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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 is as Theater Manager at the Rialto in Loveland, CO 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.

On Man’s Spam Is Another’s Annual Appeal

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There is an interesting study about the effectiveness of email campaigns that came out recently. M + R Strategic Services and Nonprofit Technology Network published the results of their survey on the use of email by non-profits as a fundraising and advocacy tool. None of the non-profits participating in the study were performing arts related. That doesn’t seem pertinent to the results because the study is more about general behavior in regard to email than responses to specific organizations. They don’t have a lot of tips for maximizing the effectiveness of your email campaigns, but they do tell you what sort of response to expect and some guidance about frequency and timing of campaigns.

There were a couple odds and ends that caught my eye.

-They claim email is superior to social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube for mobilizing supporters but don’t offer any evidence to back it up.

-Existing email technology makes it difficult to accurately measure the rate at which people are opening email. Some email software triggers a pixel embedded in the message to record it as a read, but there is no guarantee that a human has read it. On the other hand, some programs don’t allow images to be automatically loaded so the pixel is never triggered even though the message is read.

“…we have found that up to 25 percent of the actions or clicks in response to a particular email come from people who have never officially ‘opened’ the email!”

-Open and click through (following a link in the message) rates are lowest in December and the unsubscribe rate is highest. But given the volume of appeals being sent out is highest in December, “…the number of people who unsubscribed per individual email was actually about the same or slightly lower than in other months.” Even though people are being hit hard by appeals in December, it pays to time it for the end of year as Oct-Dec was the most productive time for the study participants.

-The response rate to fundraising appeals has dropped a little, but since the amount given remains the same and the size of email lists continues to grow, the total amount raised has increased.

-More of those who choose to donate are doing so online. I would guess this is a matter of people feeling more comfortable with conducting financial transactions online.

You can download the study for free but do need to provide your email address. Even though you can opt out of receiving their newsletter, I didn’t see any promise not to sell your name to their clients.

Dancin With Myself

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Well here is one from the “Hope This Doesn’t Catch On” file. I got an email from the Orlando Fringe Festival last week promoting a Silent Rave. Essentially you show up with your iPod and dance while listening to the music you brought while other people do the same. You are literally dancing to your own drummer–at least if the music to which you are listening has drums.

They claim it is hot in Europe but the most information I can find is a Silent Rave this past April in NYC’s Union Square.

Here is some video from the event.

Interestingly enough, here is a video taken around the same time which the person decided to set to his own music. I understand that re-editing video is common practice but in this context it sort of comes off as being dissatisfied with the lack of audible music.

How prescient Billy Idol was when he made his “Dancing With Myself” video. I know the attraction of the gathering was more about the flashmob element than the actual promotion of isolating yourself in a crowd. Since NYC has really been cracking down on actual raves, driving up and deploying a sound system on the fly would have probably gotten the event shut down a lot faster because it more closely met the legal definition of a prohibited rave.

These things aside, it is a little disturbing that people are choosing to replicate an event where one insulates oneself from others. It seems something of an oxymoron that this communal event is possible because these isolating devices are ubiquitous. The fringe festival is probably sponsoring this to seem edgy and hip. Indeed, there is a lot of novelty inherent to the idea. This can be especially true if some strange synchronicity emerges between what you are listening to and how you see people around you are dancing.

But it is really in their best interests to promote the idea that you can enjoy yourself alone. Or even worse, that while at a public event you have license to act as the spirit moves you. The latter might be acceptable at a fringe festival more than a concert hall, but if people decide they will enjoy staying home more, all organizations potentially suffer.

People have a right to do what they will with their free time and aren’t responsible for keeping arts organizations in business. There is also nothing necessarily wrong with introversion. The concept may make you laugh, but I wonder if what we are seeing isn’t a sort of synthetic introversion. It just seems to me that in the past, real introverts have filled their time alone thinking and doing things. I won’t claim they have been any more productive than anyone else in advancing civilization. I am just concerned with the direction of things when people who are not nature introverts start to take on the behavior and fill the silence with iPods and text messaging.

The world needs its extroverts to conduct the interactions and exchanges of the world. While they may be real extroverted across these devices, it is as if they have hobbled themselves by removing the option of unmediated interactions. Instead of empowering the introverts by removing some of the opportunities to be socially inept, it looks like technologies are depowering extroverts.

Granted, I am not a social scientist with the training to observe and interpret these things. But I have admitted introverted tendencies. While my shopping experiences would be so much better if people would stay home, the fact that I am concerned that they are may be cause to worry. I see people doing what I did as a geeky teenager. Except I was doing it with books so I was at least getting smarter and growing my vocabulary. I don’t know if the same can be said of the situation today.

APAP Emerging Leadership Institute Applications 2009

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As has been my habit the last couple years, I wanted to make people aware of that the Emerging Leadership Institute of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ is accepting applications for participants for the program at the conference next January. The application deadline is June 30 so you have a little time to complete the relatively simple application.

The form and other information may be found here.

Those who have attended have had a good experience, myself included. I am optimistic about the future of the program as the APAP leadership seems to be taking active steps to improve and advance it. I haven’t been directly involved with these changes though I have been talking and nudging people. There is a longer term agenda that I would like to see come to pass.

If you are involved in the presenting field (performer, agent, presenter, etc.) or know of someone who is, please consider applying or encouraging someone else to do so.

Voices of the Loyal

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When you see a person quoted in the newspaper talking about a controversial or important issue, it can be difficult to develop an empathetic connection with them because the written word has an inherent insulating element about it. I have been following the travails of the Honolulu Symphony for quite some time now. I have had conversations and email exchanges with some of those involved that it hasn’t been appropriate for me to report on here.

Although the heroic dedication of the Honolulu Symphony musicians who have been playing without pay since before Christmas (they are about 7 weeks in arrears right now) is easily perceptible in writing, it seems to fall short of what I feel listening to them tell their stories.

Earlier this month, the local public radio station interviewed musicians about how they were coping. Some remained stalwart, some said things were getting tough and they had to start looking for work in other states though it killed them to do so. There is a sense that the financial difficulties and not knowing when the next paycheck will come is wearing on the musicians, even if they don’t overtly mention it. You can hear it in their voices. There is also gratitude for public gestures of support like a dentist who didn’t charge one musician for his services.

At the same time, as the musicians go through these difficulties, they are going out and performing concerts to show their solidarity with hotel workers who had been fired and then partially rehired according to some elusive logic. The musician organizing the effort notes that the same could happen to them. I wondered if it was a tacit acknowledgment of the hardball decisions made by the board and management of the Jacksonville and Columbus Symphonies. Not to mention the abrupt closures of Aloha and ATA Airlines which staggered the state last month and left thousand out of work. It is to the Honolulu Symphony Board’s credit that they haven’t been talking about closing during all this.

I should acknowledge that last week an unnamed donor made a $1.175 million gift to the Symphony. It doesn’t solve all the problems, but it helps a lot. (I also should mention that my theatre is one of those the Symphony owes money.) The interviews I linked to aired a week prior to the news of the gift and in fact were conducted a few weeks prior to the air date so the lack of certainty about the future was very real. The good news for the musicians is that Executive Director Tom Gulick is on the record as saying all the backpay, including a restoration of cuts the musicians granted under a previous administration adjusted for inflation will be paid to the musicians.

Whether this good fortune proves a temporary reprieve for symphony operations which will prove unsustainable or just the break they need to implement a well considered plan to renew the organization remains to be seen.

Ooops

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Well apparently as my windows shifted around during my recent attempts to enhance my web feed links, I accidentally deleted part of the right hand sidebar. I have tried to restore and also improve that sidebar, but I am pretty sure some blogs that I added after creating a back up copy have gotten left out. I have a good sense of what has been omitted but I am going to go back through the last 6-12 months of posts to double check and perhaps pick up a couple more that should be included.

If I am missing your blog and listed it before, let me know! Sorry about making you disappear.

Feed Changes

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A few months ago one of the readers expressed an interest in having the blog feed changed to provide the full entry instead of just the summary. Drew over at Inside the Arts did a survey and discovered that most people want a full feed instead of a summary.

As a result, I have added a full feed to the blog. You can choose the summary or full feed in the left sidebar. You can also choose the feeds via the orange icon in the navigation bar of your web browser. I haven’t figured out how to differentiate between the two Atom feeds listed there yet. But if you mouse over them, one is named atomf.xml and the other is atom.xml. The one with the “f” will deliver the full length feed.

Enjoy.

Sometimes I Feel Like A Fatherless Color

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I don’t know how it found its way to my backstage, but I came across a booklet from Apollo Design that really show the company has a sense of their customer’s needs and seek to add value to their products. They have what they term Playbooks which provide a scene by scene break down with gel and pattern suggestions of some of the most popular plays high schools and community theatres perform.

They admit that the options they offer are among the safest choices a lighting designer can make. They also can’t offer guidance about placement of instruments and intensity of light since they can’t know the needs of every theatre. But for the high school teacher who has volunteered to direct the fall play and knows nothing about choosing gel colors, the booklets can remove quite a bit of anxiety. Even if you aren’t directing any of the plays they cover, you can get a sense of how the design theory you might read in a text book has been put into practice in specific instances.

You can download pdf versions of specific Playbook sections here. As an example of the general guidance they offer, for The Glass Menagerie, the notes state:

“Smoky, red glow” – mentioned in the Amanda and Tom argument scene. The colors should not be malevolent or suggest violence. It should be a subtle indication of frustration and tension”

Another example is in scene 3 the booklet provides guidance for different colors on the fire escape, living room, bedrooms and dance hall.

Although their skills far outstrip those of the people who would use these booklets, my technical crew thought the booklets were a great idea and have been thumbing through them for the last week.

We did get a little chuckle though from their political correct renaming of Bastard Amber, one of the most often used gel colors around. It was created by mistake when a guy was trying to create a batch of regular amber. Bastard Amber ended up being generally a better color choice and more widely used than regular Amber. The two leading gel manufacturers, Rosco and Lee both have the color in their swatch books.

Apollo on the other hand calls the color Fatherless Amber. Given that they have a Dominant and Submissive Lavender, we can’t imagine they are complete prudes.

If you want to have a bit of fun, ask your tech director if you can see their gel swatch books. You can find some amusing names for colors in there. Given that Rosco and Lee have created proprietary colors that the other hasn’t been able to reproduce, you can have fun looking through both. Like some famous painters who have created their own paint shades, lighting designers have asked that unique colors be created for them and so you will find some colors named after notable theatrical folks. Be warned that there are also a lot of mundane boring colors in there as well though you will probably wonder at the contradiction of shades like No Color Blue.

Brother May I?

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Okay another cautionary tale. I swear that I am not trying to emulate Jason Heath’s wild gig stories. This stuff is just falling into my lap. The drama director, tech director and motley band of collaborators have been meeting recently and having exciting discussions about our Fall drama production. It has gotten easy to get caught up in the energy so I keep forgetting a crucial point. We don’t have the rights to do the show yet.

The show isn’t currently in print but the playwright has said we can perform it. It will be something of a coup for us–but only if this permission is communicated to the playwright’s literary agent. I have asked my assistant theatre manager to keep an eye on me to make sure I don’t forget this crucial fact and list the show in our brochure or something. He then related this great story on that topic to me.

It seems he was in rehearsals for an off-Broadway play and the producer invited the playwright’s brother to view the final dress. As the playwright was deceased, the brother administered all of the rights. After the show the brother was very critical of the directing and the casting decisions. He may have been within his rights to complain about the issues if the performance license stipulated details about how the show should be presented. But we will never know because the brother finished by pointing out that the producer never requested the rights for the show.

The producer essentially told the brother that she assumed since the brother and she were of the same race and the play dealt with issues facing their shared race, the rights would naturally have been granted. The brother refused to grant the rights and the results of many weeks of rehearsal was never seen by an outside audience.

Even with the concepts of intellectual property blurring, there were a lot of mistakes made here. Not the least of which was that you shouldn’t try performing anything in the heart of Manhattan without securing the rights even if you are smart enough not to invite the executor of said rights to your show. This is not to say you are safer flaunting licenses the further you are from NYC. There are plenty of stories of vacationing playwrights and agents gasping in horror at the liberties taken with scripts in both sanctioned and unsanctioned productions.

The assumption that blood is thicker than money or least permission was also probably ill-advised.

It is likely that the playwright wasn’t terribly specific about how his play was to be directed and cast. The brother’s problem most likely started with the fact the rights hadn’t be granted and every other little dislike became enlarged as fuel for the complaint. The guy who taught me about the presenting business talked about the same thing in reference to horror stories we heard about performers who were absolutely sweet to us. The bizarre comments we heard about probably wasn’t the root complaint but merely one of many expressions of dissatisfaction about the absence of things their riders specified should be present.

Hopefully we will be granted the rights to perform the show we want to do in the Fall so I can relate the interesting way the script fell into our hands. Not to mention how our excited, creative madmen and women manage to execute the show.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

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During a meeting I had today I was reminded of a series of problems I had with a group of traveling artists some time ago. I think enough time has passed that I can talk about it without revealing the identity of the group to any but the most ingenious of researchers.

One of the things I am often most anxious about when a performing group arrives is that they won’t find the arrangements we have made suitable to their needs. Following the advice of the man who trained me in the business, I am pretty meticulous about advancing a show with a road manager. I double check the details of a rider just in case personnel changes result in different dietary or technical needs. It isn’t foolproof but generally the worst that happens is the group arrives and says, “Oh, you must have the old rider,” and accommodates what is usually the lack of something minor.

