Interesting Happenings

I am very happy today having received a call to interview for at the Wayne State University Dept of Theatre. The position is the Director of Theatre Management, Marketing and Public Relations. Obviously I am pleased at the prospect since this is a direction in which my passions lay.

I won’t be able to blog as completely as I have since I will be gathering materials and information for presentations during my interview. I had taught Theatre Management at the University of Central Florida as a visiting professor so I have a fair bit of old information to sort through as well as some of the new ideas that I have been distilling from recent reading and blogging.

On the other hand, the whole process will get me thinking even more than I am and should yield some interesting blog subjects. I will probably use this opportunity experiment and write a little bit everyday about my process as I suggested yesterday that production staff and actors do while preparing for a show. Over all, the interview experience is a chance to talk to people about something that really excites me so it promises to be a lot of fun overall.

Unfortunately, the process of preparation will also means that I will have to suspend my search for a different blogging service provider. I am not quite pleased with the design and updating options I have available here and am considering moving somewhere else. But, that will have to wait until next week.

One last thing–when I wrote yesterday about the potential for embarassing things to appear on any blog an arts organization sponsored, I didn’t realize how timely the comment was. When I wrote my comments to the Artful Manager blog I tried to have a degree of professionalism, but did engage in some side commentary to add some humor. When the text of my email appeared on the Arts Journal letters section, I was surprised and also honored that it was regarded to be interesting enough to be placed there. I hadn’t intended it for consumption by a wider audience and had I known it would appear there, would have been more polished in my writing.

Then I read my letter again and had an “eek!” moment. I had forgotten one of my little comic comments referred to me picking up veneral disease pamphlets in the doctor’s office for the illustrations. I had to groan thinking about how many people in the arts community, including prospective employers were reading that.

Still, blogs are becoming a tool for the success of businesses these days according to a recent Business 2.0 article. The rules and etiquette of their use still need to be established.

About Joe Patti

I have been writing Butts in the Seats (BitS) on topics of arts and cultural administration since 2004 (yikes!). Given the ever evolving concerns facing the sector, I have yet to exhaust the available subject matter. In addition to BitS, I am a founding contributor to the ArtsHacker (artshacker.com) website where I focus on topics related to boards, law, governance, policy and practice.

I am also an evangelist for the effort to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture being helmed by Arts Midwest and the Metropolitan Group. (http://www.creatingconnection.org/about/)

My most recent role was as Executive Director of the Grand Opera House in Macon, GA.

Among the things I am most proud are having produced an opera in the Hawaiian language and a dance drama about Hawaii's snow goddess Poli'ahu while working as a Theater Manager in Hawaii. Though there are many more highlights than there is space here to list.

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