After graduating from theater school, I never imagined my career in the arts would require so much math. To my surprise, I learned to love the numbers. They offer another lens for seeing the story, understanding what has happened, and anticipating what may come next. Numbers create evidence for what can otherwise feel intangible.
After college, I worked with theater companies and in film production, and I discovered that numbers were another way in. In a room full of artists, I was often the only one unafraid of them. I was bilingual: I could speak art and math. I could talk passionately about what we were creating, then tell the same story through budgets, audience reports, and marketing data.
That skill led me from working as an administrative assistant at a theater company to serving as financial manager for a nonprofit in Chicago, and eventually, after moving back to Martha’s Vineyard, to becoming business manager of the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, and later, managing director of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival.
Now, as executive director of Circuit Arts, I rely on math more than ever. I trust it to reveal our successes and teach us from our failures. I trust it in the editing room, where pacing is measured down to the frame, each one 1/32 of a second. I trust it when blocking a play, where geometry meets logic and story.
I trust in the art. I trust in the numbers.
So when our board began discussing a potential merger with the board of Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse, I knew what I had to do. I went to work on the numbers.
A lot of math goes into a merger between two organizations: cash flow projections, pro forma budgets, and balance sheets, all of which help shape a strategic plan to streamline operations and expand programming.
As helpful as they were, the spreadsheets got us only so far. I realized I needed a different equation.
Most people would say a merger is 1 + 1 = 2, or mine plus yours equals twice as much. The optimists say that when a merger is right, 1 + 1 = 3, or together, with synergy, we become more than the sum of our parts. But I think the equation is actually 1 + 1 = .
The formula I was looking for is complicated and impossible to calculate fully. It requires two institutions with proud histories to relinquish a measure of independence in service of something larger. It asks artists, staff, board members, audiences, and donors to imagine continuity and change at the same time. It is complex and demands trust. Circuit + Playhouse = .
Pi is not neat addition or predictable multiplication. It is transformative, circular, continuous. It is a relationship.
My relationship with the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse goes back to childhood. MJ Bruder Munafo, its recently retired artistic director, taught me for many years in theater and improv classes. I performed in plays in the amphitheater and on the Patricia Neal Stage, and I worked as a camp counselor at the Playhouse as well. During my time at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, I returned home with classmates each summer to perform and work at the theater. Years later, I became a full-time employee. Like the endless digits of pi, my relationship is only one in a long sequence of connections that must be taken into account.
What I love about pi is that it is irrational and infinite, never settling into a repeating pattern.
When organizations come together, they do not snap into place like puzzle pieces. Culture is not divisible by two. History does not conform to the logic of a spreadsheet. Integration unfolds through subtle conversations, trial and error, moments of friction, and moments of breakthrough. The process does not end just because a legal document is signed. There is no final digit that signals completion.
Work, art, and community are dynamic.
We must embrace that ever-changing nature. Nonprofit organizations are especially prone to settling into patterns. In small communities, it is easy to become attached to “the way it has always been.” As a nonprofit in a small community, we must be even more vigilant against that kind of stagnant thinking.
The Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival began as a three-day event, but over time, it has evolved into something much larger. We added education programs, a filmmaking team, a camp, the Drive-In at the YMCA, live theater, live music, and eventually a year-round home at the Grange Hall. Circuit Arts was formed as the umbrella for all of this activity, while keeping the spirit of that very first Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival at its core.
No matter how big or small a circle gets, the ratio between its diameter and circumference remains the same. That constancy is what makes geometry dependable.
A merger should work the same way. Scale changes, budgets increase, staff structures evolve, programming expands, and geographic reach widens. The radius grows, but if the underlying ratio, the mission, the core values, and the commitment to community and artistic excellence remain intact, then the circle holds its shape.
The irrationality of pi is not a flaw. It is a reminder that complexity is inherent in anything living and meaningful.
And that is especially true on Martha’s Vineyard, where arts organizations do not exist in isolation. We share audiences, artists, students, donors, volunteers, and stages. A person who discovers one institution will deepen their relationship to the Island through all of them. This merger is not about erasing identities. It is about recognizing the ecosystem that already exists and building a stronger structure to support it. When we work with that reality instead of against it, we create more possibilities for artists, more access for audiences, and more resilience for the cultural life of this Island.
We often rely on approximations of pi, like 3.14 or 22/7, because they work well for most calculations. We know they are not perfect, but they are useful. The same is true of the financial models, pro formas, and strategic plans that guide a merger. They are approximations of a future we cannot fully see. They help us project savings, identify efficiencies, and measure potential growth. But they do not capture the value of shared creative energy. They cannot quantify the spark that occurs when artists from different disciplines and traditions collaborate. They cannot assign a precise number to audience enthusiasm or to a donor’s confidence when institutions align. The real impact of a merger, its cultural resonance, emotional power, and potential, exceeds any spreadsheet. Like pi, we can approach it with increasing precision, but we cannot calculate its full depth.
1 + 1 = 3.14159 … is a formula that recognizes mergers are complex and continuous. It acknowledges that integration will never be perfectly tidy, that growth will require courage, and that the true measure of success will not be captured in a single fiscal year.
If we remain faithful to the constant of our mission and values while allowing the radius of our ambition to expand, the circle we are drawing together will not only endure, it will carry more weight, invite more voices, and create more art than the arc of either organization could have sustained alone.
Brian Ditchfield is the executive director of Circuit Arts, and grew up on Martha’s Vineyard.