I am also upfront about anything we can’t provide as soon as the topic comes up. If I suspect there might be a problem brewing with something, I send off an email confirming conversations so that I have it in writing and time stamped. In one case, I reiterated a fact in three different emails because it didn’t seem to be sinking in to the guy’s brain. Fortunately, it did before he arrived.

There was an instance where despite a lengthy conversation with the road manager the group had issues with the food, hotel and transportation after they arrived. The only thing that didn’t emerge as a problem was the technical equipment we provided. What contributed to the problem was that the agent and the road manager apparently did not communicate the information to the artists. The artists did not communicate their needs with the road manager or have them written into the contract. What seemed strangest to me was that they had been touring for years upon years and hadn’t ironed these details out. There were plenty of “you must haves” listed in the contract but a lot of basic details omitted, too.

The night before the group arrived the road manager called and said that the group would like to exercise the option I had mentioned (and expected them to exercise) a month earlier and have their rooms upgraded to suites. They would pick up the cost difference. So I scramble and as luck would have it, there are enough suites available. I am also asked to make a dentist appointment for the first business day after the concert for a group member who is having a problem with a tooth. Even more amazingly, I find someone at a dentist office near the hotel that late at night and make the arrangements during the specific time frame the performer requested.

When the group arrives, we go to the venue and I am asked to go grab food for the group because they hadn’t gotten to eat before their flight and their technical director doesn’t want them leaving the theatre. (Come to find out, they went swimming instead of eating earlier that day.) Later when dinner arrives, we discover the caterer has decided to embellish a little and stuffed the entree with crab. One of the group won’t eat it because of the crab.

Now my mother is deathly allergic to shellfish and has almost died on a number of occasions. The two questions about food I specifically address is seafood allergies because of her and vegetarian requirements because the term means different things to different people. There were no allergies of any sort mentioned. So off I go for two more meals because one of the other people decides that since I am going anyway they would rather have something else.

An hour before curtain the road manager comes and asks if I can move them to another hotel. Now note that at this point, they haven’t checked in to the rooms I upgraded for them the day before. The reason is due to a minor feature, the lack of which I revealed to the road manager a month prior. Since I had made the reservations month earlier to secure good rates during high season and a purchase order had been issued to cover the estimated cost at that hotel, there was nothing I could do.

I think they secretly wanted to stay at a specific hotel because they ended up staying there on their own dime which equaled four times the amount they would have paid for the upgraded rooms I arranged. Unfortunately, due to the fact I had canceled the rooms hours before they were to be occupied, I ended up paying for them. Fortunately, the hotel took pity on me and only charged me the regular room rate rather than the suite rate.

After the show, I discovered that instead of one trip to the airport, they had changed their plans and would now be leaving at four different times. The next day was a non-travel day for the company and all seemed well. No messages at all from the group. Still, after I went home I checked my voice mail and email regularlly for problems. Then at 11 pm I got a call at home (a number I didn’t give them) from the road manager saying the group wanted to alter their pick up times.

That was about the end of the troubles, fortunately. If I recall, the performance was great. The audience loved it and had no clue what was happening behind the scenes. The one thing I appreciated was that they let the road manager do all the talking. Maybe it was because they didn’t like confrontational situations. But I was glad that as I drove them to the hotel I didn’t book, they didn’t try to explain themselves. They kept thanking me and my staff for all we did and talked about how grateful they were. I grinned and bore it while looking forward to their departure thinking all the while that if they were really grateful, they would stop making my life a living hell. Revisiting a frustrating topic while driving would probably not have been a good idea so I was just as happy to have them ignore that elephant in the room.

Were I to offer any advice to people starting out and those who have been lucky enough not to have a couple days like these. This was one of those fluke occurrences that transpire despite your diligent efforts to address issues well in advance. In fact, good advance planning allowed the situation not to get worse. The night of the performance everything that I would usually wander around checking on was completed by staff and volunteers doing their jobs. That left me the time to address these problems without overtly freaking out. Following this incident, I am sure I annoyed the next few road managers coming through on tour to no end double and triple checking their requirements. But I guarantee you that everyone has been happier that I have wanted to be better safe than sorry.

Not As Bad As Reported

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For those who have been eagerly awaiting a post on the implications of the chicken dance at weddings on the greater culture as a whole, I am sorry to disappoint you, I didn’t gain any insights while at my sister’s wedding. I don’t even think they played the chicken dance, much to my relief.

I did have a brief conversation with my other sister’s mother-in-law who founded a social service non-profit and is approaching retirement in the next 18 months. I asked her about the succession planning she was doing since that has been on my mind of late. Pretty much every element mentioned in the reports from the Myer Foundation and Building Movement held true. It was interesting to actually speak to someone about these trends having read so much about them.

In her organization, the budget was about $200,000 too small to necessitate having the type of person on staff who would be groomed to take over. None of the other people in senior management positions want to take over so her board will have to look outside to replace her. She also commented that since most people only stay with an organization 5-7 years, there hadn’t been a lot of opportunity to cultivate someone to succeed her. I was grateful to learn that in general, she didn’t really question the commitment of emerging leaders in her field to the work.

She had taken a seminar on Founders Syndrome which she had found quite valuable. She talked about having that problem with her board when many of the original members left. (The organization is going on 25 years old now.) She admits that her agency will probably have to deal with at least an off-shoot of this problem when she leaves. Some of the staff have said they are too old to get used to working with a new boss and will leave when she retires. While this will leave one less person who will resist the inevitable change a new executive director will bring, it also removes some of the institutional memory from the agency.

As with many of those in the aforementioned reports, she wonders if she can afford to retire as planned on what she has saved given the recent changes in the economy.

I don’t often get the opportunity to speak with people in the non-profit field outside of the arts at any length so it was interesting to hear so much of what I had read verified. When I read reports, I often forget that the trends being reported are cumulative of many respondents and that every element doesn’t apply to every organization out there. While my sister’s mother-in-law faced many of the challenges outlined in the reports I have read, her agency hasn’t experienced them all. Those they have encountered haven’t been as big a cause of concern.

Goin to the Chapel

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People are getting married and I will be attending. Posting shall resume upon my return.

Perhaps I will have some great insight about arts administration while doing the chicken dance at the reception.

Fitting Ass Ears On Another Bottom

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I have been participating in some interesting exchanges lately. The drama production class produced a pretty dark adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Lab Classroom this semester. I wasn’t too keen on the show in principle because it was set in a dance club and an organization in town had just finished their 3rd revival of Romeo and Juliet set in a strip club. I was annoyed that it was so derivative when so many other options available.

Taken on its own, it was pretty good. There were some inventive moments. For example, since the playwright decided the rude mechanicals didn’t have enough time to rehearse and learn lines, he has them present a silent butoh version of Pyramis and Thisbe. The students did a good job creating the club atmosphere by having officious bouncers at the door, black lights in the stairwell and a half-hour pre-show of the characters dancing in the club. The pre-show lent itself especially well to establishing the Helena-Demetrius-Hermia characters and backstory.

In any case, the show sold out every night of the extended run. The director started thinking it would be great to do it on Mainstage setting up platform seating around a playing area on stage rather than having the audience sit in the permanent seats. The playwright and I are both against the idea because the dynamics of the show will be entirely different. Instead of the cramped quarters and low ceilings of the Lab classroom, audiences will be watching a show surrounded by the wide open spaces of the wing space on the sides and the 70 feet of air in the fly system overhead.

To create the same ambiance, we would have to have everyone come in through the loading dock roll up door at the back of the theatre, build a hallway through the shop into a room we constructed on stage. At a certain point it seems strange to build a theatre inside your theatre. Even still the relationship of the audience to the actors and to each other is going to change. The small basement space holds 75 people which translates to two rows of 12 chairs on three side of the playing area. The director is talking about serving an audience of 300. Even if the performance was done fully in the round, that is 75 people in each direction. This increase in both the width and the depth of the seating area changes the size of the playing area and reduces the sense of tension and conflict.

Of course, part of the endeavor would be to create an entirely new production that had its own character rather than to recreate the elements of a past success. Though as the playwright pointed out, each revival of the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet adaptation was worse than the one before. Granted, they didn’t have the benefit of our superb production team. The adage about not being able to enter the same river twice probably is a good caution when considering your motivation for reviving a show.

The date proposed for the revival is Fall 2010 and a lot can happen in the interim. Perhaps both the playwright and I will feel less strongly about the topic a year from now when the time comes to decide such things. I don’t talk a lot about the decision making process I go through here on the blog. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to record some of the considerations that have come into play. It will be interesting to me to see how I view things next year and 18 months hence if the decision to perform it on our mainstage is made.

Malignerers Will Be Shocked

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Given the dearth of conductors with the celebrity grade gravitas to attract audiences, the Detroit Symphony is trying out a replacement in the form of a robot made by Honda. Asimo, as the robot is known is said to be a strict task master and citing a perceived lack of discipline among the musicians, has ordered them fitted with electrodes in order to monitor when their focus is about to waver. When the brain waves associated with an imminent change in focus are detected, a mild shock will be automatically administered to the musician. Asimo will also have manual control of the system and has stated he hasn’t ruled out its use as a general disciplinary tool.

Ah, it is a pity these stories didn’t come out around April 1st!

While the robot is conducting and the technology to detect a loss of focus before it occurs does exist, they are independent of one another. Initially I was going to suggest the brainwave monitoring for orchestra/ballet/opera audiences to ensure their attention throughout. When I came across the robot story though, the idea of it torturing the musicians was much more fun. Frankly, given some of Jason Heath’s gig stories, a sadistic robot conductor may not necessarily be far fetched.

Seduce A M.B.A. Today

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Via the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required, I believe) is a story about a study of M.B.A. student perceptions that the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education conducted. Some of the results reveal some attitudes that non-profits, especially those focussed on social and environmental issues, might find heartening.

From the Chronicle article,

“Students seem to be saying that they really want to have careers with a positive impact on society, but they’re feeling like they can’t do that in mainstream business,” said Nancy McGaw, deputy director of the institute’s Business and Society Program. “There’s a disconnect there.”

Among those surveyed, “Only half of the 2007 respondents think that their personal integrity figures largely in corporate recruiters’ evaluation of them as a potential employee.” About 80% believe they will be faced with a situation that would challenge their morals and values and about 90% said they expected they would look for work elsewhere if they encountered that situation. Less than half said they would voice their objections.

This report might be a wake up call for non-profits to become more involved in recruiting M.B.As. They can provide graduates with a situation that embraced their values, provided an opportunity to make a positive impact and made them feel they could speak up rather than quit when faced with moral quandaries. I had taken a little poke at a CareerBuilder.com article a couple weeks ago for implying the grass might be greener in non-profits. One of the motivations CareerBuilder mentioned that I didn’t necessary find fault with was achieving ends by questionable means. Given that this is something MBAs imagine they would quit in order to avoid confronting, this could be one of the stronger selling points for non-profits.

Though the students are just as concerned about renumeration and work-life balance as anyone.
That factor will always need to be addressed.

I am making an assumption indirectly that non-profits are not actively recruiting MBAs given the fact that the students don’t feel that sociopolitical knowledge is valued by recruiters and that good social and environmental practices aren’t anything more than good public relations opportunities rather than integral to the value of the company and bottom line. Reading the survey results, much of this appears to be due to the way the training in their program is conducted. So it may take some lobbying of MBA programs to effect some changes in addition to showing up on career day.

All The Kids Know It Is More Fun To Sit In the Back

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There is a great illustration (in my mind as least) for why arts people need to value learning and be cognizant of what is happening elsewhere in a story out of Orlando. It seems the Orlando Opera Company and Orlando Ballet have decided to try to bump their subscribers out of the balcony and into the more expensive floor seats in an attempt to make that area look fuller and increase revenue.

The subscribers are none to happy and are resisting. Just like the subscribers at the Honolulu Symphony did when the balcony seating prices were both raised and that section closed until the floor section was filled. Just like the subscribers at the Boston Symphony Orchestra did when that organization increased balcony seating prices by 80% in one year. Both Honolulu and Boston backpedaled and admitted the increases were ill advised. I suspect the opera and ballet in Orlando may end up doing the same.

Fortunately, the Orlando Philharmonic hadn’t received the advice the opera and ballet did about changing the pricing structure or this entry would make it seem like orchestras were the only ones making this poor decision. Or at the very least, weren’t doing a good job presenting this new policy to their audiences. I am not sure there is a good way of making such a large change in one year’s time palatable without investing a whole lot of time and money in the campaign.

The Orlando Sentinel article mentions that the opera and ballet had received the results of a study. I wonder who did the study and how they came to the conclusion that subscribers would tolerate this in acceptable numbers. I could believe a study that found people would tolerate a price increase of X amount over what they are paying now. Likewise, I could foresee people grumbling but generally acceding to moving their seats to the floor for the same price if they were told it was a cost saving measure. (Don’t have to pay the ushers for the balconies, perhaps.) It would be a sneaky way to get people out of the seats and raise the prices the following season when you reopen the balcony due to demand. People would probably be rather angered at such a move when it emerged a couple years hence.

I would be rather incredulous at a study that found it would be productive to both displace subscribers and place them in a situation where they were paying more than the previous year. (If anyone knows of a case of the decision succeeding, I would love to know!) I would ask to see the research that back that up and if it didn’t include a fair sampling of my ticket purchasing base, I would be rather skeptical. In other words, I am wondering if they even talked to anyone in those seats. (Or researched how similar decisions played out.) I don’t expect any of them would have answered yes to a question that flat out asked if they would be willing to give up their seats so some extensive communication of the rationale would need to transpire. Which would be a pretty good opportunity to gauge the most effective way to communicate the rationale.

