AS220’s wild ride (continued)
	AS220 through the years   1985 | (Not) "A James Taylor kind of coffeehouse" debuts on Weybosset Street. Highlights include the Final Incision, a show put on by Brown and RISD students. 1986 | AS220 moves to its second home, on Richmond Street. 1988 | The AS220 Orchestra goes to URI. 1989 | Marathon Cabaret debuts. Major Hemisphere/Alec K Redfearn/Meatballs come on the scene. 1990 | Debut of Smoking Jackets/Panic Band. 1991 | New landlords and a dead downtown. 1993 | A new start on Empire Street. 1995 | The Action Speaks lecture-discussion series begins. First Fools Ball is celebrated. 1996 | Pork Chop Lounge. 1999 | Youth and the Muse Union. 2000 | Broad Street Studio emerges. 2001 | New capital campaign. AS220 travels to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. 2002 | Three-year, $800,000 grant received to place and manage 18 VISTA volunteers in nine arts organizations around the state. 2004 | AS220 manages the Rhode Island Foundation’s gallery for one year. 2005 | The capital campaign to "finish" AS220, with the renovation of the first floor and the outside of the Empire Street complex. Dreyfus Hotel, which will be made into residential and workspace, purchased.

When you talk about creating a balance, how do you do that with the kind of high-end development we’re seeing in and around downtown Providence?

Well, I think it’s radical and has to be visionary. You have to address issues of affordable housing, you have to address issues around jobs and labor force, you’ve got to work on the small businesses and not always try to shoot pie in the sky and get that giant corporation here that generally costs a zillion dollars and has no loyalty to the community anyway. When the next best offer comes, they move out. We’ve seen that in community after community.

The public school system — we need people to understand what public school reform looks like and what it costs, given the challenges that a city like Providence has with immigrant populations, and new populations, and special needs kids, and stuff like that. We need to understand the real value and the real cost of public education.

Transportation. It’s all the classic issues. As we move forward, you can’t address these things around any singular issue. There has to be a comprehensive vision, and I think this administration is looking at all of those things. I think a lot of people are. I still don’t have a very strong sense that we have a very clear direction or real consensus around what direction we’re moving in, and politics is politics. People are trading their in-laws for deals, you know, and sometimes even their immediate family. And there’s a lot of special interests.

We make some kind of improvements, like the downtown improvement district, and now they’re ripping down every flyer that goes down before it even gets up. Well, excuse me, but flyers is a critical way that we as a scene, that a community, interacts and communicates with each other. You don’t only have to accommodate that, you have to encourage it, not discourage it. It’s about community and community building. It’s not just about pretty clean buildings.

There’s a lot of issues that need to be addressed and I think we have some very strong voices out there. [Activist] Matthew Jerzyk is, like, a pain in the ass, but he’s really important. David Segal can be a pain in the ass, but he’s really important. Or Miguel Luna, or any of the people on city council who are stirring it up here and there. Now, do I agree with everything that they do? No. Could there be a more united front in terms of the vision for the city of Providence? Absolutely, and I think that’s very difficult to negotiate.

How would you rate the differences between Buddy Cianci and David Cicilline in their efforts to support the arts?

I think it’s dramatically different, and it’s definitely better. I can never deny the help and the support that we got from the last administration. I would be less than honest if I didn’t give credit to that.

But this is a much more transparent administration, it’s a much more diverse administration, you feel a sense of ownership when you work in City Hall now, no matter who you are. I mean, in the past, it was the reign of a dictator, of a pope. And there were certain ways that you did business accordingly. Now, it’s a much more democratic city that we live in, in a lot of ways. And I think there’s a lot more transparency, I think there’s a lot more fiscal responsibility, I think there’s more and more better qualified people in the right jobs. But does that mean it’s going to be an easy road, does it mean that there ain’t going to be tensions? Are there still forces working against us as much as they’re working for us? Absolutely.

But I think we have a good administration, I think it’s a strong administration, and I think it can even be better. I think that we can be even more visionary and work together. Frankly, I want to see David in there for a while longer. I don’t want this to be a one-term, one-trick pony. I want him in there for a while, because I think he’s also learning, too, like the rest of us.

Why did AS220 start working with young people at the Training School, and what difference has it made, both for the youth and the people from AS220?

It relates to our embracing change and constantly challenging ourselves about being better. It’s kind of accidental how we initially got involved.

We had been exploring ways of getting involved with youth on a more institutional way. We even had a little bit of seed money from Lila Wallace to explore that. Initially, staff was like, well, what are you talking about? What does this have to do with our mission? I threw a snit fit, and they said, calm down, can we talk about this?

So we started talking, and staff and us worked together to realize that this is going to be AS220’s outreach program. This is the way we’re going to generate new young people’s engagement on all levels of the organization. One of the things we’ve learned is that it’s very easy to go in there while the kids are locked up, while they’re having three meals a day, while they’re straight — they’re not high on anything — it’s very easy to go in there and do programs, get them all jazzed up. What about when they get out? That’s the challenge. That is the big issue.

So we decided we’re going to deal with that. We’re going to work on the inside, build trust, build relationships, and then work on the outside. And that’s what we’ve done. And we’ve been in it for almost six years now, and we’re getting better at it all the time. It’s been supported by a contract with the Health Department, by the Department of Children, Youth and Families, and now by the Department of Education. Now, we want to find more and more ways for it to be self-sustaining and create more earned income, and that I’m really interested in. I want to build a business, maybe a silk-screening graphics business, with the skills of teaching these kids where they actually do commission work and when they get out, they actually have a job.

Now, that has completely helped AS220 in terms of revitalizing us in some ways, with new young people, really diverse populations of kids, from new immigrants from Caribbean countries to African to all kinds of Latino kids, coming in and getting involved with us. They’re revitalizing us. They’re becoming us. A lot of organizations, institutions like philharmonics and theaters, and stuff like that, struggle with new audiences. And as long as we have these young people who are becoming our reflection and keeping us pretty much on the pulse of things, because these kids know what’s up, this organization will be vital, it will stay current, as we continue to go forward.

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.