About Devon
Devon Berkshire (she/her) is a multi-hyphenate practitioner, with an artistic background, and a decades-long career translating her creative leadership and her producing skillset to the nonprofit space. A seasoned cultural leader, project manager, facilitator, communicator, and arts and climate advocate, Devon’s professional journey has been rich, well-rounded, and diverse. She is available for contract and consulting work with any values-aligned institutions and organizations in or adjacent to the broader field of arts and culture.
Longform Bio
As for her background, Devon is most notably recognized through the performing arts world as the former Director of Fieldwide Programming of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for the American theatre, and the longtime lead producer of the TCG National Conference. From 2012 to 2024 Devon served in several roles at the organization, and most recently led the team responsible for season planning and programming strategy for TCG. Her chief area of oversight was the curation and producing of TCG’s in-person and online events, like the widely-attended National Conference, one of the largest biennial meetings of theatre professionals in the country. Some highlights include her leadership of a large-scale pivot of the TCG Conference and other programming to the virtual realm during the COVID onset in 2020, and of the most geographically expansive conferences in TCG history, spanning the city of Chicago across over 20 cultural venues, engaging hundreds of stakeholders in June 2024 after an almost two-year planning process.
Devon also produced the beloved Fall Forum on Governance, a series of intimate gatherings of theatre leaders and trustees; and co-produced the Audience (R)Evolution Convenings of 2013 and 2015, devoted to the exploration of audience and community engagement strategies in the arts landscape.
Under Devon’s leadership, the fieldwide programming team of TCG developed content around a broad spectrum of organizational and fieldwide issues in a variety of formats. Her team always worked through a lens of equity and inclusion and prioritized multi-department collaboration. While at TCG, Devon created online learning opportunities for the performing arts community, launched the organization’s first Programming Council, developed programming to address sexual misconduct in theatre, co-chaired TCG’s internal EDI workgroup, and implemented TCG’s first internal survey of staff satisfaction and work-life balance. She also co-launched and led the organization’s first climate action and gender equity initiatives, and served on the core committee for TCG’s most recent strategic planning process.
Devon has launched and co-hosted Climate Action Monthly Meetings for theatre people, and collaborated with groups at the intersection of climate action and culture, like Groundwater Arts and Broadway Green Alliance. She served on the steering committee for Parent-Artist Advocacy League (PAAL) for the Performing Arts and Media as a champion of caregiver support in the performing arts industry.
Over the past decade, Devon has invested in her own personal growth through trainings in conflict resolution (AORTA and New York Peace Institute); adaptive leadership (EMC Arts); gender fluency and inclusion (Center for Anti-Violence Education); core values identification (TCG and Culture Shift Agency); identity and social location (Carmen Morgan and Paul Robinson); and anti-racism (Anti-Racist Theatre).
Prior to joining TCG, Devon cut her teeth in the corporate sector by planning business development events at a leading bankruptcy claims agency, produced and performed off-Broadway with several companies including one she co-founded, and launched an events design and production company with a longtime collaborator. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an M.F.A. from American Repertory Theater’s (ART) Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University and Moscow Art Theatre. In 2008, Devon completed NYU’s post-graduate intensive course in Entertainment and Events Marketing, and in 2020 — yes, even through COVID — earned a certificate in the Executive Program at University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Impact Strategy.
As of spring of 2024, Devon is also a breast cancer survivor, committed to telling the story of her medical journey as an advocate for women’s health and body autonomy. Read Devon’s last speech at a TCG Conference here, when she described the weight of this journey to the theatre field, and her in-depth writings about her experience with cancer here.
You may find more details about Devon’s professional story on her Portfolio page.
On a personal level, Devon has had a geographically diverse upbringing as part of a blended family, having been born in LA, schooled and nurtured in Washington, D.C. and raised partially in Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. She has lived in New York for the better part of 20 years, between Manhattan, Brooklyn and now as a city expat residing in the township of Warwick with her husband, two energetic kids, a finicky vegetable garden, and their mini Aussie named Rosie. In the summers (and during pandemics) you might find them on the shores of southern Maine.