There are obviously too many factors of which I am unaware to make a real judgment about why the decision was made. I feel secure though in stating that their case doesn’t appear to have been communicated well.

Art, The Government Prescription Program

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There is a piece on the online journal, Spiked from Frank Furedi decrying the English government’s prescriptive use of music in their sponsorship of the Music Manifesto. My first thoughts were that this is what comes from positioning the arts as having all these benefits when asking for money. This is further evidence that the authors of Gifts of the Muse in saying the arts were ill served emphasizing these elements over the intrinsic value of the arts. I also thought that it should come as no surprise that governments would be employing music to advance an agenda. This has been happening for centuries from the Medicis to the current day where popular music is used to sell everything from cars to presidential candidates.

Perhaps I have been exposed too much to commercially motivated music, but I had a difficult time envisioning music as a vehicle for seeking and serving Truth. Perhaps it is the lack of this connection to Truth or my inability to see it that can be attributed to what he cites as “impersonal force of the market impinged on the development of art and culture.”

My initial cynicism about his complaints aside, there were a number of observations he made that I hadn’t really considered. For instance, he notes that by valuing who will be attracted by the experience over the art itself, “what really matters is the audience rather than the music that the audience listens to. The question of who sits in the audience, rather then what they hear, shapes official thinking on music today.”

I have seen this myself. Every final grant report I fill out regardless of whether it is privately or publicly funded asks me how many K-12 students were served. Many ask about the racial make up of the audience and if my program was designed to serve specific races or K-12 students. Some ask how the programs reinforce family values and self-sufficiency. I am occasionally tempted to ask how a particular government policy is actually reinforcing these things. The arts shouldn’t necessarily be looked to in order to patch what has been rent.

I do think that arts organizations should be paying attention to who is attending. I am happy not to have to break down my audience into all sorts of demographics for my grant reports. One should always be assessing who is attending and how they are receiving it. Though the identity and number of people attending shouldn’t form the sole measure of success.

One of the toughest parts of Furedi’s complaint to tackle is the idea of accessibility equating to dumbing down. He criticizes music classes.

“Instead of providing an opportunity for pupils to study and learn about music, ‘music-making opportunities’ are often about involving kids in playing around with digital media and pretending to be djs…But frequently the ‘music-making’ approach is praised because it allegedly removes the ‘barriers’ that prevent children from ‘making music’.”

and suggests that the real elitists are,

“the educational and cultural establishment who have so little faith in the ability of children to appreciate and learn about classical music. Their anti-elitism is a populist gesture designed to flatter ordinary folk and reassure them that not much is expected of them.”

The question that emerges in my mind is how to structure an introduction to theatre, music, dance and art to people whose experience with these disciplines has come from movies, television, MTV and Photoshop? Are the activities you intend as a bridge between these experiences and the creative/performing arts underestimating your audience or does it provide necessary context? A contributing factor to activities that do indeed dumb an experience down is the receipents may not view the relevance in the same manner you do. So the bridging activities become the whole program rather than just the initial steps of a larger plan.

For example, does all the art and literature about the transitory nature of life have the same poignancy for people who can create and destroy a visual representation with a touch of a button? How do you cultivate an appreciation for an artist’s technique in mixing colors or composing music when there is software that will correct those flaws? How do you instill a desire for preservation in someone whose criteria for doing so is based on the amount of room left on a memory card rather than what ever quality of composition is apparent on the tiny digital camera or cell phone screen?

I don’t doubt that you can cultivate appreciation and understanding of art in people amid all of these influences. But if they don’t feel it to the same degree or manner as you and your contemporaries do, you may never move beyond a certain point and allow them to develop a more sophisticated understanding. On the other hand, if you don’t take into account that people experience the world differently than when you were their age and proceed to present the discipline in the same manner it was presented to you, you risk alienating people with your insensitivity and general cluelessness.

What is the balance then between presenting an accessible context that is intellectually challenging? It is easy to say that is your goal and just as easy to be diverted from the plan by what seems to be a general atmosphere of anti-intellectualism.

Hey You, Why Aren’t You At The Concert!?

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I came across a link last week to a study the League of American Orchestras did. The freshness of the referring page and the fact that my monitor resolution didn’t require me to enlarge the pages too much initially hid the fact that the story came out in January 2004. Thinking it had been published in 2008, I was wondering why Drew McManus and the other bloggers at Inside the Arts hadn’t picked up on it already. For awhile there, I was excited that I might actually be scooping them on their segment of the arts.

Even given the time that has actually transpired since the publication date, the article, Stalking the Culturally Aware Non-Attender, is quite pertinent. One of the toughest groups to survey is the non-attender so the results of any survey of these people are highly valued. And they should be given that it is difficult to find people who don’t attend who are willing to respond. It isn’t as simple a matter as going out during a performance and asking why people aren’t at the show. (Though that does seem like a good place to start now doesn’t it?)

While the results of the survey the story covers are in relation to orchestras, the lessons learned can be applied universally. The median age of these smart, aware people tends to be lower than those actually attending which makes them valuable for that reason alone. They believe they would enjoy attending a concert, but never get around to doing so. Some of the reasons are advertising design which is intimidating to those not in the know (though theatre advertising gets higher points.) Though to be fair, some of the most accessible methods of communication suffered from perception. Said one person who didn’t know orchestra’s had websites, “I mean, they’re playing 18th-century music. I guess I never thought they’d need
a web site.”

In addition to being uneasy about how to dress and act, the Non Attenders are also concerned about not understanding the performance. It isn’t just a matter of not having the experience and vocabulary to comprehend what appears to be a dense, complex work, but also not being as enraptured by the work as everyone else seems to be.

I think this is an important distinction especially in relation to music. In most people’s general experience, not understanding music is not an impediment to enjoyment. Getting lyrics wrong is practically a rite of passage. Listening to music in a foreign language is quite commonplace and the unfamiliarity of the tongue not terribly distressing. Perhaps it is the attendance format combined with lack of reference points, but it appears people tend to feel more at sea attending a symphony. I cite the format as a contributing factor because even if a contemporary foreign language music performance is in a concert hall, there is often an opportunity to groove along with the music and establish a connection that is pretty much not an option in the presence of an orchestra. Or at least the glares will be quick in coming if are feelin’ it enough to roll your shoulders and wiggle a little in your seat.

The article notes that one of the most important groups to an orchestra are the people who initiate the excursion. Though the percentages may be different, this is true for all the arts disciplines. There are always a few who get the ball rolling and organize the outing for rest of their group, even if it is only one other. Making this task easy for that person can go a long way toward filling the seats.

A sidebar that appeared within the article directed me to a website the League has set up to make people more comfortable with the attendance experience. This is something I have been a proponent of so I was glad to see it. Meet the Music helps you find a League orchestra near you. It also offers advice about approaching your first attendance experience. Among the things I appreciated about the site was that while they instructed you not to clap between movements, they also tell you to ignore the people who shush you if you do and acknowledge it is only recently that the practice of not clapping at that point has emerged. I also liked their advice about how to listen to the activity while the musicians warmed up.

The biggest fault I would find with the website is that it’s existence isn’t widely promoted. It has been around 4 years and this is the first I have heard of it. I took a look around at the websites of the members in 15 states and few people include a link to it or anything like it in their education or ticket purchasing sections of the site. In some cases, it is the less prominent orchestras in a state which do a better job linking to the site or have a similar FAQ that is easy to find. The NY Phil and San Francisco Symphony though both have FAQs that were either modeled after or the models for the guide on the League site. (I am having a real hard time finding something on the Philly site though.)

Wonder of An Empty Theatre

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I have to admit that one of my guilty pleasures when working in theatres is giving tours. It is probably because I don’t have to give them often and so don’t become bored with the process. I am a bit of a history buff so I tend to learn all I can about the facility in which I am working.

The interior of the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, FL was once the interior of the Dunfermline Opera House in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland and was built there by Andrew Carnegie. When I was working there many moons ago, I had the pleasure of giving a tour to the then current mayor of Dunfermline who was visiting the U.S.

Today we gave a tour to a school group that visits once a year as part of their tour of all the theatres in town. I have to confess, I look forward to their visit and actually called them about 6 weeks ago to find out when they would be coming. To make something of a double confession, in doing so I wasn’t so much committing my time as my technical director’s. He typically handles the bulk of the tour with some comments thrown in by myself. Mostly, I just follow along and listen.

Don’t get me wrong. I can do an interesting tour too. I have been a big proponent of having science classes come through because a theatre is a great practical example of physics employing counterweight systems, electrical calculations, additive and subtractive light, lens, load bearing construction that has to move, etc. Whenever someone asks what they have to learn math or science for, the reason can often be found in the theatre. I have spoken to some classes on these topics.

But as for the theatre itself, the technical director has been with the theatre for over 30 years so he knows all the stories and nooks and crannies. He has all the great stories to tell as the budding arts students ride the pit elevator down 20 feet and climb to the grid 70 feet above the stage.

Technology wise, our theatre is woefully behind the times but some of the most exciting parts of our tour are not technology dependent. I think one of the reasons why this school keeps coming back here year after year is because we are taking them to places they usually don’t see and telling them great stories about what it is they are looking at. Again, this springs from the TD’s love for his job and his facility. The stage was completely bare and lit by work lights. When we got to our lab classroom space, the always ready to ham it up students ran the small lighting board and instrument hang through its special effect paces. But that was at the end of the tour after plenty of pictures had been taken and questions had been asked about our big, empty space.

The technical director’s ability to keep a group engaged with few bells and whistles reminds us where the true source of theatre’s appeal is. Perhaps some might say it follows that his job isn’t really a necessary part of the transaction. I would counter that it is his mastery of this very concept that has allowed him to create minimal sets that evoke much more with the meager production budget he is allocated. (Well, that along with heroic recycling efforts.)

I am not waxing so sentimental as to claim the look in the kids’ eyes are all the thanks I need. I am proud of the theatre and like to show it off, however. I have been in and out of theatres so much I forget what a novelty it is for most people to be able to climb around and place their hands on things. I talk about so many problems and challenges on the blog I wanted to celebrate the wonder people can experience in an empty theatre space.

Wherein I Send You Reading Elsewhere

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I am working tonight (and tomorrow night for that matter) so I don’t have much time to write. I do want to take this brief opportunity to direct you to Ken Davenport’s blog, The Producer’s Perspective. As a producer of off-Broadway shows he has some great insights into the business in NYC like how to get your show produced, how much a risk it is to produce on Broadway, what does a press agent do, and the importance of having those who sell your product believe in it (and why that is tough to accomplish on Broadway).

Since he also takes a look at the implications of policy issues like today’s entry on what the universal health care program being touted by the presidential candidates may mean for Broadway.

I had actually gotten an email from one of his assistants a year or so ago inviting me to see Altar Boyz in New York, but I didn’t know he had a blog (maybe he didn’t at the time.) I have to give credit to TheatreForte for turning me on to his blog with their tireless efforts at indexing arts related blogs.

Job Satisfaction Guaranteed?

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CNN.com had a piece from CareerBuilder.com about the top 10 job prospects for Non-Profits. The growth numbers they cite apply to “advocacy, grantmaking and civic organizations field and administration is still the place to be salary wise.

I was rather amused at the opening lines of the piece-

“Do you feel your contributions in the workplace are overlooked? Are you consistently swamped with work at the office, but still feel empty when the week ends? At the end of the day, are you ashamed of what you’ve accomplished and how you reached the end result?”

Except for the bit about how you reached the end result, I think I am safe in saying that even non-profit people feel this way about their jobs. Though for non-profit people, the shame at the end of the day is more over how little you have accomplished in relation to what needs to be done.

Working in non-profits bestows no special grace that eliminates these feelings but they certainly may be offset with a greater feeling of satisfaction than you had in your for-profit job.

Just in case you are curious to compare some salaries, CareerBuilder also did a list of the top jobs in 10 industries back in February.

The Way It Used to Be

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We (meaning bloggers and various and sundry arts writers) often talk about how the arts attendance experience was a lot less like the staid and proper process of sitting in a dark room facing a stage. However, other than a few generalizations, we didn’t have much to offer in the way of concrete specifics.

Or at least that has been the case here at Butts In The Seats.

Fortunately, blogger and arts critic Terry Teachout comes to the rescue with an article about the good old days in Commentary this month. Since he addresses piano concerts people who perform or attend such concerts probably have a better idea about some of the things to which he refers. It is clear to the general audience that things were a little looser by today’s standards. There was more embellishment and improvisation even from the composers themselves.

“…British composer Charles Villiers Stanford heard Johannes Brahms play his Second Piano Concerto, he observed that the composer ‘took it for granted that the public knew he had written the right notes, and did not worry himself over such little trifles as hitting the wrong ones. . . . [T]hey did not disturb his hearers any more than himself.'”

Liszt apparently had a urn placed in lobbies and would sit at the piano reviewing the suggestions placed within by audience members and would chat with them between pieces. Audience members, for their part “…thought nothing of applauding not merely between movements, but in order to pay tribute to a particularly well-played passage in the middle of a piece.”

It is dishonest in a sense to talk about “how things used to be” because the reality was that these gentlemen were the popular musicians of their time and everything Teachout cites is no different than attending a contemporary music concert today. Musicians improvise on their own work knowing that the audience is aware of the more perfect version produced in a studio but don’t care that they aren’t playing it exactly like the album. The audience will applaud during the opening notes of the song, after the solo and will sing along. Unless you are the only one singing and are out of tune and drunk, no one generally cares.

