This makes me think that there's some friction to this that could be alleviated. Like having more of and more diverse third places.

I used to be part of a number of theatre groups. Those groups did often have dedicated and capable singular people that made it work. But other times it was more of a group effort. Often the most dedicated people arose to the occasion once the context was there, because they had a bit more intrinsic motivation for what we did than others. And in some of the cases we got a lot of help from various institutions for admin and getting a place to practice, which certainly lowered the friction.