Whether you’re passionate about the performing arts or curious about building community through creativity, this episode is packed with insights, inspiration, and practical ways to support and connect with the arts in Columbus.

In this episode, hosts Brett Johnson and Carol Ventresca sit down with Christy Farnbaugh, executive director of the Contemporary Theatre of Ohio. Columbus has long been known for its vibrant arts community, and today, Christy shares her journey from Otterbein music major to arts administration leader, highlighting the importance of mentors, networks, and resilience in the arts.

We explore the role of the Contemporary Theatre of Ohio—formerly CATCO—and its impact on local artists, education programs for kids, and community building. Christy reveals how the organization navigated a dramatic transformation during the pandemic, from rebranding to embracing virtual performances, and discusses the importance of intergenerational connections and producing timely, empathetic stories for Central Ohio.

Moments

00:00 "Christy's Theater Journey Unveiled"

09:59 "Pursuing Passion Amid Challenges"

15:49 "Career Paths and Connections"

20:21 "Arts and Community Value Proposition"

23:42 "Revamping Name and Brand Strategy"

28:58 "Columbus Talent with Local Ties"

33:13 "Kids' Anxiety Through Humor"

39:25 "Pandemic, Laughter, and Aging Arts"

44:40 Empowering Kids Through Writing

51:34 "Zoom and Teams' Lasting Impact"

58:46 "Diverse Plays for Columbus"

01:00:13 "Primary Trust: Identity and Imagination"

01:04:39 Volunteer Opportunities and Education Involvement

If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!

Key Takeaways:

1. The Power of Local Storytelling: The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio tells stories rooted in the current moment to build empathy, hiring local artists so the art created directly enriches our community.
2. Building an Ecosystem, not Competition: Columbus boasts a unique arts ecosystem, where professional, community, and educational theaters work together to expand opportunities for artists, creators, and audiences.
3. Arts as a Vehicle for Wellness & Growth: Whether through creative aging programs, anxiety-reducing children’s workshops, or supporting mentorship, theater provides pathways for well-being, social-emotional learning, and intergenerational connection.

We would love to hear from you.

Give us your feedback, or suggest a topic, by leaving us a voice message.

Email us at hello@lookingforwardourway.com.

Find us on Bluesky and Facebook.

Please review our podcast on Google!

And of course, everything can be found on our website, Looking Forward Our Way.

Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson

Mentioned in this episode:

Listener Disclaimer

The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.

We are looking forward our way.

Hi, this is Brett.

Columbus has always been a small but mighty arts community.

For decades, we supported symphonies, museums, ballets, and both national touring as well as local theater.

Today, we're excited to have Christy Farnbaugh, executive director of the Contemporary Theater of Ohio, as our guest expert to discuss their exciting programs offered to our community, as well as the ongoing educational programs for children.

Christy, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks, Brett.

It's great to be here.

Christy, it's so wonderful to meet you and we have a lot of intersecting going on today.

We just had a long conversation about another Otterbein grad.

But, you know, shout out to all of the Otterbein theater and music majors.

They do a phenomenal job and thank them and their faculty for all that they contributed to our community.

But also, Christy found out about us through her son Kyle, who's the executive director of the Fran Ryan Center.

Christy, you've been in the theater.

In your current position for about six years, but you've also held positions at the Ohio Arts Council as well as other nonprofits and doing some private consulting.

Tell us more about you and the path you followed that has taken you to the Contemporary Theater of Ohio.

Sure.

Thanks, Carol.

I was thinking as you were talking about Kyle, he's probably.

This is a full circle moment for him, right?

He's usually Christy's son.

Y.

And in this moment, I get to be Kyle's mom.

Exactly, exactly.

Like finally, right?

Yes, exactly.

Yes.

And yes.

And Kyle will be back to visit the center here soon, so.

Great.

Great.

Well, yes, very, very proud of him and the work at the Fran.

The Fran is an amazing place, and I love that it's wellness in the arts.

And so we'll talk about that for the theater, too.

But, you know, as far as my path, as you said, I'm an Otterbein grad.

And we're all doing great, great things in the world, right?

Where everybody's doing good stuff.

I was a music major.

I was a trumpet performance major and got a business administration minor and wasn't sure what I wanted to do about that at the time, but it's all kind of worked out.

I have always worked in arts administration most of my career.

I did a little work for Hilliard schools once upon a time and worked for the national association of Women Business Owners Navajo Columbus, right before I came here, right before the pandemic.

So.

But have always been in nonprofit management, mostly arts administration.

I say it's the only thing I've ever really wanted to do.

And that really came from.

I started as an intern at the Columbus Symphony spring of my junior year.

And there was an Otterbein graduate, Carolee Mica, who was the marketing manager at the symphony.

And she called Gary Tyre, the then band director at Otterbein, who you likely know.

Gary was a larger than life figure who really helped me get to Otterbein.

I grew up in the rural southeastern part of the state and probably would not have gone to college.

I didn't think college was in my future and was in an honors band my senior year.

And Gary sort of plucked me out of the group and said, I want you to come to Otterbein.

And I was literally like, who was he talking to?

He can't be me, right?

And he made that happen.

And I realized he passed about six or seven years ago.

And I realized that Gary had done that for lots of.

Lots of kids like that.

Nearly every high school band director in the state of Ohio had either been a student of Gary Tyrese or been to some kind of event or program or workshop that he put on.

He touched everybody.

Yeah, he did and he did.

You know, I. I laughed then.

I think I was Gary's girl.

Gary had lots of boys and girls right back then, lots of young people that he just saw something in and recruited for the program.

And Otterbein had a great.

Had a great music program, which was really why I chose to go there.

And then that led me to.

I started out at.

It's called the Ohio Arts Presenters Network.

They still exist.

They're 50 years old.

We were a service organization for performing artists and presenters like Kappa.

And that was my first job.

And I joke about it now because I've now come through a pandemic.

But at the beginning of my career, I followed an executive director who had embezzled money.

So I got hired as an executive director at 21.

21.

Right out of college.

I turned 22 a couple weeks later.

But I started the job at 21.

