Paul Conroy, the founder and producing artistic director of Out Front Theatre, was honored by the city of Atlanta last week for his work with the LGBTQ arts community.
The city recognized Conroy on Dec. 11 during the Pride & Art Unwrapped exhibit at Atlanta City Hall. Conroy founded Out Front, Atlanta’s LGBTQ+ theater company, in 2016. He is also a founding member of the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board, of which he has been a member for the last six years.
Following the recognition, Rough Draft Atlanta spoke to Conroy about the Pride & Art Unwrapped exhibit, the state of funding for the arts in Georgia, and more. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
You were honored by the city at Pride & Art Unwrapped at Atlanta City Hall last week. When did you find out that was going to happen and how did it feel to be recognized?
Paul Conroy: There was an indication that something was going to happen last week, but I didn’t know exactly what it was. So it was a nice surprise that it happened that evening. I didn’t know what it was. I thought they might just be like, “Hey, thanks so much.” But then to get a letter on behalf of the city for the work that’s been happening on the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board over the past six years was really nice. This was the third Pride & Art exhibit in City Hall, and I’ve been a part of all of them as the chair of the Arts, Culture and Entertainment subcommittee. And since I rolled off the board last week after six years, it was a really nice culmination of everything.
That’s so funny it was a surprise. Did they make you give an impromptu speech or anything?
Conroy: No! They were like, do you want to say something? And I was like, nope – I’m good! I’m fine [laughs].
This is the third year of the Pride & Art exhibit. Can you talk a little bit about what the event is and your role? I know you oversaw the selection committee.
Conroy: There’s a hallway that goes to the mayor’s private office [in City Hall], and up until Mayor [Keisha Lance] Bottoms, in that hallway were portraits of former mayors. She decided that she wanted to have rotating art exhibits, and we made it a point through the Mayor’s LGBTQ Advisory Board that during Pride, there should be a focus on queer and ally artists. 2019 was the very first one. Obviously, we didn’t have it in 2020, and we didn’t have it in 2021. But then 2022, and 2023 were the next two after that.
The process starts in the late spring. We asked for artists to submit. We meet in the middle of the summer to select all the pieces. There are criteria. And then this year, it got hung [at] the beginning of October, which means it was hanging for the mayor’s Pride reception. And then it hung all the way from October – it’s probably coming down, I would say, this week, before the holidays. So the new show will start as soon as the New Year comes.
I was on the Advisory Board since day one. It was created under Mayor Bottoms, and I was always the chair or co-chair of Arts, Culture and Entertainment. So this was an initiative that we really wanted to have art on display for free for anyone who wanted to go to City Hall – anyone was welcome to see it. And it was a powerful political statement too, because … anyone that had to meet with the mayor in his office was going to have walk past that art. So whether they were politically aligned with the LGBTQ community or not, they were going to have to see these powerful pieces of art, which I think is really impactful and shows the importance of art and how it can impact people. It can change minds, it can just start a conversation.
You’re a founding member of the LGBTQ Advisory Board. Since the inception of that, how have you seen the city’s recognition of the queer arts community evolve?
Conroy: I think that it’s grown somewhat, but obviously I’m going to be selfish and say I don’t think it has grown enough. But I will say that I don’t think that it has even grown enough just in the arts community in general. I have, for a few months, been trying to work with a member of the City Council about, is there a way for alternative funding for the arts? You know unfortunately, Georgia ranks at the complete bottom of state funding for the arts – even after Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. We only spend 14 cents per capita on the arts a year, which is really sad. So I think that the city of Atlanta is going to step up and try to supplement that. Unfortunately, of course, that’s only for artists and arts organizations within the city itself. I wish it was statewide, but we can only fight one battle at a time.
There’s definitely been a focus not just on the LGBTQ community, but also the Black and brown community, women – any minority, to make sure that these artists and arts organizations are getting the funding that they need, because obviously for years and years and years – for whatever reason or not – they have not received the funding that they should have.
