Synchronicity's 'Storytelling Ability of a Boy' tackles bullying

Synchronicity has not only survived to tell more stories, but seems to have rebounded with a renewed sense of mission. After the cuts and concerted fund-raising, the debt is down to around $45,000. Support from five foundations new to the troupe has been secured for this season, and Georgia Council for the Arts and Fulton County Arts Council grants came in higher than conservative projections.

The company's annual budget has been trimmed to $385,000 (from a high of $450,000), with $30,000 of that targeted toward further deficit reduction. New strategic and fund-raising plans have been developed. It's launched a new giving circle with perks, the Sisters of Synchronicity, to encourage bigger donations from individuals (male donors are being courted too, the name aside). The 11-member board is being rebuilt and two full-time staffers and several part-timers have been hired.

A couple of weeks ago May chopped her hair and it wasn't just because her twin boys had turned 1.

"It's been a year," she explained, "a YEAR in all capital letters."

There were positive aspects to being the only employee left standing for six months, May said, the main one being that the troupe's focus got "laser sharp." Now she can reel off the mission in six words: "Synchronicity activates communities through great theater."

"That’s what we do best, better than anybody else in this community," May said. "It's not enough for us to just put on a great play, though we love to put on great plays. But we want a great play that sparks dialogue, that connects people and inspires our patrons ... into action."

With that in mind, May is organizing a meeting as part of the season launch with former and potentially future community partners -- representing domestic violence, women's and veteran's issues, among others -- to talk about how Synchronicity's work over the next few years can have "sustained impact."

One of the programs that has achieved that, Playmaking for Girls, will encore next June. Started in 2002, it has put dozens of runaways, teen mothers, dropouts and abuse survivors on stage as performers in short plays they've helped pen.

Synchronicity meanwhile is launching an outreach program aimed at a different kind of under-served patron: corporate workers. The idea of the Arts Encounter Workshops is to help those employees summon and share their own stories, build an ensemble feeling in the workplace and, at the same time, give them what may be their first first-hand experience in the arts.

"We know from talking to anyone who goes to see theater or experiences other arts, they come because they've had an experience that has changed them," May said. "And unless they've had that experience, they're not going to come. Our goal is to go into the companies and help them have that experience."

Theater preview

"The Storytelling Ability of a Boy"