Teachout says he is not encouraging a raucous free for all, but a general loosening of some aspects of the experience. I am familiar enough with classical music to be certain, but I imagine I would agree with him. I wouldn’t necessarily want people walking through the aisles hawking oranges while I am watching Shakespeare. The language is so complex and delicious that you need to devote a bit more attention than you would at a Mamet play which, truth be told, has a complexity and deliciousness of language of its own.

It doesn’t take much effort to imagine someone associated with an orchestra would say the same thing about the product they offer. It may have been popular entertainment at one time, but it does require more attentiveness to appreciate these days.

The Secret Lives of Theatre Managers

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My picture was in the paper this Friday for an extra-curricular activity I engage in. It had been taken a few weeks ago so when someone mentioned they had seen me, I discounted it. Since then I have been congratulated and razzed by everyone from co-workers to my dentist.

As I was leaving work this evening, the assistant theatre manager said I should put the photo up on our website to humanize the organization a little. I dismissed the idea because the organization isn’t about me and the goofy poses I take while not at work.

As I drove home, I started having second thoughts. People don’t support organizations, they support and donate to people. That is one of the reasons why I generally make a short curtain speech enjoining people to turn off their cellphones, pointing out the fire exits and telling them what a wonderful time they are about to have. I could record this stuff but the human element is eliminated. Certainly having someone in the lobby to congratulate, complain or petition that they can recognize helps with audience relations, too.

But do they really care about what I do in my off time? My supermarket was posting banners showing how different employees were working in the community as volunteers. Presumably this was to influence people to identify more closely and positively with the supermarket as a community entity. My staff and I are pretty much wrapped up in our jobs at the theatre and hardly have enough time to generate the same credibility.

Those banners struck me as a little manipulative anyway. As with everything, humanizing yourself has to be done correctly for the community. I don’t know how well it did in Milwaukee, but I thought the video the Milwaukee Symphony did for the opening of their season worked well in this regard. They filmed concert master Frank Almond talking about the upcoming season as they follow him around his house. What really worked for me was that they had his daughter dancing and twirling around the living room and zipping across the back deck on a scooter. It made me comfortable listening to him talk about his violin and the music he was going to play. The video made me feel like I would be able to understand and feel something from the music being played during their season.

It would really be great if they would let me twirl around in the aisles like Frank’s daughter.

I am not quite sure if the dynamic between my organization and community is one where learning about the hobbies of the staff will positively influence our audience’s perception of us. More to the point, I am not sure if I want my audience having a relationship with my private life.

Skeptical Eye on Board Recruitment

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I was idly perusing a national arts job site this weekend and came across a board member solicitation for a small theatre in a major city. I thought that was interesting because an organization usually forms a nominating committee and seeks to balance the board in terms of what people might bring to short and long range plans. Though BoardSource counsels against indiscriminate recruitment, I imagined while perhaps inexperienced, they were being a little adventuresome and casting a wide net. They specified a love for theatre and preferred that the members not be theatre professionals.

Then I noticed something that made me a little wary. The cover letters and resumes were all going to the artistic director. It is something of a conflict of interest to have the people responsible for overseeing the finances and operations chosen by the person whose activities will be monitored. Adding to my unease was a check of their organization’s website and 990 filings on Guidestar which revealed of the five board members, three were employees. The artistic director, managing director and production person all sit on the board. This isn’t a new company that just formed and hasn’t had a chance to recruit outside the handful of friends who started the venture. The organization is almost 9 years old and if their claims are true, has garnered enough critical acclaim to attract interest in serving from a decent number of people.

I checked the non-profit corporation laws for the state in which the organization is located and there is no law against such a heavy staff representation on a board. In fact, it appears only California makes such a prohibition. Don’t quote me though. This type of mix is generally advised against. This exchange on Idealist.org gives a sense of some of the factors to weigh.

It initially appeared to me as if the artistic director may be trying to manipulate the selection process in order to surround himself with people who will help raise money and not challenge him. My suspicions ran so high that I was ready to name names in the post and encourage people to stay far away. However, I also considered that maybe someone advised them that their current board set up looks suspicious and they should make an effort to expand board membership if they want to attract more serious funding.

Which is not to say that next year the artistic director won’t have surrounded himself with 10 yes men and women. There were some clues in the 990 and organization website that I pursued with a little Googling thatl makes me wonder how independent the other board members are. The other endeavors with which the board members have been involved makes me skeptical of any suggestion that they didn’t know any better about the composition of their board.

I also have to admit there are many possible variable of which I am not aware that could explain this situation so I am not going to be outing them here. On the other hand, I am quite pleased with how easy it was for me to research the organization, the board members and the specific laws of their state dealing with non-profit boards. It is very encouraging to see the increasing ease with which research can be conducted.

Other Ideas

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Scott Walters over at Theatre Ideas had some thoughts on yesterday’s post and then I responded to his entry and, if I didn’t mess up my submission while running back and forth preparing my dinner, just replied to his response.

With all that thinking and writing, I pretty much figure I have done my blogging contribution of the day. Whew!

Actually, I did want to highlight a project Scott has been working on in conjunction with other arts bloggers, over the course of a number of blog entries called Theatre Tribe. This project is dedicated to finding viable way to do theatre in the changing economic/political/social landscape. Since he has been developing the concept essentially from scratch in entries interspersed over the course of several months, he has set up a central page that organizes his thoughts for easy reference. I have read some of his entries at various points though when I clicked through the headers on the central page, I realized how many I had missed. Scott presents some interesting ideas for revising the way performances are mounted and the nature of the artist-community relationship.

There are times when I find Scott’s writings to be strident and in opposition with my own thoughts. But he is also very thoughtful and reflective. Which is why I keep going back.

Are You Living Where You Should Be?

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Richard Florida, who rose to fame alongside his Rise of the Creative Class figures you should evaluate if you are living where you should be. As I read the reviews and summaries of his new book, Who’s Your City?, I get the impression that it may have just gotten harder to attract the creative class to one’s area.

Of course, it has always been difficult or easy without Florida saying it. But from what I read and what he talks about in this newspaper article, it seems like there is an underlying vibe a lot of places that attracts (and repels) certain types of folks. If your community doesn’t already have a certain nascent characteristic, it is going to be tough to cultivate a change in that direction. There is a certain inertia to some places that will hinder efforts if local government/Chamber of Commerce, etc is trying to push things in an opposite direction with the intention of attracting the treasured creatives. He even implies an entropic influence on people drawing their values and attitudes closer to being in line with the general community over time. (Though most people who are considered the loony liberal or raging conservative probably won’t ever be wholly converted short of consciously willing it.)

Florida talks about certain communities being suited for people at different phases in their lives and lists the “best of” in large, middle and small regions. I haven’t read the book but if I were to hazard a guess, given that creatives, like all mortals age and mature in their outlooks, attracting them is probably a matter of exploiting the aspects of your community that best suit a certain demographic rather than aiming for the young and hip (unless your community is a burgeoning hip place.)

What appealed to me more than the top five list was another section of the website that poses 20 questions to help you decide what communities are best for you. This is great for me because I am young and hip in atypical ways. The strength of the place finder is that it makes you examine your criteria for your ideal community and forces you to do a little research to answer all the questions.

You plug in where you live and up to four places where you want to live. It then asks you to rate each city on typical things like economy, geography, climate, available jobs, health care, arts, schools and housing costs. But it also asks you to rank them on things like trustworthiness of politicians and business leaders, availability of technology, diversity of leadership and community and openness of the community. In the end you may discover that while you always dreamed of living in Seattle, you are better off living where you are.

I suspect the place finder might even be help people focus their thinking when they consider founding an arts organization. (Maybe the NEA or Americans for the Arts should adopt a similar tool specifically for the arts.) Even without his book being published, I don’t think I would be suggesting anything earth shattering were I to say that founding an arts organization that doesn’t resonate with the underlying vibe of a community is a bad idea and probably destined to result in one muttering about philistines. If communities can target the wrong group of creatives, creatives can certainly target the wrong communities.

Wait, Didn’t I Just Read This?

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Following a link from an entry on the Non-profiteer, I arrived at a site with a report about Non-profit leadership. The summary of the study was so similar to the Building Movement report I cited last month, I initially thought it was the same one mirrored by a partner in that 2004 study.

Come to find out this study, Ready to Lead? Next Generation Leaders Speak Out is brand spanking new having just come out this year to report a survey of 5756 members of members of Idealist.org and constituents of CompassPoint Nonprofit Services. They also held six focus groups across the country with 55 non-profit staffers who had never been executive directors.

This survey included a much larger sample size than Building Movement’s (though they certainly acknowledge BM) but generally gets the same responses. People feel they need to balance their work and personal lives, they aren’t terribly keen on becoming executive directors, don’t feel they are being mentored or have many professional development opportunities. There are some nice charts graphs and charts on the report home page, (on the Myer Foundation website by the way), that summarize many of the results. Top two of five reasons not to become Executive Director-Don’t want Fundraising responsibilities and Would Have to Sacrifice Work-Life Balance.

There were two results that I hadn’t seen before that I thought were interesting. First is that 10% more people of color were desired to become executive director than whites and people of lower income were wanted to become executive director than people from middle and upper class backgrounds. I should note that a large number of those belonging to the surveyed organizations are associated with social service/justice, health services, environmental protection/justice organizations rather than specifically with the arts.

The second finding I found interesting was that people of color and women felt they needed more education and training time before becoming executive director than white men who tended to feel they were ready now. The surveyors attribute this more to the fact that more men than women and people of color hold senior positions and are being groomed to be executive director in twice the number. They believed women and people of color felt the need to be over-educated and burgeoning with experience in reaction to this.

I should point out the survey also notes that a large portion of their sample were unemployed (11%) or in the first year (43%) of their career. I do feel women and people of color need better representation, but I don’t want my entry to serve as fodder for protest when the numbers are so slanted. I think this mix is fine for reporting aspirations but not necessarily for reporting the reality of a situation. For example, only 4% of those surveyed said they were being groomed to be executive director. However in a 2006 survey of executive directors conducted by the same group, “52% of executive directors reported actively developing one or more people on their staffs to be executive directors someday.” The relative lack of experience in this sample needs to be taken into account when looking at some of these results.

One thing I liked about the Myer Foundation website is the resource page. I will admit to only taking a cursory glance at a few of the blogs and other resources but I liked what I saw. For example, this entry on The Bamboo Project Blog that suggests using a webcam, computer and internet calling services like Skype to turn Baby Boomers retirees into long distance mentors and recording the sessions to create a mentoring library. (The use of which will require the cultivation of learning as a value among non-profit leaders, of course.)

There are also a number of links about retirement planning. The lack of which emerged as a motivating factor on many fronts in both this survey and the one Building Movement did a few years ago.

Stilted Smiles

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The impetus for the original entry I followed up on yesterday was writing effective press releases. It got me thinking so when I came home this evening I started looking around for tips for putting together a successful publicity photo shoot. There are plenty of guides on composing a shot but I haven’t been able to find anything on how to get performers to look natural. There are plenty of groups that do a good job with their publicity shots but I have seen enough awful pictures in newspapers and on websites that I essentially consider it a moral imperative to list some sort of resource on my blog.

I have worked with any number of directors who were pretty vigilant about keeping bad acting out of their shows who seem to throw those rules out the window for the photo shoot. You get heavily posed shots where the actors are blatantly indicating their emotions-“Here I am terrified. Boy am I terrified.”

The only advice I can offer is from two different places I worked. Both essentially followed the same scheme. One had the actors run through a scene and the photographer either snapped away or yelled freeze. The other had much more advanced performers and let them essentially improv with each other in character and the photographer snapped away. In the latter case, the photographer was more likely to tell the actors to keep going than to stop so he could catch something. The photographs in got cases tended to have a more organic dynamic to them.

I wonder if someone out there with more photo shoots under their belt might have a more formal list of tips for effective publicity shots. (Or knows of a source that has them.) I would think a list of cliches to avoid would be valuable as well. (Mollified person in foreground with person glaring disapprovingly behind and to the side, for example.) I did find one website talking about photo cliches but it was pretty snarky so I thought it best not to link.

If you have tips or know where to find them, let me know.

Le Bon Strategem

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A recent conversation I had that included the state of Wisconsin reminded me about an entry I did almost 3 years ago on American Players Theatre in Spring Green, WI. Their brochure had fallen into my hands and really impressed me because the language made me just want to visit. I didn’t care if I saw a show or not, they just sounded like a great bunch of people in a great location and I wanted to be there. Reading the entry over again, I still do.

I visited their website again curious if they were able to maintain their cool factor or if the brochure was just the result of some momentary made genius. The performance descriptions still seem pretty enticing. I think the more extensive descriptions are obviously better than the abbreviated versions found here. I was particularly intrigued by the subtitling of Henry IV as “The Making of A King.” As far as I can tell Shakespeare never included that as part of the title. Since they are combining the two Henry IV plays into one, I assume they are emphasizing the parts that show Prince Hal’s coming of age.

