What is the role of the Theatre Outreach Worker?

Question

What is the role of the Theatre Outreach Worker?

Answer 1

In the theatre I used to work in, the outreach director worked to make connections with local schools, community groups, etc. She'd try to get school groups to come to special school performances for field trips during the season or arrange for shows with ASL translators to sign the play live for hearing impaired.  There were lots of other random theater education projects that fell to the Outreach director too (for example, birthday parties for kiddies with activities related to the company's current play, which the kids would view at the end of the party).

Most often, she collaborated with teachers at schools (or out-of-school child care organizations) to bring theater artists into their classroom, either to perform or, more likely, to work with the class on a special project/performance that usually incorporated theater arts with state required curriculum.  The theater educators would go to the school once every week or two over the course of a school quarter to work with the kids for an hour.  

So an Outreach WORKER may be one of those people that go into a classroom to teach improv or stage make-up or stage combat, or leading theater games and making funny pirate birthday hats before leading a bunch of squirrel-y 5-year-old kids into a production of "Peter Pan."  Or performing at a community center or nursing home for a group of senior citizens who can't travel to the theater, but have money to bring a group in.

Some organizations also use the term Outreach when the work actually falls under the category of Development/Fund raising.  In which case, you might be calling donors, visiting local businesses to persuade them to donate lumber for sets or food for concessions, or trying to convince people to buy ad space in a production's program.  But Outreach really has to do with taking theater off the typical stage and into the community.

That's my stab at an answer.  Know that I worked at a theatre that specialized in theater education for kids, offering kids classes in musical theater, improv, technical theater, and play- writing, while producing plays acted by actors 18 and under, for audiences of all ages.  So it might mean something very different in a regular (or not so regular) "adult" theatre.