Small nonprofit.

The office was in rural southeastern Ohio, where I had come down by.

Down at Rio Grande College.

And I got hired.

There was a woman on the board from Otterbein, Pat Kessler, who.

You might remember, Carol.

She led the artist series at Otterbein.

And we didn't know each other, but I'm sure having Otterbein on my resume Was helpful.

So I like to tell young people, when you.

When you start that way, you can only go up, right?

There's only.

There's only.

You can only get better.

Well, and they thought you were too naive to embezzle again, so they were.

And that started my journey of understanding the power of mentors.

So a man named Jerry Martin, who taught theater at Muskingo College, took a year sabbatical to mentor me because I was green as grass, right?

I learned a lot at Otterbein, but I didn't really understand all that I know now.

And he mentored me for a year and was a great mentor and friend over the years.

And so that's kind of how I got started and discovered this world, from that internship at the symphony kind of to the world of arts administration.

And I've always been curious.

I started in the marketing and ticket office at the symphony, but then I made a friend in development, and so I wanted to know what she did.

And then I.

You know, I just have now.

It's really one of my greatest assets is this network I have built.

I just love connecting people.

It's my favorite thing to do.

So, anyway, that.

That was the very beginning.

And then I spent a long time, 13 years at the Ohio Arts Council and did a host of things.

Arts education, community development.

Did some lots of work around the country.

We had a $1.1 million grant from the Wallace foundation to look at arts participation.

And that was great and awesome work.

And then by that time, I had got married and had a couple of boys, and my boys were 10 and 7, and I was like, ooh, if I don't sort of pay attention here as a mom, this is all gonna be over and go really fast.

And so that led me to go to work for Hilliard Schools.

I had been on bond and levy campaigns for the school district for 10 years back in the 90s, when school districts were on the levy every couple of years.

And I loved that work.

I love that political strategy work for the school district.

And then that led me to be business and community partnership coordinator for the district.

So I raised money and found internships for students and worked on.

At that time, they had started a senior capstone project, and I helped find businesses, and it was fun.

I loved it.

And.

And my kids were in middle school, late elementary middle school, and I could stop by the school and read a book to kids.

It was awesome.

And it was in the community where I lived, and I got to roll up my sleeves and try to make a difference in the community.

Yeah, nothing.

Crazy.

Crazy times in a big recession.

But I had been doing work for the Jazz Arts Group where I was consulting when they started their Jazz Academy at the Lincoln Theater.

And we wrote a grant to the Doris Duke foundation.

And surprise, surprise, got, we asked for $250,000 and we got it.

And we built a project around the first ever really Jazz Audiences Initiative.

It was a study of jazz audiences that had never been done before.

It was a national project and we were looking at, because everybody was ringing still are wringing their hands about the older audience and how do we get new people in.

And that had never really been studied.

So I helped write the grant and then we got the money.

And then JAG said, hey, we need somebody to manage this project.

And I was kind of ready for my next thing.

And we know you'd be the part time project director.

And I said, sure.

And I'm going to start a consulting business.

It's called Strategic Links.

And.

And I'm going to build the rest.

And people said to me, oh, recessions are great times to start a business, because you can.

Again, you can only go up.

There's a theme here, you guys.

So I did and I.

And I built the business.

I had a whole bucket of business doing grant writing for nonprofits, strategic planning, board development.

I still do a very little bit on the side.

This, this is a big job and I don't have a lot of time to do that now, but loved that work.

Did that full time for six years.

And then that actually led me back to the Ohio Arts Council for a second stint.

For a couple of years there I worked on innovation and community development and some great stuff.

That work.

We'll talk about that in a minute.

I think one of the projects I did at the Arts council we'll circle back to was the work on creative aging.

So using the arts with older adults, which I loved, just love that work.

And then did that for a couple years and then it was time for another change.

And that's when I went to NABO Columbus.

I was going to do consulting again.

And somebody approached me that NABO was looking for their first ever executive director.

And we had the largest chapter in the country and I knew some people on the board.

And so one thing led to another and I took that job and learned a lot about women entrepreneurs and lack of access to capital and all the challenges they face and we did a lot of good work around advocacy and getting more capital to women and all that.

And then this little thing called a pandemic came along, right?

Stephen Anderson was retiring and they were going to split his job into two with an artistic director and an executive director.

And I said to my husband, that's the job for me.

That is my job.

And he was like, are you serious right now?

We didn't know.

And I said, oh yeah, this is the job for me.

I'm going to apply for this job.

And the reason was I had done audio description for Catco in the 90s right out of college, so describing enough for the the blind community.

And I loved that work.

I was doing it right out of college.

And then when we had our boys.

Players had been in existence many years before that.

They started as the Players Club over at the Columbus Performing Arts center.

And CATCO came along to sort of be the antidote to that.

We were scrappy and contemporary and.

Right.

That was kind of the genesis of Catco.

And we started subscribing that to when our oldest son was three, when Corey, Kyle's brother was three, we started subscribing to that.

So for 10 years I was around CATCO and Phoenix Theater.

And so I was like, this is like a full circle moment.

This is it.

Right?

And I happy and gratefully accepted.

And Stephen Anderson called me at 4 o' clock and said, Congratulations, I'm so happy it's you.

And I guess I should tell you we're closing the theater tonight.

And by 5 o' clock, the theater was closed.

And by time I officially started April 15, it was all shut down.

We canceled 67 performances and then didn't make live theater for 18 months.

We can talk more about that.

Can only go up, right?

It can only go up exactly right there.

Yeah.

As I have refle on this.

Right.

There's definitely a theme in My career about only going up and persevering and, and all the things I thought I said, professed to know in my interview.

I didn't know anything about dealing with the pandemic and the things we had.

You'll.

We'll get to.

But luckily we were all in that same boat.

We were all in the same boat.

Nobody knew what to expect or which step to take.

Yeah, correct.

And we and the theater community, which Brett referenced in the opening, really, we all came together and figured it out.

We met every week.

The executive directors of the arts organizations in town met every week on a.

On a zoom call and just were, are you opening?

Is it safe?

