handling communications—every detail.

Too often people say, “Let’s partner! You’ll do this, we’ll do that,” and then discover they never discussed who was actually responsible for making it happen.

Those conversations can feel uncomfortable, but they’re also a great test of the partnership itself. If discussing the details immediately creates tension, that’s valuable information.

If you’re hoping for a long-term partnership, you need to know you can navigate those conversations together.

Emily Sproch:

At what point do those conversations move from verbal agreements to something written—a contract or formal agreement?

Sami Abu Shumays:

As soon as you have a tentative agreement to move forward.

Usually, the first conversation is exploratory. Once everyone agrees the collaboration makes sense, start documenting everything.

For us, that often begins with a follow-up email. We may have met with an executive director, but now we need to bring in the marketing staff, production team, finance staff, and everyone else who will actually make the project happen.

The sooner everyone has something in writing, the easier it is to stay aligned.

Randi Berry:

I don’t have much to add except this: Clarity is care in a relationship.

Especially when money is involved, being clear and direct is one of the best ways you can care for your collaborators.

I also appreciated Sami’s point about paying attention when conversations become tense. That’s often an important signal.

For me, collaboration always starts with the person. I want to understand their values and know we’re aligned before we decide to work together.

And once we’ve made that decision—I love a contract.

Normally, I’m someone who wants applications to be as short as possible and paperwork to be minimal. But collaboration is different.

A good agreement says:

• Here’s the budget.
• Here’s when payment will happen.
• Here’s what I will do.
• Here’s what I need from you.
• And here’s how we’ll handle problems if they come up.

To me, that isn’t bureaucracy. It’s an expression of your values.

Dani Barlow:

Can I add one thing? Because this field is so relationship-driven, it’s easy to think, We’re friends. We don’t need an agreement.

You do.

Especially when something goes wrong. Without something in writing, you’re no longer talking about what was agreed upon—you’re navigating the emotions of your relationship.

I’ve had to ask people I trust completely to put agreements in writing. It’s not about distrust. It’s about making sure everyone shares the same expectations and protecting the relationship for the future.

Whether you’re collaborating as organizations or as individuals, having those conversations upfront makes it much easier to navigate challenges later.

Talia Corren:

I’d add one more layer. None of us can make these collaborations our full-time job, even if we’d like to.

We’re all balancing other responsibilities—our organizations, our personal lives, our families. Someone’s child gets sick. Someone has another production. Someone suddenly loses capacity.

That’s exactly why clarity matters.

Being specific at the beginning allows us to share responsibility in a way that’s human and realistic. It creates room for flexibility instead of forcing us to retrofit expectations after something has already gone wrong.

Otherwise, resentment starts to grow because we each assumed something different. We have to build collaborations that leave room for grace.

Collaboration in Practice

Emily Sproch:

I think this advice extends beyond work, too. My husband and I email each other our to-do lists. We literally write, “You said you’d do this, this, and this,” so everything is documented. It works surprisingly well.

It goes back to the dating analogy. Theater can be such an informal, relationship-driven field because everyone is friendly and collaborative—but that informality can become a trap if expectations aren’t clearly documented. We’ve talked about how collaborations begin. Now I’d love to hear about collaborations that have been especially successful within your organizations.

Randi, you mentioned the West Village Rehearsal Co-op earlier. Could you tell us how that came together?

Randi Berry:

That project is really a story about collaboration layered upon collaboration.

The West Village Rehearsal Co-op is a small rehearsal space in the Meatpacking District that IndieSpace operates through a 99-year lease for one dollar a year.

That partnership began with the local community board, which was negotiating with a developer going through the city’s ULURP process. Together, we worked to define what a lease would actually need to look like in order to be genuinely supportive of an arts organization.

We also partnered with the City Council to help ensure that the developer remained accountable throughout the process. Too often, arts organizations are included as a community benefit during development negotiations and then forgotten once construction is complete.

Eventually, the conversation turned to who should actually operate the space.

And what happened next is one of my favorite examples of how collaboration begins.

Organizations simply showed up because they were curious.

HERE Arts Center showed up.

