General Musings

I had one of those random acts of kindness experiences today that don’t happen often enough to keep people from becoming cynical and depressed, but obviously should.

I was having lunch with representatives of the rental car company I use to provide transportation for my performers. (Like I said yesterday, I ain’t letting any moss grow on my planning for next year.) I had some complaints about the service we had received last year and these folks wanted to make sure they had a handle on them since the corporate accounts rep was moving on to another job.

The young woman who was serving us was right on top of everything and really charismatic. I commented to my companions that today was the fastest I had ever been served in that restaurant. We told the server that we were impressed with her and she confessed that she actually thought she wasn’t doing as well as she should because she had been working 10 days straight and was on call for tomorrow. She had the classic story. Pre-med taking a semester off to save enough money for next year when she wouldn’t have time to work.

When we finished our meal, one of the rental car folks walked up to the kitchen door, waited for the young woman to emerge, gave her the tip directly and offered her a job.

I guess the act of kindness wasn’t so random since the young woman certainly earned the recognition. I thought it was a great thing to do as a compliment to the woman for her hard work. Also, if you see someone providing the type of service you have just spent an hour assuring a client they will receive, it is a smart move to try to grab the person.

As the years have gone by since I started in the performing arts I have come to realize that the level of professionalism and conscientiousness I once assumed everyone was devoting to their jobs isn’t as common as I thought. Part of the discussion I had with my assistant theatre manager yesterday skirted the edge of groveling with gratitude for the job she has been doing. Ten/fifteen years ago, I would have taken her attentiveness for granted as something all people in her position would naturally do.

Now I know better. So too, I imagine, do you my loyal readers. It will be with some regret that I remove her name from our website tomorrow morning. She deserves the recognition of working here. But if laboring in obscurity is the price she has to pay so I can keep you all from stealing her away from me, I am willing to have her pay it.

Saturday was the end of our season for all intents and purposes. We have a couple inhouse events and scads of rentals, but the days of meeting people at the airport and seeing them safely to the hotel are over for awhile.

I planned on diving in to final grant reports and catching up on paperwork pushed aside when the office manager broke her hip. Amidst doing all that though I ended up in conversations planning for next year.

The last two days have been, despite my earlier intentions, a series of discussions about the next season. I have been in contact with the new development person stating my desire to form a unified plan for fundraising over the year to be reflected in speeches and publications.

I suggested that next month’s meeting of my booking consortium include proposals of performers for the next two years in preparation for the state foundation’s biennium grant proposal process.

I got into a long conversation with the assistant theatre manager enjoining her to think how we can improve customer service, volunteerism, our publications and website. We have made some good progress in customer service, but given people’s expectations, we have some areas of improvement.

I also discussed how I envisioned how the integration of information sources we have been slowly effecting in our database will hopefully serve to increase our attendance next season (and therefore, is what we needed to work on the next few months.)

As I have gone through the last two days, all the memories of all the small corrective actions I took over the past year came back to me. They were accompanied by recollections of all the mental notes I made to formulate policies to turn the small actions and comments into documented instructions for practices.

One thing I gotta solve and maybe some of the readers can help with some advice. One of the recurring events that I think I need to address is that people often call, hear we charge $2 handling fee on advance sales (vs the fees of many names Ticketmaster levies) and say they rather come the night of the performance.

Part of the problem is our performances don’t approach capacity in advance so there is no perceived downside for our audience. If they show up early enough for a general admission show, they can get tickets and good seats.

The fee itself is mainly to cover the credit card charge and to help pay for the clerk who seems to be sitting around doing less and less as time goes on. We can either raise the price across the board so everyone pays for the person covering the advance sales for the dwindling group of folks who want to talk to someone when they order tickets vs. buy them online or we can just cut the ticket office hours to the week before the performance which is when most people who are calling in advance or walking up are contacting us.

The question we need to answer is if it is returning ticket buyer who is purchasing in advance and will we alienate them if we cut our hours back to reflect the period when demand exists. We actually forward the phones to our office and staff them fairly consistently throughout the year until two weeks, and now perhaps one week, prior to a show when the increase in calls becomes too much of an interruption.

To add a complication, if we are only employing a ticket office clerk a week prior to a performance, it becomes more difficult to find someone willing to work so infrequently. I suspect we are simply caught in an awkward transition of technology period where there are just enough people who haven’t adopted a new technology to make discounting the old system unwise from a relationship standpoint, but so few it makes continuing unwise from a financial standpoint.

I am contributing to Drew McManus’ 2006 Take A Friend To The Orchestra Month . I took some friends yesterday and have been pondering throughout the day. Instead of making an entry today, I will be working on my contribution.

In the meantime, take a gander at today’s contribution by Alex Shapiro which seems to have elicited some good responses.

As many of you know, I live in Hawaii. Yesterday was a state holiday celebrating the birthday of Prince Jonah Kuhio who was an heir to the Hawaiian throne when Queen Lili`uokalani was overthrown by American businessmen.

It got me to thinking about Liliuokalani and her predecessor, King Kalakaua and their relationship with the arts. Even in captivity Lili`uokalani, who was an accomplished songwriter and writer, had a profound effect on Hawaiian culture. Many of her compositions, including Aloha `Oe, are still sung or used today.

King Kalakaua had an even greater impact on the arts. He is known as the “Merrie Monarch” for his patronage of the arts. He is especially known for his revival of many Hawaiian cultural traditions, including hula which had been banned because missionaries viewed it as obscene. Today, the Merrie Monarch Festival is an annual hula event held in his honor.

As I think about these things, I can’t help but wonder if the United States has lost something by not having the example of monarchy that patronized the arts as a strong element of its cultural heritage.

Certainly foundations spread funding around to more organizations than any noble patron could ever do. There is also no arguing that the Medici, Vatican and Elizabethean support of the arts was predicated on the works matching their agendas and validating their power. As I read the historical influences of the arts in the United States in Joli Jensen’s Is Art Good For Us?, I can see some benefits to the way things developed here.

However, the example of a national leader supporting the arts can go a long way. The proud anti-intellectualism of the current administration aside, with a few exceptions, it is difficult for me to think of any time a president attended an arts event or sponsored one in the White House. This is not to say that they didn’t, it is only that there wasn’t much ado made of it in the media. On the other hand, I can easily recall stories about trips to Camp David and Crawford, Texas and what the places generally looked it.

The few exceptions I mentioned earlier don’t bode well for presidents. The first examples that pop in to my mind when I think of presidential support for the arts are Lincoln at the Ford Theatre and Kennedy’s tribute to Robert Frost at Amherst College which is viewed as the impeteus for the creation of the National Endowment for the Arts. (Though it was President Johnson who signed the act creating the NEA.) President Clinton also comes to mind with his sax. He might have been a good proponent for arts funding if he had a better relationship with Congress. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out well for any of these gentlemen.

The presidency has many traditions that it engages in from tree lighting, egg hunts and turkey pardoning. It would be great if someone could influence a president to begin the precendent of making an annual donation to some arts fund or foundation (to prevent the appearance of favoritism to any group or genre) with great fanfare. Actually, it would be great to see the president attending an event with great fanfare as well. However, as busy as the president can tend to be, it might not be a good message to send if some crisis continually leads to cancelling attendance.

Last week Slate had a short article about how young people are underpaid in relation to their productivity whereas older folks are overpaid in proportion to what they produce.

At the same time, Adaptistration cited an article in San Francisco Classical Voice that revealed the salaries of musicians and administrators in the Bay area.

As I look at the fact that the SF Opera’s Musical Director makes $600,000 and the concert master makes $126,000, I first have to wonder if he is really about five times more productive each year than she is. I don’t know their respective ages or education and experience levels, but I can’t believe that the difference is in direct proportion to the gap in their salaries.

It leads to the question of what it is that is valued in the arts. I know Drew McManus has bemoaned the disparity between executive compensation and musician salaries so I won’t tread upon that ground.

It is easy as a person not earning that much to cast aspersions upon those who do. I can’t say that by some strange twist of fate I won’t end up making a large amount of money before the end of my career. I can honestly say that I have a hard time believing I will ever be worth that much to an organization.

I certainly feel that my value will grow as I become wiser about addressing challenges and planning prudently, but I don’t know that I will become so adept I will be worth $600,000. (This is coming back to haunt me at some future salary negotiation. I can feel it.)

Now in comparison with some corporate CEO salaries and benefit packages, this sort of pay scale is downright parsimonious. Those guys may be brokering billion dollar deals, but it is the masses who are responsible for that sort of valuation. In this context, it seems only right that the leadership of a large non-profit be well-compensated.

But what about the mission of a non-profit? Is the community well served by a senior person making that much money? If the opera had hired someone as music director who would accept $200,000, would the quality suffered significantly? Perhaps the fundraising would be more difficult with a lesser name at the helm and instead of saving $400,000, there would only be a $100-$200,000 surplus. But if that money could be sunk into the productions, outreach programs or low cost ticketing, wouldn’t the organization mission be better served?

It is very easy to spend other people’s money to be sure. The opera’s business is its own and it seems to be doing fairly well. If the board and the community is happy and feels the opera is fulfilling its role, more power to them and more money to their administrators. (Don’t want to burn any potential bridges 😉 )

This isn’t really about the opera, but about the industry at large. I just want to send a question or two rattling around people’s minds about whether there is a point where people are too well compensated to the detriment of the organization’s mission.

And harkening back to the Slate article, are they being paid out of proportion to what they produce for the organization. It could be argued that if someone attracts $1 million in donations to the organization, they are worth a percentage of that. In theory, the money was solicited to benefit the mission of the organization so the percentage granted as a bonus in one form or another really needs to be scrutinized.

It is the high percentage of a donation that goes to administrative costs that tends to be the main point of criticism for charities like the United Way. Arts groups don’t need that to become the story for them.

Though I have railed against the screening of blog entries in the past, I have activated the requirement that commenters register today. I had 600 comments this weekend, most of which were advertisements for any number of services both mundane and erotic.

In the course of deleting them, I accidentally erased a new comment (I don’t know from whom it was, sorry about that.) So in order to save my readers from my blunders, I instigated this measure which I hope will cut down on the garbage.

I had an experience this weekend that showed me a value to arts funding I had never come across before. It isn’t going to convince foundations, arts councils and the federal government to necessarily pour more money into the arts and humanities, but it does go to show just how much good the money is doing.

This weekend we hosted a performance of Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, a traditional dance group from India. They are really a remarkable group based on their process alone. Every 6 years 6 women are chosen to enter the world’s only dance village. For these six women, every cost is taken care of. There are day students and week long seminars that are periodically conducted. Those people have to pay, but those chosen for the residential program have all their needs attended to..sort of.

The life they lead is somewhat akin to monstastic. There is no vow of silence and there are days off to go into town. However, the day runs something like: wake up, dance, help make breakfast, dance, help garden, study Sanskrit, have lunch, dance, etc.

The thing I found out this weekend though is that there is almost no written record of the classical dance forms. Everything was passed by word of mouth. One of the group’s projects is to assemble a library of material because right now they have to consult materials in the New York Public Library on their annual trips to the U.S. All the photos and other records of performance in India are held by families who are very resistance to sharing.

There is a classical text on Indian dance that is rather complete. An Indian woman has apparently made it her life’s work to translate and annotate it but almost no one uses it. One of the dancers commented on the irony of meeting a white, male Asian Studies student here that was more familiar with the book than most of the dancers in her country.