When can you.

You know.

And honestly, performing arts were the last to open.

If you had outdoor space, you know, the conservatory or the garden at the museum or whatever, some other organizations got to open sooner than we did.

And there were lots of reasons for that, which we can talk about.

But yeah, and so here we are, we made it.

We're still doing our thing.

We've changed some things, changed our name.

We can talk about that.

But yeah.

Well, there are a couple of themes in what you've said.

First, I do have to give another shout out to Otterbein because one of the best things they do to prepare students, even way back when you and I were there, is to provide internships, mentorships and the academic counseling to have you do a business minor with your arts degree.

Somebody was on top of.

An artist cannot only exist on just their art.

Well, and Carol, I knew I.

So I play trumpet, so I wanted to keep playing my trumpet.

And I knew I didn't want to teach public, you know, I didn't want to be a music educator.

I didn't really know what else.

And that music business program they had was really kind of burgeoning and just starting back then.

And I honestly had kind of tricked my parents into going.

Like they loved Gary and they supported everything I ever wanted to do in music.

But I knew I was the first in my family to go to college.

My mom had gone to secretarial school and my dad went to heavy equipment school, but this was all new for them.

And so I'm sure when I said I'm going to be a music major, they were scared.

They didn't say that, but I'm sure they were.

And so in my 17 year old mind, if I also said I was a business major, I think my parents thought I was a business major with a music minor.

And I was actually a music major with a business minor.

And it all worked out.

And today they would, you know, they would say they were proud of me.

In that, but I completely understand.

When I was in graduate school, I suddenly had a sociology major and a business minor.

It's like, what do you do?

The other thing, though, too, and there are kind of a couple of themes that Brett and I touch on regardless of who our guest is.

One, many of our guests are literally into another career, another path in their career or on core career, which you've done, sort of like remaking your career path as it came along.

The other thing, though, too, is.

This notion of, you know, we laugh about all the Otter Biden connections that I have, but Columbus is a really small town.

It's a big city, but it's a small town.

And when I taught networking workshops to my clients, I always said, and students and clients, I always said, you know, poor Kevin Bacon has six degrees of separation.

In Columbus, it's only three.

And I'm Italian, it's only two because we're all related.

So just thinking back on from the mentor you had from Muskingum College, the faculty from Muskingum College, to the people you know today, not only is it helping you do your job, but then you in turn can pay forward to mentor to young people coming up in that career path.

And it is so much easier to do in Columbus than many others places.

So kudos.

I think sometimes I've used my own son as my older son.

I think they underestimated the power of the network and how it can help you and help them.

And again, it's that reciprocity.

Right.

To your point, I'm always about, who can I help connect and make that magic and then get out of the way.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And that's another thing I sort of love about this podcast is that we do that.

We have people who come on and then we'll suddenly, I'll be emailing so and so and say, oh, I just, we just had another guest and you might want to meet them and here's Let me introduce you and that kind of thing.

But it, it really is.

Young folks have a very strange notion of what networking is, and they only.

And I think part of it is just absolute fear that they have to find a job, but they don't realize that networking isn't to get a job.

Networking is so that your path to a job is better, is easier, more complete, more information, that sort of thing.

And then you have to give back.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Let's go back to your Thought about the name change.

Let's talk about, you know, what led to that change.

You know, what were you before that?

You know, the thought process and kind of give a shout out on.

Okay, we were, but we're now this kind of thing too.

Yeah.

And we can't wait.

We're so excited.

He went on and had a career in Louisville at the university, and so he's coming back to be in that play.

We just love it.

It's like an extension of our 40th anniversary.

And we're in contact with him, and he loves the work we're doing and the play.

He's like, oh, if Primary Trust had been written when I started the theater, that's the kind of play we would have done.

Right.

Contemporary work is contextual to the times.

Right.

So when I was interviewing again.

After.

I went to Audubon, a stage in central Ohio, other than when I went to Briar Graham, I have stayed in central Ohio and worked in the arts in central Ohio.

And I knew catco and I knew Phoenix Theater for Children.

And I was asking everyone I met in the community, there were community vetting committees and conversations, what differentiated Catco from all the other theater companies in town.

And there are many.

At the time, someone said to me, there were 50, 65 lots from small community theaters up to professional, like us and Short North Stage.

And so I kept asking people, what differentiates catco from all the others?

And the answer was always, we're the oldest and the biggest.

Neither of which is true.

And biggest by what measure?

By the actors you hire, by the revenue you produce, like by the size of your theater.

The size of your schedule was the measure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So because I have done a lot of work around the public value of the arts and the value proposition of the arts and why the arts matter to people and communities, that thing about being biggest and oldest just didn't sit right with me.

If I'm chosen for this job, we got to get a little clearer about that, because we are.

We've always been in a time the arts of not, I guess, competing for very scarce resources.

We need to house people and feed them and do all those basic things on the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy.

Right.

And when that's all taken care of, they also will benefit from the arts, their bodies, their spirits.

Right.

So we need it all.

And the resources are scarce.

So.

Fast forward.

We did a national search for our artistic director, Lita Hoffman.

And we began to work with Haley Boning, who runs a company she's in Columbus and New York called storyforge.

And I had worked with Haley when I was at Nabo about finding your purpose, being clear about your purpose.

And so Haley took us through like an 18 month process about clarifying who we are and why we exist and why it matters.

And what we landed on is that we tell stories rooted in the current moment to build empathy.

And that's pretty hard to argue with.

Who doesn't want more empathy in the community, right?

So we got really clear about that.

We wrote out kind of a plan.

We had community conversations, phone calls with leaders.

There was a whole process around that.

But then when we got to the end of that process, we needed the new logo, brand, visual identity.

And we have worked with a team at nonfiction in Worthington who helped us work on the visual identity, the colors, the brand.

Right?

And in that process, which was another year, said, we think you might want to think about changing your name.

Aside from knowing Jeffrey Nelson, I also happened to know one of the first board members of CatCo.

It's that network again.

And she said, oh, we decided the name was too long and maybe we'd want to do British plays.

Right?