Rattlestick Playwrights Theater showed up.

The New Ohio Theatre showed up.

Everyone was there because they wanted to learn what was possible.

Sometimes that’s how collaboration starts.

Talia Corren:

A few years ago, A.R.T./New York partnered with SeaChange Capital Partners, an incredible nonprofit that helps organizations strengthen their financial sustainability.

Historically, A.R.T./New York operated its own cash flow loan program. The mission was absolutely right. The implementation wasn’t. Being both a service provider and a debt collector isn’t a role that makes much sense. It’s uncomfortable, and it isn’t where our expertise is best used.

During the pandemic, Risa and I were both passionate about bringing the program back in a more sustainable way. The need hadn’t disappeared. Organizations still needed short-term cash flow—for Equity bonds, delayed DCLA payments, payroll, and all the other predictable challenges that nonprofits face.

By partnering with SeaChange, people began receiving loans much faster than we had ever been able to process them ourselves.

The program also became healthier. Loans were being repaid—often ahead of schedule—which meant the fund could replenish itself and continue serving the community.

For me, it’s a perfect example of understanding where your organization adds the most value.

The spirit of the program was exactly right. We were simply sitting in the wrong chair.

Finding the right partner allowed us to meet the need far more effectively. I think that’s a powerful lesson: knowing when something isn’t your lane—and recognizing when someone else is better positioned to do that work.

Emily Sproch:

That’s a wonderful example. Shout-out to SeaChange.

Sami Abu Shumays:

I’ll share a couple of examples.

At Flushing Town Hall, we recently completed a cultural mapping initiative across Queens. The project helped us identify and connect with many more artists and organizations throughout the borough.

Rather than hosting every meeting at Flushing Town Hall, we intentionally partnered with organizations across Queens.

If you’ve spent much time in Queens, you know it’s almost like ten different places. Public transit between neighborhoods isn’t always easy, and artists can become isolated from one another. So instead of asking everyone to come to us, we met people where they already were. We hosted town halls and artist gatherings at places like the Queens Museum and the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. Those collaborations were wonderfully straightforward. We’d say, “We’re bringing fifty artists. Can you host us?” And they’d say, “Absolutely—we’d love those artists to experience our space.” Everyone benefited.

Another example comes through the Latinx Arts Consortium of New York (LXNY). One of our fellow steering committee organizations, The Clemente, received a three-year grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for a project called Historias, exploring the stories of Latin American New Yorkers, artists, and cultural organizations. Because the consortium already existed, they had trusted partners throughout the city. Flushing Town Hall became one of the presenting partners, hosting several of our Global Mashup programs as part of the initiative.

In many ways, it was an ideal collaboration. They brought funding. We brought relationships, a venue, and programming. Together, we were able to reach communities across multiple boroughs. 

I also think it’s worth noting that funders often appreciate seeing thoughtful collaborations. When you approach a funder with partners already committed to a project, you’re demonstrating that the work has community support and shared investment. That can be a powerful way to launch a new initiative.

This section is where the panel moves from examples of successful collaboration into the realities of sustaining collaboration. I think it reads best as two distinct sections, and I’d recommend adding a new heading before Talia’s response. That gives readers a mental break and signals the shift from “what works” to “what can go wrong.”

I also found another standout quote from Talia that I think is one of the strongest in the transcript.

A Culture of Collaboration

Emily Sproch:

I won’t speak for all funders, but I do enjoy seeing collaborative projects.

At the end of the day, I think we’re all working toward the same goal: creating theater and supporting the arts.

One thing I’ve noticed, especially in Queens, is that the competition you sometimes feel among performing arts organizations seems much less pronounced. The organizations there really appear to operate as a community, from the smaller groups to the larger cultural institutions.

Sami Abu Shumays:

I think that’s true. Queens is incredibly diverse. Every neighborhood has its own communities, languages, artistic traditions, and cultural organizations. We have Korean dance organizations, Mexican folk artists, community-based cultural groups—you name it.

I’ve worked at Flushing Town Hall for fourteen years, and before that I was at Queens Council on the Arts. One thing I’ve consistently experienced is that Queens feels like a small world. Everyone has worked with one another at some point, and people genuinely know each other.