Another thing that surprised me was that there is apparently no tradition of dancing as a group in India. If there are 4 women dancing somewhere they are essentially each doing solo performances. The road manager told me that one of the biggest hurdles they have had to overcome is instilling a sense of performance discipline in the members of the group so they work in unison and ignore things like a flower falling from another dancer’s hair. Everything the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble has learned about spacing, coordinated complementary movement and interaction with other dancers they have learned from Western choreographers.

One of the group leaders was overjoyed to learn that a respected dance teacher from the local university was attending the show and had come backstage to visit. The professor in question had recorded Indian dance before in one of the dance notation forms and the dancer wanted to consult with her on how it was accomplished and the suitability of the notation style to traditional Indian dance.

Now one might argue, perhaps correctly, that if you are codifying a form that has not been and adding group choreography where none ever existed, you are no longer performing the dance traditionally. Honestly, I think that is a discussion for another entry and perhaps another blog.

It seems to me that if a group is trying to record and preserve cultural traditions which have nearly been lost a number of times due to sickness and disasters killing off gurus, that is a laudable goal. Indeed, some of their measures are actually doing more to preserve elements of performance. They periodically video tape themselves so that when they notice they have somehow started doing something differently, they can go back and see where the change started creeping in.

What seems incredible to me is that arts and humanities funding in the US is providing the references, resources and trained expertise to aid this group in the discovery and preservation their culture. It is common to hear about foreign entities consulting with our scientists, corporations and government in order to make their lives better and solve problems. It is easy to forget that our artists have some useful advice to provide too.

A little revisiting of former topics to check on how things are going.

Back in May I covered the troubled times the Honolulu Symphony was having. I had actually started out exploring what appeared to be an attempt at a new organizational structure. However, that just ended up being a preamble to developing tensions.

Recent reports show the orchestra is starting on the way back. Donations and ticket revenue are up though attendance is down and their is still a $370,000 deficit.

The good news is that this is down from a near $2 million deficit a few years ago. There are new people on their board of directors and the organization is taking steps to improve their service to the community. The symphony is looking at revisiting their pricing structure for the seats.

And they are pursuing that elusive question of how to make the symphony interesting for regular folks.

Which brings us to the second retrospective, the ever popular, “But Do You Really Think It is Good For You” By way of Artsjournal.com is this book review in the Washington Post. What Good Are the Arts? is a book that examines, according to reviewer Michael Dirda “an intensely argued polemic against the intellectually supercilious, the snooty rich and the worship of high culture as a secular religion for the spiritually refined and socially heartless. Anyone seriously interested in the arts should read it.”

Many of the concepts Dirda quotes sound a lot like those suggested by Joli Jensen in “Is Art Good For Us?” Five years ago I probably wouldn’t have thought long upon it, but in days where non-fiction is peppered with fiction and plagiarism, I have to say I found myself wondering if her work (or those she cites) are in his bibliography.

Alas, my life has been busy and I haven’t gotten too far into Jensen’s book. Hope to soon. Keep watching this space 😉

Mitch from McCallum Theatre made some comments on my entry yesterday and said something at the end which I thought would be the basis of a good entry.

I am a new reader of your blog. I read it because it was called “Butts in Seats.” I’m not sure that is really what you are promoting.

It is a good observation because while I have been writing about what it is I am doing in emails to people, it has been awhile since I stated it in the blog. Given that projects like this can evolve over time, I thought the start of a new calendar year might be a good time to state what it is I am trying to accomplish at this stage.

The blog isn’t simply about putting butts in the seats. The purpose is to talk about the environmental/financial/social challenges, debates, idealistic conflicts, emerging opportunities, solutions, what have you, inherent to running a not-for-profit arts organization.

For-profits are primarily concerned with putting butts in the seats. They aren’t challenged with the necessity of having to balance serving the community with financial stability. They may decide to make it a paramount concern, but it rarely is part of their founding mission statement and not a statutory requirement of their corporate status.

So what the blog is all about is filling the seats and trying to address all that too.

Mitch is absolutely right in his comments, it is the job of the organization to reflect the desire of the community. There have been shows of certain genres that I have been involved with that appealed to absolutely no one in my organization, from the executive director to the maintenance workers, but filled the house because we booked a high quality act in that genre and the community clearly expressed an interest in that genre. Most of the time your job as a performance booker isn�t to showcase your personal taste even though you are hired based on your good taste.

What I was mostly addressing in yesterday’s entry was the fact people can be convinced a mediocre violinist is talented because they look good in a slinky dress. They rush to buy tickets, but stick up their noses at the great violinist because Eastern Europe dentistry isn’t what it is in West.

As I mentioned earlier, there is an internal debate that typically goes on in a lot of non-profit arts managers minds and hearts as they try to figure a balance between these two violinists. What enhances the community life more–1000 people whose experience is broadened by exposure to a poppy rendition of classical music or 300 people who choose to attend a concert that requires more concentration to understand, performed by a person with great mastery of the subject.

Will any of those 1000 people become interested enough by this first exposure to classical music to try out more challenging fare? If so, then booking that performer is a wise choice as part of serving the community pursuit of personal growth.

If the answer is no and booking the performer actually diminishes people’s respect for classical music but fills the coffers and allows the organization to continue, then the decision to engage the performer is less clear cut.

When I talk about being cynical and elitist, I am actually just trying to show the internal dialogue going on so that readers can gain some insight into the process and perhaps not feel they are alone in these thoughts. It’s no crime to have elitist thoughts as long as you recognize they might unfairly narrow your view of things and seek a more equitable method of making booking decisions. (Consulting with community members whose judgment you trust, for example.)

In the arts there is always going to be the debate between idealism and practicality. You can lean against the stage door and groan “why do people like this crap” but the truth is, you booked the performance despite your personal taste because it isn’t about you, it is about the community you serve.

Many times the value to the show isn’t in whether it is good art. Sometimes you are teaching kids about dinosaurs, sometimes it is about diverting a community’s thoughts from a great tragedy that has struck them, other times it is to create community bonding by getting everyone to bring their awful voices together to sing Christmas Carols.

I won’t make the claim that I am not an elitist in some respects, but I am very much aware of my own pedestrian tastes in many areas including the arts. One of my mottos is “Customers are idiots. I should know, I am one.”

If you read back in the blog a bit you will see that I join other bloggers in acknowledging that many arts organizations take a condescending view of their patrons. Proposed solutions to this include trying to find ways to create an atmosphere in which more effective patron conversations transpire.

These programs aren’t aimed at making people smarter about factual information as much as knowledgeable about how and why choices are made and the relationships between things. Drew McManus’ docent program for example aims to foster discussions about things like the intention behind a particular mix of pieces chosen for a symphony concert. Why Haydn is an important composer is part of this conversation, but it isn’t the conversation.

Mostly why I write this blog is to help me clarify my position on things and give people something to think about to clarify theirs. I hope that someone is reading bits from time to time and it isn’t all just falling into the ether of the net.

Certainly I hope for constructive feedback and criticism because all this blog is really is a less anti-social way to publicize my internal thoughts and discussions than talking aloud in a public place. Talking to myself, no matter how impressed I am with what comes out of my mouth, will only get me so far in developing effective approaches to arts management.

I am getting some great comments on my But Do You Really Think It is Good For You entry. Better than I expected really.

I was going to do a response to some of the comments, but between wanting to wait for more comments to come in (since they seem to be doing so) and finding I wanted to ponder my responses a little more, I have decided to tackle something else.

When I was touching on how difficult it can be to be a blogger and professor and thinking about how people expressed their feelings about the arts, I couldn’t help but think back to my own experience teaching a theatre appreciation class.

I have really enjoyed most of the theatre classes I have taught, but the one class I have felt most intellectually and idealistically torn over was the appreciation class.

Part of the problem I think was the expectations everyone had for it. For most students, it was an easy way to get fine arts credit for their liberal arts degree. Some came to class with an honest desire to learn more about the theatre, most came or were advised to come to get their credit and get out.

For the school the class was a way to keep their dollar per student ratio down. Since most theatre classes are intensive and low student to teacher ratios are necessary, the professor’s salary divided by the number of students in class results in a rather high number. But take a department as a whole, if you offer two or three sections of a class with 400 people in each section, you offset that high salary ratio and make the department look productive.

As horrible as this may sound, remember this is essentially the same way many funding institutions assess the effectiveness of their grants–by number of people served by programs they underwrote. Non-profit arts organizations often take on programs that don’t serve their mission well so that they can get funding to support their core interests. In the same regard, theatre departments create really poor environments for cultivating appreciation in an attempt to justify and maintain their existence in order to pursue their main interests–educating theatre majors. (And one wonders if this is where the future arts leaders learn the lesson of supporting the mission by doing what is not in the best interests.)

Four hundred people in a room isn’t necessarily bad, of course. By many accounts you would call it a nice atmosphere in which to enjoy the arts. But if there are 300 people who don’t want to be there and would rather talk on their cell phones or to each other, you got a pretty crappy atmosphere for the 100 who are interested in the subject matter. One professor and one TA have a hard time competing with and controlling that sort of disinterest.

Asking people to leave ellicited the “I paid, I got a right to be here” response. Challenging people to defend why their dollar was more valuable than the dollar of the people who were interested and wanted to pay attention earned some uninterrupted time. Lack of regard returned in subsequent classes and different arguments for attention had to be used.

Lest people be tempted to look at my resume in an attempt to figure out where I am talking about. Let me simply state, it is like this all over. A similar situation existed where I did my graduate work and where my friends went to school. It probably exists where many readers go/went to school. Certainly it occurs more in large university settings than in smaller colleges just by stint of enrollment numbers.

The thing is, the existence of these classes is also harmful to students pursuing performance as a major. This is most dismally illustrated at college performances said students are required to attend. Because they don’t want to ruin their weekends, these students will buy tickets to the Wednesday or Thursday performance thereby providing the student performers with the harrowing experience of playing to the most unresponsive audience they will ever meet. (While I can’t speak for all fine arts appreciation classes, I have noticed the same trend in music appreciation audiences.)

The Intro students will attempt to arrive late or leave early and get their attendance slip validated. Since the house staff (mostly comprised of students) has been instructed to apply the attendance rules strictly, an antagonistic relationship often developes. The Intro students resents that they are being compelled to attend and the theatre major resents that it is necessary to compel attendance. (If the school doesn’t enjoy strong community attendance, the theatre major may grow to feel this is true for all audiences.)

The real question is a takes the form of a debate of sorts- Are schools failing students by not giving them a more conducive environments in which to cultivate an interest and appreciation of art. OR Are schools wisely only investing an appropriate portion of their resources because so few of the students enrolling in the class have a genuine interest in detailed explorations and discussions of theatre.

Of course, this begs the question, if so few students are interested, why are they required to take the course? The answer most likely is that some group of people somewhere argued that exposure to the fine arts would make students better, more well-rounded citizens.

Which all gets back to the original question–is there a better way that makes sense economically and from an education philosophy point of view and creates a positive experience for all?

Is there anyone out there in large schools doing it?

I was looking through some of the blogs I have listed here today in order to catch up with what people have been doing. I really hadn’t been reading since Thanksgiving so I got ready for a long session.

Much to my disappointment, some great blogs have disappeared.

My London Life hadn’t been updated in a long time, but now it is completely gone. I only discovered it a year ago on my search for just such a blog. It was a great, frequently updated accounting of a London director’s life in the theatre as well as discussing the process he engages in.

What was really a surprise was the disappearance of Spearbearer Down Left. According to George Hunka over at Superfluities, Spearbearer packed it in last week. George and Spearbearer frequently used their blogs as forums to debate similar topics with each other. It was often dense stuff and I had to really had to read what was being said.

