Creativity as an Asset with Ariel Fristoe

In this bonus episode of "Leading the Way" with Jill S. Robinson, the spotlight is on Ariel Fristoe, the Artistic Director of Out of Hand Theater, an Atlanta-based theater company renowned for its innovative integration of art, social justice, and civic engagement. The conversation delves into the origins, evolution, and significant impact of Out of Hand Theater since its inception in 2001. Ariel Fristoe shares insights into how the company has distinguished itself by focusing on social issues and working closely with community groups and experts, leading to a unique business model that monetizes artistic skills while addressing pressing societal challenges like racism, poverty, and violence. 

Significant milestones include the theater's recognition by the New York Times as the best theater of 2020 and the notable growth following this acclaim. Fristoe emphasizes the importance of collaborative programs with various organizations, detailing the expansion of their team and the ambitious vision driving their work. She provides advice to other performing arts organizations on achieving authenticity and broad community engagement by prioritizing partners' goals and focusing on local issues, which can unlock new audiences and sustainability for the arts. 

For additional resources and to sign up for the podcast newsletter, we invite you to visit our website at leadingthewaypodcast.com. 

Key Topics & Chapter Markers:     

  

• Introduction (00:00:04.010): Jill S. Robinson introduces Ariel Fristoe and talks about the achievements of Out of Hand Theater. 
• Founding of Out of Hand Theater (00:01:11.640 - 00:02:58.250): Ariel Fristoe shares how the theater was started in 2001 with a focus on social issues. 
• Business Model Changes (00:04:24.850 - 00:06:21.050): Ariel discusses how the theater evolved, especially in monetizing their work and focusing on combating racism, poverty, and violence. 
• Educational Impact (00:07:21.790 - 00:10:19.180): The impact on schools and communities through theater programs is highlighted. 
• Growth from Recognition (00:12:14.270 - 00:14:33.510): Ariel talks about the growth following recognition by the New York Times and others in 2020. 
• Collaborative Programs (00:15:08.450 - 00:15:35.390): All programs involve collaboration with various organizations, Ariel emphasizes. 
• Team Expansion (00:16:03.010 - 00:19:07.550): Details on how the team has grown since 2018, including their roles and the ambition driving them. 
• Team Satisfaction (00:20:40.590 - 00:21:11.260): Ariel reflects on the satisfaction with her team's work and their passion. 
• Future Goals (00:22:24.750 - End): Ariel discusses her vision for Out of Hand Theater to become national leaders in arts and community collaboration. 
• Advice to Arts Organizations (00:23:33.230 - 00:26:43.000): Ariel advises arts leaders on prioritizing partners' goals to gain authenticity and broader engagement. 
• Challenges in Theater (00:26:43.000 - 00:29:26.390): Ariel talks about the challenges in theater, especially around racial and equity issues, and suggests focusing on local issues to engage audiences. 
• Closing Thoughts (00:29:26.390 - 00:30:27.590): Jill thanks Ariel for the insightful discussion, highlighting the potential of art to improve communities 

  

Contact Info:    

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Creators & Guests

Host

Jill S. Robinson

CEO and Owner, TRG Arts

What is Leading the Way with Jill S. Robinson?

Leading the Way with Jill S. Robinson is a journey into the international arts and culture industry. Join Jill, a driving force in the sector who has counseled arts leaders for more than three decades, for conversations with some of the most insightful and daring minds leading the way to a resilient 21st century.

[00:00:04.010] - Jill S. Robinson

Positive, hopeful and inspired and out of hand artistic director of Atlanta based out of hand theater, Ariel Fristo and I talk about the enormous impact and success her theater company have had at the intersection of art, social justice and civic engagement. In our wide reaching conversation, you'll learn why the New York Times called out of hand the best theater of 2020, and Harvard Business School is doing a case study on the company as we speak. Could their techniques apply to your organization? That might indeed seem out of hand, but I don't think it is. Listen and learn why I'm grateful you've chosen to join me today. Ariel Fristeau I am so delighted that you have chosen to join me for TRG's leading the way podcast. As I've said to you, leading away is about inspiring leaders for change, and you are part of really positive change. Thank you for making the time.

[00:01:09.270] - Ariel Fristoe

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:11.640] - Jill S. Robinson

For my listeners, there's been plenty reported. But for my listeners, can you just tell us a little bit about how you started out of hand theater, which is a distinctly different kind of theater organization than the regional theater business model that we might all be familiar with and that's been regularly reported on during these pandemic times?

