Lack of a system breeds more of the same: Source Theater, Washington DC, up for sale 2006, 2024

 A lot of my thinking about arts revitalization and more generally as an element of a community's culture was influenced by the failure of a bunch of DC arts organizations around 2003-2006.  

The Source Theater was one of the failures ("Debt-Ridden Source Theatre Closes, Plans to Sell Building," "Source Theatre's Last Act: Building To Be Arts Center," Washington Post, 2006).

The actual Source Theater group disbanded, and with the purchase by Cultural Development Corporation later in 2006, the building was retained for use by cultural groups, more as a rental facility.

Ironically, the building has been put up for sale again, 18 years later ("Small D.C. theater companies have a challenge: Finding theaters The stalwart Source Theater is up for sale, shining a spotlight on the issues many under-the-radar companies face in post-lockdown Washington," Washington Post).  From the Post:

... the Source Theatre, an intimate 120-seat stage at 14th and T streets NW that has served audiences for nearly 50 years, is up for sale — a turn of events that has arts leaders pointing the finger at both city leaders and one another. 

“Since the pandemic, the arts community, specifically the theater community, has not bounced back,” says Kristi Maiselman, executive director and curator for the arts nonprofit CulturalDC, which owns the Source. “If the city wants arts spaces, they have to find a way to support them in this landscape.”

With audiences not yet returning at pre-pandemic levels, many small theaters are turning to the city government for support. And the D.C. government spends more on the arts per capita than any state. But it isn’t just small companies asking for help, which makes a race for resources that much tighter.

Gosh, I've been saying that for almost 20 years.

Also see "“Free Our Source”: Theatre Washington Calls on CulturalDC to Keep Source Theatre a Theater," (Washington City Paper).  The discusses how the Theatre Alliance of Washington has called on the property owner to sell Source Theater to them or a similar organization.

The failure to think about those failures in terms of rethinking the local arts ecosystem as a network led to pieces such as:

-- "More on (DC's) Cultural Infrastructure," 2009 
-- "Building the arts and culture ecosystem in DC: Part One, sustained efforts vs. one-off or short term initiatives," 2015
-- "The song remains the same: DC's continued failures in cultural planning as evidenced by failures with Bohemian Caverns, Howard Theatre, Union Arts, Takoma Theatre...," 2016

-- about discipline-focused approaches to the creation of arts districts and arts presentation:

-- "Reprinting with a slight update, 'Arts, culture districts and revitalization'," 2009/2019

and what I would do were I given the task of creating in DC a robust local arts ecosystem--as opposed to the federal arts institutions "given to" and within DC such as the Smithsonian Museums, National Gallery of Art, Kennedy Center, US Botanic Garden, etc.

-- "What would be a "Transformational Projects Action Plan" for DC's cultural ecosystem," 2019

DC spends a lot of money on the arts, but it doesn't protect its interests very well, especially because it's not interested in managing and owning property.  Ultimately owning facilities is key to protect the city's interest.

This piece, "Cultural resources planning in DC: In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" (2007) on the failures of organizations back in 2003-2006,  includes an extract from a memo from 2006 on how DC should organize cultural planning and presentation  that I wrote for use in a board planning exercise by the then reorganizing Historical Society.  From that memo:

Proposals/Recommendations

1. That DC develop a comprehensive cultural development, management, and funding plan, setting priorities for the development, harvesting, and funding of cultural resources assets;

2. And consider the development of an allied tourism management and development plan, either separately or within the same framework;

3. create a comprehensive Cultural Resources Management office, likely merging a variety of programs and assets currently spread around various agencies

4. Provide funding, both for capital improvements and operations, that that also considers providing significant ongoing funding to cultural resources deemed important.

5. Develop an open and transparent grant process.

I guess I should have added to the list, the thread about arts facilities being owned by a city, county, or community development corporation as a portfolio, the series Buy the Mother Fucking Buildings Already: 

-- "BTMFBA: the best way to ward off artist or retail displacement is to buy the building," 2016

-- "BTMFBA: maintaining arts spaces in the face of rising real estate values | Seattle, New York City," 2024
-- "New form of BTMFBA in San Francisco," 2023
-- "A wrinkle on BTMFBA: let the city/county own the cultural facility, while you operate it (San Francisco and the Fillmore Heritage Center)," 2021
-- "BTMFBA: Baltimore and the Area 405 Studio," 2021
-- "Revisiting stories: cultural planning and the need for arts-based community development corporations as real estate operators," 2018
-- "When BTMFBA isn't enough: keeping civic assets public through cy pres review," 2016
-- "BMFBTA revisited: nonprofits and facilities planning and acquisition," 2016
-- "BTMFBA: artists and Los Angeles," 2017
-- "BTMFBA Chronicles: Seattle coffee shop raises money to buy its building," 2018
-- "Dateline Los Angeles: BTMFBA & Transformational Projects Action Planning & arts-related community development corporation as an implementation mechanism to own property," 2018