I tried to see if the final pages were archived on the web somewhere by one of the search engines, but didn’t have any luck. It is a mystery to me why he stopped. It seemed he hardly lacked for intelligent things to say.

On happier notes, I found more of those blogs I had been searching for a year ago via Greg Beuthin over at Extension 311.

By the grace of his eagle eye, I was lead to California Shakespeare Theater’s actors blogs for Nicholas Nickleby and director’s blog for Othello.

The entries were a little thin in my opinion. The director’s blog only covered the tech week through opening so you don’t get to see how things evolved through the rehearsal process. The actors’ blogs, while informative and providing a behind the scenes look at challenges and insecurities, aren’t updates as frequent as I would like. (With the exception of Jim Carpenter’s who has a nice consistency.)

I think perhaps the entries by these folks were infrequent because they really didn’t view blogs as a potentially valuable tool for removing the veil of mystery for patrons. And that’s okay, these things take time to evolve for both practioners and readers alike.

But it is in contrast with the entries of a blog Kool-aid drinker like Greg Beuthin. His blog entries as alter-ego Palmito are both frequent and informative about the process. (His entry on why they are singing children’s songs in rehearsal for example.)

All his hard work may not have put any more butts in the seats though, sez he back on Ext 311

Interestingly, most conventional wisdom seems to indicate that having a blog would encourage people to come see the show. While that may be true, it’s unclear how much of an effect the blog has had on attendance (I haven’t been asking nor handing out surveys…). What I do know is that people who have seen the show are reading the blog afterwards. Hmmm – I’ll take it anyway. 😉

Since I am transitioning out of holiday mode here, I am not ready to blog on topic and seriously, but instead am taking up the gauntlet Drew McManus threw down and am doing the Meme of Four thing.

Four jobs you’ve had in your life (not in chronological order):
-Census Taker
-Grocery Warehouse Quality Control Auditor
-Beverage Supervisor at a Rennaissance Faire (I was even in costume!)
-Computer Lab Assistant
(Yeah I have had a lot of theatre jobs, but that is what you expect me to list right?)

Four movies you could watch over and over:
-Lord of the Rings Trilogy (cause really, it is only one really long movie, right?)
-Ghandi
-The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai too, of course)
-Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Four places you’ve lived:
-Cedar City, UT
-Sarasota, FL
-Potsdam, NY
-Honolulu, HI
(Alas, I find I could actually answer this question about three more times without repeating.)

Four TV shows you love to watch:
-The West Wing
-Fullmetal Alchemist
-Deadwood
-Mythbusters

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
-Portland, OR
-Washington, DC
-Zion National Park
-Panama City Beach, FL

Four websites you visit daily:
–Artsjournal.com
–Ucomics.com
–Salon.com
–Bullshido.com (10% for the education, the rest for the entertainment)

Four of your favorite foods:
-Open face everything bagel with veggie cream cheese, slice of tomato and salt and pepper
-NYC pizza
-Hot Dogs with grandmother’s bizarrely appealing barbeque sauce
-Well made carrot cake (as much as I love chocolate, a good carrot cake will lure me away)

Four places you’d rather be:
-Hugging my 10 month old nephew
–Powell’s City of Books
-Night sledding by a full moon
-Still living in the entire second floor of a Victorian house

No applications to the arts world today. Just silly idle speculation. Hard to wrap my mind around writing on serious topics during the holiday season. (Mostly because I am so busy buying gifts!)

According to BuzzMachine, the Pulitzer Committee has decided to judge submissions of breaking news and photos that appeared online only separately from mainstream print and broadcast media.

As BuzzMachine notes, blogs like mine that don’t report on breaking items are lumped in with mainstream stuff. But you know, in a few years they will come around. Perhaps by then I will be ready for my 15 minutes of fame.

I am not a big fan of American Idol for a number of reasons. Mostly because while it positions itself as picking the next big national star, it is essentially picking a palatable compromise performing in a narrow niche market.

However, as I have been a big proponent of performers blogging about the process they go through to prepare for a show, I feel compelled to present an article that recently appeared on the NY Foundation for the Arts site featuring one woman’s blog about her attempt to become a contestant on American Idol.

She doesn’t get accepted to be a contestant, however her blog is interesting because it shows the extent she went to to prepare–everything from high heels training, mishaps in a tanning booth to getting former MTV News anchor Tabitha Soren to practice interview her. She even had blog readers vote on what earrings, shoes and tshirt to wear to the auditions.

While I don’t know I would ever encourage anyone to audition for the show other than for the practice, I do like appreciate that she took the time to write about the process so others could reference it and learn from it. (Even if it means they would draw encouragement from it to audition for the stupid show.)

Go check out Marisa’s American Idol Audition Training Blog

I have been reading Greg Sandow’s book in progress, The Future of Classical Music? over on Artsjournal.com. I haven’t linked to him much, but I am always interested in what he has to say in his blog about arts communications–often how press releases and program notes are written well and poorly. Many times I go and scrutinize what I have written after reading his entries.

One thing in his book that really floored me was his report of the lack of passion in orchestra administration.

The people who work for major orchestras typically don’t go to concerts. Almost never in the office of the orchestra will people come to work and talk about the music. Isn’t there something wrong with this? I’ve talked to a consultant who’s worked both with orchestras and with theater companies, and he’s stunned by what he finds in orchestras. In a theater company, people come to the office the day after a new production opens, and the production is all that they can talk about (the play, the acting, the directing, the sets and costumes, everything). But at orchestras, after a concert, no one says a word. If this is great art, where’s the depth, the transcendence, or even the certainty, both audible and visible, that everybody’s giving everything they’ve got?

I guess I always assumed that people involved in an art organization had some passion for it. As a person who comes out of theatre, I pretty much pictured what Greg describes as the day after in a theatre as happening in ballets, orchestras, museums and galleries. I figured I wouldn’t understand the conversations as people employed the jargon of their particular niche or used obscure terminology to inflate their sense of self-importance.

I never imagined that the conversations wouldn’t take place. A career in the arts is a labor of love after all. Analyzing how well or poorly something when the next morning with equally impassioned people is one of the few rewards one gets for choosing this path in life.

If what Greg says is true, it puts a lot of things in a different context for me. When Drew McManus over at Adaptistration criticized orchestra administrators as heartless individuals who were out to enrich themselves at the expense of the musicians, (I am generalizing his sentiments a bit here, though not too far off), I figured they were perhaps people without the talent or discipline to be musicians but possessed still of a passion for the art.

Now I am starting to wonder if they aren’t just heartless individuals out to enrich themselves on the labor of the musicians. Okay, may be it is a little hyperbolic to ascribe nefarious intent to orchestra administrators. There are certainly better ways to go about exploiting the labor of others.

I have to wonder if the whole orchestra system needs to be revamped. If people can’t be moved to discuss the basic merits or disappointments of a performance, they don’t deserve to benefit from the performance revenue. (Which isn’t to imply that people who do talk about it should be permitted to exploit others either, of course!)

Another related bit of information comes from the entry just prior to the third chapter of Sandow’s book in which he talks about quality control in orchestras.

“Who in an orchestra has the power to tell the musicians that they’re not playing well enough? Not the executive director. My partner in this discussion had gotten shot down by his musicians simply for bringing the question up. Not the chairman or president of the board. Can anyone imagine a board leader going out on stage after a rehearsal, or gathering the musicians in the green room after a concert, and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, that simply wasn’t good enough”? It doesn’t happen.

So the job falls to the music director. But music directors absolutely don’t do this, to my knowledge, about concerts that they don’t conduct. Some people in the discussion even brought up names of music directors whom they thought were happy when their orchestras played badly for someone else.”

This revelation didn’t strain my incredulity as much because I understand that different industries have varying operating situations and standards.

I come from the theatre world where the stage manager is empowered to tell the actors the quality is falling and where actors can be fined under union rules for repeatedly straying too far from the vision of the play. In late 1996, Cameron McIntosh, the producer of Les Miserables, fired most of the Broadway cast because he felt the show had become stale.

I am not going to even consider claiming live theatre is at the zenith of quality and artistic excellence. They got problems for which I can’t even begin to start to suggest solutions.

I will say that if there is any truth at all beyond these stories about lack of passion in the administration and apathy (and perhaps plain intentional antagonism) among musicians and musical directors in regard to quality, it is a clear starting point for turning the fortunes of orchestras around.

How can audiences have an appreciation for the experience if the orchestra itself doesn’t value what they produce? As with live theatre, quality control and passion won’t solve all problems and result in fiscal solvency.

But at least when you say “We have a great product, why won’t anyone show up,” you are speaking with certainty and with a unified voice top to bottom.

I have often wondered why the heck ballet companies always decide to do Nutcracker every year instead of mixing their offerings up a bit. I know it is a money making show that pays for other productions, but there are three companies performing it in my city alone!

Sure there are theatre companies that do A Christmas Carol every year, but it is nowhere close to the frequency with which Nutcracker is performed.

From some observations I have made of regular season ballet performances, I don’t think the show is helping to convince people to come for the Nutcracker and return for the Coppelia.

Just to be fair though, I thought I would check to see if anyone was doing any alternative shows.

I Goggled Christmas Carol Ballet and found one performqance in upstate NY, Traverse City, MI and Chattanooga, TN. There is a production in Australia. Royal New Zealand Ballet has done it, but aren’t this year. Northern Ballet Theatre in the UK last performed it in 2003.

London’s Royal Festival Hall did it in 2000. Athens (GA) Ballet Theatre did it in 1999, as did Honolulu Ballet Theatre.

It goes further back in time from there.

I Googled It’s A Wonderful Life Ballet and came back with nothing except a teasing mention of the ballet in a Ballet Oklahoma dancer’s bio (scroll down to Emily Fine)

Googling Messiah Ballet turned up a load of links–all of the in Canada, with the exception of past productions by Carolina Ballet. Granted, few of the productions are/have been performed at Christmas, (Easter is the alternative time of the year it is performed), but it was the only other subject area I could think that might be turned into a ballet.

I don’t know if the fact that many companies who have done non-Nutcracker performances haven’t done them in a long time is an indication that people are so used to the concept of Nutcracker, they can’t imagine going to see any other subject.

Some might say the ballets have their audiences well-trained to accept what they are offering. Yet the fact they can’t wean people away from Nutcracker and on to a variety of shows may mean they have the people trained to a fault.

Many of the original articles are no longer available from the respective newspapers, but this post-Christmas 2005 summary from Artsjournal tells an interesting tale.

Boston-Cutting salaries because they were booted from the Wang Center by the Radio City Christmas Spectacular and had to make due in a smaller space.

Colorado- Fights Radio City Christmas show to a draw

Pittsburgh-disappointing holiday sales (and this is before they stopped using live music)

Philadelphia-Penn Ballet’s numbers hold steady.

Utah-Opening season with Nutcracker because it is money maker.

I came across an article in Backstage, by way of Artsjournal.com that put me in mind of the chorus of They Might Be Giants’ “Whistling In the Dark.”

There’s only one thing that I know how to do well
And I’ve often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And that’s be you,
Be what you’re like,
Be like yourself,
And so I’m having a wonderful time
But I’d rather be whistling in the dark

The article in question, “Hung up on Tent Poles, Studios Think Too Big” looks at many great movies that haven’t done well financially in recent years because big movie studios are paying big movie studio prices to make independent studio quality films.

Audiences are looking for high quality films and the studio are responding by making films that are clearly worthy of being made. They just aren’t going to be as wildly popular as a Harry Potter movie and bring as big a return on investment. The article points out that it is difficult for studios to be economical because directors and actors know that the studios have the money to pay them and can stubbornly hold out. If the studio wants the picture made badly enough with the draw of a star, they relent.

As is often the case with my entries, I see a lesson in this for arts organizations!

Because our audiences often use NYC based arts organizations (Broadway, The Met, NY Ballet) as the yardstick by which they measure the quality of our offerings (though I often have my events compared to Las Vegas shows!) there is often pressure on us to grow bigger, better, and more professional in quality.

If we were once avant garde, we may be accused of selling out. But who cares, we are putting more butts in the seats and that is paying for all the improvements we need to do. Its pays the salaries of the development office and for lobbying the government to build a performing arts center.

I am guessing you can see where I am going with this so I will stop here. It is hard to resist the lure of becoming bigger and better, even if improved standing in the community is not the goal. If we are reaching out to underserved kids, we feel pressured to expand our programs so we can get more money to support our important outreach activities.

Reading the Backstage article gave me hope. The fact the big guys have a hard time producing worthy stuff economically means that there is a probably a niche in the arts world that the small, hungry orgs can serve successfully without having to grow too big.

Now if only we can get more people out to see the performances 😉

I am so pleased to be finding more and more arts related blogs out there and the most recent I have come across is just great.

Joshua James’ Daily Dojo is a working, living playwright’s view of what a working, living playwright has to go through in that line of work these days.

I started reading his November 8 entry where he discusses his frustration (quite entertainingly) with the way directors/actors/etc feel scripts are just a starting point to do their own thing.

Come to find out, this long entry is just the latest entry in his “Talkin’ Smack About Theatre” series. Two other entries (Hey, What’s That Guy Doing In a Dress and Hey, What’s That Guy…Part Deux) give actors, directors and others advice about how to get the most out of working with a living playwright (and how to work with other people in general.)

The other entries in the series are a rant on how so much Broadway is a cover of someone else’s work (ie adaptation, revival, etc). I haven’t had a chance to read the cover entries yet, but the “Guy In A Dress” entries, while long are a lot of fun to read.

The titles come from Joshua’s experience showing up at a theatre to find a character in a dress because he is “making bold acting choices.” He does a great job exploring the friction behind the necessity of remaining true to the playwrights intent and choices and the urge artistic people have to explore the opportunities the material presents beyond the limits the playwright set.

He acknowledges that some of that exploration can be illuminating for the author too–provided he is consulted and included at all. He also shares a number of anecdotes where the playwright’s name shouldn’t even be used in association with the work because the changes blatantly run counter to what he/she was trying to achieve.

Again, he presents it all in an entertaining manner –writing dialogue and presenting courtroom testimony accompanied by parenthetical sidebars of advice– all the while making his argument/plea for empathy/compassion/cooperation/consultation with playwrights.

I responded to an Artful Manager post today commenting on how I didn’t see the harm in taking pictures of stage sets on backstage tours even though technically it is copyrighted work because it at least showed people were excited by what they saw. I noted that I would worry if they weren’t entranced by an experience with theatrical illusion up close since it would mean there was one less thing they saw value in the arts experience.

As I finished writing, I realized that I had probably unconsciously channeled the sentiments of an article I read this weekend care of Arts & Letters Daily. In an article on Triangle.com, J. Peder Zane discusses the surprising lack of curiousity students seem to have these days.

“…such ignorance isn’t new — students have always possessed far less knowledge than they should, or think they have. But in the past, ignorance tended to be a source of shame and motivation. Students were far more likely to be troubled by not-knowing, far more eager to fill such gaps by learning. As one of my reviewers, Stanley Trachtenberg, once said, “It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they don’t care about what they don’t know.”

I actually mentioned this article to my technical director today and he told me he could see it happening in his stage craft class. He had a gurney with a sheet over what appeared to be a body next to where his students sat yesterday and not one of them lifted the sheet to check it out.

Part of the problem is that there is so much to know these days about everything, even the mundane, that people are forced to specialize in gathering information on specific areas. As a result, people are primarily interested in learning more about topics that are immediately useful and discard anything else.

Without social pressure to be well-rounded, people are becoming less so. Because so much information is available so easily and quickly, there is no need to worry about not knowing until the need is imminent. Want to impress a girl with your knowledge of the controversies surrounding who actually wrote Shakespeare’s works? Check out the Wikipedia entry and take a side trip to collect some sonnets to whisper in her ear.

This sort of trend should be of concern to arts organizations. Where there might once have been hope that as young people matured, they might suddenly decide that it would be valuable for them to engage in visual and performing arts experiences and might one day come a knockin’, there is a danger now that they will never consider there is any value in doing so.

By way of Ben Cameron’s July 2005 Field Letter, I discovered an interesting program Berkeley Rep is doing with teens called their Teen Council.

More than just an advisory council, the theatre provides opportunities for teens to participate in poetry slams, play readings, one act play festivals, playwrighting contests and trips to Broadway.

Though it isn’t mentioned on the theatre website, Cameron’s letter talks about a recent Teen Theatre Conference the rep sponsored where students participated in panel discussions and seminars, some lead by peers, others by working professionals. Topics covered concerns about drama programs in the student’ high schools and race as well as discussions about “Stage Management, Directing Your Peers, Developing your Presence as a Theater Artist, Auditioning, Fundraising and Designing Marketing Materials.”

Even without the support of Target Stores, I think any organization could adapt some of the strategies Berkeley Rep uses here to get younger people more involved with them than just having reduced ticket night. I don’t seem myself able to do many of these things directly, but their program has sparked some interesting ideas in my brain to attract the old and young alike.

After my long entry of yesterday, I thought I would be brief today. Just wanted to link to a cool event in San Diego covered by Spearbearer Down Left.

San Diego Dance Theatre teams up with the Metropolitan Transit Development Board and presents site specific dance at trolley stops. Folks from NYC my be a little blase about this since you can see busker performances at every subway stop.

It seems like the dance company struck upon a good partnership with a municipal organization to bring a little art and enjoyment into people’s lives. The activities may also not only increase awareness of the dance company, but also about the physical spaces at each trolley stop. It is easy to steam along through a station to and from a train without being cognizant of one’s surroundings. Suddenly these people are integrating stairs, platforms, support beams into their performance and one sees the building with new eyes.

Actually, learning about programs like this makes me look at my surroundings with new eyes and wonder what I might make work.

An article in the September/October issue of APAP‘s Inside Arts caught my eye (alas, the article is one of the few not available online) because it began with those immortal words–Butts In Seats.

The article wasn’t about getting butts in the seats, but rather the seats in which the butts would be placed. While seating is an area that faces cost cutting when renovations or construction goes over budget, there is still plenty of demand for added accoutrement.

Among the options for seating these days are built in headphones and speakers, lumbar support, infrared data transmission capabilities. The only thing the top and bottom of the line seats have in common are that they are ADA accessibility compliant and are generally larger than previous versions given that members of the public are also generally larger than previous versions.

I was somewhat intrigued by the possibilities these options would offer a venue. Obviously, one would want to limit the internet access the dataports had during a concert so that people weren’t using laptops, PDAs, etc to surf or watch movies during a concert.

But if you were looking to feed information to audience members a la Concert Companion this type of seat might facilitate such a program. If the facility would be used for conferences groups might use the dataports to beam sales figures and other information to attendees.

Built in headphones could support everything from helping those hard of hearing to carrying audio descriptions for the sight impaired to audio commentary on an orchestra piece. (On channel 2, Michael Tilson Thomas discusses the influences on this piece.)

Of course, after I get over being intrigued, I think about the upkeep and support costs of the computer server for the dataports, the perils of food and liquids falling into data and headphone ports and the normal wear and tear on you have on seating. Any place with enough seating to generate income to cover this sort of stuff will have enough work to keep at least one guy busy fixing the seats year round.

The one thing I wish the article discussed a little more was the way seating contributed to a planned mood for a space. The project manager at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center was briefly quoted discussing how he chose seating with “pew-like back trim…designed ‘to increase the sense of a collective experience.”

I took a look at the image of the space and it appears that each person has an individual seat (unlike pews which are much more communal.) When I think of pews, I think of straight backed wooden, uncomfortable seatings. It is hard to see the seats up close, but from the coloration the seatbacks could be wood. (By the same standard, the seats look wooden as well. I can’t imagine that they aren’t cushioned though.)

While I can see where the space would lend itself to an ambiance of collective experience, I would attribute it more to the openness of the performance space than the seating.

Most new theatres promote how plush and comfortable audiences will find their seats. Since it tough to determine if these seats are cozy, I don’t know if the project manager, faced with a tight seating budget, was simply rationalizing why a stark, pew like seating arrangement was a good choice in the face of thrift.

I am sure there were inexpensive traditional looking cushioned seats since that is what audiences expect. So I go back to my earlier wish to have gotten a little more information on seat design theory.

But you know, I am kinda a geek so it may just be me.

I have been receiving complaints about the fact my feed is not coming across very well for awhile now. I have been doing some deliberate research on a way to make a change with the least impact. I noticed when Artsjournal made their change to MovableType, a lot of the old archive links didn’t work anymore.

Finally, today I crossed my fingers and took the plunge and made a change that should straighten the feed from my blog.

It turns out, I need not have been so concerned. I went over to Technorati.com and checked out the links from other sites to my entries and they worked just fine.

Hopefully now more folks will be able to drink from the font of my wisdom more easily.

Dang it. I forgot my notes from the WAA conference to support my entry tonight at work.

I looked around for a topic to blog upon, but ultimately decided to update the Theatre Blogs section of my site with new links. Enjoy!

As I passed by The Playgoer’s blog, I came across a quote of the day from a Terry Teachout entry two years ago. (Unfortunately, because of the change in Artsjournal.com blog structure, the link to Terry’s entry is incorrect.)

There was a part of Terry’s writing that made me ashamed of myself.

The difference, of course, is that arts bloggers can’t count on a cataclysmic event to stimulate interest in what we’re doing. We’ll have to publicize ourselves, not only by linking to one another (though that’s important) but also by reaching out to potential readers who don’t yet know what a blog is. That’s why I always include the www.terryteachout.com URL in the shirttails to the pieces I write for the print media. That’s why I remind you each morning to tell someone you know about this site. People who come here will go elsewhere, too.

For all my talk about the lack of arts bloggers out there implying the need for more voices and discussion—when I had the opportunity to mention my blog at the WAA conference last week I balked.

I either didn’t mention it or glossed it over when I was talking. I don’t know why. I can honestly say I often didn’t think many of the people who were talking were that much smarter than I was (if at all) and that I didn’t want them reading the dumb stuff on my blog. (Though granted, some of my stuff isn’t the quality I would like it to be.)

Even if what I write isn’t as good as I might want, the things I link to are worthwhile reading. The only reasons I can think I didn’t mention it as much as I should have is 1- In some cases I figured I might be writing about the people in the room. 2- In other cases I didn’t think the people I was talking with would get what the whole blogging thing was about.

In the second case, I should give people the opportunity to get it or not on their own and not decide for them. In the former case, I am pretty circumspect when it comes to including identifiable details about people with whom I disagree and I also often state my criticisms to people before they ever appear on my blog. People may not like that I discuss problems and challenges here, but they aren’t learning about where I stand from my blog.

Foolish people have less reason to worry that what they say and do will show up on my blog in identifiable form and more to worry about from other people in the room gossiping about what they did.

So I am resolving now to talk more about my blogging, the great stuff I am learning through that process and promoting other intelligent bloggers in the process.

Okay, I am preparing to board a plane to Albuquerque in a couple hours to attend the Western Arts Alliance booking conference.

