CTV: What Happens After November 3?

Friday October 23, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm.

Many of us have focused our advocacy passion and organizing energy on November 3. Through Create the Vote, the arts and cultural community has stepped up to play our part educating and advocating to our audiences for a complete census count and increased voter registration and turnout.

Our voter education efforts are ongoing and the outcome of the election is still weeks away. However, in the months following the election, a new Congress will be seated and the new two-year legislative session begins here in Massachusetts. For arts and cultural supporters, this means there our shared work advocating for an inclusive, strong and publicly supported arts and cultural sector in Massachusetts continues.

Join MASSCreative and the Create the Vote Steering Committee to hear what we can expect in the coming months for arts and cultural advocacy and learn from arts and cultural activists who have incorporated advocacy into their creative practice.

Opening Remarks
	Attorney General Maura Healey Maura Healey is currently in her second term as Massachusetts Attorney General, continuing a career spent fighting for justice and equal right by serving as the “People’s Lawyer.” As Attorney General, Maura has focused on confronting the devastating opioid epidemic, reducing gun violence, enforcing civil rights, protecting consumers, and addressing the climate crisis. She has also championed access to health care and reproductive freedom. Prior to starting her career in public service, Maura was a business and commercial litigator at WilmerHale LLP. She also served as a Special Assistant District Attorney for Middlesex County. In 2007, she joined the Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Civil Rights Division and later became Chief of the Public Protection and Business and Labor Bureaus. During this time, she served as lead counsel in the country’s first successful challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act. Maura is a graduate of Harvard College, after which she spent two years overseas as a starting point guard on a professional basketball team in Europe. She received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
Panelists
	Michael J. Bobbitt, Artistic Director, New Repertory Theater Michael J. Bobbitt is the Artistic Director of New Repertory Theatre in Boston, MA. He is an arts leader, director, choreographer, playwright and Anti-racist Arts Advocate. Michael has been a leading voice for Inclusiveness in the arts beginning early in his career in his hometown of Washington, DC, and throughout his tenure at numerous prominent arts organizations, where he has been repeatedly recognized for his efforts in the advancement of Anti-racism, Equity, and Diversity. His practices, policies and procedures for creating and changing culture within arts organizations have been adopted by several organizations around the nation. His thought-leadership in this crucial area is now spreading to a number of national outlets including regional panels, national conferences, and his widely popular new series of webinars focused on building Anti-racist organizations. In his first year at New Rep, Michael eradicated the debt, built three several months of reserves, increased ticket sales by 43%, donations by 24%, patronage by 26% and Board giving exceeded goal by 57%. Additionally, he has made New Rep into a leading voice on building Anti-racist theatre. Prior to New Rep, he served as Artistic Director for Adventure Theatre-MTC in Maryland, where he led the historic organization to be one of the leading theatre/training companies in the DC region and a nationally influential professional Theatre for Young Audiences. He led the company through a merger, that increased the organizational budget by more than 600%, and led directly to an expansion of the audience base by over 400%. During his tenure, he commissioned 40 new works by noted playwrights, transferred two shows to successful Off-Broadway run in NYC, and oversaw the launch of an international tour that brought worldwide attention to Adventure Theatre-MTC. Michael founded and built a performing arts training academy for school-aged students in the Washington, DC area that became an important resource for young artists in a region where public school arts programs had been sacrificed in the name of cost-cutting. His productions received dozens of Helen Hayes Award© Nominations and featured eight wins. Bobbitt has directed/choreographed at Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Olney Theatre Center, Studio Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Center Stage, Roundhouse Theatre, The Kennedy Center, and the Washington National Opera. His national and international credits include the NY Musical Theatre Festival, Mel Tillis 2001, La Jolla Playhouse, Children’s Theatre of Charlotte, Jefferson Performing Arts Center, and the 1996 Olympics. As a writer, his work has been produced all over the country and international. He has plays published by Concord Theatricals, Plays for Young Audiences and Broadway Licensing. He trained at Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management, The National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, Professional Fundraising Certificate Program from Boston University, Certificate in Diversity and Inclusion from Cornell, artEquity and People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, and other top leadership programs. He earned the Excel Leadership Award (Center for Nonprofit Advancement) the Emerging Leader Award (County Executive’s Excellence in the Arts and Humanities), and Person of the Year Award (Maryland Theatre Guide), among others.
	Nick Capasso, Director, Fitchburg Art Museum Nick Capasso, Ph.D. is Director of the Fitchburg Art Museum, a community-oriented museum in Fitchburg, Massachusetts with art historical collections, changing exhibitions of regional contemporary art, and educational and community and economic development programs. Prior to his appointment at Fitchburg, Capasso was Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, a museum of contemporary art in Lincoln, Massachusetts. During his 22 years in the deCordova Curatorial Department, he organized or co-organized over 75 exhibitions, and played a central role in the expansion of the deCordova Sculpture Park. In 2011, he attended the Getty Foundation’s Museum Leadership Institute. Capasso has also worked extensively with contemporary public art as an art historian, guest curator, critic, lecturer, private consultant, and design selection panelist. He was Board Chair of Boston’s UrbanArts Institute from 2000 – 2010, and was Chair of the Public Art Curatorial Committee at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy from 2008 – 2017.
	Nina Eichner, Creative Projects Manager, Sunrise Movement Nina Eichner is the Visual Strategy and Creative Actions Manager at Sunrise Movement. She supports young people across the country to make action art that builds power to stop climate change. Nina is a painter and was born and raised in Somerville, MA. She previously worked as the Programs & Public Art Manager at the Somerville Arts Council. Nina earned her Masters of Public Administration and B.A. in Studio Art from Clark University.
	Ellice Patterson, Executive & Artistic Director, Abilities Dance and Executive Director, Ballet Rox Ellice Patterson is the founder/ executive and artistic director of Abilities Dance, a Boston-based dance company that welcomes artists with and without disabilities. She is also the executive director of BalletRox, a Boston-based dance education program to provide access to high quality dance education to youth within Boston Public Schools and in our after-school program in Jamaica Plain. Outside of self-produced Abilities Dance's shows, her choreography has appeared in the MFA, Links Hall in Chicago, Gibney Dance in NYC, The Series: Vol IV at the Ailey Citigroup Theatre in NYC, and more. She has given lectures and workshops at schools, universities, and organizations across the country, including Harvard Graduate School of Education, Fidelity Investments, Boston University, and more. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences from Wellesley College and her Masters of Science in Management Studies from Boston University Questrom School of Business.