I think that there has been progress. I realized that progress is not a light switch, you can’t just flick it and say okay, everyone gets what they want. But there definitely has been more recognition, and I’m glad that it has carried over from the administrations, from Mayor Bottoms to now Mayor Dickens, because I think that creates a legacy that will continue on as well. So I expect this art exhibit, I expect whoever is on the Advisory Board next to continue on the work that we did for six years, and then the city will grow even more in that regard.
Do you think that funding is the biggest challenge? Or if it’s not, what has been?
Conroy: Yeah, I think that that may be the biggest challenge, because the artists in the arts organizations, we know what to do and we know how to reach the patrons and the people that we employ. I mean, we’re a nonprofit arts organization, but we’re still a business. So we’re still paying people, but we rely on foundational support from government. That money … it goes right back into the artists’ pockets. So the more money that we can make, we can create more programming, we can afford to do free shows for people, we can just do a lot more.
Right now on the City Council, there are more out LGBTQ members than there ever have been before. There are four out members right now, which is amazing. So I think that it is top of mind for them to make sure that the arts are getting that funding, because that’s where our stories are. That’s our legacy that’s going to carry on for years and years and years.
One thing … that I will continue to work on with the city – we’re trying to update the rainbow crosswalks, so that they’re more inclusive, so they include the colors of the trans flag, the Philly flag [with black and brown stripes on it], and the intersex Pride flag as well. But that’s finding a vendor who can do it, finding the funding – so it’s a slow process.
You founded Out Front Theatre Company, which is obviously focused on the theater. But I wondered if you could talk about how the community blends and crosses into those other art mediums, and how this Advisory Board has helped with that.
Conroy: It’s amazing. Being a part of this Advisory Board, instantaneously our community became so interconnected, now working with executive directors of almost every LGBTQ organization [on] how can we put the arts into what it is that they’re doing, and then how can they influence what we’re doing? Because we don’t have an LGBTQ community center here in Atlanta, we open up our space for all of them to use it, whether it’s meetings, whether it’s programming, we’ll partner with them. Positive Impact Health Center was doing free HIV testing here during one of our shows last season. We had another organization called CORE [that] was testing these past two weeks and giving out COVID tests. So, I kind of think that it is like a web. But for me, obviously, my perspective is the arts kind of keep that web together, because we can tell stories about LGBTQ youth or elders, or the trans and gender expansive community – we can pull everyone together and say, let’s look at this show. We did renovations in our lobby, and we now have a visual art gallery space where we’re about to hang our third artists on display as well here. So we’re trying to find more opportunities for those artists to tell those stories and bring everyone together.
What are you looking forward to in the future? How do you hope to see things change as far as the city’s recognition of the LGBTQ community?
Conroy: I do think the city does a pretty good job. We actually just scored extremely – I think we got 116 points on the Human Rights Campaign – I forget what’s called exactly, but we scored better than L.A., Chicago, some bigger cities that are maybe known to be a little bit more progressive. [Atlanta scored a 100 on the Municipal Equality Index for 2023 plus 16 flex points. Los Angeles scored a 93 with 15 flex points, and Chicago scored a 98 with 11 flex points].
I think the city is definitely moving in that direction. We are the queer capital of the South. I think the city is doing a good job with the LGBTQ community. I think that where we have to figure out is how the arts overall can be lifted up, not just LGBTQ arts, but theater, dance, photography, film. Whatever medium it is, we’ve got to find a way to lift it all up. I mean, in my perfect world – I know that we’re the queer theater, everything we do is focused on that. And we’ve been very fortunate to partner with other theaters that when they do queer programming, they’ll bring us in for conversations, or Pride nights or whatever. So to me, that’s also showing those theaters are not just trying to check a box, that they’re trying to be intentional in their engagement. It’s not just – okay, we’re doing a gay show! Okay great, look at us! They’re reaching out to us because we do have those deep, personal connections within the community. I think that that makes queer art even stronger overall, across all mediums. And much like the mayor’s gallery, it’s exposing it to people who may not be exposed to it by their own choice.