Contemporary American theater company.

What if we wanted to a British play or a Canadian play or whatever.

And so it just became shorthand.

Catco just became shorthand.

And that was the logo.

And I think if you have been in this community a long time, you still know catco.

I still say Contemporary Theater of Ohio, formerly catco.

And people go, oh, yeah, right.

I want.

Yeah, just last week, I wonder what happened to CatCo.

Right?

We're still here.

And the.

And the idea was, the big idea was to get.

Oh, the other part of the story is we would get calls about wondering if we were a cat welfare agency.

Okay.

Or, yeah, can we rescue cats?

Or a true story.

I know.

Sad, but true.

Yeah.

So what we decided with our board, Lita and me with our board, is that putting contemporary and theater back in the name was really important to tell people very clearly what we do and to help the artists, all the artists who work for us, help them better distinguish where they Were working.

Right.

And the of Ohio piece came about because we're in the Capitol, in the middle of the state.

And so we wanted to plant our flag and say, we're here.

We think in time.

I know in time of Ohio will drop off our short.

Our shorthand version is the contemporary, and we're working to build that brand.

When we first changed our night, Brett, to your press, to your question.

We did videos and we hosted zoom calls, and we talked with donors and subscribers about why and what we were doing.

And ultimately, the push.

There wasn't really any pushback because I think we were so thoughtful and we paid attention to the data and the feedback and changed the name.

And we're still living into the new brand.

I think the website will be a helpful.

Another tool.

Well, given that we were rolling through the pandemic and sort of scrambling to reopen and all, was this a good time to go through this kind of a change?

It really was.

So it was almost a convergence of three or four sources.

Right.

Brand new leadership, artistic and executive.

A pandemic.

This idea of not knowing what was coming right up in the future.

When we worked with Haley, Haley used to say the pandemic provided cover for the change makers.

Yes.

So we were.

We were effectively not.

Not really shut down.

We made virtual work.

And we can talk about that.

But essentially we were closed.

And for many months, the only staff was Lita and me.

For the company.

You know, it was.

It was a great time.

It was a luxury that you don't often get because we're always building the planes while we're flying them.

Right?

Always.

Yeah.

So we did have this moment to pause and say, who will we emerge from this pandemic?

So the Contemporary Theater of Ohio produces professional theater right here in Columbus, hiring local artists, creating work for and with the community.

Why is it so important to have a producing theater like this in central Ohio?

And what role does the theater really play in building those community connections?

Yeah.

Great question, Carol.

So I want to talk for a second about the arts ecosystem and particularly the theater ecosystem.

Right.

In the arts ecosystem in the city, we need it all.

The performing arts, visual arts, film, dance.

Right.

The museums, library, all of it.

For different reasons.

Different, you know, we.

Different people have different things.

They like different aesthetics.

Right.

The theater ecosystem goes really, as we talked about, from the grassroots community theaters like Mad Lab or Available Light, who have a group of people, sometimes a resident company they like to work with and they want to tell stories.

We're all about telling stories.

And then you move up a little more to Columbus Children's Theater.

Cct.

They.

They're using their acronym now, cct.

Right.

Colleges and universities, high schools.

It's the whole.

I mean, there's some amazing work being presented in our high schools in central Ohio.

And then up through the.

Really to the.

To the kind of the top of the ecosystem are the professional companies.

There are two of us in Columbus.

The Contemporary and Short North Stage are the two professional companies.

And what that means is everyone gets paid from the director, the designer, the technicians, that everybody working on the show gets paid.

That is not always true in community theaters because their budgets are so much smaller.

And sometimes people just volunteer.

They volunteer as actors.

And it's all important.

The more people that see theater in this town, the better.

Right.

And we all really have our niche, right?

Oh, I should say I got to Austin, Short north, and then on up the chain is Broadway.

The touring shows that come through at Kappa for Broadway.

And we need all of it.

I mentioned Broadway.

Let me say this.

The Broadway series is a presenter.

They bring in and present truck and bus shows that are on a tour from Broadway.

They'll be here for three weeks and then they're on to the next city.

Right.

Shorten our stage and us who are local producing, us and all the other producing local theaters.

Hire actors mostly who live and work in the community.

For sure.

Most of our talent is here in Columbus.

And we have amazing, amazing talent.

We hire an Equity actor, we hire an Equity stage manager that if they're not in Columbus, they have ties to Columbus because we don't have housing.

So we.

It's, you know, an Airbnb for six weeks is expensive.

So we hope that they have some connection, family member, brother, sister, whatever.

And interestingly, that happens a lot.

They'd like to come back and work here for six or seven weeks to be with family.

So that's kind of how we work that side of that.

But the people that you're going to see on our stages.

I shouldn't say, but.

And the people you're going to see on our stages are your neighbors.

They live, work and play in the community.

The money that we pay them stays in the community.

Right.

The money that we pay the broad that the Broadway actors make goes on that bus and onto the next town.

Right.

Again, it's all part of the ecosystem.

But what we do is really producing this work right here.

So that set designers, costume designers, Lighting designers can stay in Columbus and make a living.

We're not quite there yet.

We're still working on that ecosystem.

And when it happens for theater, guess what, it happens for film and dance and the symphony.

Right.

That you could make a living as a lighting designer.

Right.

I mean, TJ Gerkens is a great idea.

Right.

TJ is from Otterbein.

TJ is at Otterbein.

He's a world class lighting designer.

He lives in Columbus.

He goes all over the place.

But his.

His home base is central Ohio.

Right.

So we'd like.

We'd like more TJ's.

You know, we'd help.

Our.

Our vision is to build and support that ecosystem so that actors and creators and designers can live, work and play here, make a living and have healthcare.

So it's not just building your theater.

It is that whole system.

I had.

I hadn't really.

That's wonderful.

I hadn't thought of it in that.

I think of it as competition.

You know, if they don't go to the Otterbein play, they're gonna come to your play kind of thing.

And it's not.

It's the opportunity to go to both with professional artists in.

Both, correct.

Yeah, both.

Both and right.

It's a basic principle of theater is both and.

Right.

