Finding Inspiration at Childsplay’s Campus for Imagination and Wonder
ByYesterday, your Alliance for Audience/ShowUp.com staff team held a day-long retreat to coordinate plans for the coming year.
We spent the day at Childsplay’s Campus for Imagination and Wonder – in one of their classroom spaces where we could SPREAD OUT, TAKE TIME & THINK DEEPLY about how we do everything we do. (By the way, their spaces are available for rental!)
2 quick observations:
1) Childsplay’s offices & classrooms are housed in a former elementary school in Tempe. They call it a “Campus for Imagination and Wonder.” How wonderful to have a place whose very name speaks to the highest aspiration of the organization – as well as of the people who work and visit there. (Just curious: does any other Arizona organization have such an inspiring subtitle for their space?)
2) Something that has always impressed me about Childsplay is the sense of deeply shared commitment among its staff. The word “teamwork” just doesn’t do justice to the feeling. I’ve always thought of them as being more like ”invested.” Looking at Childsplay’s website this week, I happened upon the secret of that success:
“One of the underlying core values of Childsplay is the notion of ensemble. There is a resident group of theatre artists (our Associate Artists) who, in collaboration with the Artistic Director, are responsible for planning and creating the artistic products that illustrate Childsplay’s mission. But these artists do not create in isolation. Everyone who works at Childsplay — other artists, technicians, educators, administrators and trustees — is a part of this resident ensemble. This mindset guides the way our work is created, the way it is marketed and the way it is delivered.” - 2012 Strategic Plan
If you’ve interacted with anybody from Childsplay, you may have sensed this all along. I just never before realized it was so, well, purposeful. That’s truly inspiring! You’ll find it here: http://www.childsplayaz.org/company-staff.php