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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: MATT SCHAFER
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Atlanta may never have the concentration of theaters of London’s West End, or a bohemian artist district like the lofts of New York’s SoHo. But in a slack economy heralded almost every day in the news, Atlanta’s art-centric businesses saw almost 20 percent growth in 2007.
The Atlanta Office of Cultural Affairs released a report this month showing 2,430 arts-related businesses employed 23,198 people in the city last year — up more than 18 percent over 2006. That combines with a report from 2007 estimating the arts generate $274 million in economic impact in Atlanta’s city limits alone.
It's long been generally accepted that a disproportionate number of gay men gravitate toward creative industries, but now a study by Dr. Gregory Lewis of Georgia State University supports that notion. It shows that coupled gay men are almost three times more likely than married heterosexual men to have a job in the arts or entertainment fields.
So as new facilities, grants and fellowships spring up in Atlanta, gay people who make their living off the arts stand to benefit.
“We’ve always been leaders, not only in the creation of art, but in the appreciation the arts,” says Kent Gash, associate artistic director of the Alliance Theater. “In the theater, there has always been a very strong voice and aesthetic that’s connected to same-gender-loving people. There’s always been an open place for people, not only on stage and behind it, but for those in the audience as well.”
In the last several years a massive boom in spending on artistic endeavors in Atlanta has helped create the up-tick in jobs. The Savannah College of Art & Design opened an Atlanta campus in 2005; the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is raising funds for a new Midtown performance center and has an outdoor venue in Alpharetta scheduled to open next month; the new Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre is already drawing big-name acts; and The Strand theater in Marietta is being restored.
“From my point of view, Atlanta is extremely rich in creativity and it’s demonstrated by the number of arts organizations, theaters, and the music industry that is here," says Camille Russell Love, director of the city’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
"The music industry to me includes not only the not-for-profit industries but also the hip-hop industry,” she adds. “I think that the richness of theater in this city just shows in the number of theaters in Atlanta.”
Perhaps the most visible signs of Atlanta’s arts wellspring are the Alliance Theatre's 2007 Regional Theater Tony Award, and the $89 million Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Built with a combination of private and public funds, the 2,750-seat venue was the first major new performing arts center in Atlanta in 40 years.
“This space was designed to accommodate opera, ballet, dance and Broadway,” says Managing Director Michael Taormina. “One of our missions is to make sure that our audience is as inclusive as the international population around [the center]. We had Chinese New Year celebrations, Jewish celebrations, and the Atlanta Gay Men’s chorus in our first year.”
Cobb Energy Centre is home to the Atlanta Ballet and the Atlanta Opera. The opera floundered after leaving the trappings of The Fox Theater for the Atlanta Civic Center, but leaders are looking for new growth at Cobb.
“When we first performed in the Fox Theater, we had huge increases in our audience,” says the Opera's Cristina Vásconez Herrera. “For a variety of reasons, we had to move to the Atlanta Civic Center; our audience just plummeted. People were just not happy with the new location.”
Since moving to the Cobb Centre’s splendorous accommodations, season ticket holders increased 80 percent, and the opera performances themselves average 9,000 patrons, instead of the 6,000 average at the Civic Center. The organization added a new opera to its schedule, as well as more performances of each opera. More shows mean more paychecks for members of the chorus. The stars are usually brought in from other cities.
More theaters mean more opportunities for paychecks, but don’t necessarily mean enough big paychecks to make a living, says local gay director Alan Kilpatrick.
Kilpatrick is used to working with young actors who earn their Actors’ Equity card and move to bigger cities. His backstage craftsmen often must work on two shows ...
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