[00:01:35.810] - Ariel Fristoe

Yes, absolutely. So, yes, we started out of hand theater in 2001. My friends and I were in our mid 20s. We have gotten out of a theater program, and we looked around and wanted to start our own company. And even back then, 23 years ago, we realized that there were already plenty of really good theater companies in Atlanta. Atlanta did not need another theater company. We weren't going to be able to compete with them. So we decided from the get go that we would never even try, that we'd just figure out something different to do. And what we decided to do was only make work about the issues that were most important to us. And to do that in partnership with experts, with all of these really great nonprofits and community groups in Atlanta that are working on those issues. And from the very beginning to combine theater with other kinds of social interactions so that we could give people additional fun reasons to come to our shows. Also from the very beginning, that we would often not perform in traditional theater spaces. But we bring theater into spaces where it wasn't often happening and thereby to audiences who weren't necessarily attending all the wonderful theaters around us.

[00:02:58.250] - Ariel Fristoe

There's elements of what you're describing that I feel like arts and cultural organizations have worked over time to integrate into their traditional business model, sometimes successfully, but often not. And what you did was say, this is going to be the entirety of our programming, the entirety of our offer, and an operational kind of strategy. Why out of hand? The name out of hand.

[00:03:29.030] - Ariel Fristoe

Oh. So when I was 25 and too young to know better, my friends and I, who started out of hand theater together, we thought, let's make something that's so wild, so sort of out of the box, that it would never happen in any sort of regular theater. It's like it will get out of hand and it will be made out of the work of our hands. And then we've had that.

[00:03:54.090] - Jill S. Robinson

I love it. It reflects sort of a kinetic energy that it feels is part of the culture and reality of out of hand. So in between 2001 and 2020, were there points of growth, points of change? Because 2020 was a point, it was a threshold. Were there points that you can look back on and say, here's how we evolved over that almost 20 year period.

[00:04:24.850] - Ariel Fristoe

A couple of big things happened along the way. One to do with what issues we address, and one to do with our business model. So the business model one is, very early on, people started hiring us in small ways to use our skills as theater artists to do something for them. And we realized, oh, these are skills that you might be able to monetize. And then the other thing that happened is that in 2008, my husband and I built a home in the Martin Luther King Historic district here, right in the heart of downtown Atlanta. We just hadn't spent a lot of time in black neighborhoods or black schools, but we really wanted to invest in this neighborhood. And we decided to send our kids to the local elementary school, which is a school that's almost entirely black. And it turns out over 99% families living below the poverty line. And I'd never spent time in a school like that before. And I realized that despite feeling like I was a champion for social justice, I just hadn't spent time with people who looked and lived that differently before. And I realized that that's all it takes for people to care.

[00:05:41.940] - Ariel Fristoe

If you just can facilitate a way for people to have positive, meaningful interactions with people who look and live differently from them, they will know more, they'll care more, and they'll do more to help change those injustices. And then realized theater. Theater is the perfect way to do know what better way to facilitate those kind of interactions and conversations. So that really steered our work. And now all of our work is based on dismantling the barriers identified by Dr. King to creating a beloved community, which are racism, poverty, and violence.

[00:06:21.050] - Jill S. Robinson

The decision to invest in a neighborhood and then get there and see. And you described for me your children were in the public school system. And the sort of cognitive dissonance that came with your expectation about what schools would be provided and the resources that would be provided, and your realization that that is not at all equitably spread in our education system, as well as other kinds of observations and your commitment to be part of that community that inspired even some of this work without of hand, didn't it? I just want to spend another second or two there. It inspired you. You were already that person. Creativity can have an impact, but then it went to this impact.

[00:07:21.790] - Ariel Fristoe

Yeah, absolutely. For me, the most striking examples of just seeing what things were like at this school was that the copiers didn't have any paper in them. So teachers need to make worksheets all of the time, and each teacher would have to have their own stash of paper that they had bought in their classroom. And when they needed a worksheet, they had to carry a little stack of their own paper to the copier, make that worksheet, and then carry the rest of the paper back to the classroom. And I just thought, and these incredible teachers with just such sunny dispositions and positive outlooks and so much energy doing this amazing work. This public school, Hope Hill elementary, is literally on the grounds of the King center. How could it be that in 2009 or 2010, this could happen? And there are two predominantly white public schools within a three mile radius that lots of my friends kids go to? Those two schools each have PTA budgets that are well over $100,000, that provide field trips and equipment and arts education. You pay for arts teachers at those schools, and this school had it. Their PTA budget for the entire year was $400 by anything.

