An open letter from Collaboraction’s Board President Mike Grillo on why he supports Collaboraction

I suspect that for devoted supporters of the arts it is impossible to imagine how drastically our lives would change if the varied media that permeate our lives were suddenly removed from our collective artistic experience.  Consider how uninteresting things would be if our choices on most weekends were renditions of Our Town, Swan Lake, The Merchant of Venice or a rousing evening of Beatles covers. Each of these are brilliant and I have enjoyed them all, but don’t we already know the punchline?

I propose that each of us finds ourselves constantly seeking that piece of art that moves us in a new way that urges us to action or emotion.  In spite of the fact that this search is often circuitous, full of quirky evenings and unkempt productions, we pursue promise and support brilliance in the hopes of finding the discoveries and insights that ultimately take our breath away. More importantly perhaps we try to feed, both literally and figuratively, those individuals and organizations that redefine the landscape and stretch the boundaries of what was previously considered a part of the artistic realm.

A friend introduced me to Collaboraction in the fall of 2000 when she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I have something interesting to show you.”  As I was soon to find out, interesting was a massive understatement. In the lucky seven years that followed I was treated to a parade of brilliances regardless of the medium: Sketchbook, Jenny Chow, 365, or one of our experimental forays that tested the boundaries of what was theatre versus music, sound, light and movement.  Perhaps most importantly Collaboraction, and its Company members, have consistently leveraged their art and their crafts to invite me to activism rather than the escapism so often offered by the pop culture options more readily available and accessible today (just drive by the multiplex if you need an example).  In addition to this, and critically, in spite of the pop culture distractions available today, I have been amazed at Collaboraction’s ability to resonate with the young theatre-goers. Our messages and our chosen media are reaching a demographic that, as with all of us, needs an invitation to activism.

On this last point consider this. Recently the National Endowment for the Arts published a study –The Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in Life – that had two key results for Collaboraction. 1. People involved in the arts are more involved civically and socially. 2. “Arts participation is falling among younger adults and with it most forms of civic and social engagement.”

I suppose my punchline at this point is obvious. Why is this organization a place I call home? Because we are doing things no one else even imagines and we are doing them in ways that reach people in new and innovative ways. To my earliest point, I am trying to support the kind of brilliance that will take my breath away in unexpected and thrilling ways. I hope you will do the same.

Mr. Grillo is a principal and founding member of Origin Capital LLC, a real estate investment fund focused on mezzanine and bridge financing.  Prior to founding Origin, he spent 15 years leading Chicago-based ASI, a management consulting firm focused on organizational transformation, financial restructuring, distress resolution and turnaround management. Mr. Grillo received both a B.A. in Physics in 1989 and an M.B.A. in 2004 from the University of Chicago.