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It Isn’t Enough Their Endowments Lost Money

October 2, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

I don’t know if it has any repercussions on arts organizations yet, but the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) reported yesterday that Wachovia Bank had resigned as a trustee of Commonfund, which manages funds for non-profit organizations including universities, endowments, healthcare organizations and performing arts organizations. In resigning as a trustee of the Short Term Fund (which it should be noted, is only one of many funds), Wachovia froze the assets of nearly 1000 universities. At first people could only withdraw 10% of their funds, now it is 26% but access to full funds isn’t expected until 2010.

The problem for colleges and universities is that many of them use the fund for operating expenses, including payroll. There is concern that they will not be able to pay employees or bills in the next few weeks. Financial Week says Commonfund has been having a hard time finding a trust bank to take over given that most of the candidates have either failed in recent weeks or are being bought up by others.

While many arts organizations have had their finances profoundly impacted over the last few weeks, what I have read has mostly been in relation to endowments rather than short term funds. The endowments Commonfund administers are in different funds which are apparently not impacted. Given that colleges and universities had placed their money here on the belief, as Financial Week quotes, it was a conservative, safe move, there is a good chance some arts organizations may have invested there with the same intent to use it as a source of operating funds and are looking at some tough times ahead.

At least one college representative said they were okay for now since they had recent the tuition receipts to draw upon. Unless an arts organization has a good subscriber base or has received a large grant recently, they may not have the same security available. Regrettably, many organizations who didn’t invest in this particular fund may find it difficult to conduct business due to the reduction in value of investments and endowments and, of course, reduction in patronage from groups and individuals who have faced these same events.

State of the Arts

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Monkeys to the Left of Me, Monkeys to the Right

September 30, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

I usually talk about the activities of my theatre in vague terms but I am really getting excited about the way an event is unfolding for us. This November, the drama department will be performing a version of Journey to the West adapted for the stage by Mary Zimmerman. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will know that the drama director is quite enamored of Zimmerman’s plays. This will be the fourth we have done in five years.

Journey has been a play he has wanted to do for a while now. A few years ago he was accidentally (we assume) put through directly to her agent who gave the director the impression that Journey was his favorite of all Zimmerman’s plays. Whether the agent said that or not, the director resolved to do the show. The problem was, the play was not in print so an appeal to Zimmerman directly was needed and much to our delight, she granted permission.

If you aren’t familiar with Journey to the West, it is essentially as much a cornerstone of Asian culture as the Odyssey is for Western cultures. Nearly every Asian country has their own name for the central figure of the Monkey King. The influence on popular culture is vast. This year’s Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li and Jackie Chan is based on it. In 2010 a direct interpretation of the book is due out. Countless anime and manga stories draw from it. At the Charleston Spoleto Festival this year, a stage version was presented with music by Blur/Gorillaz member Damon Albarn. There have been numerous television series based on the story. Just go to YouTube and type in Journey to the West. There are so many options, it is pretty difficult to discern between them if you try to watch contiguous episodes of one series.

What makes the story so appealing is that it is both a tale of rollicking high adventure involving the heroic slaying of fantastic beasts and demons and a medium for discussing Buddhist philosophy. Since we did the Odyssey last year one of the parallels I saw immediately was between Odysseus taking 10 years to get home and the abnormally long time it takes the Monkey King and his party to make it to India. When the monk, Tripitaka, who the Monkey King is accompanying comments on this, the Monkey King points out that their progress is tied to Tripitaka’s ability to cast off his hang ups and approach enlightenment. It occurred to me that Odysseus probably had much the same problem.

In any case, there was a fair bit of excitement brewing about this production. One of the contributing factors was the decision that the show would involve tissue work–essentially the fabric climbing that you often see in Cirque de Soleil shows. One the hope of being cast, people were taking tissue workshops this summer on their own dime. Once people were cast, they were required to complete a minimum amount of training if they hadn’t already.

This is pretty serious work so people are training and working out every day for the next two months to strengthen themselves and refine their technique. The great thing is, this is adding to the excitement and energy backstage. It was too appealing to pass up so I asked someone to start taking candid pictures of the process so I could put them up on the website and in email messages to subscribers.

Here’s a little of what we got-

swing round.jpg

All photos, Julia Dunnigan

Audience Relations, General Musings

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Must…Listen..To..Classical…Music…

September 29, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

About a month ago I was attending a cocktail hour with other arts professionals a gentleman expressed concern to an orchestra administrator over the fact that he didn’t get classical music. He figured that as he got older, one day classical music would click for him but it hasn’t and he didn’t know why.

The answer the administrator gave didn’t really impress me. It is a tricky question to be sure, but she didn’t seem to be trying to convince him to attend or even offer suggestions for how to prepare ones self to attend. But I think a lot of arts organizations, regardless of genre, fail in this regard. That wasn’t what I wanted to address today anyhow.

Even though his comment carries the implication that classical music is only for older people, it also suggests that he sees enjoying the music as a sign of maturity. He seems to feel it is part of his development as a person and is a little concerned it hasn’t clicked for him. That he wants to like classical music may be reason for optimism if it is an indication of a sentiment that permeates the culture.

If it does, then that means there is still something that classical musical organizations can appeal to if they can figure out how to address the unease of not liking something you figure you should. The guy I was talking with was only 40 something so addressing the concerns he and his cohort have can go a long way in skewing median audience age younger.

I really don’t know what the answer is. I am essentially in the same camp of wanting to like the music more but not really able to get invested in it yet. Not finding the answer will represent a missed opportunity. This assumption that one should become more involved with classical music as one gets older may only be generational and a result of values passed to us by our parents. There is no guarantee that this idea is sitting as a subtle compulsion in the subconscious of the next generation.

Audience Relations, State of the Arts

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If The Pudding Is Really That Good, Why Don’t They Serve It?

September 24, 2008

by:

Joe Patti

As corporate blogs go, I sort of like Southwest Airline’s. They do a pretty good job covering all sorts of topics from opening new facilities and showing pictures of their mechanics performing maintenance on the their aircraft to discussing the impact of hurricane’s on their operations. Of course, being Southwest they also indulge in goofy pursuits like sharing their grandmother’s banana pudding recipes.

I think the blog is pretty effective for them as a forum for communicating information about their company and answering customer questions about the choices they make.

One thing they did recently which I thought could be especially effective for arts organizations is have an entry and podcast on how to work for the company and what to expect once you apply. (podcast doesn’t have permalinks so you’ll have to find the 9/24/08 episode.) They talk about all the crazy stuff people did to get noticed but also note how long it took some of these people to get hired given that they receive hundreds of thousands of applications every year.

Arts organizations taking a page from their book could talk about what people might expect working for the organization and what the place would expect of an applicant. This could help strengthen and diversify the applicant pool. I am partially thinking back to comments Andrew Taylor made last January about how arts organizations shouldn’t discount people simply because they don’t possess skills that have an exact one to one correlation to the job description they wrote. It is great to hire true believers who have already invested their hearts in your industry but in the long run more dispassionate new blood might lead to a healthier situation.

If you don’t have the resources to maintain a running blog or podcast, it would probably still be beneficial to have a one or two recorded conversations with people talking about their experiences with the company posted in the Human Resources portion of your website. The emotion transmitted in a voice is certainly compelling than a lengthy text account of the same information.

Arts in an Age of Technology, Leadership, Management Philosophy

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