And we do have people who are Broadway subscribers.

They subscribe to us and they subscribe to Otterbein or they.

If you were a.

If you love theater and you love storytelling and theatrical storytelling, people come to multiple things and hopefully we don't overlap too much.

Right.

I was thinking a minute ago about our niche.

Right.

So you might think, oh, there's a lot of theater.

But at least at some level, we all have our own niche.

Right.

So we are telling stories that are contemporary about current, relevant issues that matter in the community today.

And there's lots of.

I have lots of examples of that.

A couple years ago, we did 9 to 5.

Well, 9 to 5 is an older, older play.

A lot of our work is written in the last 10 years.

Nine to five is more like 40 years old.

But the issues of gender, pay equity and sexual workplace harassment are still issues.

It's not new.

Right.

The Columbus Women's Commission is still working on workplace equity and pay equity.

Right.

So that was a wildly successful show for us.

Right.

We are going to do one in.

We'll talk about this later.

And that takes place in a hair salon in Harlem.

And as the play unfolds, it's funny, it's hilarious.

And you get to meet all these women, and then you learn that they have mixed immigration status and what that means in their lives.

That's a very real issue.

And the playwright who has ties to Ohio State, Josh Lombijo, wrote that play five years ago.

Probably more relevant today than five years ago.

Right, Exactly.

And we do all that.

We don't want to be preachy.

We want to do it through humor and through creating a safe space for conversation.

So we're very attentive to bringing you in, telling you a story, and then not letting you just go out into the world with no way to process that.

So let me give you another example.

We did a show two years ago called the Worries of Wesley, and it was about helping young people deal with anxiety, all kinds of anxiety, school, family, world, whatever.

And after every show, we had trained counselors from nationwide, Children's and LA Mental Health who did a little talk back, talked about some strategies to cope with anxiety, and then stayed to talk with families and kids in the lobby.

And guess what?

It was focused on kids anxiety.

And in fact, adults asked a lot of questions in a very safe space to do that.

And that is available, is that correct?

It's on a video now.

Yes.

Yeah.

So we got a grant from PNC Arts Alive to record that again, a way to kind of keep some.

We did a lot of virtual theater during the pandemic, so we recorded professionally the Worries of Wesley, and it's on our website.

Families can still stream it as a resource.

Yeah.

And it was, again, a perfect opportunity because it's a fairly new playwright who's still self producing, self publishing, and we didn't have to go through a big rights situation.

Right.

And we have guaranteed the playwright, when we sell streams of that, she will get a percentage of the profit.

So we can building community and lifting her up.

Right.

And building community.

There's nothing wrong with building a community through an economic money stream.

Right, right.

I always say nonprofit is a tax status, not a business model.

Exactly.

We must make some money.

We just don't pay shareholders.

Exactly.

It just goes back into the programming.

So that's kind of our work.

I like to think of us as like, we're like theater and.

Right.

There's a.

There's always talk backs and conversations and panels.

We've done a lot of things around the issues that are in the plays to take to try and take great care of the community.

We want you to feel safe and trusting and not have to just sit with all that stuff that might bubble up when you leave.

Right.

Short North Stage does musicals, a lot of, you know, locally produced musicals.

CCT is focused on some young programming for young people.

So my point is, we all have a niche in the community.

Broadway does what they do, and little theater, Off Broadway and Grove City does what they do for their community.

So we all have our niche, and we're not really.

To your point, we're not really in competition.

I believe a rising tide raises all boats.

I've always believed that across disciplines, visual art, we're all in this together, and we all got to sort of row in the same way.

Right?

Yeah.

So maybe I'm rare in that, but I've always.

I've always believed that.

Yeah.

You've explored the importance of theater and the arts to a community when it's creating healthy pathways and intergenerational conversations.

During your tenure, have you had the opportunity to create new programs or services that are now building those connections in Ohio?

I think one example I would give you for the contemporary is the one we just talked about the worries of Wesley, because that was such an important topic.

And we do a little push around that recording now at the beginning of the school year or around test taking time, because children and families, we all have.

There's a lot of anxiety that was probably there before the pandemic, and then it got even stronger after the pandemic.

And so any little thing we can put into the world, and so that's the one that's living, breathing.

Right.

Our other plays are time bound.

They run for three weeks and.

Right.

I did want to touch on a play.

We had a program called Creative Aging Ohio.

And it was.

I loved that work because we know the arts are good for your bodies and your brain.

And there's so much more.

Honestly, there's a lot of neuroscience coming out now about what happens to your brain, your body chemistry, when you not only participate in the arts, but when you just observe it, just watch it.

And so I'm fond of saying I kind of borrowed this from the Krannert center in Illinois years ago, had a tagline, come as you are, leave different, which I think is brilliant.

They don't use it anymore.

But I kind of talk about come as you are, and I think you'll be changed in some way, whether you recognize it or not.

You don't know what's happening in your brain.

But this latest neuroscience research There's a great book called your brain on Art.

Your Brain on Art.

You can't help but be changed in some way.

And we know, again, we're focused on building empathy and we've just started to try to measure it.

You can measure empathy.

Turns out.

Some of my colleagues have looked at loneliness.

We know the arts are an antidote to loneliness.

You can't really be lonely when you're together in a room like that.

We have two different theaters.

One is a typical proscenium, 200 seat, everybody facing the stage.

And our second space is a three quarter thrust theater.

Seats on three sides, 150 seats.

And it occurred to me the other day that the three quarter thrust space is a circle.

Sometimes it's on four sides.

And that's an ancient way of connecting people, is in a circle.

Right.

And so I was like, that's what we're doing.

Because people say, oh, I feel like I'm so close to the actors.

Right.

All of our spaces are really small and intimate spaces.

I'm so close to the actors.

Oh, and I can see how the people across from me are reacting and everybody's sort of in it.

That's what I miss during the pandemic is you watch something online and something might crack me up and my husband isn't laughing at all.

And I'm like, well, what's wrong with you?

Or he was thinking, what's wrong with me?

Because you don't get that communal experience.

Right.

So.

Anyway, the results of creative aging were amazing.

