Mission
The IceHouse Tonight is a community performance series established as a stage for the resident arts community in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The series is committed to the advancement of regional and emerging artists and to the exposition of important social and human issues through the arts.
A Model of Best Practices
The IceHouse Tonight arts and cultural series presented at the Charles S. Brown IceHouse Performing Arts Center operates through a set of artistic partnerships, a generous relationship with the City of Bethlehem, and a handful of regular funding organizations. As a leader in the local sustainable arts, IceHouse Tonight programming is centered on many of the sustainable strategies present in our list of Best Practices. Among these practices are:
• Presentation of new works and premieres
• Support of local artists and arts groups
• Integration of community arts organizations with business and social services groups
• A tight working relationship with the City of Bethlehem
• A commitment to the development of young local artists
• An artistic commitment to racial and gender diversity
BACKGROUND
For over twenty years the Charles S. Brown IceHouse on Sand Island in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has served as a venue for festival and children’s performances. In the summer of 2013, the programming at the IceHouse moved in a significant new direction. A small group of local artists gathered to address an interesting problem— the large amount of evening “dark time” at the facility. Soon, the group cobbled together a simple set of evening programs under the title IceHouse Tonight. For the first time adult performances were presented on a published schedule at the IceHouse. Five years later, The IceHouse Tonight schedule features over 100 engagements!
CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS
The current IceHouse Tonight schedule has grown to offer over 100 evening shows and programs, exclusively produced by local artists in disciplines as diverse as Indian classical dance, Irish theater, and big band music. Notable in the current season is also the development of regular weeknight programs including an environmental series hosted by the local Sierra Club, a jazz series from Moravian College, and social justice programming delivered by various social service organizations. Also evolving in the current year is the development of a growing relationship with the merchants of downtown Bethlehem and a monthly poetry workshop program, Tuesday Muse.
GOALS
To make free and affordable performance opportunities available to young and new performing artists and organizations.
To create a public forum dedicated to the specific environmental, social justice. and community issues of the City of Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley in general.
To establish a model relationship between the city and the sustainable arts community demonstrating the power of unity in cultural placemaking.
To demonstrate the significant cost savings and long-term economic and social benefits of cultural placemaking through the sustainable arts community
FUNDING
This year’s IceHouse Tonight series was funded by grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Lehigh County Quality of Life Grant, several local corporations, and an anonymous foundation. In 2018, the program worked with a budget of about $20,000. Through our contributions, we have paid for many rentals, repairs, the construction of a new lighting grid for the loft theater, payment for the IceHouse Tonight website, and various fees for services and promotional materials. Just as the venue is a study in sustainable cultural programming, it is also an exercise in the effective and efficient use of funds to create a quality community-based artistic venue.
PARTNERS
The IceHouse Tonight series is a relationship between the City of Bethlehem and the sustainable arts community. Our central partnership with the city combines the preservation of the historic ice house with a cultural venue linking the arts to the life of the city.
Through that rich relationship, the stage has been set for a host of community partnerships. During the 2018 Season, the IceHouse Tonight collaborated with over thirty arts and civic organizations from Bethlehem and the Lehigh Valley. These partnerships include:
Associated Partnerships:
Touchstone Theatre
WDIY
Comedy Nights
Pennsylvania Youth Theatre
Sierra Club of the Lehigh Valley
Crossroads Anti-Racism
Zinefest
The Bitters
Travis Hobbie
Michael Fegley
Principal Partnerships
DanceLink
Crowded Kitchen
Dina Hall
George Hrab
Mock Turtle
Tape Swap Radio
Basement Poets
SS Film Institute
Matt Wolf Poetry
Pennsylvania Jazz Collective
Selkie Theatre
Tony Gairo’s Big Band
Allentown Public Theatre
Tuesday Muse- Poetry
HOW ICE HOUSE TONIGHT WORKS
The IceHouse Tonight combines elements of a community center with those of an arts cooperative. Performance dates are scheduled with the city at affordable rates. Operating expenses, insurance, and rental fees are subsidized by foundation, county, and state grants. Completing this organizational base, the venue is unified through a core group of arts and community partners who join in the marketing, sharing of equipment, and the administration of the venue.
Working with this very cost effective foundation, artists and small arts organizations receive free to very low rental fees and the whole gate for each performance. In exchange, the partners are responsible for the primary promotion of their own shows, all box office duties, and all technical requirements. A full description of how the venue operates can be found in our latest manual of Procedures which is available on request.
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
As our series develops as a popular community asset, we have set our sights on writing more and bigger grants to support its development. A major advance in this prospect has been the establishment of a new 501 (C)(3) status under the name Eastern Pennsylvania Arts Alliance. With this new status the organization will become more sustainable as a public institution.
But, as we grow, the greater goal will always be for the emerging and local artist community to take ownership of the program and to invent new ways for the series to serve the public sphere.