Adrianna Desier Durantt. (Picture by Todd Rosenberg)
“I’ve all the time had that in me—that unusual curiosity about the way it all works,” mentioned Adrianna Desier Durantt, the newly appointed managing director of Chicago’s Raven Theatre Firm.
Traces of that curiosity are scattered all through Durantt’s diversified historical past with the humanities. Coming from a household that features a jazz drummer and a Beat poet, Durantt grew up in New York Metropolis surrounded by music, artwork, and “the pure observe of remark, vital considering, and inspiration,” as she put it. She dabbled across the theatre area, attempting her hand as a pit musician (which she credit for her curiosity in musicals), in addition to taking alternatives to strive stage administration and design. She finally attended Ithaca School, the place she acquired her BFA in theatrical manufacturing, after which studied stage design at NYU Tisch’s Design for Stage and Movie MFA Program.
The extra Durantt studied, the extra she discovered herself drawn to be taught much more elements of the theatre world, together with arts administration and producing. She fed her curiosity with the ins and outs of budgets, contracts, the whys and hows of theatre spending, and the way that spending displays an organization’s values. Whereas at NYU, Durantt additionally studied innovation and entrepreneurship, an expertise Durantt mentioned blew her thoughts. Maybe this was a touch at how her profession would take her artistic and enterprise abilities far past the theatre world earlier than lastly bringing her again residence.
“It’s the identical muscle, to be trustworthy,” mentioned Durantt. “It’s all curiosity and desirous to serve one thing greater than myself.”
Durantt’s profession has seen her turn into the founding associate and producing government director of PARA.MAR Dance Theatre, a member of the manufacturing staff for Hubbard Road Dance Chicago, and a model and communication strategist for Chicago corporations like 2nd Story, CURE Epilepsy, BPI Chicago, in addition to Northwestern’s theatre MFA program. It’s a profession that additionally noticed her work on campaigns for Teen Vogue, West Elm, Nike, and Pepsi.
“I’ve all the time been interested by what different industries are doing that the humanities can glean,” mentioned Durantt, who additionally labored with Steppenwolf throughout its most up-to-date management transition and campus enlargement. “How can we begin speaking to one another? Everybody’s so siloed. How can all of us have the identical conversations, breathe the identical air, and join?”
As she joins Raven’s management staff alongside inventive director Sarah Slight, Durantt mentioned she desires to be in a spot the place she will be able to most profit the expansion and success of a company. In a dialog earlier this month, Durantt talked about becoming a member of her neighborhood theatre firm, what might be transferred from her experiences in different industries, and what challenges nonetheless await her theatre because it prepares for its subsequent chapter of progress. This follows a chapter of restoration: The theatre’s 2021 price range was round $404,000, and final yr’s was round $789,000, which is eventually nearer to its pre-pandemic price range ranges. The next dialog has been edited for size and readability.
JERALD RAYMOND PIERCE: What made becoming a member of Raven really feel like the appropriate subsequent step for you?
ADRIANNA DESIER DURANTT: I dwell three blocks away from the Raven, which is wonderful. My husband’s a set designer. He teaches at Northwestern. We moved right here nearly 10 years in the past, have solely been blocks from the Raven, and have had such curiosity about it. It’s such a robust presence within the neighborhood. We’re fairly far north, they usually’ve compelled some actually wonderful administrators and new writers to come back actually far north. I’m like, Properly, what’s occurring over there? That’s actually fascinating.
I received to understand it as an artist, as an arts lover, as an arts group member, after which simply plain previous group member with children who go to high school within the neighborhood, with mates who ship their children to the theatre for camps. I used to be like, I’ve a sense that the extra I learn about this place, the extra I’ll have the power to assist it, particularly in a time for the business that’s difficult, how I may very well be part of making that theatre a real group house, and by doing that, have an opportunity to speak the worth and the miracle of theatre and the way it adjustments lives. I’ve had the nice fortune and profit of getting my life modified by being in a room with individuals sharing a narrative with me.
To have the ability to be part of that, of offering a house to that, in partnership with Sarah, who’s wonderful and good and rigorous and considerate and caring, and a mother additionally—when she requested me to contemplate the place, it appeared prefer it may very well be one thing actually particular, and I believe it is going to be. There are such a lot of good bones in that theatre and a lot good historical past and good will locally that individuals need it to achieve success. I really feel prefer it’s a great second for a brand new chapter on the theatre.
I’ve spent quite a lot of years in Chicago, residing within the Edgewater neighborhood myself, visiting Raven on quite a few events. Even previous to Sarah’s arrival, it felt like Raven was able to take the subsequent step. In 2021 the corporate formally turned an Fairness theatre. I do know you’ve labored with Steppenwolf by way of its management transition and campus enlargement, so, as you have a look at Raven, now in its fortieth yr, what does this subsequent chapter appear to be? Are you seeing this as a brand new interval of progress?