I tell you stories all day about the arts and aging, which is one of the reasons why I love what the Fran Ryan center is doing is, you know, adding health, the arts and older adults.

I just think is, you know, one.

Of the biggest groups that had worked with older adults in Columbus was vaudevillities.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I mean, when I was fairly young working at Ohio State, my older colleagues had been doing the, you know, kick dance lines for decades and they lived for that.

But it really is that notion of aging gracefully, literally physically aging gracefully, when you're up there and moving and doing and remembering and memorizing and all of those things that comes with it.

Well, and I'll tell you one quick story from that creative aging work.

When we were doing a program in a care facility, nursing home in Delaware, up in Delaware, and we had a visual artist who was, I believe, Japanese.

She was agent, but she spoke Japanese.

And there was a man who was non verbal memory care.

They had never heard this gentleman speak the caregivers had never heard him speak.

And the artist got to working with them, and I don't know what they were painting or drawing, what they were doing with her.

And he suddenly started speaking in Japanese.

And no one could understand it except her.

And basically it was locked inside of his brain.

And something she did through the visual arts helped him express himself.

He had been in World War II and had been in Japan.

And anyway, all that came out because they were painting and drawing.

And there are lots of stories like that.

The stories I hear every night in the theater.

Right.

About.

It might just be a line from a show.

Right.

It just opens up something in you.

What I believe is to your point, Brett, about does it go out in the community?

Here's what I believe, and I have data to prove this.

Over the years, the arts build assets that live in people for years.

I call that personally meaningful arts experiences.

So if I were to ask you both that question or anybody, I've done this with rooms of 100 people.

Remember a personally meaningful arts experience.

Now, I'm not asking favorite or personally meaningful arts experience.

Tell me where you were, who you were with, when it happened, any sensory memories?

Everyone has a story.

Everyone has a story.

And it flips you.

For me, I use that question to open a lot of workshops as a facilitator because it flips you out of your right brain into your left brain, and you have that memory.

And it might have happened last week or 30 years ago.

Right.

That's the power of the arts.

And that is all over this community.

We are all doing it.

We don't always hear about it.

Right.

But it's out there.

It's wonderful.

What I love hearing your stories is that notion of that intergenerational thrust looking at how theater and the arts is working with each generation.

So you do some educational programs.

You mentioned you have an artist in residence program.

Saturday workshops for the kids at the.

Both the Rife and McConnell centers camps.

The video.

Do you have a favorite of any of those?

Oh, Carol, I know.

It's like asking me to pick my favorite child.

Well, we know Kyle's your favorite.

Just don't tell him.

Don't tell his brother.

Oh, Carol, I'm not going there.

We know, we know.

Oh, my gosh.

I don't think I have a favorite.

But let me tell you what I love about our Prince process is it meets kids where they are, and it helps them unlock things.

And just like what we were talking about for humans or for adults, we do that for all humans, big and Little.

We start with a writing process.

So our Saturday morning musicals, our 20 week residencies in schools, starts with having students, young people, write their own play.

And we have wonderful artist educators who do that work.

I don't, I don't do that work.

Remember, I didn't want to be a teacher.

I don't do that work.

But we hire.

Steve Hiller is our education director and he hires wonderful artist educators who go into classrooms or after school programs or wise around the city.

And it always starts with the creative process of writing.

Just a basic academic need.

Kids need to know how to write and they can adapt to play or they can develop something from scratch.

And I'm here to tell you, young people have a lot to say.

And we start with five years old, five year old and go up.

They have a lot on their minds, a lot of things they want to say, a lot of stuff they're trying to process.

And so the artist educator, I've seen their process helps them get that all up on flip charts and all around the room.

And then they refine and refine and refine and hone that into a script and then the second part of the residencies.

And if it's a Saturday morning musical, it's 10 weeks or 15, depending on where it is.

10 or 15 weeks.

The first few weeks, right, are the writing and then the next few weeks are the.

And putting that.

The performance.

It's less about the performance, it's more about the process.

But we know in the arts there has to sort of be that thing you're working towards, motivational to have a performance, people are going to come and see you.

That's not, we're not trying to necessarily build the next group of actors.

Maybe, maybe some of those kids will become actors.

We have stories about that.

But we really want to support their academic, social, emotional learning and wellness.

That's, that's the goal, right?

And build empathy.

That is also the goal.

So.

I just love that process that we build and we write and we think and then we get to the collaboration, building the show, teamwork.

Some kids are better, they're now better public speakers.

Right.

They find that sort of self efficacy.

They find who they are.

Right.

And they blossom.

So that's what's constant between all of our education work.

So that's a really strong part of our work.

If a school system was interested in introducing this Program.

Do you have that ability to add into other locations?

Yeah, we sure do.

And just contact you directly.

Contact Steve Hiller, our education director.

He's on our.

He's on our website.

Just go to our website.

Right.

And.

And find Steve Hill, our education director.

And.

And he's wonderful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because sports doesn't do it for everybody, right?

Kids.

Kids need other outlets.

Wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you again.

We need it.

All right.

Exactly.

Well, and to that point, you know, the arts are important to a kid's development, whether it's music, visual arts, or theater.

Could you talk about maybe sometimes you've seen or heard about the power of theater in a child's life?

Oh, yeah.

I mean, how long you got?

How long you got?

And I'm gonna talk.

I'm gonna start with me, right?

I was a kid who started playing trumpet at 10.

And I.

And I grew up again.

It was probably bigger than you were.

It was.

Yep.

Right.

Rural southeastern Ohio.

Grew up in Caldwell, which is down by Marietta, Noble County.

Right off, if you've gone to Florida on Interstate 77, you've blown right through Caldwell.

And we didn't have a theater program.

We didn't have an orchestra.

We had a choir and a band.

So When I was 10, I started playing trumpet, right?

And now I'm way much older than 10.

And I'm still playing trumpet.

I play every week in the brass band of Columbus.

I play in churches.

And for me now.

It'S my mental health.

It's my escape.

When I sit down to practice or play, it just takes all the troubles of the day away.

So I was a kid.