[00:08:44.410] - Ariel Fristoe

And so I thought, this is. How did I not know this before? And now that I do know it, what can I do about it? So my first thought was, well, I can write some grants for them. I know how to write grants. So I asked them if I could do that. They said yes. And then I thought, gosh, I wonder if there'd be any benefit to them, to an after school theater class for kids. I'm not going to teach it. I am not a good teacher, but I know great teachers who I can hire. And so I went to them and said, would this be of interest to you? And they said, yes, please. So I met with some local officials and principals and said what would be useful, and what they said, particularly the elected officials, is these students need 21st century workforce skills that there isn't a class for in middle school or high school. They need better collaboration skills. They need confidence. Employers are looking for creativity, and they need better communication skills to get good jobs and then to succeed in the workplace. And I realized theater is a perfect vehicle for developing those skills.

[00:09:49.800] - Ariel Fristoe

What do you need to make theater? Creativity, communication, collaboration, and confidence. And so we built creative kids, our kids program, first at that school, to teach after school theater classes, but through a lens of those workplace skills. And we now serve five underresourced public schools with year long after school programs. And in fact, at one of them, we actually supply a drama teacher during the day. And so the students actually get to take drama as part of their regular classes.

[00:10:19.180] - Jill S. Robinson

Seems to me that what you've developed is a business model around a just cause. So I think you've said it already, but just in this container, how would you describe the just cause of theater and creativity for out of hand theater?

[00:10:41.630] - Ariel Fristoe

Our goal is to use the tools of theater to help dismantle racism, poverty, and violence. And the way that we see that theater can do that is by helping to advance understanding, empathy, and action around those issues for us. That's why we've developed the program model that we have the kind of recipe for our work, which is art plus information plus conversation equals social change. So the art is crucial. The art is what engages people's emotions and gives them a story to attach to and makes the message sticky. It's what opens hearts. But we don't want people to ever think that it's just a story or that it's just one person's experience. We want to give you a little bit of data, too, give you the numbers that are not reaching people in the way that we'd like to, but to back up the story with the data. So here's what this social justice issue looks like, in numbers or in data. But then we also want to invite people, while they're in the room with the facts and their feelings, to process that and make a plan for action. And that's what the conversation is for.

[00:11:59.370] - Ariel Fristoe

So that we don't just spark conversations, we actually facilitate those conversations. We don't just start them, we finish them. And in that way, we make the most full use that we can out of the art that we produce.

[00:12:14.270] - Jill S. Robinson

You have these zoom monthly equitable dinners, and then all of a sudden, you have to grow your capacity to deliver on them. So how quickly did things change organizationally, budget wise, during the 2020 and maybe 2021 kind of time frame?

[00:12:37.210] - Ariel Fristoe

Theater critic Jesse Green had come to Atlanta in February of 2020, right before the shutdown, although, of course, none of us knew that at that time. And I had a lovely dinner with him, and he wrote an article. There was this window during which the Times was sending theater critics to other cities to cover theater in those cities. He wrote an article on Atlanta, and then he remembered us. So then, when there was no live theater during the shutdown, he came back of his own accord and came to one of these monthly equitable dinners online programs and wrote a beautiful review of it, and then put us on the best theater of 2020 list at the end of 2020, which really changed our lives. In 2020, as this was happening, Coca Cola, who we had partnered with before, came back and said, we'd like you to make. It was like, you've got three weeks, and we want six evenings of online programming in a row, but we'll pay you $100,000 to do it. And we were like, well, for us at this point, $100,000 is a lot of money, so we can't know. And nobody's got work right now.

[00:13:45.080] - Ariel Fristoe

Everybody's on hiatus. And you want to pay us $100,000? Yes, we will stay up all night if that's what we have to do, and we'll figure it out. And then the Silicon Valley Community foundation sent us an unsolicited gift for $50,000. And then it kept going like that. It was like we were in the right place at the right time in that we had already focused our work on racial justice before the pandemic and had a format of these short, direct address monologs that worked better on Zoom than almost anything else. And so suddenly in 2020, it seemed like everybody turned towards us and said, we are going to either send you a check or we want to hire you.

[00:14:33.510] - Jill S. Robinson

This idea that creativity is an asset that can be utilized in a variety of use cases is so intriguing. And I am curious about how much of your current day revenues or staffing or creative energy is spent in community partnerships. Now that we're in 23, 24, is it still a crucial part?

[00:15:08.450] - Ariel Fristoe

100% is african does not produce any programs at all that are not collaborations. So every single one of our programs is a collaboration with one or more businesses, nonprofits, schools, or government agencies. Our shows and homes are our only ticketed program, so ticket sales make up an incredibly small portion of our income. But even those are collaborations.