There’s a real sense of camaraderie—even among the borough’s largest cultural institutions, like the Museum of the Moving Image and the Queens Museum.

Part of that comes from scale. We don’t have an institution the size of Lincoln Center in Queens. Every organization needs something from someone else, so collaboration becomes a necessity.

It’s also part of the borough’s identity. Diversity and inclusion have always been part of the DNA of Queens organizations because that’s simply what serving Queens requires.

With more than 160 languages spoken across the borough, collaboration isn’t optional. If you want to reach communities effectively, you need to work with the organizations that already serve them. The nature of working in Queens naturally creates a collaborative culture.

Emily Sproch:

Dani, are there any partnerships you’re especially excited about?

Dani Barlow:

I’ve been in this role for less than a year, so I’m still learning a great deal about where Producer Hub can make the biggest impact.

One thing I’m especially committed to is not duplicating work.

If another organization is already doing something exceptionally well, I’d rather support them, amplify their work, or contribute resources than recreate it ourselves with fewer resources.

One example is Springboard for the Arts in Minneapolis. They organize a series of conversations throughout the year, and a number of fiscal sponsors across the country—including us—contribute funding so they can hire experts, produce the programming, and make it available to all of our communities.

That’s a wonderful model of collaboration.

Another example is YoungArts, which offers practical webinars on topics like personal finances, taxes, and other aspects of building a sustainable artistic career.

Those aren’t areas where we need to become experts ourselves.

Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is simply connect our community with excellent resources that already exist.

It’s a relatively small investment on our part, but it creates tremendous value for the people we serve.

I’m excited to keep building more partnerships like that over time.

Emily Sproch:

That’s a great point.

Avoiding duplication requires doing your homework—getting out of your office, attending events, and understanding what’s already happening across the field.

That actually brings us to the next question.

We’ve talked about successful collaborations. Even when partnerships are working well, what challenges should organizations be prepared for?

Navigating Challenges

Talia Corren:

Money.

Death.

Taxes.

Those are the inevitable things… although I realize that joke landed a little differently in my head.

But seriously, disruptions are inevitable.

I recently heard Brené Brown and Adam Grant talking about the idea of doing pre-mortems—having a conversation before beginning a project and imagining all the ways it could go wrong.

What happens if funding falls through?

What happens if priorities change?

What happens if circumstances shift halfway through the partnership?

Sometimes you can see those changes coming. Sometimes they happen overnight, and suddenly you’re playing with an entirely different deck of cards. That’s why it’s so important to be explicit about expectations from the very beginning.

We work in an incredibly precarious environment. There are countless things beyond our control, and even with the best intentions, people won’t always be able to follow through exactly as planned.

That can be especially difficult when you’re collaborating with people you genuinely care about. You find yourself thinking, “But we’re friends. I know we’re on the same page.” And yet the partnership still doesn’t unfold the way either of you hoped. Those moments require integrity. They require honesty. And they require grace.

The best collaborations don’t avoid disruption—they prepare for it.

Sami Abu Shumays:

I think about this through the lens of human resources.

Managing expectations within your own organization is already difficult. You’re supervising staff, setting expectations, giving feedback, and sometimes navigating conflict.

When you’re collaborating with another organization, you lose that direct line of accountability.

If something goes wrong on their side—a marketing deadline is missed or a production issue arises—you can’t simply manage that person the way you would someone on your own staff.

Everything has to happen through relationships.

That means communication becomes much more nuanced.

Even when you’ve documented responsibilities clearly, you’re suddenly coordinating multiple teams, each with their own priorities, workflows, and unforeseen circumstances.

Someone gets sick.

Someone forgets to pass along information.

A production manager can’t make it at the last minute.

None of those situations necessarily reflect bad intentions—they’re simply the realities of collaborative work. The devil really is in the details. You have to build enough flexibility to absorb those moments, extend grace when appropriate, and recognize that every additional partner adds another layer of complexity.

Sometimes you work through those challenges together.

