I am so excited to launch CreateTheater, the online community for theater professionals.

What would it be like to be able to meet other working theater artists online? To learn, join in industry seminars and to find your creative “tribe”?

One of my core beliefs is that connection is the currency of the 21^st century.

And those connections can be made online.

I’m Cate Cammarata, a producer, director and dramaturg, and I know this: the internet is an ideal way to make connections. Connections with ideas, connections to new resources, and connections between people. But as a theater artist, I often find that traditional ways to make connections are difficult, online or off. Yet we all understand the necessity of networking, of finding a community of people you know and trust, where you feel like you belong. That sense of home, of belonging, is usually what got us into the theater in the first place.

But where are all of these people? And where can I meet them?

Your Social Network: Beyond LinkedIn

If you’re a playwright, even with a social connection or an introduction, it’s hard to get people to read your scripts. How do you meet producers? How do you know what they want?

If you’re a producer or director, where’s that next play that resonates with you? Where’s that new voice that needs to be developed? And where’s the theater willing to join you in that development?

CreateTheater is a way of getting out there and meeting other theater artists – right from your own home. It’s a place to find your creative community, for collaboration, for spreading ideas, learning and meeting other theater people online. It’s a way to connect playwrights with producers, directors and artistic directors, librettists with composers and music directors, in order to make theater happen. It’s your online space for networking with other working theater artists.

It’s Not What You Know, But Who You Know

This truth certainly predates the internet. It holds a lot of truth, though. Statistics show that people rate their personal connections, both professional and personal, as the most effective means of finding jobs. And we’re told that we are an average of the five people we spend the most time with.

You know you need to be a self-starter. You have to be out there, finding ways to meet the “right” people, to drum up interest in you and your work. You have to create your own opportunities. You have to introduce yourself to the right people.

You need to network.

Your social network is the web of connections you have with the people you know, and the people they know, and so on. Social networking is the effort you make to create and maintain relationships within that social network, to move you ahead in your career.

But deeper bonds are forged in true community. Community is formed when a group of people share the same beliefs and have the same goals. Community offers us a home, where we are accepted unconditionally for being who we are. It offers us a sense of belonging, of safety, of being truly “home.”

Connections Form Community

Today around seven in ten Americans use social media to connect with one another, to engage in news content, to share information and entertain themselves. People hold meetings and classes online, collaborate over apps and search for their soulmates on their cell phones. Let’s use that power of the internet to create theater.

Join us in making this theater community come alive. Meet others who are passionate about this art and dedicated to moving it forward into the 21^st century.

Sign up for our emails and join in the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Post your comments below.

I look forward to meeting you and hearing more about your work!

Cate

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them!

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