We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Adam Friedman, of the Atlanta Green Theatre Alliance. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Adam below.

Adam, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

When we first started the Atlanta Green Theatre Alliance in early 2020, we had grand, big-picture designs about what we would do – LEED-like certifications for theatrical productions, a shared assets platform for theaters in Atlanta, a membership model for theaters throughout Atlanta.

…We still want to do all of those things, of course, but we’ve found incredible connection and impact in our smaller, community-scale projects. The Shed, which AGTA is primarily known for, is one great example, where we take discarded materials from visual artists and stage productions and provide a location from which community members can make use of them. We’ve gotten a lot of folks from a wide variety of fields – urban agriculture, high schools, mutual aid groups – that I don’t think I would have expected when we first started working with South River Art Studios.

But even beyond The Shed, we have our Winter Drive, during which we collect costume pieces, concessions, and scrap wood from the theater community and work with The Mad Housers to redistribute them to unhoused members of the community, and our School Delivery Program, where we take salvaged set pieces to Atlanta-area high schools. Through all of these programs, we’ve not only been able to see the direct outcome of our community coming together, but also to connnect with other organizations in Atlanta that are doing crucial work in a unique way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

The Atlanta Green Theatre Alliance started in January 2020 as a collaboration between Malina Rodriguez, Lydia Fort, Nadia Reichmann, and myself. We came from a broad range of theatrical and scientific disciplines – carpentry, directing, scenic painting, producing, among others – but we all had developed a mounting level of concern about the potential amount of scrap generated by our own work.

Well, obviously the major world event that occurred in March 2020 changed everyone’s plans pretty quickly. While not making light of the pandemic, the shutdowns forced theater and other arts organizations to reassess how we make theater. With this opportunity, we hit the ground running with a community-wide sustainability survey that we still use to inform our programming.

Initially starting as a chapter of the Broadway Green Alliance, we still practice that belief that “progress comes from millions of us doing a bit better each day.” We have three main programs, each community-based and focused on tangible improvements. The AGTA Shed is a collaboration with South River Art Studios, providing a location where people can collect materials salvaged from productions and art installations to give them new life. Our School Delivery Program connects theaters and high schools in the Atlanta area, giving a second life to professional set pieces. Finally, our annual sustainability survey and town halls allow us to collect information from the arts communities in Atlanta, and work together to determine the best use of our limited resources.

We coordinate a number of additional programs, including river clean-ups, construction of a Chimney Swift Tower, and mutual aid collection drives. All of our activities are planned with the intent to enable our artistic communities to connect to each other, as opposed to dictating what work needs to be done.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Pay them, and abolish the typical non-profit structure!!!!

That’s kind of a basic answer, but seriously – there is such a noticeable difference in places where funding doesn’t have to be the primary thing arts organizations are angling for. While I do not pretend to be a non-profit lawyer, the current setup with 501(c)(3)s being the main avenue for non-profit work, and the primary way to gain funding, has hamstrung so much good work that could be occurring.

AGTA has been fortunate enough to sustain ourselves through self-driven fundraisers and fiscal sponsorships. This allows us to be far more flexible in the running of our organization, moving away from the typical hierarchy of a non-profit and towards independent self-governance. I have no doubt we would have struggled, or been completely unable, to be as adaptable as we are under a typical 501(c)(3) structure. But by the same token, it’s severely limited our ability to apply for grants and expand our operations. If there were more opportunities available to non-501(c)(3) organizations, the flexibility of grassroots groups to do the work they need to would increase exponentially.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

AGTA’s mission is to motivate, educate, and connect the Metro Atlanta theatre, arts, and service communities to engage in environmentalism and mutual aid. But what does that actually mean? As mentioned earlier, we support the Broadway Green Alliance’s ideal that “progress comes from millions of us doing a bit better each day.” The way AGTA attempts to support this is as a coordinating and supportive organization. Instead of dictating “these are the sustainability activities you should be doing,” our aim is to provide the resources and connections for artists and theaters to develop their own environmental practices. Jamie, one of our earliest board members, summed it up succinctly to say that AGTA aims to be the subway line that connects sustainable practices to arts organizations, and that remains our goal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.atlantagreentheatre.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/atlgreentheatre/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/atlgreentheatre

Image Credits
Malina Rodriguez, Adam Friedman, Nadia Reichmann