Sometimes you finish the project and quietly decide it probably isn’t a partnership you’ll pursue again.

That’s part of collaboration, too.

Is Collaboration Worth the Effort?

Emily Sproch:

Collaboration takes time. It’s not fast. There are more voices at the table, more conversations, and more coordination.

Randi Berry:

Meetings.

Long meetings.

Emily Sproch:

Exactly. It requires patience.

Randi Berry:

Sometimes you have a meeting about the meeting.

Talia Corren:

I’m getting tired just talking about it.

Emily Sproch:

So here’s the real question: Is it worth it? Collaboration is always going to require more time. That’s simply part of the process.

The question is whether the outcome justifies the investment. I also love the idea of the pre-mortem because, after all, we work in theater. Something is going to go wrong. Something always goes wrong.

Talking honestly about those possibilities ahead of time takes a tremendous amount of pressure off because you’ve already imagined how you’ll respond when challenges arise.

Talia Corren:

It also means acknowledging that the success of the collaboration can’t depend on everyone having their very best day.

If pulling it off requires everyone to operate at a ten all the time, that’s a very fragile system.

Instead, we should build collaborations that can absorb the realities of life. Someone is late. The train is delayed. The LIRR goes on strike. Someone has an emergency. If the work can still be meaningful even when everyone isn’t operating at one hundred percent, that’s a much healthier collaboration.

Sami Abu Shumays:

Exactly. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is to build in redundancy. Build redundancy into your staffing. Build redundancy into your communication. Double-check details. Triple-check details.

Outside of Flushing Town Hall, I’m also a musician who produces my own events, and I’m absolutely the person who confirms every logistical detail multiple times.

“Are you sure the door person knows to be there at 7:15?”

“Are you sure they know it’s 7:15?”

I know I can be that person. But those extra check-ins create flexibility. When something inevitably changes, someone else can step in. Flexibility is key.

Partnerships stretch your capacity to adapt. They build your tolerance for uncertainty, change, and discomfort—and that’s a valuable skill well beyond collaboration itself.

Dreaming Bigger

Emily Sproch:

Let’s end with something a little more aspirational. I’d love for each of you to answer one of two questions.

What’s a collaboration you wish existed but hasn’t happened yet?

Or…

What’s an idea that’s so ambitious, so unconventional, that you’re almost afraid to say it out loud?

Dani Barlow:

Mine is actually a slightly different answer.

I wish we collaborated more outside our own field. We learn so much from one another, which is wonderful. But what could we learn from sports organizations? From chess? From other industries that regularly bring people together?

I think we spend a lot of time looking inward. I’d love to see us become more curious about what other sectors have already figured out and what lessons we might bring back into the arts.

Emily Sproch:

That reminds me of something Michael Bobbitt, the new Executive Director of Opera America, recently wrote.

He published a wonderful essay about looking beyond the opera field for inspiration—including industries like sports and even trucking.

It’s a powerful reminder that innovation often comes from outside our own bubble.

Randi Berry:

I have so many ideas. And honestly… I don’t think any of them are too ambitious. I think they’re all possible. 

I’d love to see organizations collaborate to provide portable health insurance and benefits for artists.

I’d love to see us purchase property together.

I’d love to see us share services—insurance, cleaning, purchasing—anything that lowers costs through collective action.

We already have a Nickel Per Ticket program inspired by Major League Baseball’s revenue-sharing model. Community members contribute five cents from every ticket sold, and 100% of those funds are regranted back into the community.

Now imagine if larger institutions—and especially Broadway—participated. If Broadway contributed just five cents per ticket, it would generate roughly $730,000 in a single year.

That could support guaranteed income programs, emergency assistance, or entirely new safety nets for artists.

All of those ideas are possible. They require coordination. They require resources. They require time.

I joke about meetings…But I’m only half joking. A small collaboration can take twenty meetings. A transformational collaboration takes many more. But I absolutely believe it’s worth it.

Talia Corren:

I agree with all of that. What’s striking is that none of these ideas are actually that radical. The challenge is that we’re often so busy responding to immediate needs that we rarely have the time or capacity to build the larger systems that would solve them.

