Providence leaders have come to recognize the arts as an important economic engine for the city. One key player in raising the arts community’s profile is Donald W. King, founder and artistic director of the Providence Black Repertory Company.
This week, in partnership with the City of Providence and more than 30 corporate sponsors, the Black Rep hosts its fourth annual Sound Session, a week-long, multi-genre musical festival culminating in a parade and block party downtown on Saturday night.
PBN: Why did you start Sound Session?
KING: It was deliberately designed to bring diverse groups of people together by using music as a vehicle. … It was also designed to serve as an economic driver for downtown in the middle of the summer, when our business in particular was struggling. We’re a repertory company, so we do theater, music, education and public programs, but our theater goes dark in the summertime. We needed an event to keep our organization vital … and to highlight the work that our organization was doing all year.
PBN: Attendance has grown from 10,000 in 2004 to 35,000 last year. What is the ultimate goal?
KING: The first focus is that it be something that helps sustain the Providence Black Repertory Company and helps put this organization on the map. I also hope it will help provide us with some fiscal stability, so that we can begin to get the adequate organizational expertise and infrastructure that we need to get in place in order to keep offering programs at the highest possible level. The second focus is for it to grow into an internationally known event that does become recognized by the city and state as something that does drive economic development – where hotels are getting people from all of the world that week … that restaurants are seeing an increase in the amount of patrons that are coming downtown … that retail stores are getting people from all over the world that are coming to our city.
PBN: How much of the crowd is from Rhode Island?
KING: The majority of it was local … but I think there’s a significant amount of people that came from outside of Rhode Island.
PBN: How do you turn this into a widely recognized destination festival?
KING: It really is going to take a marketing strategy … that incorporates the [R.I. Economic Development Corporation], [the Providence Economic Development Partnership] and [Mayor David N. Cicilline’s] office, which has been very helpful. … It’s also going to take the participation of businesses and the belief that this is something worth investing in.
PBN: Does the business community support Sound Session?
KING: We went from less than 10 sponsors in our first year to over 32 this year. We’re now starting to field calls from national reps from major distributors and car companies. … So I think that on a national level … and [for] larger local companies … people come and get this right away. … But I’m not convinced that smaller businesses, the restaurants and things like that, have an appreciation for what we’re doing, and they don’t have a sense that taking an ad … in our program helps us in our efforts to produce this event. … So that’s my job over the next few years – and the job of all of the stakeholders – to make that connection to smaller businesses that nonprofits, and the arts in particular, can make a significant impact on their businesses.
PBN: In general, how is the relationship between arts and business in the state?
KING: I think that the arts have an excellent relationship with the business community. … But I think what we need now is to move away from the emotional requests for supporting the arts and begin to focus on the economic argument that we provide jobs. During the week of Sound Session, I triple my paid staff. … But we also hire on people three months in advance to help out. That’s money – taxes – that are going back into the city and state.
PBN: Would Sound Session be possible if the Black Rep were not a nonprofit?
KING: I don’t think a for-profit organization could’ve afforded to do Sound Session, because it doesn’t make any sense. We didn’t make any money in the first year we did Sound Session. We’re hoping to see a profit this year, but it has taken a lot of time, resources and goodwill to grow Sound Session into whatever you see it to be right now. That has a lot to do with people understanding us as a nonprofit. You don’t get 100 people to volunteer for you as a for-profit.
PBN: Nonprofits such as the Black Rep and AS220 seem to be flourishing in Providence, while several for-profit arts ventures have failed. Why is that?
KING: I’m not an economist … but I can tell you that there are some things that need to be looked at if we’re going to mature. … I think we need to look at the nature of nightlife [and] try and extend the hours of which businesses are allowed to stay open at night – for for-profits and nonprofits. I think the other thing is business regulations. Somewhere, somehow, somebody needs to begin to coordinate the effort between the business community, the police department, planning and development and building and code regulations.
PBN: What is the status of downtown in your view?
KING: I think that downtown needs to be careful as it’s growing to really try and diversify. … I think it’s extremely important that you have high-end restaurants and retail stores in downtown. I also I think it’s as extremely important that you also have mid-level and – dare I say – low-level retail and restaurants. I don’t think that this district is going to survive by not being open-minded in its ability to diversify. •
INTERVIEW: DONALD W. KING
POSITION: Artistic director, Providence Black Repertory Company
BACKGROUND: King founded the Black Rep in 1996 while in his mid-20s, not only as a theater and musical performance venue, but also as an organization that runs educational and public programs. It originally called AS220 home before moving into locations on Washington Street and its current home on Westminster Street. King is also an adjunct professor at Brown University, teaching classes about post-colonial theater and hip-hop and jazz. In addition, he is a DJ.
EDUCATION: B.A. in Africana studies, 1993, Brown University
AGE: 37
RESIDENCE: Providence