But really, that bit of information along with details of most of the other shows are elements that could engage me based on my status as an theatre insider. As a test of whether the descriptions would be truly enticing to a person who was not familiar with a show, I specifically looked at the language of The Belle’s Stratagem by Hannah Cowley, both a work and playwright I had no idea existed. While I have to acknowledge that the details about the show fading into obscurity after being wildly popular for about a century appealed to my academic and insider side, you have to admit the following makes the show sound like a lot of fun:

Slip into the midst of a gathering of the rich and richer, old money and new. Nobody parties like the British upper crust. With names like Silvertongue, Flutter, Courtall, Villers and Miss Ogle, it’s clear this is a cheerful meat market on display. Plays like a well-choreographed dance, pirouettes into a seethingly seductive soiree of a masquerade ball, where identities are mistaken, libidos tweaked and liaisons secretly undertaken.

Mistaken identities and secret liaisons I am familiar with but I love the “cheerful meat market on display” phrase.

I will admit that writing about period pieces allows for over the top language that would sound out of place describing a modern realistic piece or even contemporary performer. What you always want to aim for when promoting a performance is not to so much describe the reality of the piece as describe the essence of the experience (preferably without using meaningless stock phrases like “what it means to be human”). That is something that can be accomplished with just about every period and genre. Not everything the American Players people have written is replete with inspiration but it is still pretty good. (And it gives me hope that improving my own writing a little more is possible.)

Ruthless In War, Benevolent in Peace

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In an attempt to dance with the one that brung me and pay local culture its due, I wanted to mention a production we presented this weekend. One of our consortium partners re-mounted a production about the life of the last pre-Contact chief of Maui island, Kahekili. The original performance was about 10 years ago. The current production expands on the original and marks the first time the National Endowment for the Arts has recognized hula kahiko with in their American Masterpieces grant program.

I don’t usually promote performances on my blog but I do feel some loyalty to culture in which I am living. Productions of this kind which expand on traditional hula performances are few and far between so I am eager to advance what I feel is a part of a renaissance in Hawaiian culture.

What I find fascinating about the story of Kahekili is the parallels to Arthurian legend. Kahekili essentially ruled 7 of the 8 major Hawaiian islands through either conquest or capitulation. Unfortunately, like Uther, he couldn’t close the deal and unite all into all into a single kingdom. That fell to Kamehameha the Great who is said to be Kahekili’s son. Since Kamehameha didn’t live in the Maui court there is a sense that like Arthur, there is some illegitimacy attached. That is where the similarities end. Kamehameha denied Kahekili was his father and even opposed the Maui chief’s conquest of the Big Island of Hawaii.

Since most of Kahekili’s activities occurred prior to Captain Cook’s arrival, it is interesting to see a parallel to Arthurian legend emerge. On the other hand, given that all knowledge was transmitted orally at the time, some alterations to the story to bring it in line with Camelot may have crept in post-Contact. Especially if someone was trying to validate his reign and right to treat with other monarchs and leaders.

The other reason I promote shows like this for the educational elements. During the production’s tour on the U.S. Mainland, the group had to explain the difference between Hawaiian hula and other related forms like Samoan fire knives and the frenetic hips and drumming of Tahitian dance. The one indication the group had that the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau was doing a good job with their advertising was that some people were surprised by the battles portrayed in the show. They thought Hawaiians were all aloha and didn’t fight.

In fact, Kahekili was incredibly ruthless in war. The district our theatre is located in was the site of a particularly infamous massacre by his armies where he wiped out all the noble houses on the island. Any nobles living here after that came from the Neighboring Islands. One of the most scenic spots on the island is the location where Kamehameha’s troops drove their opposition over the cliffs during his conquests.

The production was equally as educational for local audiences as it portrays fertility, wedding and chiefly practices rarely witnessed these days. Kahekili having been eclipsed by Kamehameha, is also not a very well known figure so his story is also informative for the community. The tour is winding down this summer though there are whispers of some interest from a place in Germany. If there is additional interest, who knows what might be arranged….

I have no stake in the success of the show so if there is any interest from my readers, they should contact these folks.

Technology Tip- I Am Dumb

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No, no, no wait. The tip isn’t that I am dumb, it is actually that I am occasionally reminded that I shouldn’t assume a tip I am considering writing on is so self-evident and elementary that I am insulting people by posting it.

I was checking up on Chad Bauman to see how he was faring in his effort to get people to cross the Potomac River to see Arena Stage productions in Virginia. I had posted on his use of Personalize URLS to direct people from their driveway to his driveway. It appears the effort was well worth it as they “have had less than 1/2 of 1 percent of our subscribers ask for a refund.”

In the same entry he talks about a practice he adopted from Repertory Theatre of St. Louis that made me thwak my head for not perceiving the logical extension of things we already do. Essentially Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and now Arena Stage have pages (click on the preceding theatre names in this sentence) containing links so you can tell your friends about a show on the different social networking sites and via email as well as bookmark the page for future reference.

This was the part that convinced me that I shouldn’t think something is too simple to mention. What made me say “Duh” is the fact that while my theatre does offer people the opportunity to send email messages with a performance description automatically inserted into the message body and have a Myspace page allowing people to send event information to Myspace friends, we haven’t it possible to send Myspace alerts from our organizational web page and vice versa. I figure if I missed something this logical, other people may have has well.

There is certainly no wisdom in assuming the Myspace people only get their event information through that site. As with all things technological, I do think there is a limit to the number of modes of communication an arts organization should offer website visitors. The clutter and the surfeit of choices can be alienating.

Like the aforementioned theatres, our stated policy is that we don’t store the email information. At least insomuch as we don’t record any of the information in our databases. A copy of what is sent does get forwarded to my email address alone. Given the tensions I have witnessed arise from students who felt they were miscast, I wanted to make sure no one was using our system to send out messages disparaging cast members by creatively rewriting my show descriptions.

Lately, I have considered making a small alteration to our policy. Since there is usually one person who organized most of the details of any couple/group outing, I was thinking that perhaps we should institute some reward system for those who are recommending our shows to their friends. It wouldn’t be a publicized program. I don’t want people spamming their friends with our show information in order to get prizes. What we would do is simply contact the person and offer them free tickets or something for being so supportive of us.

The change to our policy might be something along the lines of “We will not store the recipient’s email address or the content of the email in any form. We may keep a simple tally of how many times a sender as recommended a show and contact them no more than once a year to inquire on the quality of their experience.”

I am sure I am missing some other logical way that will facilitate attending a performance. If you see it, speak up and submit a comment!

What’s Good For The Brain May Be Mud For the Soul

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As something of a counterpoint to my entry yesterday on how exposure to the arts can benefit one’s neurological development is this National Review piece from December in which Robert Fulford reminds us that arts exposure won’t save your soul or improve your personality.

He quotes George Steiner, “‘We know that a man can play Bach and Schubert and go to his day’s work at Auschwitz in the morning,'” and notes “…we also can’t claim that immersion in the arts will create a lively mind. Art education has produced armies of learned bores.”

He also points out that artists are not imbued with any special grace as people and may possess the most vie personalities even as they produce the most engaging works we have ever encountered.

This observation is has become less true of late as an ever increasing tabloid eye on the activities of celebrities has seen art valued in the context of the artist. This isn’t just a matter of actors being fired from Lost to minimize the bad press from a DUI. There is often trouble with the performance of J.S. Bach’s work given a perception of anti-Semitic sentiments which may have simply been a reflection of the time in which he lived and text which he drew from. (The Gospel of John from which he derived his St. John Passion contains a good deal of derogatory content.)

What Fulford says the arts do guarantee is, “Those who give it their time and love are offered the chance to live more expansive, more enjoyable and deeper lives.” It is somewhat reminiscent of the proverb about leading a horse to water since the arts only afford the opportunity of improvement. Education and religion can also prove uplifting but only if they are embraced. Likewise, exposure to the arts with the intent of developing the neurological structures discussed in yesterday’s entry only becomes meaningful in someone’s life if they value the experience.

This Is Your Brain On Art

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On Artjournal.com was a link to this article on Science Daily about a study the Dana Foundation commissioned on the question of “Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter?” For three years researchers at a number of universities have studied this question resulting in a recently released report (downloadable as an Acrobat document here.)

I haven’t read the report yet. But the Science Daily article mentions some interesting findings though they repeat the Dana Foundation disclaimer that “Much of this research is of a preliminary nature, yielding several tight correlations but not definitive causal relationships. ”

1. An interest in a performing art leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains of cognition.

2. Genetic studies have begun to yield candidate genes that may help explain individual differences in interest in the arts.

3. Specific links exist between high levels of music training and the ability to manipulate information in both working and long-term memory; these links extend beyond the domain of music training.

4. In children, there appear to be specific links between the practice of music and skills in geometrical representation, though not in other forms of numerical representation.

5. Correlations exist between music training and both reading acquisition and sequence learning. One of the central predictors of early literacy, phonological awareness, is correlated with both music training and the development of a specific brain pathway.

6. Training in acting appears to lead to memory improvement through the learning of general skills for manipulating semantic information.

7. Adult self-reported interest in aesthetics is related to a temperamental factor of openness, which in turn is influenced by dopamine-related genes.

8. Learning to dance by effective observation is closely related to learning by physical practice, both in the level of achievement and also the neural substrates that support the organization of complex actions. Effective observational learning may transfer to other cognitive skills.

The Dana Foundation lists suggested directions for research given what has been learned thus far near the bottom of their research summary. To read the list you would think they hadn’t many any progress in the research at all which is probably indicative of just how little study has been devoted to the ways art shapes our neurological processes.

Something that really surprised me comes up in the video of the presentation of findings. Michael Posner of the University of Oregon talks about how liking a particular art form, be it visual arts, linguistic arts, movement arts and music, was independent of other art forms. In other words, an artist is not particularly inclined to like arts in general but rather only find one particularly appealing. He seems to say there are structures in the brain that develop which are aligned with certain activities that exist prior to exposure to information or experience which would predispose someone toward that subject based on how developed those areas of the brain are. There is overlap in many areas, but there is enough separation to make one’s interests independent of each other.

The other important element, Posner says, is an openness to the experience. You need to be open and have certain existent neural pathways to begin developing an affinity for an experience. (Unfortunately, the video has no time index that I can reference for you.) One thing he briefly mentions that made me concerned was the idea that attention needs to be sustained over a long period of time. He talks about this in connection with young children and the fact that kids acquire many of their skills by essentially engaging in repetitive play over a period of time. My concern was based on the general shortening of attention span as people seek constant stimulation from portable technology. I worried about people not cultivating an interest in the arts which will actually indicate a possible lack of important sections of the brain. (i.e. dance skills are connected to observation.)

The one bit of solace is that many kids are more interested in playing with boxes and keys on a ring than they are with what came in the box and maybe likely to develop their brains despite all the things that distract their parents and older siblings. Though it won’t be long before they replicate the behavior of their family members and friends. It should also be noted that the formation of these neural structures isn’t necessarily happening only in children. One of the people in the video admit that there are brain structures developing throughout one’s life whose purpose scientists aren’t necessarily certain about.

But this is only a small part of the study and even the research presentation. My plan is to take a more indepth look at the study soon.

Its What It Doesn’t Have That Is Most Important

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It has been a busy couple days here at Butts In the Seats so I have brief offering for folks to ponder.

An illustration about how technology is changing our expectations and how tough it can be to keep abreast of the changes. When I was at the Arts Presenters conference in January I overheard people on no less than 5 occasions express a sentiment along the lines of “If only we could figure out how to use text messaging to promote our shows.”

My assumption was that the difficulty people were facing is that you can only send about 160 characters via SMS and it is pretty tough to make your case and provide your contact information in that short a space. Given that many cell phone users pay per text message, they might tolerate one text message from you but sending multiple ones as a modern day Burma Shave advertisement could cause quite a bit of ill will. But since most young people don’t view email as a their primary communication tool vs. texting, figuring out how to best use it is important.

I mentioned this problem in an email to Drew McManus and in his reply he essentially pointed out that with the abilities of the iPhone, the SMS format is probably going to be abandoned soon. Not everyone may buy an iPhone, but the features it contains will generate an expectation that new phones contain similar abilities. Since the iPhone does support email, perhaps that will become a valued form of communication with young people again.

But rather than re-emphasizing the use of existing channels of communication, I have a feeling we will see arts organizations scrambling to replace email blasts with distributed videos that are perhaps tailored to deliver different appeals for the same performances to various age or interest groups. The fact that the iPhone web browser doesn’t support Flash images which is an element of many webpages but does have a special YouTube video player is pretty telling about the areas Apple expects to be important in the future. Steve Jobs didn’t put 3.5 inch disk drives in the iMac because he didn’t think that was the direction things were going. Now, even if you do have a 3.5″ drive on your computer, do you use it?

But this just goes to show how quickly technology moves. It wasn’t that long ago that we started seeing research that most young people eschewed emails for texting. Now just as arts managers start to think about how they can tap into that trend, a change in the favored communications channel seems likely.

Tough to Move Up, Tough to Move Out

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Came across a link to the results of a listening tour Building Movement did among non-profit leaders back in 2004. The results of the conversations they recorded are very similar to the observations made by Ben Cameron in his address to the Southern Arts Federation this Fall. (Perhaps his speech was based on Building Movement’s study?)

The conversations Building Movement (BM) recorded were mainly among leaders of social service agencies, but as implied, had many common elements. Both noted that the younger generation is interested in balancing their lives rather than devoting so much of themselves to the job as their predecessors have done. Both also discuss the eagerness of the younger generation to participate in substantive decision making and responsibilities.

The BM conversations revealed that members of Generation X feel a great deal of pressure caught between an older generation which isn’t retiring and a younger generation coming into their own looking to become involved and effect change. Whereas the older generation has remained in the same positions for years, the younger ones move often looking for more promising opportunities and often contemplating leaving the field. This causes organizations to have people of a great deal of experience at a certain level and then a sharp decline just below. This can have grave implications for those places that haven’t engaged seriously in succession planning.

