Why Tacoma

I'm doing a presentation for Dr. Blair's communication class about building community through theater. Specifically building community among the working class in Tacoma through my theater company. So this brings up a few questions. What is community? What is theater? How does theater build community? Why is it necessary to build community through theater in Tacoma? How is WCTNW situated to do this?
Dr. Blair's class is focused on community right now- what it is, how to find/create it, how to locate yourself within it. So I only need to do a brief overview of my definition of community.
Community- multiple people with common purpose who meet regularly and share responsibility for each other and the pursuit of purpose/mission. It is possible to build a temporary community with short term goals or be a part of a community for a short time. But my goal is to build a strong, productive long term community that shapes the way Tacoma sees itself.
What is Tacoma, and where do I want it to go?
Things I like- racial diversity, cheap housing, ethic of hard work, environmentalism (TAGRO, recycling, free yard waste and haz mat disposal), geography (weather, ocean, mild weather, mountains), location (close to Seattle and Olympia, people (polite, DIY, self-contained, civic, educated, thoughtful, tolerant). I feel at home here, more than I did in Seattle, with so many people, and more than Olympia where I always see the same people. Tacoma is a good size for me.
Things I dislike- conservative attitude toward shared resources like busing, belief in corporatization from big banks and Walmart, food deserts, politics of inaction, military traffic logjams, art money bound up in big art (museums, tourism).
Things I've noticed about theater here: scarce, expensive, conservative, scared, insulated, self-congratulatory, money-oriented, inferior quality, adverse to criticism (possibly stemming from critics who lambast or kiss ass, but hardly ever offer thoughtful critique of the work), product instead of practice/process orientation.
Theater in Tacoma is bound up in money, which erodes the civic nature of participating in community/communal art. Art is a conversation, theater even more so.
Why do I go to theater? Responsibility. I go to theater to support my friends and colleagues, to see what they are up to, which stories they've chosen and how they choose to tell them. Sometimes I go because it's a play I've always wanted to see. My framework is narrative and I believe the stories we tell reflect who we are and give meaning and shape to where we are headed. I want to feel the dialogue between artists and audience because it gives context to my life.
You are what you do, and to a lesser extent what you say. You are the boundaries you keep, the tasks you forget, the way you respond to events good and bad. The things you love, the things you fear, the things that piss you off. What you choose, who you surround yourself with- all these things tell a story, many stories, about who you are. Theater allows you to answer that age old question (Who am I?) by comparing your stories to other peoples' and feeling out where you fit. Theater allows you to contextualize, to locate yourself within possibilities that are so infinite they are meaningless. Absolute freedom to choose actually chooses nothing. Theater offers stories, reflections, choices.
We build and experience theater as a community. It is inherent in the structure- playwright, director, actors, audience co-create and interpret the story as a team. Theater has practice, refinement and the deadline of opening night. Everyone who participates is responsible- actors for learning their lines and blocking, directors for communicating their vision of the play and shepherding it to fruition, costumers for making sure that no one goes on stage naked unless they are supposed to.
Theater is not an easy way to tell a story- it requires time, money, education and artists. I suppose it could be compared to the slow food movement. Because if you take the time to do theater, you can tell an emotionally engaging story that has deeper resonance than tv or movies. Here would be where I cite sources proving how theater can increase empathy and move people emotionally.