Regional Teams are the backbone of the American Theatre Project. Team members have direct connection with local theatre artists and companies, offering resources and serving as liaisons to the national ATAP steering committee. If you have just started a new regional team, or if you are thinking you might start one, here are some tips to get you started. Don’t forget, we’re here to help! Contact ATAP with questions or for assistance.

  1. Reach out to like-minded theatre scholars, archivists, librarians, students, historians, dramaturgs, other theatre practitioners, and anyone else in your region with an interest in documenting and preserving theatre history.
  2. Host an informal meeting to discuss how ATAP could progress in your area. Use the Area Inventory Form to get started.
    Nominate a chair or co-chairs to take responsibility for organizing meetings and posting team reports to the ATAP website (contact ATAP to establish a team page). The chair(s) can rotate as needed.
  3. Set up monthly meetings to discuss local needs and establish and track a team game plan. You may want to use an online tool such as Dropbox or Google Drive to share and update documents.
  4. Contact ATAP for a Team Training session. This is a half-day training session for theatre archivists, scholars, practitioners, students, and others who would like to represent ATAP in public forums and/or participate in the ATAP Initiation Program as documentarians.
  5. Participate in a “Hot Topics” seminar. ATAP hosts periodic seminars to gather ATAP members to share questions and resources and “deep dive” into special topics, for example, “Digital Catalogs” or “Exploiting Veteran Ushers (In a Good Way).” Event notifications will be posted on the ATAP website and sent out to all the regional teams via the Listserv.
  6. Recruit team members and develop local networks of support.
  7. Identify local sources of funding for preliminary assessments and training, or grant programs local theatre companies might appeal to for assistance in establishing archives.
  8. Assign archivist-documentarian teams to interested theatres (see ATAP Initiation Program).
  9. Send monthly highlights for ATAP Progress Reports to communications@americantheatrearchiveproject.org by the first of each month.
  10. Share your progress! Submit photos of projects to ATAP and let the global community what you’re working on through your team page. Send updates to communications@americantheatrearchiveproject.org.