I believe so, I do. I additionally assume it’s a time to actually hunker down and make clear the id and the brand new imaginative and prescient in gentle of all of the adjustments which have taken place, in gentle of the expectation and pleasure from the group, and reimagine what group means. A few of the methods we’ve been serious about it’s as an impressed cause to attach, a vacation spot for group, actually attempting to hone in on investigating the present mission and what’s nonetheless true from when it was created. What’s integral to the theatremaking that occurs there? It would all the time have basic programming, it should all the time have modern programming. How will we make it replicate the values, questions, and aspirations of our time in a method that’s impressed? It has two wonderful areas that we hope can have extra life in there, whether or not it’s our personal programming, resident corporations, leases. There’s plenty of enhancements, I believe, to be investigated, with new lighting and a brand new foyer expertise, and a brand new model improvement maybe.
Honing in on refine the mission and the imaginative and prescient for this subsequent chapter goes to be the laborious work, after which what it seems to be like and looks like goes to be hopefully much less laborious as a result of we all know precisely what route we’re going. It’s an ideal group to check some new concepts and ideas and fashions and create an area the place individuals need to be.
You’ve frolicked working with some massive title manufacturers, like Teen Vogue, Nike, and Pepsi. What did you be taught out of your time working in that sector that will assist Raven and its group?
Properly, it’s fascinating, as a result of my first impulse is to say, really, they be taught extra from us. They be taught extra from artists serving to them distill their imaginative and prescient and create an setting for connection. Whether or not that’s branding, whether or not that’s an expertise, actually, it’s about individuals, group as part of a market that you’re attempting to draw. Raven has a built-in group, and I believe there’s plenty of alternative for progress there. However what I did love and do love nonetheless about a few of these greater manufacturers and experiential work—it’s quick. It will get to the crux of what’s essential actually quick, as a result of they’re going to spend some huge cash actually quick they usually can’t afford for it to fail. What I additionally love concerning the theatre is how a lot time it takes to tease out the dramaturgy of, “Oh, however what does that one phrase imply?”
However I believe they’re very related muscular tissues, I actually do. If you already know what your providing is, what your assertion of goal is, then you already know the scope of labor needed to provide it. I want the theatre had as a lot cash as a few of these greater manufacturers. We’re attempting to get there. However I believe that that communication of worth, which requires funding, which requires actual expertise to be part of speaking the worth of the providing, of dwell efficiency, a considerably intangible factor—I believe as quickly as we’re in a position to determine that out, it’ll simply be gangbusters, as they are saying.
Is there a secret to bringing these giant manufacturers, giant corporations on board to sponsor or work with theatres, to assist bridge that financial hole between what these giant corporations can afford and what theatres can afford?
I don’t know that it’s a secret, and I don’t know that I do know. What I might advocate, and what I do from a producing standpoint, is attempt to discover the widespread floor—attempt to discover what it’s that now we have to supply that they’d profit from. Once I was at Hubbard Road, there was a avenue staff on the Lincoln Park Zoo for KIND Bars. I used to be like, “Who’s your advertising area staff lead?” and needed to attempt to join with them. Then I used to be in a position to inform the story of, “Hey, now we have summer season camps at Hubbard Road for six weeks at a time, and these children are hungry. Do you may have any additional product readily available that you just’d be keen to donate?” That turns into an in-kind contribution. However then you definately see the model of KIND Bars, and if you’re a donor who’s married to somebody who’s additionally in shopper items, you might be like, “Oh, they’re aligned with this firm; that communicates to me an extension of their values, and possibly we may very well be useful not directly.” The extra belief that’s created round these manufacturers leaning into your work, regardless that it’s a creative, intangible factor—that belief begins to assist different individuals need to be concerned, compel them to be extra concerned.
We’re all individuals; we simply occur to have chosen completely different paths that come from completely different experiences. In case you may share the providing in a method that communicates worth—versus, “You get this for that, I get this for this,” creating an expertise round it—I believe that may very well be an honest method to consider that sort of technique. It’s actually connecting.
What’s the largest problem you see nonetheless dealing with theatres?
Actually funding is difficult. There’s lots that’s not as predictable because it was once: the place funding priorities are, how subscriber fashions work, how behaviors are altering. That’s a standalone drawback, however it may be influenced by what I establish as the larger problem: the communication of the worth of an intangible artwork type in a method that doesn’t simply feed itself, however that feeds individuals outdoors the theatre group. As soon as we’re in a position to thread that needle, we’ll have the ability to extra successfully compel individuals to pay for the providing or to spend money on the providing. That’s how I give it some thought.
It’s like, “Oh, I do know this factor might be so cool. I do know that you’ll assume it’s so cool. How can we join? How can I persuade you?” It’s only a matter of making a group keen to take the danger of it being dangerous, frankly, however possibly altering your life. Hopefully, it sways extra on the facet of constant life-changing experiences, however you’ve received to construct in that danger tolerance.
Jerald Raymond Pierce (he/him) is the Chicago Editor for American Theatre. jpierce@tcg.org
Associated
