‘City Hall Circus’ is one of many exciting arts and culture projects supported by ECCF’s Creative County

In Amesbury, when you want to attend a City Council meeting, obtain a building permit or renew Fido’s dog license, you go to City Hall. But this fall, the brick building at 62 Friend Street will also serve a new purpose: it will become home to ‘the greatest show on earth.’

Nonprofit Theater in the Open (TITO), a beloved professional theater company based in Newburyport’s Maudslay State Park, will turn Amesbury City Hall into a circus – the good kind – with artistic performances, a midway featuring local artists, and community participation. An eight-week workshop leading up to each performance (slated for Fall 2025, Spring 2026 and Fall 2026) will enable local youth ages 10-15 to become part of the professional show. Pay-what-you-will tickets to the Circus will make the high-quality arts experience affordable for the community.

“Our goal with the City Hall Circus is to bring the entire community together in their historic civic space,” said TITO Artistic Director Edward Speck. “By bringing together professional artists and student artists, artisans and local businesses, we mean to hang an OPEN flag outside of City Hall for an event that is easily accessed on foot and by public transportation, drives traffic to local restaurants and bars, and that celebrates the entire community.”

“We’re honored to get to partner with Essex County Community Foundation, and grateful for their extraordinary leadership in Essex County,” he added.

To bring the City Hall Circus to life, TITO is partnering with the Amesbury Recreation Department, construction partner BLB Designs and Barewolf Brewing/Amesbury Market Daze. Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) is supporting the project with a Partnership Grant through the foundation’s Creative County Initiative (CCI), a multi-year, $2 million strategic investment in the creative people, places and partnerships that make our region such a vibrant place to live and work.

City Hall Circus is one of eight projects to receive a CCI Partnership Grant, which are designed to empower cross-sector collaboration and highlight just how vital working together is to the sustainability of our local arts and culture sector.

“The long-term viability of the arts is consistently and increasingly under threat,” said Karen Ristuben, program director for ECCF’s Creative County. “The way we solve that here in Essex County is by encouraging local partnerships and supporting organizations that are exercising that collaborative muscle and creating something special, something that will bring people together and positively impact our communities.”

Creative County partnership grantees – awarded a total of $110,000 in support – also include:

• Town of Salisbury Planning Department, for Salisbury Skate Park Together Mural, a 1,000-square-foot, community-inspired mural at the Salisbury Skate Park. Partners include: Salisbury Parks and Recreation, Salisbury Elementary School PTA, Salisbury Cultural Council and Sherwin-Williams Paint Store, Salisbury.
• Harborlight Homes (Beverly), for Whispers and Roars: Voices of Home, Hope, Wisdom and Resilience, an intergenerational creative writing program for families and elderly residents living in Harborlight properties on the North Shore. Partners include: poet and meditation teacher Caroline Harvey.
• Creative Haverhill, for Sustaining a Creative Hub, the preservation of art and community space at 43 Washington St., Haverhill. Partners include: City of Haverhill, Causeway Development and Greater Haverhill Chamber of Commerce.
• Acting Out (Lawrence), for Acting Out Theater, Black Box Theater, the renovation of space at 56 Island St., for use as a public theater and to expand arts offerings to Lawence residents. Partners include: GES Realty.
• Raw Art Works (Lynn), for Shine on, Lynn!, a series of youth-created, community-involved public art installations or placemaking projects at various locations around downtown Lynn. Partners include: City of Lynn Planning Department, the Lynn Arts and Culture Office, GE Aerospace and Lynn Museum & Arts Center.
• Salem Sound Coastwatch, for Sidewalk to Sound, a traveling, interactive art installation (starting in the El Punto neighborhood of Salem) to emphasize how community spaces become vectors for marine debris and uplift communities in stewarding these shared spaces. Partners include: Salem Public Schools and The Babe restaurant.
• Lynnfield Art Guild, for the Village Parklet Project, small gathering spaces in three Lynnfield locations that include a Free Little Art Gallery, a Free Little Library and a Free Little History Museum. Partners include: Town of Lynnfield, Re-create Studio, LLC, Essex Tech and Lynnfield Historical Society.

