Theatre Puget Sound: Raising the Curtain on a Creative Solidarity Economy

Crystal Yingling was bound for an otherwise perfect opening night of the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Nutcracker when trouble struck—car trouble. After a moderate amount of stress, delay, and grime, the Theatre Puget Sound executive director finally made it to the opening, albeit in a disheveled state, unclear how she would be received.

Seattle area performing arts organizations in the last handful of years have likewise been forced to proceed with similar kinds of stress and unknowing, as they have struggled to rebound from a pandemic which brought live performance nationwide to a grinding halt. Perhaps rebound isn’t the right word. Theatres had already been financially stretched going into Covid. Survival since? It has already proven too much for a number of small and mid-sized theatres. Others have been forced to scale back staff and/or offerings dramatically. Still others, like Theatre Puget Sound, are doing more than just fighting to keep their head above water. They are charting a hopeful way forward, so long as they aren’t doing it alone.

Theatre Puget Sound (TPS) is a membership and service organization supporting industry workers and performing arts organizations. When Seattle’s art scene was growing in 1997 and there was a pronounced need for resources and information sharing, TPS was born. Within a year they received nonprofit status. Call the organization connective tissue for the theatre arts industry. It has proved vital not only to sustaining ongoing production, but to lifting up and giving opportunities to people entering the industry.

The first program TPS launched was the Space4Arts program, offering 25,000 square feet of rehearsal studios and performance space to actors and companies. The Unified General Auditions program they developed has brought hundreds of actors every year to audition in front of local casting and artistic directors. Theatre Puget Sound also introduced the annual Gregory Awards to the region as a way to honor local theatres, actors, directors, and playwrights for their contributions to live performance.

When Covid shut the live performance industry down, support organizations like TPS followed. Yingling was hired as executive director in December of 2022, and the looming reality soon came into stark focus.

“Within a few months it became very clear the organization was in trouble,” said Yingling. When Seattle Center’s Book-It Repertory Theatre closed, it took an estimated 25% of the organization’s anticipated revenue with it. Yingling, had to put everyone on part-time, including herself. It looked for all the world like the final nail in the coffin. Except that Yingling had other ideas, if anyone would listen.

Yingling was perhaps used to dealing with obstacles in her path. In spite of their education at the time—an undergraduate degree in Vocal Performance and an MFA from Seattle University in Art Leadership (where Dr. Crystal, as her students call her, now teaches)—and in spite of her eagerness to go to work on behalf of Seattle area theatres, they had trouble finding organizations that believed in them.

“My military background was seen as very unfavorable,” Yingling confessed. Perhaps if the organizations that hedged at her résumé looked a little deeper into the work she did with the military, they might have seen just the kind of strength and creative leadership local theatre needed.

Yingling went to college on an ROTC scholarship. When 9/11 happened, she soon found herself serving in the military rather than embarking on the performance career they had envisioned. She began working in the Psychological Operations (PSYOP) branch, traditionally purposed with influencing motives and reasoning to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives. In Yingling’s case, the operations involved were notably positive—“winning hearts and minds,” as she put it, and helping people make positive changes.

Yingling wrote radio dramas for teaching Afghan children what to do when they spotted mines left by Russian forces, so as to save lives. In North and West Africa, they put together Arts and Cultural festivals bringing in Imams to teach the peaceful tenets of Islam, so as to reduce the threat of suicide bombings.  “Through the arts,” said Yingling, “we gave them avenues for creative expression that would last longer than this moment of violence that ends your life and ends the life of others.” 

The program was so successful that Yingling was recognized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who asked that she and others start implementing the teaching throughout North Africa and the Sahara region.

After working to that level of acclaim, and earning a master’s, imagine being scrutinized while trying to land a theatre internship. Nevertheless, Intiman Theatre gave Yingling a chance. She designed and ran the successful Intiman Emerging Artists program to spark more diversity in casting. After earning a doctorate in Global Education, Yingling did consulting work for theatres when the Theatre of Puget Sound executive directorship popped up. “I was like wow,” they said, “I love working with all these theatres. This is the best opportunity I have to pull together this collective effort and figure out how we can work together to try to save our industry.”

While Yingling was soon forced to reduce staff hours, TPS worked on a new agreement with the City of Seattle that would allow TPS to continue running the Space4Arts program. In spite of a lackluster donor history, they boosted membership. “When I started, we had 43 total members and zero organizational members,” Yingling said. Today TPS has 1,200 members, including over 100 performing arts organizations.

The team also managed to raise $50,000, which allowed Yingling to bring staff back full time. That was just the beginning.

A resident company initiative was launched and four companies joined in collaboration with TPS, including Seattle Shakespeare Company, among others. Yingling calls it the “creative solidarity economy.”

“There's the solidarity economy,” said Yingling, “where people work together collaboratively sharing resources and information. And there is the creative economy, demonstrating that there’s not only monetary economic value to the Arts, but the creative vitality that it brings to a region. Putting those concepts together makes a creative solidarity economy.” Yingling also shifted control to benefit the collaborative group, sharing a board so that major decisions about the spaces, spending money to update, repair, etc. become intentionally collaborative to ensure they are done in everyone’s best interest.

Unified General Auditions are back in a big way. This year was the biggest UGAs ever, hosting 400 actors and playwrights and 84 auditors. A tech and design job fair was added as well. “We found that about 50 percent of those who auditioned got gigs from auditioning at the UGAs,” confirmed Yingling, “and 99 percent of the companies at the job fair found the person or persons they were looking to hire.”

The Gregory Awards are also back, including the return of the Sustained Achievement Award, this year honoring arts leader Vivian Phillips. Added to that is the fact that Theatre Puget Sound is about to have its most revenue-producing year in its 27-year history with a head-turning 130 percent increase over last year.

TPS is taking a more direct role in the Seattle Playwriting Conference. A brand-new website enables automated hourly rentals in addition to acting as the region’s creative arts job board.

At press time, yet another announcement—TPS has been awarded $107,236 over a three-year span, and a $230,900 facilities grant from 4Culture through King County’s Doors Open program. TPS will use the money to make their BlackBox Theatre more usable for the 193 organizations who use the space and to transform the lobby into a Creatives’ Café in-person community hub.

Yingling hinted that they still aren’t done yet. Even more collaborative agreements are in the works. While the organization still has questions about the future, the direction is hopeful to say the least, and she sees evolution and positive changes all around the industry.

Back to that opening night car trouble. When Yingling finally arrived at the gala event, somewhat worse for wear, she noticed something. “No one batted an eye,” they said. “I looked around and people were in evening gowns or jeans and it didn’t matter, and that is a different Seattle than when I moved here in 2012. I like this Seattle better. I like the Seattle where you can come as you are and see [live performance] and not be judged for who you are.”