GRUPO 55

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
Results

Organizational Vision

Ashoka fellow Larry Silberman, with his theater company Grupo 55, is methodically building a national children's theater program for Mexico. Through his philosophy of 'horizontality' (intra- and inter-group democracy and integration at all levels) and his resounding efforts to break through the prevailing government patronage structure for children's theater in Mexico, he is fundamentally transforming a field characterized by a weak financial base, declining government support, inadequate management and inappropriate productions into a positive vehicle for social change. According to Larry, "Changes are possible, and they begin with the individual. Reality is built daily. To try to change it, first you have to know it. You have to know where you want to go, where you are, and take the first step."

Citizen Base Strategy

Encourage local demand

Grupo 55 has a detailed plan to create a national children's theater program in public schools. Larry discovered that schools have sufficient funds to finance one outside theater performance per year. The key is to convince enough schools, approximately 60 to 70, to subscribe to a theater company for one performance a year. Grupo 55, which for two years running created the most widely-acclaimed and awarded new original children's plays in Mexico, is the lead example as it is now able to meet all of its annual costs through fees earned from schools.

Break the prevailing funding structure for children's theater

Grupo 55's resource mobilization strategy opposes the prevailing scheme in which the government arts functionaries (the government being the only significant source of arts funding in Mexico) dish out production concessions. By showing that quality fills seats and sells, Larry introduced competition to the patronage scheme, and opened up the system for other independent groups. Competition has helped to democratize the system and enhance optimization of resources by eliminating nepotism and unfair patronage from the funding process. The new process became institutionalized following the 1994 economic crisis when all budgets were cut. Government functionaries had to start pragmatically working together according to the way that Larry had been trying to get them to in order to optimize their scarce resources.

Create successful didactic materials to teach drama

Grupo 55 wrote the book "How to do Theater without Being Discovered" which has sold over 95,000 copies and contributed two chapters to the book "The Artistic Education Guide for Teachers" whose sales have surpassed 750,000 copies. Copies of both texts have been provided to all public schools in Mexico.

Through the National Program for Children's Theater, every year Grupo 55 provides intensive training and counsel to representative theater groups in nine Mexican states. In addition to the training and workshops that they provide to theater groups, Grupo 55 also puts on shows throughout the Mexican public school system – charging the individual schools directly for the highly demanded professional performances and urging the government to reallocate its resources to the National Program for Children's Theater. This process has not only allowed high quality theater productions (and its social benefits) to penetrate throughout the Mexican school system, but it also has served to raise the bar on the type and quality of productions that schools expect and that donors and the government are willing to support.

Results

Grupo 55 supported itself entirely on sales in 2000 – true operational self-sufficiency. In 1990 they made $US 10,000 in sales, which grew to 50,000 by 1995. By the close of the year 2000, they had pulled in over $120,000 annually in sales from their plays alone – over 300 functions. The most successful play, "Vieja El Ultimo," played Mexico City for a full year, toured the country for a year, and is currently being shown in repertory by at least eight theaters. In addition to Grupo 55's success on the national theater circuit and in the dispersion of their texts to public schools, they conducted 200 workshops last year as part of the National Theater program, which amounted to approximately 1500 hours of workshop training. Quite a change compared to only 100 hours in 1990! Grupo's staff has grown similarly – they started in 1990 with only three teachers and eight actors and now have 10 teachers and 15 actors. Larry Silberman, through his achievements with the innovative efforts of Grupo 55, in his own words, is "doing what the rest of the world deems impossible, breaking down walls, prejudices, and sharing with the people the powers that they have but do not use.

"Attitude changes don't need to come through solemnity and suffering," Larry says. "We should make them eagerly, with pleasure, in fun, and together with other people."