I am a little apprehensive given that my childhood hero Bugs Bunny was constantly taking a wrong turn there and ending up in all sorts of situations that he, as a cartoon could survive, but I doubt I could.

A few days ago, I got an email saying that the keynote speaker, Franc D’Ambrosio, wouldn’t be able to make it and instead there would be a presentation on the state of the arts that had previously been scheduled for Thursday.

Given my disappointment last year in the keynote speaker’s apparent lack of familiarity with the current operating environment, I have some hopes for the value of this year’s opening events.

I will let you all know how things turn out….

Edit: My mistake. The plenary speaker was a secret guest “he who will not be named” who ended up with conflicting obligations. Franc actually spoke at a lunch the next day. There was so much press about him talk and none about the secret guest, I mistook when Franc was speaking.

Only have 10 minutes on the computer bank here. Much blogging to come when I return!

Yes! After griping and whining about the dearth of arts/theatre related blogs, I followed a link to my blog back to Spearbearer Down Left whose writer is not only perceptive enough to see the wisdom in my posts, (the entry alluded to on my blog can be found here), but also has a nice listing of other theatre bloggers in the links section.

From my brief look at Spearbearer, it seems to be a nice mix of commentary and reviews about shows.

From my gleeful initial explorations of the theatre links on Spearbearer, it looks like a good mix of much the same. I look forward to reading around a bit more and having the ability to expand my commentary and exploration of the arts world from what I read.

Look for many new links appearing here soon!

Okay this entry is more for your general information and illumination than necessarily news you can use, mull over and apply. Just fair warning for those seeking gems of wisdom. There may be some here, but they will be unintentional.

So 60ish years ago, where I am sitting was just recovering from being battered by a Japanese air attack. Nowadays, the Japanese are still launching airborne attacks and staging landings. This time they are bringing lots and lots of money to pump into the local economy. It is high vacation season in Japan and they are coming to visit.

Of course, there are plenty of Japanese in residence already. So many in fact, they have to celebrate a summer holiday that falls in July all summer long.

The O-ban is observed as part of Buddhist practice around the middle of July. Usually the celebratory aspect is observed at the same time. However, there are so many temples in Hawaii, they take turns holding celebrations every weekend from June through the start of September.

Some how I have managed to attend a festival four out of the last five years. I got started in an unlikely place–rural South Jersey. This is an unlikely place because there isn’t much of anything at all so the existence of a Buddhist temple in the middle of nowhere is rather unexpected. Once you understand the story of how the owner of a large tract of farmland requested the relocation Japanese internees during WW II to his frozen/dried food operation, you can see how the temple ended up down this backcountry road.

The food at these festivals is usually great, but hardly makes it a destination event. The dancing is pretty sedate–people walk slowly around in a circle performing simple steps and hand movements. It is actually a good community building activity because anyone from the audience can and does join in.

I go for the taiko drums though. It is really great to watch a good taiko ensemble practicing their craft. There is so much energy and the sensation of the drums vibrating your entire body is pretty cool. (samples from the group http://www.kodo.or.jp/frame.html here)

No matter where I have attended a Bon Festival though, there is wide community involvement. People of all races, cultures and religions attend, participate in the dancing and even perform. (Though I have to admit, there is an evident poise and discipline expressed by long time taiko practitoners that novices don’t have no matter how serious they try to look.)

It may be too late in many place, but if you haven’t attended one of these festivals, do a quick Google search of your locale and see if you still have time to check the festival out.

A week or so ago I wondered if a radio ad rep was sabotaging his career at his corporate owned station by spending so much time working with me. I actually emailed him to that effect expressing my appreciation as well as my concern that he not lose his job. He wrote back telling me not to worry.

Today he came to meet with me for a 3rd time in 3 weeks. He has spent close to 6 hours just talking with me now. I feel a little better about his job security for two reasons- 1- He talked money today so he was no longer enshrouded by the aura of unconcerned benevolence and 2- He brought in a sheet from a Post-It self stick easel pad filled with ideas from a brainstorm session.

From the brain storm session I can assume that his company as a stronger customer-service focus than I thought. Ultimately, I think it worked for him. He suggested that I invest twice as much with them this year as last which means I will have to do less print advertising. I was going to anyway, but now it is a necessity since it will eat a big chunk of my marketing budget.

I felt uneasy about this but because of the relationship I have developed with him, I didn’t mind telling him that. However, because I was comfortable telling him that I was uneasy, I felt even more confident that this would be money wisely invested. As the objective part of my brain analyzed this reaction from the subjective part, I realized I was learning a lesson in just how powerful good customer service can be.

Later I got an email from one of my partners saying a group we are presenting in March wanted to know if their CDs could be printed in Hawaii rather than paying the cost to ship them. I called my guy at the radio station, (he is also a local musician so he knows a bit about the publishing side too), and within a fifteen minutes had an answer for me plus an to pass on to the group from a distributor to be their Pacific Rim distributor.

Yeah, I know it is called networking and good customer service, it is probably run of the mill everywhere in the business world. But having worked for non-profits that don’t have a lot of cash to toss around, I have rarely been on the receiving end so I will cherish it while I am getting it.

Last Friday I had a stomach wrenching experience. I walked into the lobby of my theatre and saw what appeared to be a long scrape along the entire bottom of the 104 foot long Jean Charlot fresco mural adorning the wall.

The college maintenance crew had been painting the wall below the mural. In our work order to them, we specifically said not to paint the ledge below the mural for fear of damaging it. I initially thought the guy had used a wire brush or a sander on the mural.

However, when the tech director came out to inspect the mural, he pointed to the roll of 2 inch wide masking tape sitting nearby. The width of the tape matched the width of the damage. It appears the guy put masking tape directly on to the mural and unfortunately it wasn’t the low adhesive tape 3M puts out for the purpose of edging while painting. It was the regular sticky stuff.

As a result, when he removed the tape it took the paint and chunks of plaster off the wall.

I put in calls to his supervisors to halt further operations and notified the folks up the chain from me. The worst part was notifying the state office of public art which commissioned the work and has been responsible for restorations over the last 30 years.

Actually, I assume things will get more uncomfortable when they come out to survey the damage.

There were some questions that came to mind as a result of this incident. Was this guy a careless idiot or was he ignorant of the import of his actions?

My first impulse was careless idiot. Even if the mural had been painted on a cinderblock wall with plain old interior paint, chances are the tape he used was still going to remove the paint. The damage wouldn’t have been as bad, but he would still be defacing the work.

Also, when you start to remove the tape and chunks of the wall are sticking to it, why don’t you stop and reconsider what you are doing?

I honestly don’t have an answer for the second question, but the first I can give the guy the benefit of the doubt a little. When you are working in an institutional setting, there is more of a focus on the quantity of work you can complete in a day rather than the quality and precision of your work. If you aren’t familiar with the the fragile properties of fresco, you don’t know not to use the same tape you use everywhere else. Everywhere else, you remove the tape and a few flecks of paint come off, but the job looks decent enough and the scuff marks are no longer visible so it is a good job.

I also can’t help thinking this may be a result of the lack of arts in our schools. When faced with a work of art this size with detailed coloring and stylized figures, it is tough to equate it with a cinder block wall of institutional white. One should recognize that there are qualities about it that suggest approaching it with more care than usual.

I have a hard time believing that even a person who has not had formal arts classes hasn’t been enculturated enough to pick up on these cues, but perhaps I am mistaking my subjective world view as an objective reality.

Would more exposure to the arts in school prevented this from happening? I don’t really know the guy who was painting well enough to know. He may not have had classes in school, but there are strong cultural elements here on the islands that he could have been exposed to growing up that could give him a more intutive sense of beauty than a school could ever hope to.

He just might have just been mindlessly doing what he does every day of the week in building after building not considering that this instance was quite different.

I know this is getting into the whole “what is art” debate, but anyone have any thoughts?

I have to say that sometimes I find great customer service in places I don’t expect. About half way through the season last year I started doing radio spots with local stations owned by Cox Broadcasting. The lead ad rep is a really great guy and took the time to sit down and discuss what I was looking for with the ad buy I was doing. I was really impressed by the attention he gave me considering I really wasn’t spending much at all.

Last week he sat down with me to discuss what I was envisioning about the next season. We talked about what I felt the competition for the theatre was, what our audience was, how we differed from other theatres on the island. This took about 2-3 hours.

He came back today and had some suggestions for me about increasing our exposure that had nothing to do with buying time on his station. Some of it he could help me with, some we would have to do on our own. He had more questions for me because after our last meeting, he realized he hadn’t gotten a full enough picture to make a suggestion. We spent another 2 hours talking today–and he left with a promise to have a plan for our meeting next week.

Now I have to tell you, the ratio of time he is spending talking to me trying to get a good sense of our business so he can build a lasting relationship with my organization to the amount of money I will spend can’t be profitable.

At this point I am wondering if this guy is gonna lose his job. His company is very corporate. I sent over a CD for a group we were presenting last year that had been nominated for the local equivalent of the Grammys. The program managers for two stations decided it didn’t fit the mix that their market research said people wanted to listen to so they wouldn’t play it.

However since they are also the stations closest to the genre of the performers we were hosting, I took air time. We sold the show out based a large part on the ads. Someone listening must have wanted to hear the group.

So based on this, I am thinking the company might be scrutinizing the time management of their sales people to insure they efficiently selling air time. On the other hand, this guy is a lead sales guy. Whenever I am talking about buying time on multiple stations, he brings the reps for the other stations out to meet me and does most of the talking. People pretty much defer to him.

Unless he is pulling a Jerry Maguire and has decided to treat customers like people instead of commodities thereby sabotaging his career, I am thinking whatever he is doing is working for his bosses.

So the lesson I walk away with today- Even if the behemoth corporation’s only interest in people seems to be based on what demographic they fall in to, there can be cogs in the great machine whose concern extends beyond that point.

Well in my last entry, I guess I must have been too smug about feeling I had achieved a degree of mastery over my domain after a year. The next day I experienced some of the political garbage I mentioned came home to roost. I try to adhere to the rule that one shouldn’t blog when angry so I pretty much had to stay away from my computer for a couple days. I am still peeved, but can resist editorializing.

Still, so that I am not tempted, I will talk about something other than work.

As a follow up to my previous entries on the Honolulu Symphony, is this KHPR interview with Gideon Toeplitz, the 17-year head of the Pittsburgh Symphony who has been chosen to oversee the transition to new leadership. (The full interview may be available by podcast, contact the host Noe Tanigawa if you are interested.)

Toeplitz is at the symphony as the member of a consulting group that was contracted to help with the transition. Because he has other projects, Toeplitz will only be available 2 weeks out of the month. He feels that the symphony’s problem is that the local audience doesn’t feel classical music is relevant. Like many symphonies, the Honolulu pops program makes money and supports the classical programming.

According to a recent article, Toeplitz is looking to straddle classical and pops by perhaps offering light classical. He notes Arthur Fielder made his name on light classical.

The one comment he made in the interview that I found interesting was a story about the Pittsburgh Symphony international travels. Apparently, when the symphony would tour, businesses would tag along to promote commercial opportunities in Pennsylvania. I don’t know how well it worked, but it seems like an interesting idea and certainly a way for an arts organization to prove its worth to their home community.

Been a little busy today so I haven’t had an opportunity to read things and form intelligent observations. And, you know, it is summer and I am not as motivated as I might usually be to squeeze the time in.

The staff and I have been keeping generally busy, though we find more opportunities to go out for lunch on Fridays. We have been straightening up the theatre lobby a little. We don’t have a lot of money for improvements, but we are giving the space cleaner looking lines if nothing else.

There is also an ambitious plan to clean the pack-rat technical director’s office and put shelving in. Unfortunately, the technical director isn’t co-operating. He won’t show up in the building so people know what he doesn’t want thrown out. There is a rumor that he had a third daughter who disappeared around the time the pile started to grow in the back of his office. It doesn’t look like she will be found any time soon.

I will have been in this job a year in three weeks and I must say this fall promises to be less stressful. Last year, I wasn’t here a month and I was flying to Spokane for the WAA conference. Heck, I only had a couple days to register for it when I arrived last year.

Now not only am I registered for it, my hotel and flight arrangements have been made.

Also, the website for the new year is nearly complete (as opposed to the marathon session over one weekend last year where I created it from scratch.

I am also happy to say that I will have a new online ticketing system. I spent most of the day learning how to use it and then programming my season in to it. The interface is not only more attractive than the hobbled together storefront I created last year, but will also end up being cheaper to run. (Unfortunately, I still am not integrated into the university ticketing system which would have been great.) If the ticketing thing goes well, I may sing the company’s praises here, but I don’t want to state anything prematurely.

I have also been doing site visits of local hotels to assess which would be good to place my performers in this year. Some hotels haven’t been interested in my business given that the economy is good and tourism just keeps increasing. Others have been happy to show me around and treat me to lunch to boot.

Alas, as a state agency, I also have to go with the lowest bidder. Of the generally decent hotels I have seen, I would love to place people in the second lowest bidding hotel. The difference in price is $20 a night, but the surrounding are a bit nicer than the lowest bidder. Granted, I could change the criteria, but $20/night adds up when you need 17 rooms over 3-4 nights. Suddenly you are talking about giving up major savings.

As much as I like to treat performers well, I need to have enough money left over to treat the next group of performers well too.

Not too much more has happened this summer other than the political garbage every campus has to endure. I don’t know if this gives anyone without experience in presenting theatre any insight into what all has to happen when you have a small staff and big plans, but, you know, like any egomanicial theatre manager I like talking about myself.

Okay a little side trip here that has some small advice for businesses. I am on a search committee representing my division in a search for a International Studies coordinator. There were some applicant whose qualifications were so unrelated to the position the only reason I imagine they applied was seeking a job in Hawaii. Other than that, the process has been pretty good.

However, it did remind me of some pet peeves I have with the job application process from the point of view of someone who has applied for jobs.

My first pet peeve is with objective statements on resumes. I think they have to be a cruel joke played on the public by job search web sites, books and advisors. The only reason I could imagine for using it is if you are applying generally for entry level position in a large company that won’t read cover letters. These places need an easy way to route resumes so the objective statement helps the human resources department out.

Otherwise, I would tell people applying for a specific job or an upper level position to leave it off. This is because it makes you sound like an idiot without any skills. People write such general, all encompassing objectives they sound useless. I am talking about stuff like “Objective: Acquire a rewarding position that will allow me to apply my skills in marketing, management, advertising or public relations.”

I have been on interviewing committees for everything from intern positions to department chairs and I have never voted to hire someone with one of those silly objectives. (Obviously, by the time they get to department chair, they aren’t using them.) I have also never used one on a resume and maybe that is why my last job search took so long, but I can live with that.

It just seems more effective to me that even if you are fishing around companies for unadvertised jobs, it is much better to be very specific about the job you want, preferably in the form of a cover letter where you expound upon your experience in a directed manner, rather than sound anemic with vagueness.

My other pet peeve is the requirement that you send a resume AND fill out an application. Now I understand that some organizations require that the search process be uniform for everyone. My problem is that places use the same forms for everyone no matter what the job is. I honestly feel frustrated and frankly insulted when applying for a desk job requiring a Master’s degree and I have to fill out where I went to high school and if I possess a CDL license.

The forms also only provide a tiny space for talking about your experience. This may be good because it forces you to summate your responsibilities and accomplishments into one sentence and doesn’t leave room for a lot of BS. On the other hand, the committee I was on was looking at the form as a primary source of people’s qualifications. Writing “See Resume” on the application form was strongly scowled upon. I thought people were much more impressive on their resume. I would hate to think that I had been judged for jobs by what I was able to squeeze on that stupid application.

Of course, you can show initiative and recreate the application on your word processor. This is fraught with peril too. Some folks on my committee didn’t like the way an applicant had formated the form he/she laboriously duplicated.

Yeah, it is probably arrogant of me to think I am too good to be filling out application forms. On the other hand, if an organization expects that people will draft original letters specific to the position and perhaps take the time to find out the proper name of the managing director to whom they were instructed to send their resume, they should put the energy into customizing the application process as well.

In an age where technology allows people to customize their lives-when and how they experience the world and entertainment, the fact that companies are using outdated application procedures doesn’t speak well for them. The same technology also makes it easy for organizations to create uniform online applications or customized .pdf format applications that don’t include irrelevant questions.

So that is my rant and my suggestion– attract high caliber applicants by requiring only relevant and pertinent answers.

I am off until about June 8 so that I may slavishly bestow affection upon my 4 month old nephew.

Come back then!

In the course of deleting all the spammy comments the blog gets from day to day advertising poker, viagra and other sites I don’t wish to have promoted on my blog, I accidentally deleted a comment from a person associated with the Honolulu Symphony.

All I saw was “As A Member of the Honolulu Symphony..” before my frantic attempts to stop the delete command from executing failed.

I apologize to whomever the author was and hope they will consider sharing their thoughts again.

From time to time I like to make entries about my involvement in the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawaii booking consortium because I have never come across another situation where arts organizations cooperated so closely with each other for the benefit of all.

I spent most of the day at my consortium’s annual meeting. Essentially, it was a day to look back and assess the success of our cooperative efforts and project forward to next year.

Since we often share the costs of bringing performers in, there was discussion of who bore what percentage of the total share. Also, since we had applied for a hub grant to support the tour of a New Zealand group, we discussed what expenses that money would cover.

There was also discussion about the membership fee structure, if it was valid and if there should be any changes made to the way fees were assessed and how the monies were used. We actually ended up deciding to apply more money toward supporting the attendance of members at the regional booking conference in September.

A new slate of officers was elected, the structure of the committees was debated and the terms of the board of directors were renewed.

The thing that took the most dang blasted time though was trying to set a time in August to have a pre-conference meeting and then a post conference meeting in October to discuss what type of acts we wanted to see and then what really great groups we saw. There are so many people with their own busy schedules, it was a very time consuming process.

So all in all, sure not an exciting time. But it is instructive as to how to form a cooperative environment. I did, however, get more information on the symphony story I have been following from some musicians who attended the meeting. More on that later..

I know that there is a rumor that Tavis Smiley was not wanted at NPR because he didn’t have the “NPR Voice” – that low, sedate, even toned voice that follows one of a limited few cadences. The Voice was satirized for a long time on a recurring Saturday Night Live skit about the fictional show “Delicious Dish.” (My favorites were the ones with Alec Baldwin where double entendres were made especially funny by the deadpan, oblivious delivery of the cast members.)

I was a little alarmed though when I heard an entry to Earth & Sky’s Young Producers Contest where a fifth grader was using The Voice to narrate his piece.

I imagine kids that age are smart enough to recognize the common elements of all the NPR shows and will put together what they think adults want. While I am glad the kid is listening to the informative NPR program rather than music talking about sex and alcohol, conformity to that ideal is gonna make high school hard on him. Ironically, I have to say I hope it is a phase he grows out of and begins to embrace a little rebellion. (Certainly his parents won’t thank me for that sentiment.)

While contests rewarding creativity do have many unwritten expectations, they are about showing yourself off rather than mimicking what you have heard. Thus, I was rather pleased to see that the grand prize winners didn’t use The Voice. In fact, it was sort of hard to hear what they were saying because their enunciation was so poor.

Keep up the good work showing off yourselves kids!

Despite not having fulfilled my pledge to add links to the few theatre blogs I have found to my blogroll, I have gone in search of more theatre blogs tonight.

For the most part I was disappointed. Of the blogs I found, most had started with good intentions, but hadn’t been maintained on a regular basis.

This is too bad because Sharpe’s Theatre Blog has elements of what I envisioned when I suggested blogs be used for reflective exercises in learning. The initial entries make some observations about texts and what acting is. Later there is some feedback to other people in the project group which frankly, having been in theatre for a long time, seems to be heavily self-edited so as not to offend. Not that people need to tear into others or air their dirty laundry publicly. It is just conspicous by its santitation.

Similarly, the Applied & Interactive Theatre Blog starts out with a couple promising entries and then fizzles. (On the other hand, the Applied & Interactive Theatre Website proper has many resources of interest to Theatre folk)

Handcart Ensemble in NYC uses their blog to essentially post press releases online. However, there were a few interesting articles interspersed like this one on how to find a rehearsal/audition/performance space in NYC, (none of the stages may be in the same place) what questions to ask, horror stories and how much it may cost.

On the whole, blogs I have found seem to be predominantly focused on providing space for people to post their events- Ohio Theatre, Culturebot
(it does have news and opinion links, but majority are promotional), and the Washington Post’s chic Going out Gurus (actually pretty much newspaper calendar editors posting on line rather than a blog.)

One unrelated, but interesting link I came across was Eric James Stone’s blog on the progress he is making writing his first novel. A therometer bar currently indicates that he has 139,641 out of 150,000 words written. There is actually more reflection on short stories he has written while writing the novel than the novel itself. Some interesting stuff though, including some simple reflections on theatre attendance.

Recent events have kept me from writing entries of late. Some have been tiring, but others rather energizing. I don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that some times when arts folks talk about how much what they do/are planning on doing is going to deeply impact the lives of others, they feel a little dishonest.

You propose a group on a grant application or to your board of directors talking about how exposing audiences to X is going to influence the thinking of people. But when the artist(s) perform, the results aren’t too much different from the groups that came before or those that follow. Attendance might have been up a little, but comments aren’t any different than those you get for the shows that weren’t billed as being extra special. The whole experience could be interchanged with any other experience.

One can be fairly confident that at least one or more people were touched and perhaps inspired by the work in a significant way. But even the most idealistic among us needs a little concrete proof that efforts made were worthwhile.

Then you get that one show that removes all doubt and I had that experience this past week.

We had a band from New Zealand called Te Vaka perform this past week. The group presents Polynesian music and dance from Tokelau, Tuvalu and Samoa. They use traditional log drums along with electric, acoustic and bass guitars.

Given that there is a fair population on O’ahu from each of these island groups along with regular fans, we easily sold out the performance. (Which did not please those who procrastinated about buying tickets.) I could have set up extra seats, but I heard the audience liked to dance—and good lord did they–so I left some room.

Honestly, a performance where ex-patriots got to hear music from home and watch traditional dance and would have been enough. Especially since the rest of the audience got carried along with the enthusiasm and could recognize some value in a culture that was somewhat similar, but not entirely so to the one in Hawaii.

However, our co-producing partner arranged for a school lecture-demo this morning. There was no doubt in my mind that the event was what funders had in mind when they sought to provide arts opportunities for at-risk kids.

The program was well suited for the school groups we had. It was familiar enough to them that they had a frame of reference (unlike, say if we had a modern dance program which they might not know enough about to begin comprehending.) and yet different enough to hold their attention for an hour. One of the teachers was almost in tears from gratitude.

Apparently, the last time Te Vaka was in Hawaii back in 2002, they received an email from a kid saying he was inspired by the group and was going to devote more time to his music. Today they actually got a similar email from a friend of a woman who attended Saturday night saying much the same thing.