Part of the problem, Building Movement notes, is there is no structure currently that provides these leaders with a place to go or even transition to other than retirement. They are healthy enough to continue working but there are no opportunities available to them that would result in a net increase of openings for younger people. Since they did not open a retirement account in their 20s and 30s and with Social Security and health care iffy propositions, retirement may not be a very attractive option.

The lack of mentors to help cultivate the necessarily skills was a big concern. One of the few people who did have a mentor of sorts praised the mentor’s ability and willingness to point out that “new” ideas were actually old ones that have been revisited a number of times which prevented him from trying to reinvent the wheel. Another problem that was mentioned was that the older generation had all these relationships with funders that they weren’t passing on to the younger generation. Because they had not had extensive interactions with long term funders, when the younger leaders took over they were “perceived as less seasoned.” This lack of contact could have severe consequences for many organizations.

The most surprising result of the conversations for me was the reluctance to become executive director many of the younger generation had. I figured that position was the logical goal for those chomping at the bit for their predecessors to retire. This reticence stems back to the desire for a balanced life. The executive director position was seen as thankless and too heavy a burden to shoulder to still have time for one’s family. I don’t know if this sentiment is carried over to the arts. Having family members who have worked for social service non-profits, I can see the truth of this for that sector. Though I imagine they would say the same thing for the performing arts from the perspective of an outsider.

Building Movement has a monograph that integrates the findings of the talking sessions with research to make suggestions for cultivating new leaders and planning for the transition of existing leaders in a healthy manner. I haven’t had a chance to look at it at any length but since I often harp on succession planning, it would be a smart thing for me to cover it here in a future entry.

Pro Am In Flower

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I think I witnessed an honest to god significant Pro-Am occurrence last week. (I say significant because there are a lot of smaller examples all around me everyday.) One of the professors at my school, Paul Cravath, donated his book to the college library last Friday. Not a big thing in itself certainly, but it was how it got published that is interesting.

A gentleman with a passion for the Cambodian art around Angkor Wat was interested in the story behind the figures of dancers found in the area. Having read two sentences somewhere of the professor’s doctoral thesis on Cambodian Dance Drama, he asked the read the whole thesis. The gentleman decided the thesis should be published and set about making it so despite having never published a book before.

Now the professor has a gorgeous looking book published supported by a nifty website. This week, the book appears on the cover of Publisher’s Weekly. Okay, sure it shares the cover with 11 other books, but still it is pretty impressive. (Its the one on the bottom row in the middle.)

Granted, it wasn’t cheap to print even 800 copies but nothing says that Pro Ams are necessarily poor. The man who funded the project seems pretty canny and has a plan to recoup his nut in a manner that doesn’t depend on making college students spend a lot of money on it as a text book. The idea that one man’s passion for Cambodian art would inspire him to publish the work of another having no experience in doing so is mind boggling to me. I suspect that in a 5-10 years this sort of thing might not be so surprising.

In fact, the practice might prove a little dismaying. In the discussion of his book, Engaging Art, at the APAP conference, Steven Tepper mentioned that while people might be inspired by the technology facilitated Pro Am environment to write a book, their enthusiasm and hard work might not translate into something worth reading.

So you may ask, does the world need a book on Cambodian Dance Drama? Well I can attest that it is pretty comprehensive. It is also probably the definitive book on the subject since no similar text exists in English, French or Cambodian. Given that the author got out of Phnom Penh while the Khmer Rouge were shelling the airport, he may have been the last one to see some of the source materials.

If it does prove to be of some value, its availability to scholars and the public will be the result of one man’s passion. Otherwise, its sole existence would have been in a box under a bed and in a microfilm archive.

Wow Neighbor, Your Grass Is So Green!

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At a time when arts organizations are merging the executive and artistic director position into one, either as a cost saving measure or because they can’t identify suitable candidates to fill vacant roles,** comes praise of dual leadership as a model for non-profits in general to emulate.

Says the Nonprofiteer:

“…the Nonprofiteer wonders why all nonprofits don’t adopt the bifurcated leadership model common in the arts: an Artistic Director to lead program, a Managing Director to handle resource acquisition and allocation.

Wouldn’t social service agencies operate better with someone at the helm whose expertise was effective service to clients and someone at the rudder whose expertise was squeezing every dime til it shrieked? These are not identical skills–they’re not even complementary–and for charities to insist on combining them into a unitary Executive Director means one part of what they need done will almost inevitably be done badly.”

In all the performing arts organizations for which I have worked, the artistic director has always held a subordinate position to the executive director, if only a half-step below. I can’t really speak with authority about whether two equal leaders is effective. I have worked in a situation with an Executive Director and a subordinate Artistic Director and in situations with an Executive Director and a subordinate artistic and managing director. In the former situation, the two directors worked closely as partners, but it was clear where the final decision resided.

I don’t know if the Non-Profiteer is suggesting two people in equal roles necessarily. I am familiar with the structure of a number of non-profit social service organizations and short of a couple very large entities, I can think of none where there was a programs person with the scope of authority and responsibility comparable to an artistic director. Any change may not require an equitable relationship as much as less a lopsided one between the two areas.

What is interesting to me is that the Nonprofiteer’s comments have made me re-evaluate the dual leadership issue. Deciding to consolidate positions for economic reasons or because the board can’t/doesn’t want to find a replacement suggested problems about the organizations other than the implications of a changed leadership dynamic. It is certainly easy to see how both roles can get the short shrift with satisfaction for neither when they are invested in one person. My thoughts upon reading that the positions were being consolidated were generally that it was too bad for that company rather than the decision was bad for the performing arts world as a whole other than considering it an example of poor decision making. Some times it takes the observation of an outsider to make you reevaluate if something is valuable enough to fight to keep.

(**I wanted to cite the article I recently read supporting this fact in but for the life of me, I can’t find it.)

Professionals and Pro Ams

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In her column in this month’s American Theatre, Theatre Communications group Executive Director, Teresa Eyring talks about the recognizing the growing number of Professional Amateurs in our society. Now this topic is nothing new. I have posted on the subject of Pro Ams. Andrew Taylor has done so on a number of occasions. His students did a research project on the topic. Charles Leadbetter and Paul Miller who coined the Pro Am term, wrote a book on the subject.

What makes Teresa Eyring’s comments special is that she leads a major service organization and therefore is in a position to exert greater influence when she says it is worthwhile to heed a trend. (Though she was certainly influenced by all this discussion of Pro Ams.) What she has to say hasn’t impacted my thoughts about Pro Ams in any direction. But it is good to see an arts leader like her encouraging people to explore the possibilities.

So if the words of all the aforementioned folks haven’t gotten you to ponder the concept, maybe Eyring’s will. She acknowledges that a transition that embraces Pro Ams can be difficult.

“If these shifts are irreversible and true, the question for professional arts organizations is how most effectively to embrace and respect audiences and potential audiences as they self-identify as creators, with a capacity for meaningful involvement in the artistic process that has often been closely held by professional theatre artists and organizations.”…

“…For theatres and theatre artists, this trend presents questions that are both practical and semantic, such as: What do we do with the word “professional”? In the 20th-century arts world, this word has often been used to instruct the public, critics and funders to expect an experience qualitatively superior to that which is non-professional or amateur…”

“…However, with the growth of a pro-am culture that goes beyond art into science, technology and other realms, the power of a professionals-only province continues to fade—or at the very least, the nomenclature is less effective and meaningful. Some of the teeth-gnashing over this development has to do with how the public will know the difference between what is excellent creative expression and what is merely average…”

“…if theatres can find ways to tap into the growing interest among individuals in participating in the actual creation of art and the arts experience, perhaps we can move this trend to a tipping point of sorts, bringing theatre into a new period of cultural ferocity and ascendancy.”

Is Dumb A Core Value?

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There have been a number of books and articles that have come out recently bemoaning the lack of knowledge exhibited by people today. Whether it was Miss South Carolina’s flub at the Miss America contest, the woman on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader who thought Europe was a country and had never heard of Hungry (her pronunciation) or talk show stunts like Jay Leno’s where he asks people easy questions for which they provide embarrassing incorrect answers.

The latest chapter in this discussion making rounds of the talk shows and newspaper reviews is Susan Jacoby’s The Age of American Unreason. You can read a review here or watch a pretty good interview with a transcript with Bill Moyers here. Much of her focus seems to be on how active anti-intellectualism is causing people to essentially renounce their roles as citizens of the US.

But while some of the examples Jacoby discusses are worthy of some consideration, what she says isn’t as important as the whole concept of people actively not caring that they aren’t familiar with basic knowledge about the world around them. It could have been any book or discussion on this topic that suddenly raised the question, do the arts have any idea how to deal with anti-intellectualism?

Most of the strategies suggested about how to build audiences seem to assume that mistakes were made but audiences can be regained. Perhaps the attendance won’t be as great as before, but it seems that arts organizations are coming to the conclusion that things changed and they weren’t agile or perceptive enough to recognize it. Proposals to bolster education and effect changes that reflect shifting audience expectations about the experience and social environment all seem to assume that the arts can reclaim some of the ground it lost to the Internet, high def plasma televisions and video on demand.

But does the arts world have any solutions to combat complete indifference or even worse, active attempts reinforced by social pressure, to distance oneself from anything that might indicate that one was more than just plain folks. You have probably heard that in some communities, showing signs of being educated could find one accused of putting on airs and having elitist notions. When I was discussing the general topic of this book with a person in my office, he said that in some of the communities that the college served, some males were resistant to attend for fear of becoming homosexuals. Not being labeled–becoming. This puts a survey the college did a couple years ago in an entirely different context. One of the top answers from men regarding what they liked about the school was the attractive women.

Frankly, I wonder if there is any solution the arts world can enact in its current position. Had the arts community more influence in society, it might work to make intellectual pursuits more of a core value. Perhaps it still can, though the road will certainly be slow and long. The truth might be that there are plenty of intellectually curious people out there to whom the arts wielding a new approach might appeal. It is easy enough for shows like Jay Leno’s to edit out all the correct answers in order to put a comedy bit together. And certainly the erudite answers of Miss America and game show contestants probably aren’t popular viewing on YouTube if they are posted at all.

Schadenfreude aside, even if things aren’t as bad as popular media makes it seem, there are genuine problems with lack of intellectual curiosity and critical thinking skills in the country. While handling all the other troubles that besets them, the arts community’s continued existence probably hinges in a large part on combating the idea that it is okay and perhaps even preferable not to know. People may claim that they can easily look up anything they need to know, but I often wonder if they ever bother doing it. The conditions constituting a need to know seem to be none existent.

I used to joke that I was glad people were so lazy about learning because that way employers would pay me more for being competent and knowledgeable. The truth is, that isn’t the type of world I really want to live in. Nor do I imagine the majority of people would. Not only would people lack the wit to laugh at my jokes, but the lack of intellectual and perhaps social and emotional engagement would be quite dispiriting. (Initially, I was also going to say it can be depressing to be surrounded by people who willingly choose not to live up to their potential but I realized I was starting to channel my mother.)

Social Hubs, The Next Thing Comin’ Round?

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Scott Walters says I feel it. Since that is about all I saw of his entry on Technorati, I was wondering what it was that I feel. Turns out that I, among others feel that change in the theatre/arts is nigh.

In looking at what the other bloggers cited were saying, I came across some interesting thoughts worthy of consideration and debate in the arts world on The Mission Paradox blog both in the proposition author Adam Thurman makes in his entry and a comment that Chris Casquilho makes.

Thurman proposes that the arts position themselves as a social hub placing the audience first and artists second.

“We keep talking about finding ways for people to connect with our particular art form.

But people don’t want to connect to art . . . they want to connect to other people.

So instead of a theatre company seeing their performance on stage that night as the point of the evening, perhaps they should just see themselves as the hub . . . as the thing that connects all the people in the audience to each other…

…I think what people are willing to pay for is to be connected to other people.

And maybe one of the reasons that the arts is struggling is because we insist on being the focal point of the whole process….

…Think of what could happen if, for example, instead of just having ushers leading people to their seats, your dance company had people in the aisle introducing patrons to other patrons?”

What Chris Casquilho argues is something akin to the Gifts of the Muse premise that the arts are not well served by arguing their value in economic terms rather than their intrinsic value. Casquilho notes that being a social hub is hardly a function that only the arts can fulfill.

“…while “art for arts’ sake” is a pretty goofy concept – syntactically and otherwise – if the mission of arts organizations is not to create art, then it begs the question: isn’t there some better way to “connect people in a renewing environment?”

Couldn’t you easily succeed at that mission by offering classes on boat building, or starting a folf (sic) league? When push comes to shove, with no artists, there is no art. If your arts organization puts the needs of the community above the needs of the artist, you will turn your product into lukewarm porridge, lightly salted to taste.”

Now it seems to me that these two concepts aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Having your ushers introduce audience members to each other before a show is hardly going to detract from the quality of a performance. (Unless your ushers and performers are one in the same, in which case you got bigger problems to worry about.) It is an intriguing idea. Providing more sophisticated and labor intensive opportunities for people to connect, on the web for example, as Thurman mentions elsewhere in his entry, could certainly mean other programs may suffer for want of resources. This could be a good thing if print advertising decreased in a community where online presence was becoming increasingly more effective.