Who, were it not for music and trumpet playing, would not have gone to college.

And we know that that happens for other kids.

We did a.

Two summers ago, we did a summer teen program.

We got a.

We got a grant, and we did a.

It was like an internship for students in the summertime.

High school.

High school students from around the city with 10.

10 students who did a.

Who produced a play called the Day the Music Came Back.

And a couple of those kids have gone on.

One of them came back to act in another play with us.

So again, it's.

It's building their pathway, mentoring.

We also taught them how to write a resume, how to network, how to interview.

We built some career skills around that.

Right.

Because those kids are ones who want to go on and do that and do that work.

Right.

Otherwise, gosh, Brett, we see it all the time.

Yeah, I believe that.

Right.

It's just the kid who's who's shy and in the corner.

By the end of a, of a 10 week program, they're out front.

You can't, you then you can't shut them up.

Right, right, right, right.

Well, they found their voice.

They found their voice.

Their family.

Yeah, too.

And their people.

Right.

And that's a lot of.

With kids growing up, they need to find their people.

That's right.

And to Carol's point, there's, there's lots of things for young people to be involved in now.

And some kids are creative and they need that creative outlet.

I remember being in a play in high school, you know, a couple of centuries ago, and.

The group of students that were in that play were so diverse in terms of the bad boys and, you know, the smart girls and everybody in between.

We learned more about each other in that short amount of time of doing the play than we ever had through the two and a half, three years of high school.

We were together in classrooms.

Yeah.

And the, and the mentorship, we have a little theme going here.

The, the mentorship between an 8 year old and a 13 year old is beautiful.

Yes.

It is beautiful to watch.

Right.

That just how they take care of each other.

Yeah, it's wonderful.

Now, looking back, what were some of those pivots you mentioned?

Zooms and videos and that kind of thing?

Did you find a lot of the changes were still, you're still able to utilize those changes, whether it's format or technology.

Did it help or was it something that just sort of went away?

Well, Zoom and teams are here to stay.

Right.

I mean, those aren't going away anytime soon.

And what I found so interesting during the pandemic is, you know, I was a consultant and worked for NABO before the pandemic, and I used gotomeeting all the time.

Right.

That was just because I had clients in other parts of the country.

We used gotomeeting and then all of a sudden it was Zoom.

Zoom was brilliant because they gave it away for free to schools in the beginning and they were a tiny little company, but they built that thing to go on and on.

Right.

So that, that just became part and parcel of Zoom.

Right.

And, and in those, in the pandemic, if you didn't turn on your camera.

You were an outcast.

Turn on your camera.

Right.

Okay.

But you were still in your PJs.

That was the problem.

Right, Right.

And we made.

I think I told you, we made virtual work for a year.

Ish.

And we decided.

And by that time we had laid people off and.

Right.

And because we are a professional company.

Actors Equity, who are this?

It's the same union that Broadway actors are a part of.

And, you know, the pandemic was the heart hit the hardest in New York in the beginning.

And Equity actors died.

And so they put hard lines in the sand because no more people were gonna die on their watch.

Rightly so.

And so we became about keeping people safe and risk management and.

Right.

All the navigating new territory.

Right.

And early on.

We'll never go back to this, but early on, we couldn't have actors and audience members within 10ft of each other.

So the times we measured our theater to see if we could even do it and even make it cost effective when things started to open up.

And ultimately we kept deciding no.

So we decided that first year we would only make virtual work.

So we made theater on iPhones and iPads across the country.

We shipped props across the country.

We had editors who figured out how to do this weird zoom editing.

Brett, you're an editor?

It was.

My husband has been an audio video editor for 30 years.

And he said it tested every bit of what he thought he knew and it.

And put the technology and software on steroids.

Yeah.

It just.

Oh, we probably gained in three years time, which it should have taken 10.

Yeah, yeah.

And.

And our patrons were so kind.

62% of our patrons let us keep the money from their tickets.

They did not ask for a refund.

And then people bought the streams of the virtual work we were producing, which was really good given how we were learning the technology.

Right.

Time delay, the lag and all that.

It was pretty amazing.

It was really a whole new art form, I think what we were doing.

But you could only get about 20 bucks for a stream.

That's about all anybody would pay.

20, $25.

Right.

And we produced Outside for the first time up at Ohio State.

We did a two person play, a one woman play with a second character outside.

And I thought people would come running back.

They didn't.

It'll be hot, it'll be buggy.

Where will I park all the things so for that show, we recorded it and we did it live outside.

Outside, right.

We haven't presented outside again, but we could.

We could present outside.

Right.

The Zoom and the teams thing.

Just like last night, we had first rehearsal for a show and some of the designers are out of town and they could just zoom in and be a part of the kind of the conversation.

When still we're very cautious about COVID and actors who are sick.

Because if you infect the cast with anything, for us, it could shut.

They could shut the whole thing down.

We were so fortunate we did not have to shut down during production for any production during COVID Now we saw dips in ticket sales.

When there was a Covid spike, there would be a ticket sale dip.

But we did not have to take.

We did not lose any performances because of COVID which is amazing.

And many of our peers did here and across the country.

So we still take safety very seriously in the room.

And so sometimes an actor rehearses on Zoom.

That was how we did it during the pandemic.

They were all on Zoom.

And now if you're feeling bad or sick, just stay home and zoom in.

So that has stayed for sure.

So it's really the flexibility that technology created that you've been able to still utilize.

Yeah, for sure.

We don't have the resources to do everything virtual and on stage.

There are some companies across the country that are still doing virtual as a supplement, and there's some research about that that actually increases revenue.

But we were a small team.

We have five full time people.

We're a very small team.

And so right now we're not making that virtual work.

Except in the case of, like Worries of Wesley, where we filmed a performance and put that online.

That's new technology.

We've never done that.

We worked with Buckeye Interactive as a partner to figure out how to put that up and make it streaming.

And we charge a little bit for it.

Again, some secondary income for us.

We didn't know how to do that.

Buckeye Interactive helped us do that as a partner.

So those kind of things have stayed.