As creatives—and especially as service providers—we have a lot of “see it, fix it” energy. That instinct is valuable, but it also keeps us focused on the urgent rather than the structural.

When A.R.T./New York was founded as the United Business Association (UBA) more than fifty years ago, its core concerns were space, labor, and skills. Fifty-four years later, they’re still space, labor, and skills. 

Portable benefits shouldn’t feel like a radical idea. Shared purchasing shouldn’t feel radical. These aren’t impossible dreams—they simply require a different kind of infrastructure and long-term thinking. That’s the work I’d love to see us build together.

Randi Berry:

We talk a lot about band-aids, casts, and cures.

A $500 mental health grant is wonderful. It also isn’t going to solve the mental health crisis facing artists.

Health insurance won’t solve everything either—but it would certainly help.

So we have to keep working on all three levels. We need band-aids for today’s emergencies. We need casts that stabilize people in the medium term. And we need to keep working toward the cure. Sometimes that means playing whack-a-mole in the meantime, making sure people don’t fall through the cracks while we’re trying to build something better.

Sami Abu Shumays:

My biggest dream is for collaborations that are truly artist-centered. I’m speaking both as an organizational leader and as a musician.

Too often, an artist’s relationship with an organization is transactional. They’re hired for a performance, the engagement ends, and everyone moves on.

Meanwhile, organizations collaborate with one another, but artists are left building new relationships from scratch every time they move to a different venue.

I’d love to see organizations work together to support artists’ long-term careers.

Imagine collaborative touring networks where an artist performs in Queens, then Brooklyn, then the Bronx, Staten Island, and Manhattan.

Or visual artists whose exhibitions move from one venue to another.

Instead of organizations collaborating only with one another, we’d be collaborating for the benefit of artists. That shift could fundamentally change how artists build sustainable careers.

Talia Corren:

That reminds me that artists already move across our institutions. Audiences do too. Our job is to make those experiences feel connected.

Whether someone attends a performance at The Bushwick Starr or Lincoln Center, or whether an artist works with organizations of different sizes, they should encounter the same sense of respect, accessibility, and care.

The goal isn’t for people to stay within one institution. The goal is for them to thrive across all of them.

Closing Reflections

Emily Sproch:

Before we open things up for questions, I’d like to ask one final question.

Have any of you experienced a collaboration that eventually became something more permanent—a merger, or perhaps a program that was absorbed into another organization? And if so, what did you learn from that process?

Randi Berry:

I’m not sure mine counts because Indie Theatre Fund merged into IndieSpace, and I happened to found both organizations.

Emily Sproch:

Who helped guide that merger?

Randi Berry:

SeaChange Capital Partners did, and they were wonderful. We also had support from several other organizations, but SeaChange was instrumental.

More broadly, I think mergers can be incredibly healthy. Sometimes two organizations have very similar missions, and the biggest obstacle isn’t logistics—it’s pride. There’s this feeling that closing one organization somehow represents failure. I don’t think that’s true. If merging allows resources, expertise, and capacity to be used more effectively, that’s a success.

So yes…

I’m very much in favor of consensual mergers.

Audience Q&A

Emily Sproch:

We have about ten minutes left, so let’s open it up for questions.

Audience Question

How do you build equitable partnerships when organizations come to the table with very different levels of funding, staffing, and capacity?

Sami Abu Shumays:

That’s a great question, and honestly, it starts the same way we’ve been talking about all afternoon—with transparency.

You have to acknowledge those differences from the very beginning.

When we partner with Carnegie Hall, for example, their programming department alone is larger than our entire staff.

That reality has to shape the collaboration.

Likewise, when we work with a small dance company that has one or two staff members, we know we’ll need to structure the partnership differently.

The key is recognizing everyone’s capacity, communicating openly about it, and extending grace where it’s needed.

Randi Berry:

I completely agree.Being explicit from the beginning is essential.

We’re currently partnering with a national service organization to expand our loan program, and in our very first meeting I said something that felt a little uncomfortable:

“We’d like to be on your radar with funders outside New York.”