The thing that worries me is that arts organizations have a tendency to subscribe to the newest trends without considering how to most appropriately implement them or even if it makes sense to do so. The best way to get funding is talk about economic benefits and outreach to under served communities? Find studies that prove the first and create programs that provide to the second.

Certainly, part of the blame resides with funders who decide these are the priorities they are going to primarily reward. When a staffer at my state arts foundation told me last Fall not to bother with a section of a grant application because I wasn’t eligible, I have to admit a sense of relief at not having to arrange for a way to comply to the requirements. (I wasn’t so relieved to find our grant award significantly reduced as a result of not being eligible.)

My concern then is that there will be this sudden rush to make one’s organization into a community hub or rationalize how what the organization is already doing is making it a hub. It will become all about butts in the seats again, only for slightly different reasons. While some will do a great job at it, I suspect that the real winners will be coffee and wine shops whose wares become props for the social programs.

So since I have this soapbox from which to speak, let me just encourage everyone to think before they act this time around. Maybe the new big thing isn’t Social Hubs. Whatever it is, think about your effort rather than duplicating another’s even if it takes longer to create your own plan.

Prisoners Creating Our Own Dilemmas

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Taking a gander over at the TED website to see what talks have been released since last I visited. Apropos to yesterday’s entry is this talk from Howard Rheingold about collaboration and cooperation. It is a short piece, only 20 minutes, but if you don’t have time to listen to the whole thing, move the handle down to the Cooperate=Wealth section of the index that pops up when you move the cursor across the bottom of the video.

He addresses the idea that if survival is all about competition, there wouldn’t be so many humans. At some point, humans began to cooperate and that helped them thrive. The benefits of cooperation are generally understood, even across cultural lines. He speaks of how players of the ultimatum game seem to innately know that proposing a 50/50 split offers the most likely path of greatest reward. (At least among Americans, Europeans and Japanese. Rheingold notes that slash and burn folks in the Amazon, pastoral herders in Central Asia and other countries proved to have different sense of fairness when playing the game.)

He also briefly addresses the Tragedy of the Commons, the idea that unless there is a way to restrain overuse, humans will exhaust a commonly held resource. He cites a counter study that found that people are only captives of what is essentially a multi-player prisoner’s dilemma if they view themselves as such. Those who are able to successfully break out do so by “creating institutions for collective action” with common design principles.

As his talk draws to a close, he cites the example of how some of the most cutthroat competitive corporations like IBM, HP and Sun Microsystems are open sourcing their software and some of their patents to be worked on by the commons. He mentions that Eli Lilly has “created a market for solutions for pharmaceutical problems.” Though he doesn’t mention it, I assume that is also an open source type effort. He also cites Toyota which works to make their suppliers more effective even though it means increasing supply efficiency for Toyota’s competitors. EBay has solved the prisoner’s dilemma by introducing a mechanism by which two people who can’t necessarily trust each other can make an exchange. He says they are doing it because they have realized that a certain degree of cooperation is beneficial for the bottom line.

So my obvious question is, if multinational corporations can extend a little trust to cooperate, can’t arts entities from the service organizations down to the smallest theatre/dance/music/visual art company find a way to do it as well? While large organizations might be most immediately influential by providing an example for many others to emulate, technology allows the successes of smaller to be disseminated as they couldn’t even a handful of years ago.

I Just Invented the Wheel! Whadda You Mean You Did Too?

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My thanks to David Dombrowsky of the Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon who commented on a recent entry. In response to my entry on how well things were developing for the Emerging Leadership Institute, he suggested that instead of independently inventing the wheel arts organizations like APAP, Americans for the Arts and the Southern Arts Federation which all have leadership programs combine their efforts to offer greater opportunities for learning and conversation.

He isn’t the first to express this sentiment. Andrew Taylor said the same thing two years ago when I did an entry on Southern Arts Federation’s National Arts Leadership Institute. As Andrew noted, there are many such programs throughout the country. I listed a sampling here.

Someone in my Emerging Leaders meeting at APAP suggested that it might be logical and beneficial to open a channel of communication with the American for the Arts Emerging Leaders program alumni.

I had a brief email exchange with David about causes and solutions. We generally both agreed a little bit of ego and territoriality came into play. As Andrew Taylor noted in his comment, we are often enjoined to partner and collaborate by these service organizations but they may not be providing a good example for their constituents.

One thing I mentioned to David was that change in outlook might have to come at the grassroots level and technology made such things possible where it hadn’t been before. I will make no promises or idealistic statements about success at this juncture, but I am going to talk to some people and do some research and see what develops. Given that I don’t know exactly what success will look like other than people engaging in effective communication and exchange of ideas, I can’t be more committal about what my plans are. If people have any suggestions about who to speak with or want to get involved in organizing an effort, as nebulous as it might be at this point, drop me an email.

Arts and the Law

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While looking around at the sites on my blogroll when I came across a link (On Theatre Forte I think) to Theatre and Entertainment Law blog. The blog and associated podcast are created by Gordon Firemark who answers entertainment and intellectual property law questions.

I have addressed legal issues in the past, but obviously he is better at it and speaks with greater authority. His blog and podcast cover some of the basic issues everyone asks about like “Can I make a video tape of a play whose rights are controlled by a publisher?” He also addresses more complicated problems like negotiation and enforceability of non-compete clauses.

A little warning before you listen or read his work, while ignorance of the law is no excuse, it also brings bliss. You may be a little depressed to learn just what your responsibilities are in obtaining permissions for what seem to be the most innocuous activities like showing videos in a dorm lounge. Granted he is a lawyer so his suggestion that you do things like get a different release from a model every time you change your shooting location is all about covering every possible contingency that might arise. (He has the requisite minute long disclaimer in the middle of the podcast, of course.) Still, it is good to be aware of the issues you might face in the course of doing business.

Emerging Leadership Plans Emerging

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There are times on my blog when I am critical of people’s practices or state/imply that there is action that needs to be taken to improve a situation. With that in mind, I also think it important to acknowledge when people do act to rectify a situation. Such is the case with the Association of Performing Arts Presenters. As I have mentioned, I am involved with their Emerging Leadership Institute and have been one of the initial forces behind making the experience worthwhile for the once and future participants.

A number of alumni (including those who had just graduated) met during the conference to discuss what where we wanted to see the program go and how the APAP leadership could help. In attendance was newly hired Education Specialist, Scott Stoner who had declared before a room full of people on the previous day that if APAP didn’t make significant inroads in developing a significant knowledge base, thinking strategically and making use of the people that they have on their team, he wouldn’t be working there next year. So we knew we were dealing with someone who was quite serious about effecting change.

So two days ago I had a conference call with the other two people who helped spearhead the effort to get the ELI alumni together and advance our agenda with the APAP administration. (Laura Kendall, Lied Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Joe Clifford, Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College. Smart, passionate people. Give them fulfilling jobs with good pay!) We spoke about involving more people in planning and programming for next year. We also divvied up responsibility for talking to different people at APAP to remind them about the changes and additions we would like to see implemented.

Imagine my pleasure when I got an email yesterday from APAP sent out to all alumni signed by Scott Stoner and others essentially committing to address all the issues we had discussed at our conference meeting. My partners in crime and I pretty much don’t have to do any reminding.

Among the the things they have committed to do are:

Send a letter from Arts Presenters’ President/CEO Sandra Gibson to recent graduates’ chief administrator – acknowledging the value of participation in the program and you as a member of the ELI network (done)

This was actually very important to the alumni. I am thrilled to see it has already been done. The ELI alumni feel the experience is valuable but don’t believe the chief administrators feel the same. Frequently, they won’t send new people to the conference or resend the program alumni. We felt the letter would help reinforce the value of participation in the administrators’ minds.

But we also know that conference attendance involves a considerable investment of time and money. While the ELI alumni are committed to finding ways to help finance or reduce the fees for returning alumni, we are also dedicated to providing opportunities for interaction between the annual conferences which is where the next three goals APAP has come in.

Identify links to online and other information and resources to assist with building knowledge and skills.

Identify opportunities for ELI members to meet on-site at state, regional and national arts meetings and conferences (links to meeting calendars and suggested events will be forthcoming in the near future)

Create a home for ELI on the Arts Presenters website and an online facility for peer-to-peer networking

This last item was actually fairly important to the ELI alumni. We had been frustrated with the Listserv as a communication tool. Until Scott Stoner mentioned that they were going to try to create an improved communication system, one of our agenda items for the meeting was to decide on an alternative mode like Yahoo Groups.

One last thing related thing I want to say. I was very impressed by how thoughtful and perceptive my colleagues in the ELI program are. In addition to all the aforementioned items we felt were important, there was also well considered conversation about where the ELI program fit into the greater process. People noted that in two years the student volunteers at the conference would be ready to apply for the Emerging Leadership Institute. It was also noted that since the first ELI class was 6 years ago, those early attendees were moving beyond the emergent portion of their careers.

By the end of the meeting a loose framework for three stage track starting with greater focus on improving the conference experience of the student volunteer and grooming them to apply for the ELI program a couple years down the road. Then would come the ELI experience and the aforementioned improvements. Finally a person would transition into an Advanced Leadership stage with a slightly different system to support their needs and goals.

It was a little strange to be organizing a group for the first time, turning to some of the members and telling them that they should make plans to leave and start their own group. Fortunately, those people were already of the same mind. They were happy the effort to organize was going forward, but they suspected they were moving past the scope of the group.

Yes, I know it all sounds very self-congratulatory. Frankly, having left a lot of meetings in my time feeling good about the future when the discussions came to pass and then having nothing actually develop at all, I am a little dazed to be involved with an effort that is apparently bearing fruit. (Though I am still realistic enough not to count my chickens.)

Intrinsic Value of Puppets, Mad Scientists and Trash

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I had a moment of panic a couple weeks ago when I was taking notes on the audio from the “Intrinsic Impacts” session at the APAP conference for one of my earlier entries. When Lisa Booth mentioned she hoped arts organizations didn’t use the report as an excuse to justify providing a small group with an experience of high intrinsic value, I felt a little guilty because I had a show coming up that I knew would only have limited appeal but would provide a highly rewarding experience to those who attended.

I relaxed a few moments later because I knew that on the whole the season held wide appeal for many people. I knew this because every time I picked up the phone or checked the overnight internet ticket sales, most of the orders were for those events even though they were weeks and months hence instead of for the show we did last week. Given that most of our sales generally come in the last couple days before a performance, these steady purchases this far out is quite pleasing. Unfortunately, the weaker sales on the most recent show only served to confirm my impression that it might have a more limited appeal.

Of course, the appeal I refer to is relative to audience size rather than their enthusiasm. The audience size was actually pretty good in terms of my expectations. Their enthusiasm was through the roof. Therefore I don’t have any reservations about mentioning the performer was Paul Zaloom. (Who is also the guy I mentioned yesterday.) Zaloom is probably best known for his role as the wild hair mad scientist on the Saturday morning science show, Beakman’s World. However, he has had a long history as a performer with Bread and Puppet, film maker and puppeteer/performer.

I had contracted him primarily to do a performance but also asked for a couple of workshops. I am glad I did because by some measures they were some of the most successful ancillary activities I have conducted. For the first workshop, I asked him to channel part of his Beakman personae and do his Science Edu-tainment workshop where he talks about how educators can teach science in an entertaining and engaging way.

With a title like that, you might think the session was a lot of flashy tricks with little substance. I have to say I was impressed by how he really emphasized the diligence he applied in making sure the specific terminology he was using on his show (and our workshop) was vetted by scientists at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. I guess he did a good job because a half hour into his 90 minute presentation, one of the science faculty offered him a job as a lecturer next semester. Zaloom deferred because he doesn’t have a science degree. I think his enthusiasm and contention that the best scientists are as creative as any artist really energized and excited the 50 educators and educators in training who attended the session.

The second workshop he did was titled “Theatre of Trash.” This one he did for our drama students and some improv groups with an association with our school. For this workshop he raided our prop room for miscellaneous items and required participants to bring some items of their own. He gave a lecture/demo on the use of found objects in performance. Then he set the students loose on the pile and critiqued their work when they were done.

While my hope for Zaloom’s visit was that people would walk away with some new ideas about creating and viewing art and science, I was really hoping this workshop in particular would inject some new perspective. A lot of what I see the students, alumni and even some renters do is derivative of others. Worse, they are borrowing liberally from other local performers who did the same so it is all pretty incestuous. Granted, with sampling, mash-ups, etc., it may just be a function of how they have been socialized to think of the creative process. They still need a kick in the pants though.

Zaloom’s performance did some rump kicking of its own. As a social satirist, his work pushes some buttons at times. Because Zaloom employs found objects and puppetry in his shows it introduces a level of insulation that allows the audience to accept what is happening in a way they couldn’t if a person was saying it directly to them.

After the show he invited the audience up for a backstage tour and 90% of them came up. He explained that puppeteers are the opposite of magicians in that they love to show off their secrets. He spent a fairly long time demonstrating and answering questions for the people huddled around his gear. For the third time in a week, I think people left his presence having had an entirely different experience than they usually do when they enter a familiar room, be it a classroom or theatre.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are experiences you can’t replicate in all situations because the dynamic isn’t there. I talked yesterday about how the audience had an entirely different relationship with Zaloom than they usually do at our shows. As an interesting counterpoint, the night he performed, one of our sister campuses was presenting a version of The Tempest employing Balinese shadow puppetry. Zaloom’s show also employed shadow puppets rigged in the Balinese fashion.