After the performance, Te Vaka was invited to lunch by the students in the college’s halau (a type of school of Hawaiian culture). The students did a welcoming ceremony in Hawaiian chant and then had a lot of great conversation over lunch comparing notes about the similarities in each other’s languages and culture. An ukelele was broken out and the students performed some music and hula for Te Vaka.

As I started to urge the group toward the door so we could make it to the airport, the kumu (teacher of Hawaiian culture) offered a fairwell chant which one member of the group returned. Native Hawaiian instruments and dictionaries were pressed into hands as parting gifts and pictures were taken (as I chanted “To the airport, to the airport.”)

These wonderful and poignant moments reminded me that art doesn’t have to be a one directional exchange (the portraits on money notwithstanding). There is so much emphasis on going somewhere to stand or sit passively absorbing what someone else has produced.

This might be why people are intimidated by what they hear or see. They aren’t quite sure if they are receiving what is being transmitted correctly and if they are getting their money’s worth. There have been frequently observations which theorize that people often give standing ovations to good, but not exception performances, out of a need to convince themselves they have received something worth the money they paid.

I wonder if it would help matters if young students, knowing they were going to see a performance in a week, were required to create something of their own to exchange. I wonder if people’s view of art would change if they found themselves empower to create art that had value in an exchange for a different type of art.

Obviously, you don’t want to have it happen every day lest it devolve into a ceremony of motions empty of meaning and significance. Say a student creates something and then presents it with a sort of understanding of “You are a master artist and I am merely a beginner, yet we share the same spark. I present this thing that has meaning to me unto you as a symbol of my respect for sharing your gift with us.”

I wonder if that action, only performed a handful of times in the formative years, could plant the seed of a greater respect and comprehension of the artistic exchange in the adult.

I was listening to NPR today (it is somewhat depressing for me to think that at my age, I consider commercial radio to be crap and am tuning to NPR, the old people’s station.) and caught an All Things Considered piece on “Big Picture Schools.” While the story isn’t specifically arts management connected, it is related to something arts people know about–passion.

As you might imagine, the schools, the flagship of which is in Providence, R.I., are alternative high schools where the class size ratio is 15:1. The surpring thing is though that they are wildly successful running only on the same public funding that every other school gets and running admissions on a lottery system. The criticism of most alternative schools is that they are tuition based and that they can pick and choose to admit the best and brightest insuring high test scores.

The Met School in Providence has 65% of its students qualifying for free/reduced lunch. They may be best and brightest, but it isn’t immediately apparent. One student interviewed admitted she initially acted out and hid under desks because she didn’t know how to cope with the transition from “regular school.”

Students are allowed to follow their passions and do internships two days a week with different organizations whose work they believe they are interested in. The teachers work with the students and internship sites to answer that age old protest–“I am never going to have to use this in the real world” by emphasizing the applications of math, science, etc.

Every 9 weeks the students have to participate in a portfoilo review of materials that relate to what they have learned and their internship experience. The evaluation is gradeless. The teachers provide lengthy written feedback on a number of elements, including the student’s development.

The results are impressive. 100% are accepted to college, 85% choose to go, 75% graduate a post secondary program.(The national rate is 6% chance of graduating college if you come from low income setting regardless of race.) Their placement on standardized tests improves every year. They have an extremely low rate of absence, a high rate of parental involvement and the second lowest percentage of students reporting that someone tried to sell them drugs in school in the state.

The thing that really stuck with me was a comment co-founder Dennis Littky made in one of the audio extras NPR provided on their website. He talked about the fact that even in the good schools, the kids who do well may just have learned how to play the game. How to generate the product that will get them a good grade. In many cases, they are more excited about the afterschool activities than what they are doing during the school day.

Littky posits that if you asked the students who did well if they were passionate about learning, they would probably say no for the most part except for a few subjects they might have been particularly interested in.

I can relate to all this to a great degree. I can point to papers I wrote in high school and college that I knew would fit the criteria for getting a good grade and nothing more. There were classes where I got a C on the first test and then all As because I figured out what type of facts were important to study.

On the other hand, if there was ever an open ended option for a paper or an essay to take what I learned and say what happened next or write in the style of time, etc, I always took that option. It was chancier than giving 3 examples of irony, but much more exciting, even in a timed testing environment.

I still have the paper I wrote almost 20 years ago in a freshman seminar where I extended Homer’s Odyssey. “The grammatical errors are legion” the professor wrote. But he was very impressed with my ability to passably mimic Homer’s translated writing style. The second most memorable B I have ever gotten. I haven’t looked at the paper in years, and I still remember the comments and the grade.

My most memorable B was on a paper where, inspired by Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I argued against grades and for extensive commentary on papers. The professor took me at my word and didn’t grade the paper but invited me to her office to discuss the paper further. She had to give me a grade and said she would be bound totally by whatever grade I assigned it after reflecting on her comments. I gave myself the B.

It is this sort of fair treatment that set me up for disappointment. I minored in education and was certified to teach in NY. I left for grad school soon after but ended up teaching in college. Most of my classes were great, but the Theatre Appreciation class with 400 students that thought it an easy A killed me a bit inside. (You think my theatre horror stories are bad. Don’t get me started on teaching.) Not only the talking and disrespect during class, but the calls from parents because their kids were failing a course they weren’t showing up for! Argghhh!

If schools like this one keep popping up and also produce students adept in subject areas standardized tests don’t examine like social sciences, it might renew my idealism about what teaching and learning can be.

I had a topic for today, but decided to take a different tack. I thought I would have a little reader participation.

If you have ever had a performance before a live audience (or even had patrons come to an art gallery or museum) you have some horror story that you just know you want to share to commiserate with other arts folks who can empathize with you.

Here is your chance, send me your tales (or just add them to the entry by clicking the comments link below) and I will feature them here.

To get things started, I will offer up a couple of my own.

I was running the light board for a production of Vaclav Havel’s Faust play, Temptation. The theatre had a flexible seating configuration so the set of the play was on two levels- the stage and then on the floor in front of the proscenium. The director asked that we remove the guard rails along the front of the seating risers so there would be nothing between the first row and the action but a few feet.

In the middle of the show, a gentleman gets up from the front row, walks on to the playing area, touches one of the actors on the shoulder and says “Excuse me, son.” Thinking that there might be a medical emergency, I prepare to bring the lights up and the stage manager starts to alert the backstage crew that they may have to call an ambulance.

The guy turns to the audience and says “I was once an alcoholic and had back problems until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and I suggest you do the same,” and then walks quickly out of the theatre while everyone sits there stunned for a moment. (Turns out he did that sort of thing all over town and not because Faust and the Devil were on stage.)

The actors were thrown off and couldn’t remember the lines. Because the actors were on the floor 20 feet out in front of the proscenium, there was no way for the stage crew to feed them lines prompted by the stage manager’s frantic hissing over the communications system.

For some reason, the department chair pro-tem’s girlfriend ended up feeding them the correct line from the audience and the show went on.

I have a bunch of these, but here is one more of my favorites.

We were doing a concert at a former workplace with a female vocalist of some renown. A woman and her boyfriend came in the lobby and even from 15 feet away, I could immediately smell the alcohol. The audiences for our shows were really well behaved so all I did was keep an eye on them. The woman was holding a painting that she wanted to give the performer. This is probably what caused me to miss whatever bottle of alcohol they had secreted upon themselves because they weren’t any more sober at the end of the show.

Artists usually come down to the lobby to see their fans shortly after a performance. However, since Sony had offices nearby, representatives of the performer’s label came to meet her and she stayed in her dressing room.

The drunken woman had approached the stage handed the painting up to the performer at the end of the show. However, she wanted a picture of the singer with herself and the painting. She hadn’t really been annoying so a half-hour after the show ended, I sent the security guy home because there were only about 6-10 fans lingering and I figured I could keep an eye on things.

Boy, was I wrong.

About five minutes later, the drunken couple tries to sneak around the stage door. I send them back the front of the theatre. The rest of the evening is spent with her edging toward the stage door while I am distracted and me glaring/chasing her back.

Finally, I warn the road manager that there might be a stalking situation arising. He pooh-poohs me saying that the singer’s music touches people in such a way that they feel they have an intimate personal connection with her. I don’t chase them away as I had planned.

The drunken couple finally loudly declares that they have waited long enough and walk away down the sidewalk. I suspiciously watch them until they get around the corner. Then I take care of a few things and go back outside to breath in the lovely fresh autumn night air.

It is at this point I hear the drunken shuffling through the leaves made by the couple trying to sneak around the far side of the theatre. I head around to the backstage by the faster route and get there just in time to see the woman jump out from behind a car and scream BOO! at the drummer.

It is at this point the road manager begins to reconsider his pooh-poohing. However, the beneficent performer chose that moment to descend and agree to a photo while I gave a smoldering glare at the couple. Other well-behaved fans came out of the lobby to shower praise on the performance and all ended well.

But the story doesn’t end there!

A year or so after, I just happen to be the one who picks up the phone. The drunken woman has lost the photo and wants us to give her the performer’s address so she can get another one taken of the two of them with her painting.

Good Lord!

So again—lemme share your favorite stories from the trenches.

Back in January I praised how easy it was to complete a grant follow up. Lord knows I would love for them all to be that easy.

However, I have seen some value lately in the long, drawn out, detailed grant proposals. I am writing up a grant for the National Endowment for the Arts’ Challenge America fast track grant program. I have created a partnership with another arts organization to create a multi-disciplinary (though heavily dance) piece to premiere in the Fall 2006 based on the Hawaiian Naupaka myth.

The grant isn’t due until June, but there is a great deal of work to do and then a great deal of photocopying to do of that work so I am laboring away at it. (And incidentally, working on the NEA grant reminded me that I have a final grant report due for another proposal in May. In searching for the CD with the form on it, I realized I may have thrown it away and was able to ask to have another CD sent to me.)

It is 18 months until the performance and while we have discussed the show a number of times, there are some aspects of our partnership we haven’t clarified. I say this because in the course of writing the grant, a few questions have arisen that I couldn’t answer. There are also a few paragraphs that I want to run by the other guy to make sure we are of the same mind in some instances (or if he has ideas about rewording to make things sound better!)

I am going to meet with him on Friday to discuss these things. In my mind, the grant is sort of like a pre-Canaan session where engaged couples are asked to think about all sorts of matters such as kids, finances, where to spend holidays, etc–essentially clarifying the details of what their relationship is going to be.

These are all topics we would have gotten around to discussing, but some of them might not have come up–or at least not talked about in specific enough terms–until we were faced with a situation where the other guy assumed the other was taking care of the arrangements and neither does.

The NEA of course wants to make sure you have thought about these things before they hand you the taxpayers’ money. (The per captia amount of which won’t get you a Coke). If you really want to know what these topics are, take a look at the 29 page grant application (half of which are instructions)

There will be plenty of things my partner in this endeavor and I will have to discuss and make mistaken assumptions about that the grant doesn’t cover. In some sense, it is helpful to have the process of this grant there to start the conversation. (In another sense, of course, the process is a pain in the butt. But you probably already knew that.)

I have been talking to my assistant about sprucing up the theatre website over the summer in preparation for next year. In my quest to make the website a welcoming point of contact, I would like to add some fun fact type links to each of the events. The point would be to add some interesting fact about the band, their instruments, place the came from, how the musical form developed, etc. Perhaps the tidbits will help people make decisions about attending shows with names and terms they don’t recognize.

While I said I didn’t want to have look like a website for kids, I did comment that many of the presentation techniques and design elements those websites used were similar to what I was thinking about.