[00:15:35.390] - Jill S. Robinson

Okay, so now, today, your staff, it's how big it's comprised of what kind of departments and types of activities fuel these kinds of experiences. Like you say, we don't just start the conversation, we facilitate it and finish it. There must be skill and expertise that are on your staff now. So just describe that for me.

[00:16:03.010] - Ariel Fristoe

Absolutely. So we went from in 2018 having a staff of one full time, three part time to now having staff of eight full time, five part time, year round contractors. So I'm the artistic director. We have a managing director and Adria, as our director of equity and activism. She is in charge of crafting the equitable dinners programs and our institute for equity activism and of hiring and training all of our facilitators of our events, including equitable dinners, have a trained facilitator at every table who walks you through that conversation.

[00:16:46.170] - Jill S. Robinson

Yeah. Okay. And do you have what I would call more traditional staff focus areas?

[00:16:53.010] - Ariel Fristoe

I oversee the work of our associate artistic director, Nikki Young, who works on a day to day basis with our playwrights, directors and actors. And she also leads creative kids and works with our teachers and the school. So she's got a lot to wait. And then I oversee our communications manager, Christy, who is in charge of both fundraising and marketing. But she is assisted by a part time grant writer and a part time social media manager. Then our managing director oversees our operations manager and our programs associates who are crucial in actually producing all of our programs on a weekly basis because we don't run a venue. But we have programs happening in all of buckets of programming all of the time. And so just the logistics of that and just the contracting and payroll of that is a big part of their job.

[00:17:52.310] - Jill S. Robinson

Completely small, but mighty small, but high impact. How would you describe the consistent elements of the team of people who, with you, are driving these conversations? Who are you as a group of people? What are some words you'd put on.

[00:18:10.830] - Ariel Fristoe

Terribly ambitious, big dreamers? I regularly hear, and sometimes I get taken aback. I regularly hear my partners and my colleagues say, we could do better. We should be serving twice as many people. And sometimes I want to go, wait a minute. Don't you know how much we're like, how many programs we do? Considering our size, it's enormous. What we do, just, our education program is we serve 250 students with 350 free classes at five schools, some nonprofit arts organizations. That's half of what they do or all of what they do. And my partners will look at me and say, I think we should double that. I don't think we're doing as much as we could to serve Georgia's kids. So highly ambitious, big dreamers.

[00:19:07.550] - Jill S. Robinson

How do you recruit for highly ambitious big dreamers?

[00:19:11.310] - Ariel Fristoe

They seem to get referred to me, which is so wonderful. So they come into the fold by meeting them at a random event or by a friend of a friend who somebody thinks I should know, and I meet somebody and go, oh, yeah, you're it. You are out of hand. Well, there it is.

[00:19:34.340] - Jill S. Robinson

You are out of hand. I go here because one of the major issues that the field has been reckoning with and reconciling is staffing. And I regularly hear from the field and had some data behind it when we were doing workshops. How satisfied are you with the output of your team? How do you feel about your senior team compared to the broader team? And if I were to aggregate everything that I know, I'd say that most leaders feel like they'd give their teams a b plus because there's been so much transition, there's so many new people, all the things that we've read and heard about, and yet eight people and five contractors delivering across these four categories of programming, and now you're back up to five public schools. I hear that it's quite something.

[00:20:40.590] - Ariel Fristoe

I think it goes back to what you said about the just cause that people come to work excited at out of hand. And of course, we have bad days, we have conflict. Sometimes it's not all sunshine and roses, but I think that people are driven because they are passionate about our just cause, and they know that we mean it. And they're also, many of them, artists and are also really excited to get to use their skills as theater makers in service to this cause.

[00:21:11.260] - Jill S. Robinson

Of course, during the pandemic time, I said, please, everyone, let's think 2030. And the more research that I've done and conversations I've had, the more futurists I've read, the more I'm convinced that 2030 has been here for we're already in it. So much change has happened to us personally and in our communities that we've got to catapult beyond the now and really think about the transformations and disruptions that are going to take us. And by us, I mean creativity. And ensuring that creativity is seen as essential and is woven into the fabric of our communities because we believe and know that it makes people better, makes communities better, helps enable. So as you think about 2040 for out of hand, what does that cause you to think about when I ask that question?

[00:22:24.750] - Ariel Fristoe

So our first goal in our last strategic plan was to be recognized as national leaders in arts and social justice collaborations. And I'm happy to say I think we're there. But when I look ahead to 2040, I want us to be widely known, well known national leaders in community collaborations in the arts. I think there's a lot we can do on a national scale that we have not yet been able to do with, mostly focusing on Atlanta. I think that we have a role to play in helping other arts organizations develop revenue generating collaborations to address local issues in their communities that do not have to be social justice issues. Every community has issues it's grappling with, and theater and I think even other performing and visual arts can be part of the solutions.

