What We Believe
by Brad Erickson

Recently, at a conference in Phoenix for performing arts service organizations, those of us at a workshop focusing on collaboration found ourselves addressing surprising topics. We had expected to be learning nuts and bolts techniques on how to work more fruitfully with the groups and individuals that cross our paths and that we must engage as allies to meet our missions. What seminar facilitator Christine Muldoon actually led us to confront were our own deeply held values and beliefs. Why was it important to know that I am motivated, let's say, by achievement and integrity (to name 2 of the 15 basic ideals from which all individuals in Western cultures, certain researchers assert, unconsciously choose as their prime motivators) while a colleague across the country is animated by intimacy and wisdom? The answer became gradually apparent. To best elicit the support of others (to get what we want, in acting terms), we must know our own prime motivators--our core values--and be able to appeal to the deep beliefs of those around us.

Just talking about deeply held beliefs in our society can be awkward and uncomfortable. Typically we are urged to focus exclusively on the concrete and quantifiable ("Just the facts, ma'am"). But just the facts are not enough to understand the actions and ideas of others, nor are they sufficient to effectively persuade individuals to join us in a shared purpose--whether they are coworkers in the office, actors in rehearsal or politicians in City Hall. We act out of emotion, later buttressed by ideas, and our emotions flow from our beliefs.

Berkeley professor and author George Lakoff asserts that individuals make political decisions based on their core values. A progressive, Lakoff points out that over the past several decades conservatives have become adept at appealing to values, while liberals, stuck in Age of Enlightenment reasoning, speak only of facts. The result? A huge swath of citizens that, in the eyes of liberals, seemingly votes time after time against their own self-interest. They're not, Lakoff writes, they're voting for their values, or at least for those who have bothered to understand and appeal to their values.

National Public Radio is one year into a fascinating series that explores the individual values of a wide spectrum of Americans. Titled This I Believe, the series broadcasts statements by well-known celebrities (Eve Ensler, Martha Graham, Colin Powell) and ordinary individuals. The series is based on a similarly named program from the 1950s that was created by famed journalist Edward R. Murrow. NPR explains it was inspired by Murrow's motivation, "to point to the common meeting grounds of beliefs, which is the essence of brotherhood and the floor of our civilization."

As a field, we are at a moment when we must speak to a diverse audience, when we must find that "common meeting ground of beliefs." We must address policy makers: In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors is considering the recommendations of the Arts Task Force. In Oakland and San Jose, mayoral candidates are gearing up for the November election. In Sacramento, lawmakers are debating spending on arts education and cultural tourism. Every day we must speak to funders, individual donors, audience members and our neighbors, soliciting their participation and support.

If we are addressing liberal politicians in San Francisco's City Hall, then we must speak to their primary concerns. We must talk about the way we, as a field, work with the underserved, give voice to the disenfranchised, promote tolerance and diversity. If we are speaking to parents, we must speak of theatre's ability to dramatically improve literacy, boost student's self-esteem and engage bored adolescents in learning. To the Chamber of Commerce we need to explain our impact on the economy and tourism, on quality of life, on attracting leading industries and creative workers.

Honing specific messages to specific individuals is not duplicitous; it is persuasive. And to be truly persuasive we must know and address our audience's basic values. But first we must know and address our own.

Arts Marketing Institute fellow and former Theatre Bay Area executive director Sabrina Klein last year led the Theatre Bay Area staff, board and advisory committees through an extensive process that helped us as an organization to name our shared values and state our collective beliefs in a cogent statement. The work was alternately exhilarating, exhausting, inspiring, frustrating and sometimes seemed hopelessly esoteric. What emerged is a kind of credo that seems to me now to be both powerful and pragmatic. It gives me, as an advocate, the words I need to present our case to a variety of audiences. It's a platform from which I can find common ground with others.

Theatre as a discipline constantly explores our deepest motivations and visceral responses to life and to each other. As theatre practitioners and supporters, we are familiar with confronting the core beliefs and values of stage personae, interpreting actions and deciphering subtext to understand the hearts and minds of characters we believe to be very like ourselves and those around us. We must parlay that facility. We must overcome any squeamishness around the cultural unspeakables of belief and effectively address our deepest values and those of the communities in which we live.