ECCF has also awarded an additional $50,000 through Creative County Special Project grants, which are intended for projects that push boundaries and explore new possibilities. These grants play a crucial role in advancing CCI’s mission to elevate arts and culture as essential components of community life, economic vitality and collective well-being.

Grantees include:

• Màs Fuertes Unidos, for a multi-artist exhibition in Haverhill celebrating the rich diversity of Latinx cultures in Essex County.
• Boston Comics Arts Foundation, to support Comics Camp in Lynn, a hands-on comics workshop that empowers youth ages 10-18 to tell their own stories through comics.
• Danvers Arts Foundation, to help remodel one of its primary rooms at 105 Elliott Street into a contemporary fine art gallery.
• Minds With Purpose (Lawrence), to support its Women’s Empowerment Conference, a transformative event, including artistic performances, celebrating multicultural women in business, leadership and community impact.
• Rockport Art Association and Museum, for Creative Curiosities, a bi-weekly intergenerational arts program that connects experienced artists with participants of all ages to explore unique artistic techniques.
• Amesbury Juneteenth Celebration, for a collaborative, education-focused initiative that includes learnings about Juneteenth into local school curricula through art and volunteerism.
• Arpeggione Ensemble, for “Brushstrokes,” a series of multidisciplinary performances in Beverly, Danvers, Gloucester, Newburyport, Peabody and Salem, which explore the intersection of visual art and music through the experiences of Deaf and hearing-impaired artists.
• Elevated Thought (Lawrence), for the “Art of Resistance,” a partnership with the Bread and Roses Heritage Festival, which will include an interactive, intergenerational pop-up gallery engaging the community in art, resistance and collective reflection.
• Essex Art Center (Lawrence), to partner with El Taller to create a dynamic series of events that blend visual art, music and literature, activate underused space and support local creatives.
• Gloucester Stage Company, to expand its Theatre Accessibility Program, aiming to provide ASL-interpreted, close-captioned and audio-described performances for patrons who are deaf, have hearing loss, are blind or have low vision and/or are English-language learners.
• Irese Dance Project (Lawrence), for a summer program with Acting Out Productions of Newburyport that brings together 40 talented youth from Lawrence and Newburyport to engage in dance, music and theater.
• Manship Artists Residency (Cape Ann and North Shore), for an interdisciplinary performance that activates a historic natural quarry space with lanterns, shadow puppetry and interactive art to inspire awe, promote biodiversity and foster community engagement around conservation.
• Unitarian Universalist Church of Haverhill, for the first-ever Haverhill Pride Parade, scheduled for June 7, 2025, celebrating LGBTQ+ visibility, inclusion and community unity.
• Essex County Greenbelt Association, for a traveling public art and science initiative featuring glow-in-the-dark murals at four Essex County conservation sites, inviting the public to measure light pollution and learn about its impact on nighttime pollinators.
• MOON: Music Organizers of the North Shore (Salem), to launch its Promoter Development Program, which offers emerging music promoters hands-on experience booking and managing live shows as part of the annual MOON Over Salem festival.
• River Valley Charter School (Newburyport), for The Wave Mural Community Mosaic, a large-scale public art project uniting people of all ages and abilities through free, accessible tile-making workshops that reflect themes of social and environmental justice and set to be installed in Amesbury’s Millyard in June 2025.

For more information on the work of Creative County, visit eccf.org/arts-and-culture/.

About ECCF
Essex County Community Foundation inspires philanthropy that strengthens the communities of Essex County by managing charitable assets, strengthening and supporting nonprofits and engaging in strategic community leadership initiatives. Since 1999, ECCF and its family of 344 charitable funds have granted $169 million to nonprofits, schools and students in Essex County and beyond. Our ultimate goal is to have 34 thriving cities and towns in Essex County and to improve the quality of life for the region’s 800,000+ residents. Learn more at eccf.org.