That was one of our goals. I wanted our organization represented when they were talking with funders. I wanted our name associated with the work.

Being that direct wasn’t easy, but it made every conversation afterward much simpler because everyone understood what success looked like for both organizations.

Even when the collaboration evolves in unexpected ways, you always have that original agreement to come back to.

Talia Corren:

It’s also important to remember that bigger doesn’t always mean more capable. Larger organizations often move much more slowly. Think about the difference between a jet ski and the Staten Island Ferry. A smaller organization may have fewer resources, but it often has much greater agility. Sometimes that’s exactly what a larger partner needs.

So don’t underestimate the value of nimbleness. Understanding each partner’s appetite for risk, speed, and flexibility can be just as important as understanding their budget.

Emily Sproch:

I also think it’s important to recognize that every organization brings different strengths to a collaboration.

I was recently speaking with a theater company that couldn’t contribute much funding or staff time, but they brought deep relationships within their neighborhood. They knew the local shopkeepers, had connections to Materials for the Arts, and even had access to a truck.

Those kinds of assets can be just as valuable as financial resources.

Dani Barlow:

I’d encourage people not to downplay what they bring to a partnership. Whether you’re an individual artist or an organization, be honest about what you can realistically contribute.

Sometimes we start apologizing for what we can’t offer before we’ve even explained what we can. Different partners value different things. Transparency is much more helpful than trying to overpromise.

Simply saying, “Here’s what I can bring to this collaboration,” allows the other person to decide how that fits into the partnership.

Audience Question

How can the theater community work together to make accessibility—particularly ASL interpretation—more available and affordable for smaller organizations?

Randi Berry:

I want to highlight the work of ADAPTNY, a collaborative initiative that grew out of Culture@3.

They’re currently researching shared accessibility resources for smaller-budget organizations—everything from expanding access to ASL interpretation to creating shared equipment and lending libraries.

The project is led by disabled artists and advocates, and IndieSpace is proud to serve as its fiscal sponsor.

Ultimately, the goal is simple: How do we make accessibility achievable for every organization, regardless of budget?

I truly believe organizations want to provide these services. The challenge is that they’re expensive—and rightly so. These are highly skilled professionals. The question is how we can build systems that make those services sustainable and accessible for everyone.

Talia Corren:

That’s a great example of organizations working on different parts of the same challenge.

TDF, for example, does extraordinary work connecting with disabled audiences and supporting accessibility throughout the field.

We’ve been in conversation with them about creating more consistent expectations for both audiences and producers.

Ideally, audiences should know what accessibility they can expect when attending a performance, and organizations should have the tools, support, and resources to meet those expectations.

No single organization can solve every aspect of accessibility.

It’s a “yes, and” approach—multiple organizations working together on complementary pieces of the same challenge.

Audience Question

Are there conversations happening with Actors’ Equity about creating more flexibility for new play development?

Talia Corren:

Yes—absolutely.

For anyone who may not be familiar with the issue, the challenge is that the current Actors’ Equity contracts leave a significant gap between a 29-hour reading and a full Off-Broadway production.

A 29-hour reading can only accomplish so much. It isn’t always the best environment for developing new work, but many organizations also can’t afford full production contracts during the development process.

There are active conversations happening across the field—including among A.R.T./New York, the Off-Broadway League, the Dramatists Guild, independent producers, and others—to explore possible solutions.

Everyone shares the same goal: We want artists to be compensated fairly while also creating more opportunities to develop new work. 

Will that issue be solved this month?

No.

But meaningful conversations are happening.

Closing Remarks

Emily Sproch:

Thank you all for being here today.

It’s been wonderful to see so many people gather in person for this conversation.

Please join us afterward for the reception. If we didn’t get to your question today, I hope you’ll continue the conversation with our panelists.

I’d like to thank our panelists:

• Dani Barlow
• Talia Corren
• Randi Berry
• Sami Abu Shumays

I’d also like to thank our ASL interpreters, Stephanie, Lisa, Patricia, and Missy for captioning this conversation, as well as Signature Theatre for hosting us and A.R.T./New York for presenting this Community Forum.

Thank you all for joining us.