Theatres Leading Change Toronto (TLC Toronto) was a consortium initiative that continued a body of work exploring and learning from practitioner-led change that we have been pursuing since 2009. Like many who work closely with and in the arts leadership structure, we understand that the enormous diversity of needs, intentions and underlying artistic processes require not the simplification of a singular model but rather the complexity of the many different approaches and structures that arts leaders discover and develop in order to most effectively create and connect their work in a changing environment.

After two years of work with these varied arts organizations and leaders in Toronto, what has emerged is some truly meaningful thinking and work around the most urgent and often persistent issues in the sector – from resource distribution to audience development to how structures sustain or inhibit the work to the nature of collaborative creation both within and between organizations.   The TLC Toronto leaders were willing to think expansively and set aside the status quo such that we ended up not with a series of inward-looking approaches but rather with ideas that often connected throughout the sector, deeply within neighborhoods and communities or broadly across sectors. We have been inspired by the creativity and resilience of these arts professionals and their organizations and are proud to share the insights we have gained from their ideas, approaches and thinking through a series of seven posts.