[00:23:33.230] - Jill S. Robinson

I could not agree more, but I'm glad to hear you say maybe the model that we've developed in and for Atlanta could be something that would be of relevance to other performing arts organizations nationally. I can see that. And I'm curious about if you were in a room right now with a group of 100 chief execs of let's just imagine any type of performing arts organization. Let's just broaden it beyond theater for a minute. And you know, what it took to be successful over these, now many years in advancing these ideas and making them happen. What would you say to those group of hundred? What are the requirements for an organization to be able to do this kind.

[00:24:31.030] - Ariel Fristoe

Of work, to be willing to put your partner's goals first? And that may sound contradictory to the very important goals that you have and that you need to work for, for your own organization. But there's a reason why it will work out for you, I believe, and why it's the best advice to follow. If you truly use your skills as an artist or arts leader to use your craft, the craft that you know, to serve a partner organization's goals, first of all, they will see that you will come across as authentic to them and to their constituents, and that can help you be a trusted leader in your community. So that people will come because they're interested in the issue or they are interested in the partner organization, and not just because they're interested in your art. And suddenly it multiplies the number of audience members who will engage with you. Audiences are savvy, and a lot of times they can tell if you programmed something and then you produced it, and then you invited a partner organization who seemed to be kind of aligned to come in and give a talk back. That is a very different experience for them than if you went in and said, how can I use my tools to be of service to you?

[00:26:01.810] - Ariel Fristoe

And I think there's something in that authenticity that attracts audiences and donors and clients. And what we found is that if you put your partner's goals first. Then government agencies and businesses and nonprofits and schools will pay you for your art. If you can truly make art that serves their goals. And that doesn't mean poor quality art. In fact, the quality is incredibly important because no partner organization's goals are going to be furthered by mediocre and certainly not by poor quality art. It has to be good in order to fulfill your partner's goals.

[00:26:43.000] - Jill S. Robinson

I'm curious. I know you've thought about it, your take on the regional theater realities today. And if you were within this room of metaphorical 100 ceos, I wonder what you'd say, pay attention to or remember that as we go to 24 and beyond, I wonder if you could synthesize some realities and aspirational thoughts for this field.

[00:27:15.280] - Ariel Fristoe

Yeah, I know that there are a lot of theaters that are struggling right now. I think that the theater sector engaged in a really serious racial reckoning during the shutdown in a way that not all sectors did. And when we reopened, so many theaters were fired up, or at least ready to try to take a meaningful stance and address racial equity and other equity issues through their programming and their operations. And they weren't always able to bring their audiences along on that journey with them, to be ready for that in the way that they were. And so it is not surprising to me when I hear stories of audience members saying, listen, I'm just looking to escape all the terrible things that are happening in the world. When I go to the theater, I just want to be entertained and I want theater to be able to give them that. But what I fear is that aside from the holiday shows that we love to do every winter, that there aren't enough people who will regularly choose theater as an entertainment option to sustain our field. So what I want to help do is to help other arts leaders find new reasons for new audiences, to brave the traffic and the weather and to pay for the tickets and the parking and the child care to come to these live arts experiences that we love.

[00:29:00.960] - Ariel Fristoe

And I think that one of the best ways to do that is to make art about local issues. They don't have to be social justice issues. Every community struggles with issues that the arts can help with and that can unlock new audiences and new earned income streams, and new grants and new donations.

[00:29:26.390] - Jill S. Robinson

Art and creativity at work it's art and creativity at work. And we all want, in this room, this metaphorical room of future and current listeners, we all want to tap creativity to make our communities better, and it will require new ways of thinking that I am confident. It's why I'm so excited. I was so excited for this conversation because your passion about it and your direct experience and belief resulting from that that it can be different, that infusing, breathing that into the sector is something that you helped accomplish today for certain. Thank you for taking time with me. I couldn't be more pleased to have had this time with you.

[00:30:22.700] - Ariel Fristoe

Thank you so much Jill. It was such a pleasure.

[00:30:27.590] - TRG Arts

That's all for this episode of leading the way with Gilles Robinson, brought to you by TRG Arts. Thanks for listening and believing that insightful, daring and innovative leadership is the way to a more resilient future for the arts and cultural industry. Make sure to subscribe to leading the way on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And if you found this episode helpful, please rate and review the show for additional resources. And to sign up for the podcast newsletter, we invite you to visit our leadingthewaypodcast.com.