We were lucky to catch up with Claire Greenberg recently and have shared our conversation below.

Claire, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Watering Hole Collective is a team of actors, teachers, and artists with over a decade of combined experience in the Dallas-Fort Worth theater community who are united by our desire to create meaningful theater experiences for both our audiences and our artists. We began our first project Spring Awakening to create a space, an oasis, for artists to participate in meaningful theatrical experiences that ignite community conversations and impact social change. Our goals were: pay artists a competitive wage equal to or greater than professional theaters in DFW; and host community talkbacks with experts from local non-profits to guide audiences through the difficult material presented in the play, specifically issues dealing with sex education and teen mental health; and to employ teens in our production as an opportunity to experience professional level theater. In terms of production:
We raised $73,608 and paid our artists $52,904. 70% of our budget went directly into the hands of people.
In terms of community impact:
We sold 550 tickets, had 150 talkback attendees, and raised $5,340 in ticket sales donated to charity.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I fell in love with theater when I went on a trip to NYC with my parents and saw Wicked. To this day I can recall the moment when I looked up and said “Mom, I wanna do that!”. From then on, I have been hooked. I have always loved musicals, plays, and operas. I have also always had a passion for activism and social justice from a young age. In high school, I was a part of a teen acting troupe (teenage communication theater) at Planned Parenthood. Our goal was to write and perform skits about the teenage experience. We used these skits to educate our peers about issues we were all facing such as anxiety, STIs, pregnancy prevention, and more. I was amazed by how much these 5-minute skits could do for the teens we got to perform for. I felt at home telling these kinds of stories and constantly looked for meaning like this in the theater I was doing in high school.
The musical theater fairy granted my wish and I got to go to OCU and learn all about the industry and how to sing. My summers, I spent teaching and directing musical theater camp at a start-up Jewish summer sleep-away camp for the arts. This was once again, the perfect combination of interests to light a bulb in my brain that this is where I should be. We devised lyrics and stories for their end-of-summer musical. It was moving to watch these 13-year-olds write about what they were experiencing and get to feel ownership of their work. When the time came for me to move to NYC, COVID hit and I was sent home to Dallas. This was the best thing that ever happened to me. Months to reconnect with my dreams and expectations only to realize I didn’t want to just tell stories. I wanted to help make them.
Spring Awakening, a long-time favorite of mine, was a show I always wanted to be in. I pitched the idea I always had to a friend, Spring Awakening done in partnership with sex education and mental health organizations. Proceeds go to the non-profits and talkbacks are held after every show. Theater is a tool to teach audiences about issues we often don’t talk about. Mac Welch said, “You know we can just do it.”. That is all it took for me to gather together a team of incredibly talented individuals and raise over $70,000 to do this show. It was my first time directing a project that was all my idea and with a lot on the line. We made an impact. We connected an audience member who was suicidal with one of our mental health experts and saved a life. We started conversations with queer teenagers and their parents. I saw that this kind of theater is possible and must continue to happen. So, I started Watering Hole Collective.

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

Watch it critically. The reason the same pieces of art with the same messages and the same artists are being done over and over again is because that is what institutions assume the public wants. If audiences show up to see the 20th iteration of Hairspray, then they’ll make a 21st. If audiences come to see something that challenges them, we get more interesting art. If the “experimental” becomes the mainstream, we as a society can grow and raise the bar for the consumption of art.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Our mission is to ignite community conversations and create meaningful social impact through storytelling and creating a “watering hole” for artists and the non-artist community to come together.

We create opportunities for artists to produce their own work, including theater, dance, music, and visual arts. We achieve this through providing artists with mentorship, marketing support, donor connections, fundraising guidance, and non-profit partnerships. We prioritize producing every event, production, or performance with a goal to raise awareness and funds for local non-profits. The proceeds of the produced works of art go back to the community benefiting from local non-profits. With these goals at the core of our mission, we in our way, usher meaningful social change into our community through innovative artwork.

These are our main principles of “The WHC Way”:

– Socially Conscious Art: Ticket sales go to one or more non-profits related to the project. Each project must have a direct call to action. What are you supposed to do after your project? What kind of impact can this project have on the community?
– Equitable Storytelling: WHC is committed to being an anti-racist organization that respects and honors all voices while upholding the values of community, equity, access, and belonging. We understand that the United States is a country founded on white supremacy and anti-Blackness and that these belief systems are tightly woven throughout American arts and culture. We have BIPOC representation amongst our staff members and board members. We are committed to ensuring that the artists’ work on our stages represents a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. We provided seats to our productions at discounted community rates and supplied select community groups with complimentary seats to each of our productions.
-Talkbacks & Resource Guide: Following every project there will be a talkback with a panel of experts from the non-profit that we are partnering with for that specific project. There will be a resource guide full of information as well as links to the non-profit(s) related to the project.
– The WHC Commitment: The WHC commitment is to provide our resources in order to help make each artist’s dream come true. Marketing, fundraising, time, collaboration, etc. There will be at least one lead Collective Administrator on every project. Our goal is to emphasize Mentorship based on individual artists’ needs.
– Public Archive: We will share a public post-production report in order to maintain full transparency with the public. All reports will be posted to our website for viewing at any time.
– Artist Centric: We will prioritize giving opportunities to new artists in the area. All artists will get paid an equitable wage based on appropriate union standards. WHC is an artist-centric organization.

Contact Info:

• Website: wateringholecollective.org
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/wateringholecollective?igshid=MzMyNGUyNmU2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewateringholecollective/
• Youtube: @TheWateringHoleCollective
• Other: TikTok: thewateringholeco

Image Credits
Mac Welch, Jordan Muzzy, Mark Quach, Claire Greenberg