I didn’t visit those websites myself of course having lots of important and serious work to do. I did have to walk behind my assistant many times today though and just happened to see some interesting things over her shoulder.

Many of the websites she visited had some fun online activites for kids like the Chicago Children’s Museum (love the build a bug!)and the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. (some really excellent educational pieces)

Others had activities families could do together at home like the Lincoln Children Museum.

WXPN radio’s Kid’s Corner is sort of fun and inviting too

Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis didn’t have Flash driven activities, but they do have a scavenger hunt contest that encourages kids to explore the entire webpage and offers a free ticket to a show as a reward with the chance to win in a drawing for additional prizes.

I was really surprised that other children’s theatres like those of Seattle, Birmingham and Charlotte didn’t have webpages that were more exciting to kids. The same with the Boston Children’s Museum. While their kids’ activities are educational, they are a little serious and not really geared to get ’em coming back for more. Even more surprising was the Please Touch Museum which had a bright graphic, but was otherwise kinda sterile.

Sure, parents are the ones who have to do the driving and make the decision to go to these places. But kids start surfing the web around 8-10 years old and there is a good chance they might type children and their town name in to Google. Having an exciting webpage that makes them nag their parents can help get people in the door.

My favorite web page hands down then is —Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Right from the beginning it has a fun chicken you can make dance around. The sublinks “For Kids” “For Parents” “For Educators” and my favorite title- “For Museum Geeks” have been specifically designed to be appealing for those groups.

The kid’s link has lots of funny images and loud goofy noises and links that lead you to all sorts of fun stuff. The parent’s link is a bit more sedate, but clearly communicates that this is a place that will be fun for your kids and of course has many more links than the kid’s section to answer all those questions adults have.

The educator’s link is actually a chalk rendering of the museum with gold stars for links. Maybe not as exciting as the previous sections, but certainly has an appropriate motif. The museum geek section is the most sedate, but has all sorts of trivia along with facts and figures. Still, pretty dang interesting and informative.

I am still rather cranky about my technology problems mentioned in yesterday’s entry. So I leave you with some light, entertaining thoughts and images.

The first is this article and picture of notes streaming both figuratively and literally like water.

Second, a quote from Yo-Yo Ma in Time magazine. When asked what section of the orchestra was most likely to contain the most egomaniacs, he chose to diplomatically opine on the most fun sections. According to the cellist it is the percussion, lower brass and bass players. I seem to recall that Drew McManus over at Adaptistration played the tuba. I wonder if he would concur.

Actually, to continue on this fun with music theme–check out the San Francisco Symphony Kids page. Even if you are only a kid at heart, it makes learning about music a lot of fun.

A couple incidents today reminded me about the short attention spans people have these days. There is so little time to catch people’s attention and hardly more to hold it.

I was in a session today where the college marketing director was unveiling the new website design. She mentioned that one tip she recently picked up is that no sentence on a website should have more than eight words in it. (Something I haven’t managed to do yet in this entry)

The second example comes in the form of Harriet Klausner, a woman who has reviewed the most books on Amazon.com. She reads 4-5 books each day. So much stock is put in her opinions, publishers send her boxes of books each day to read.

It brings to mind two years ago when Michael Kinsley caught a lot of flak for admitting he didn’t read all 400+ books sent him to judge for the National Book Prize. He said it was impossible to be expected to read them all. He admitted he didn’t even crack the spine on many having judged his interest in them from the covers.

Harriet says much the same thing. There are books and authors she doesn’t care much about reading. She writes mostly positive reviews because she doesn’t get too far into the ones she doesn’t like or doesn’t feel there is any value in writing poor reviews.

People say the schools are failing us, but it is tough not to see a little shared responsibility about the values being communicated when the President boasts about being a C student and not reading; literary prize judges who boast about judging books by covers and voting for the book everyone presumed would win anyway; and a woman who is voted top Amazon.com reviewer for saying generally positive things about books she rushes through.

I imagine we will reach a point soon (if we haven’t already) where plot development can only span the length of the average music video or else people start to tune out. (On the other hand, the success of shows like 24 where it takes half a year to resolve a story arc gives some hope perhaps)

I would expound a bit more, but I don’t want my post to become too long *wink*

I have a icky cold today and don’t feel very self-inspired to write. However, I was so inspired by another’s great idea. I thought the Artful Manager’s idea to use iTunes in the place of doing promotional DVD/CDs, I sent the link to his blog to all the members of my booking consortium rather than keeping it to myself. (They don’t know I blog. I am sure they would be in too much awe of my insights to hold meaningful conversations. Why don’t I trot out those self-same insights at meetings? Well, then I wouldn’t have anything to blog about!)

I have also been enjoying reading Adapistration’s “Something Special In St. Louis” series (read follow his links to all the installments) where Drew McManus talks to musicians and audience members at a free concert by the St. Louis Symphony with 30 musicians from 14 other orchestras to thank the public for staying faithful to me through the contentious strike the symphony just underwent. (Drew chronicles the horrid mess here)

The thing that struck me most was that the event seemed to humanize the orchestra to their patrons and the patrons to the orchestra. In fact, the event seemed to solidify the idea of the arts community as including both the artists and the patrons.

On the other hand, there was a frank recognition that there is some serious healing that has to be done between the musicians and management. One also hopes that the bond they now feel for each other doesn’t melt away too quickly and revert to business as usual where the audience feels intimidated and the orchestra regarding them with mild disdain.

As I said, I liked what I saw on the Amazing Things Arts Center so much, I am not only publishing a Friday entry, but I am writing it on Thursday night and setting to it post tomorrow!

One of the things that really impressed me was their Governance Center link. Not only did they have their bylaws on there for people to peruse, but they other great resources as well.

The first is a great letter to the prospective Board of Directors member that outlines what will be expected of them, references the MA state laws under which they operate with a hyperlink and also talks about what sort of dedication the director can expect from the membership.

The document with the aforementioned state laws they operate under is great. I wish all states put out such a wonderful guide for potential non-profit board members. Actually, it the document isn’t really state specific and can be used as the basis of any good board information document.

Also included on the website is a code of ethics any non-profit board member should follow.

And they have a checklist to help the directors perform an organizational self-evaluation as to how well they are performing essential, recommended and suggested functions of a non-profit board.

I have to really applaud the Center. They really seem to have done their homework and put a lot of thought into the structure and organization of their institution. And they want to make it easy for people to educate themselves about what it means to be a member of the organization and the board.

As I am looking over my web statistics, I have noticed amidst all the trash links, (ones that supposedly indicate that people are visiting me via links on poker, viagra and sex sites), I noticed that the blog is attracting visitors from interesting locations.

I have cited Worker Bees blog a couple times in the last few weeks of course. (Okay, this weekend, I gotta add some reciprocal links in my sidebar–especially after reading her most recent entry and links about how men never link to women’s blogs)

However, I have found that my blog is listed in a Diva Marketing entry citing my tag line of “Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management” as a good way to carve out my niche.

I also have my first evident reader from overseas (may be readers since people have been following the link on his blog) in Peter Jentzsch who lives in Copenhagen and included my blog in the sidebar of his dance diffusion blog. He doesn’t actually say anything about me in the blog, but he did comment on one of my blog entries.

However, I did discover by reading his blog that Artsmarketing.org has recently started a blog of their own. In fact, today’s Artsmarketing.org entry links to an NPR story that addresses the RAND “Gift of A Muse” study that has spurred the debate on Artsjournal.com

C’mon, did you really think you were gonna read an entry this week where I didn’t mention it?

Somehow it escaped me that my entry on February 23 marked the one year anniversary of my blog. Hopefully I have been generally informative and entertaining in that period. (Here is the first entry from way back when)

It has been very interesting taking part in this facet of self-publishing. More and more these days you read how blogs are trumping Mainstream Media and handling subjects they are afraid to engage.

I have a feeling there is going to be a big surge in popularity (along with some big scandal or controversy) in blogs beyond where it is these days and then the bubble will pop as it were and the form will begin to mature and find its niche in the culture.

Hopefully that niche will be one in which people can make actual money doing it!

Okay, I was looking at the NEA site today looking for more information on their Fast Track grant program and one link led to another and a found a number of interesting links I thought I would share.

The first is the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive. This is a sorta interesting place to visit because as the name suggests, it has a lot of statistical survey data that researchers might be interested in. But it also has a quick facts section with reports on some interesting things like how dancers transition from a career in that field into another area of activity (dancers apparently retire at age 34).

It also contains sections on topics like the public’s perception of arts, change of newspaper arts coverage from 1998 to 2003, religious buildings and libraries as cultural programming venues. There is a lot of generally interesting stuff and this site could provide a source of info for those doing arts advocacy.

Another really interesting site was Arts Anonymous. The site applies the classic 12 step program to the arts to provide support to those practioners of art who feel guilty about doing it and enjoying it.

The problem signs which indicate one might need help are:

1. We grew up in an atmosphere of invalidation which resulted in ambivalence about our artistic expression.

2. In any given twenty-four hour period we find ways, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid doing that which gives us the most joy — expressing our creativity.

3. We have withdrawn from our art by investing ourselves in lifestyles, relationships and work activities incompatible with our artistic purpose. Our creative energy has often been diverted into destructive compulsions toward alcohol, food, sex, money, drugs, gambling and preoccupation with the past.

4. We have made needless sacrifices for our art and yet are afraid to make the necessary sacrifices. We are unable to balance the significant areas of our lives — Physical, Financial, Social, Love, Family, Spiritual and Creative.

5. Self-defeating thoughts and societal myths turn in our heads: It’s too late — I’m too old — I’m not ready — I am not enough — Art is not practical — Artists are neurotic — You’ll starve. We have accepted these as true when, in fact, they are not.

6. We have felt intimidated by other artists’ success. Jealousy, envy, fear, self-pity, perfectionism, resentment and other character defects block our creative expression.

7. We stand always on the edge of a beginning, afraid of commitment. Fearful of pursuing our creativity as a means of earning a living, we get caught in the Amateur syndrome. The concept of supporting ourselves through our art has seemed overwhelming. We are unable to determine the monetary market value of our art.

8. We have thought of our art as divorced from reality, denying ourselves the right to follow our dream. We forget that artists are entitled to their right work and deserve the happiness and success that right work brings.

9. We deny our responsibility to fully develop and realize our talent. We do not feel worthy of the success we achieve or desire. We feel like a fraud.

10. Being multi-talented, we have difficulty discerning our true artistic vision, making a commitment to it and establishing the priorities to fulfill it.

11. We have difficulty following through on projects and frequently sabotage our efforts. We want to work at our art but don’t know how. We become impatient with the process, forgetting that the results come in God’s time, not ours. Our time is unmanageable.

12. We have been afraid of our creative energy and have mistrusted our creative instincts. Lacking spiritual awareness, we have not seen ourselves as channels for the infinite creative process. Our art is a gift to be shared.

Gotta admit, I have been there on most of the points and quite a few occasions.

I think I have mentioned the NY Foundation for the Arts. Though they are nominally focussed on the arts in NY State, I have to say that 80% of what you find on their website is pretty helpful in the rest of the country. You will find some of that information on this links page which has some interesting pages listed like the Support Center for Non-profit Management and Alliance for Nonprofit Management , Alliance for Nonprofit Governance and The Nonprofit Genie (among others, of course)

Another NYFA link I wanted to point out was their Marketing the Arts In Nonprofit Organizations. It has some sample press releases, promotional materials and a marketing guide. Mostly, I just like it because the page opens with the line “If you present a program and no one comes, did it really happen?” and I am easily amused.