Thankfully, our theaters are back to regular capacity and we're not measuring seats and taking seats out.

I hope we never have to go back to that.

And I hope as a contemporary theater company that we stay innovative in all the ways, whatever that looks like going forward, that we keep that spirit of innovation.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah.

You've got a couple more productions to go this season.

Let's talk about Those.

But also.

Probably can't let the cat out of the bag of what's happening for next season.

But when will you be able to release the season coming up for the fall into the next year?

When can we see that come out?

We do that every spring.

Okay.

So.

Usually by April 1.

We do a season announcement.

And we've done a host of things.

We've done something at the theater where we had some songs and dances, you know, some songs and some actors and some directors talk.

And then we've.

Last year we did a little thing at Land Grant Brewery where we just had some season.

Right.

Just.

So here's the season and here's what doing we're going to do.

And.

We will hope to announce that as soon as we can, but it'll be in the spring.

Yeah.

Coming up, we have Zsa Zsa's African Hair Braiding, which will be in March.

Again, really wonderful, hilarious play.

90 minutes.

So a lot of our plays are only 90 minutes.

So you can have dinner beforehand and, you know, be home by 10, starts at 8.

Sha Shaw's was written by Jocelyn Biho, who's an Ohio State grad.

We did another play of hers a few years ago called Schoolgirls or the African Mean Girls Play, which sold really well and people loved.

So we're thrilled to bring her story back.

It's playing all across the country.

And that's the thing about our work, because we do a musical once a year and then the rest of our programming is our plays.

We really are the only professional company in town who does that mix.

So if we don't produce Cha Jones African Hair Braiding, it might not come to Columbus.

And it's all over the country.

It's in Cleveland and Cincinnati and Pittsburgh.

And so I'm really proud of the fact that we can bring it, you know, bring it here.

But it's about a story.

It takes place in a beauty shop in Harlem.

And the.

And it's a.

It's a braiding salon.

There's going to be beautiful wig work and beautiful braiding.

We're partnering with hair braiders in the community.

And, and that's another hallmark of our work, is we just build partnerships like crazy.

And you hear the various people of the neighborhood come in and out of the shop.

It's just typical of what happens at a beauty shop.

Right.

And then as the play goes, you discover that the, the women working in the shop have mixed immigration status and what that means to their life and their family and their safety.

And so that's, that's, that's Jaja's.

It's a Pulitzer Prize winning play and it is about a young man, he's in his mid-30s, who loses his job.

He's worked in a bookstore most of his life.

He loses his job and kind of side, you know, consequently his identity.

Like, who is he?

This has been his job all these years.

And he spends most of his evenings in a tiki bar.

It's gonna be a really fun set to build.

And you learn that.

I don't think I'm giving anything away, but you learn he has an imaginary friend that he's had for years, which came about from some trauma he had earlier in his life.

And as the play goes on again, 90 minutes, and at the end, he, he learns he really can go on.

He gets a new job in a bank, Primary Trust, hence the name.

And he learns he can cope without this imaginary friend.

So there's a theme there around men's mental health.

And again, we're going to work again with LA Mental Health and some partners to make that space, to have that conversation about men's mental health because there's definitely stigma there and.

Men don't always like to talk about those things.

But we're going to try to make a safe space for them that.

Right.

And then we'll announce the new season in the spring and there will definitely be a musical.

I know what that's going to be, but I can't tell you.

You'll have to tune in and see what it is.

Can you bring in the musicians from who, who, who plays then?

Local.

Local.

Local musicians.

I didn't know if you pulled in from like the symphony or you know, that sort of thing or just.

Well, they may also play.

Depends on the music, of course, for sure.

But we, we tend to do because of the size of our theater, four to five piece bands.

We have some just like the actors.

We have amazing musicians in this town.

Sure.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And so we hired again, everybody gets paid and.

Yeah, okay, very nice.

And, and we're going to have all of this information and our resources when we post this podcast and links to how to find out what's going on and will include everything in our Facebook page and on the website.

So.

Very good.

So, Christy, we always ask our guests for last words of wisdom.

Is there anything, suggestions or advice that you have for our listeners today talking about the importance of theater in a.

Community yeah, of course, Carol, of course.

I have words of advice.

I would say.

See, you said you're not an educator.

My first thing would be see the arts.

Theater, dance, music, film, visual, whatever it is.

See the arts live and in person as much as you can.

It's good for the community.

It's good for your body and your brain and your mind.

Do something.

Like, why not do something when you can?

So I think when this airs, it'll be a new website.

Purchase a ticket, and we have lots of ways if cost is a barrier.

The first two shows, the first two previews of all of our shows we run for three weekends are pay what you want.

And we really mean that from $5 to $100, whatever, pay what you want and come see the shows.

We have a wonderful sponsor, the Robert Wyler Company, that helps subsidize that program.

So.

We have student discount, $20.

Students can see a play for 20 bucks.

Enroll your child or grandchild in one of our education programs.

There are locations all around the city.

We work with some parks and recs programs.

So hopefully there's something in your neighborhood.

If you want to volunteer, you might usher for a show.

We work with CAPA for our ushers.

We're in a CAPA managed space at the Rife center.

And so usher.

You can usher for a show.

And if you usher, you get to stay and see the show for free.

Ooh.

So there's a perk.

Even better, you might serve on a committee.

We have all kinds of committees in the board, programming and marketing.

We have a booth every year at the Columbus Arts Festival.

You could volunteer at the booth.

We just were at the chambers Clambake.

You could volunteer at the Clam Bank.

It was so much fun.

And then on the education side, again, enroll your child, but maybe talk to your child principal or a teacher or we kind of work, you know, school by school.

And so we.

We'd love to see if there's a partnership we could build with a school or a rec center or, or in the community and expand that.

Expand that network.

Wonderful.

Nice.

Well, many thanks to our expert guest, Chrissy Farnbaugh, executive director of the Contemporary Theater of Ohio, the Contemporary, for joining us today.

Listeners, thank you for joining us.

You're going to find the contact information resources as we discussed in the podcast show Notes and on our website@lookingforwardarway.com, and we are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes.