Cutting Ball Theater (2022)

By the start of 2022, Ariel Craft had been the Executive Artistic Director of Cutting Ball Theater, a 65-seat experimental theater in San Francisco, for almost four years. Craft was beloved by her staff and board of directors alike, which is why it was such a shock when, in March 2022, shortly after returning from a few months of parental leave, Craft announced that she would be leaving Cutting Ball at the end of June.

The board had thought they found Cutting Ball’s next longtime artistic leader in Craft, but suddenly had to turn their attention to succession planning while the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic still posed a threat to the theater’s operations. Meanwhile, having grown accustomed to working collaboratively and autonomously in Craft’s absence and throughout the pandemic, Cutting Ball’s small staff was worried that a new leader could dramatically alter the non-hierarchical internal culture in which they’d become accustomed to working. Anticipating the staff’s concern, Craft pitched an idea to members of both the board and staff, separately. The idea: Rather than simply replacing Craft, Cutting Ball should adopt a collective leadership model. At the time, such models were not widely practiced in the theater industry, making the suggestion quite unexpected.

Unsure of what to do, the board hired a consultant to shepherd Cutting Ball through Craft’s departure and another to support its aftermath. Throughout the summer of 2022, these consultants conducted interviews with Craft and the staff and researched collective leadership models within the theater industry. As the weeks passed, the staff went about preparing for the 2022-2023 season with neither a centralized leader nor an artistic point person, leading to some frustration about the lack of clarity on what the future leadership would look like. From the board’s perspective, a decision this consequential required careful consideration and time.

By early October 2022, with the 2022-2023 season already underway, the staff had been functioning as an autonomous collective without formal recognition for months. All eyes looked toward a November 2022 board meeting where the board would vote on whether or not Cutting Ball Theater should adopt a collective leadership model. Regardless, at the meeting the board and staff will also need to come to an agreement about what new staff members would be needed to make Cutting Ball a sustainable place to work and how the theater could solidify its artistic identity post-Craft.