The Tempest was much more technically advanced and very cleverly done. I really wanted to know how they managed to alternate between what was being projected without also including the people who appeared to be standing right in front of the screen. Unfortunately, the dynamic for that show was such that it didn’t allow audience members more than a glimpse of the mechanisms at curtain call.

The ultimate result of Paul Zaloom’s visit is that many people were pleased with their experiences of last week. I am getting all sorts of praise and thanks. There have also been a number of people who have stated we should be doing this type of thing more often. They forget, of course, that I actually started the process 18 months ago when I approached them about their interest in the workshops. It ain’t a simple proposition. What’s more, it also seems to have slipped their minds that the money to pay for artist fees, transportation, lodging and food is coming out of my earned income! Good ideas are always free. Reality costs, n’est-ce pas?

Fezzik Was Right!

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In the movie, The Princess Bride, the character Fezzik talks about how fighting one man is different than fighting a group. (It is right around 1:35) In fact, according to the powerful giant, it can be tougher to fight one person than a group.

It a lesson I relearned this past week when we were hosting a one person show. When we have a group of people visit to perform, even if they number as small as three, they are generally mutually reliant and supporting. They work out their schedule among each other and get themselves where they are going. With a single person, the dynamic changes and the relationship with them can become more intimate.

I had approached last week thinking that the group before had presented little difficulty and how much less a problem an individual would be. In some respects it was, but in many other aspects the performer’s visit consumed much more of my time and attention than most groups do.

For example, groups generally take their meals together be it catered in house or driving to a nearby restaurant. Smaller groups might invite staff and crew to take meals with them but with an individual, the opportunity presents itself more often and feels natural. Last week I ended up eating dinner out more times than I ever have since moving here. I was late or missed events I frequent weekly as a result.

While I regularly escort performers to their hotel after meeting them at the airport, there are times I don’t if they feel comfortable driving themselves. Last week I waited around 4 hours to escort him while he unpacked and set up at the theatre. Sure I would have rather gone home, but he was in a strange city, it was raining and while it is easy to get to the hotel, he didn’t have anyone to help him navigate.

Working with an individual performer doesn’t always present challenges. The dinner conversation was great. In fact, I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to take him around to a more diverse group of restaurants. Last year I was driving a single performer to the theatre to rehearse and took a 20 minute detour to a scenic overlook because the she kept admiring how beautiful it was and I knew she would appreciate the view. These usually aren’t options that even enter consideration with groups. One’s relationship with individuals is more likely to feel like a guest and host or even familial interaction.

In some situations, dealing with a single person is less difficult if they relax their expectations. For most of the week we had our hospitality set up moved from our green room to the scene shop because it was less trouble to grab water, coffee, cookies and fruit from the stage. Generally performers are less keen about getting their coffee next to a table saw.

When we talk about customer service, speak of treating every individual as if they are the most important person. But if this type of experience has reminded me of anything, it is that the standard of care rendered to people has to be anything but. People in groups often get a lot of what they need from their companions. Dealing with individuals sometimes thrusts the role of a companion upon you by default.

Part of the point I am trying to make isn’t so much about having a separate way of dealing with a single person at the box office versus a group that comes to buy their tickets as it is an attempt to create a metaphor about being mindful of the dynamic that group size dictates. Our audience had as different a relationship with the single performer as I did. It may seem self-evident in your mind that the experience would be different, but there are assumptions about what will happen that we automatically project on our experience based on past experience that simply are not valid. In such cases, operating as business as usual may yield disappointing results for audience, artist and staff.

Engage Your Art — Will It Be A Happy Marriage?

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While I was in the Learning to Lead session at the APAP conference, Steven Tepper was discussing his new book Engaging Art: The Next Great Transformation in America’s Cultural Life just next door. It was tough deciding which session to attend and I eventually stayed in Learning to Lead and bought the audio recording Tepper’s session.

There were a number of interesting insights from his book that Tepper shared. One of the things people are concerned about is that arts audiences are disappearing but according to Tepper, participation is dropping all over. There are declines in church attendance, voting, involvement in formal political processes and even major league baseball games.

But says Tepper, It’s not that like sports less, its that we like a little sports more….It may not be case that we like arts less we may actually like arts more.” He doesn’t expound, but I think he is referring to The Long Tail economic model which essentially deals with selling a lot of niche items at higher volumes. His implication, as I understood it, was that people will value a lot of small experiences over the larger, more formal ones in the future.

Something he pointed out was that there is a shift in where people are getting their arts experiences. They aren’t just getting it on the internet and TiVo, but also in places like churches which are bringing arts experiences to their constituents both within services and independently of them. He suggested that churches could be potential partners for arts organizations.

Tepper cited survey results that said high quality art wasn’t a prime motivator for attendance. Rather celebrating heritage, socializing and supporting their community bigger motivation than quality. Social connections have long been a strong factor in arts attendance and apparently remains so. This is one of the reasons why churches could be strong partners. Not only do people who attend church participate more often in other areas of life, but churches provide a social connection.

This may be more true now than ever before given that many churches now offer counseling and assistance with things like job placement, parenting and child care in addition to sponsoring social gatherings for demographic groups. The church that rents my theatre has niche social groups for every permutation of age, marital status (and desire to be married), employment/student status and gender.

Though it does sound like one of those jokes about ordering coffee in Starbucks when a pastor introduces someone as a member of the Thirtysomething, professional single women social group. Yet if the Long Tail situation is indeed developing, services focused to these type of divisions may be what people desire. (Despite the fact that you will either go insane or print up different labels for the same product trying to serve every possible group.)

There are signs that there is a growing interest with involvement in artistic creation. UCLA administers an annual survey to students about their aspirations. Over the last decade there has been a small but noticeable increase in the number of students with a “desire to create, write something original or be accomplished in a performing art.” Tepper acknowledges that what they create might not be worth experiencing. He notes that students are experiencing frustration. Colleges and universities are having a hard time responding since the classes addressing the myriad creative areas are only available to majors. Students are coming to school with creative hobbies but don’t have a formal way of advancing their skill/knowledge.

So perhaps the role that arts organizations can fill in the future is responding to this need to hone one’s creative skills that schools are not able to provide. In the best situation, arts organizations will be partnering with schools to provide the types of experiences students are looking for rather than competing or duplicating efforts.

I have talked about the Pro Am — professional amateur — trend in earlier entries. (Not surprisingly in relation to a piece Tepper wrote before.) People are investing a great deal of time in their interests these days and technology is making it easier for them to gain expertise. There was a time when this was not so and the learning curve for amateurs was so much greater.

It may not longer be the role of the arts organization to employ those who have acquired a high level of skill in their field to exhibit it to others, but rather to invite these Pro-Amateurs to become partners/participants/students in the creation of art. I have often wondered what the next phase for arts organizations is going to be. I don’t think the future would be too bad if this was the role arts organizations played. The scary part for existing arts organizations is figuring out what their organization is going to look like and making the transition.

**Apologies to regular readers for falling off my regular posting schedule. Engaging my constituents (look for posts next week) and problems logging in to my blog contributed to my delay**

Fractured Knowledge

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A nod of appreciation to Stanlyn Brevé at the National Performance Network for noting that Fractured Atlas is continuing in the practice of being a irreplaceable resource for artists by offering online classes.

A couple weeks ago, Fractured Atlas Founder, Adam Huttler announced the opening of Fractured U. as a source of information for artists.

For the last year we’ve been quietly putting together an online curriculum in arts management aimed squarely at artists who are working outside the mainstream establishment and trying to make things happen on their own terms. The initial roster of classes provides introductions to fundraising, marketing, and professional identity. The course list is short for the moment, but we’ll be expanding it steadily over time.

Fractured U. is free and open to the public, although you’ll need to be a Fractured Atlas member to participate in discussion forums or take quizzes.

A lot of the information seems elementary to me — which is good because I went to school learn this stuff! But it also seems to be a fairly complete and clearly explained basic set of information. If you don’t have a clue about marketing or are intimidated by the concept, their information is a good place to start.

I am always happy to promote Fractured Atlas because I am grateful I am in a position where I don’t have to avail myself of their services. I am fortunate enough to have insurance coverage and a job, etc, but there are plenty of folks I know who don’t and I often point them to Fractured Atlas. They are big advocates for equitable treatment for artists with housing, healthcare and in other areas that impact artists.

PURLs of Wisdom

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I have been aware of the emergence of new technologies that are allowing companies to offer an experience that is tailored specifically to an individual for awhile now. For the most part though, it has been on the edge of my awareness until this week when I got smacked square in the face with it.

I received an email with a link to a survey for the conference I recently attended and I was warned not to forward the link to anyone else because it was keyed specifically to my email address. I don’t think it was associated directly with me since I had to fill name fields. If it was associated with my identity, that was pretty annoying to have to fill out my name and organization info.

Today I received an email from an artist agent that contained a Personalized URL that took me to a webpage listing all the artists the agent had suggested might be appropriate for my venue. The page contained little modules with photos and information about the artist and links to additional materials. The information was specific to me and didn’t include any extraneous information about other performers that might overload me with too much information and cause me to close the page.

I have heard of some arts organizations using personal URLs to provide ticket buyers with directions to the theatre from their homes and other helpful information. It is clear though that the potential hasn’t been plumbed yet.

As exciting as it might be to think about adopting these technologies as tools for your organization, in keeping with my philosophy that not all new stuff is appropriate for everyone, I want to point out why. First of all is the need to have someone creating and monitoring the basic content that is offered with these links. Even with the help afforded you by the companies who offer Personal URL service, doing something like this is going to consume time, personnel and resources.

Another problem with these services is that knowing your activity is being tracked can be a little off putting. I can’t answer the survey anonymously because it is linked to me. While it might take some digging to find out who I am, the survey could have been easily set up so that it was directly associated with my identity rather than my email.

The personal URL offers even less anonymity. It would take the agent almost no effort at all to see how many times I visited the page he set up for me and which artists I clicked through to the most times. Even if I shared the link with other people, it is most likely going to be those associated with my organization in the course of soliciting opinions about artists. When making a follow up call the agent will have a good idea which performers to steer the conversation toward based on the number of visits made to each page.

The other problem with personal URLs is that they can provide too narrow a selection of information. With my special link to a listing of 10 performers, I don’t have a lot of motivation to look at the other people the agent represents. Of course, I would have probably given the full website a cursory glance anyway given the number of people the company represents. If the agent has gauged my organization correctly with the questions he asked, he has probably improved my chances of contracting one of his performers by isolating these 10 from the masses.

Of course, not all uses of personal URLs will yield secret information about the user. Visits to the directions link may merely tell you that your patron loses directions a lot. Or it could indicate that they are not sure of where they are going which may inspire a phone call to check if they need any additional information. One of those cases where having insight into your audience’s need can be helpful or a little creepily intrusive.

So, as I have advocated before– When implementing the newest trends, procedures, technologies, etc., think about whether it really is appropriate for your organization and audience and how it might be received/perceived. This includes thinking carefully about how you integrate the use of these trends and tools in your operations. As I noted, it is one thing to call someone up asking if they need any additional information and another to mention that you noticed they were clicking on the directions section of their personal URL a lot this past week.

New Metrics To Damn Ourselves With

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I haven’t had a chance to read through the report WolfBrown put together for the Major University Presenters on Assessing the Intrinsic Impacts of a Live Performance but I did just finish listening to the audio recording of the presentation on the work that Alan Brown and Jennifer Novak did at the Arts Presenters conference.

What was most interesting to me about the study they did was their ambition in collecting information about audience experiences. They randomly surveyed people during the period between the time they arrived and the start of the show about their readiness to receive the performance they were about to see and then asked the same people to take home a survey and return it within 24 hours.

I hope to address the study in more detail in another entry. I wanted to address the comments one of respondents on the session panel had about the study. Artist agent and APAP Board President Lisa Booth had mixed feeling about the report. She was happy that there was a measure of success being developed that didn’t evaluate an artist on the number of bodies he/she attracted to the venue but rather on impacts in other areas.

On the other hand, she worried that some presenters might use the report to justify serving only a small group rather than the larger community. Providing experiences of high intrinsic value for 10 people is anti-ethical to most arts organization’s purpose.

And while she was glad that there was a new metric of success being developed that wasn’t based in dollars or butts in seats, she was also concerned that in the eagerness to justify the value of the arts in some quantifiable way, the arts community was trying to measure what can not be measured.

This last bit was very interesting to me because Lisa Booth seemed to recognize the inevitable if these measures became widely used. If foundations and governments start basing their funding on the intrinsic value a performance has for a community, arts organizations will probably try to measure everything imaginable to show all the levels on which a performance meets funding agendas. Just as the arts aren’t well served by showing economic impact, they probably will be equally ill-advised to create numeric values for changes in things like self-actualization, captivation, social comfort level and questions raised.

As it was at least one person in the room at this convention of presenters, agents and artists had nagging doubts about the value of art in today’s society. One of the questions submitted to the moderators on an index card that was read but left unanswered was “What is the value of these impacts in a world with global warming and war?” The fact that the moderator choose to read the question as he announced time was up rather than ignoring it entirely is an acknowledgment that questions about our priorities as a society are ever present.

There is no short simple answer for the question but I offer this- After September 11, 2001 people were saying there would be no more comedy or laughter ever again. When I heard that I knew with 100% certainty that it was wrong and that even with the destruction of the Twin Towers hovering in our consciousness, recovery would come sooner than people expected. I had been through enough tragedy and grave problems in my life that I knew people couldn’t exist in with the absence of artistic expression in some form. My current concern isn’t that the arts will disappear. It is that I have no idea what media/channel/form it will best express itself in the future.

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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