I was frankly quite surprised as I drove around this past Sunday to hear a radio program on the business end of the arts. The program is a pretty new one for the local public radio station.

Called, appropriately enough, The Business of the Arts, the show’s goal is to shed a little light on the concerns organizations face that are mostly invisible to the public until there is trouble.

Financing of the arts is a mystery to most people. People complain that the cost of tickets keeps going up, whether it’s for the Opera, the Symphony, or the Academy of Arts. But if you tell someone that the cost of that ticket does not come close to paying for the event or exhibition, they are surprised.

Host Bob Sandla talks to representatives of arts organizations on Oahu that are attempting to be fiscally prudent and responsible while providing high quality services to their audiences. Bob and his guests discuss individual companies to pinpoint their specific challenges and achievements and explore the misunderstandings and difficulties they face.

I don’t know what the listenership is on Sundays at 6 pm, but I figure they may not be educating their largest audience segment. Still, it is really gratifying to see the program is on at all and their episodes are available online.

In the segment I heard, the host made sure the guest discussed where every percentage of the budget went, what things were and were not covered, what the goals of the organization were, how things were planned, what the dream situation for the organization would be.

I found it interesting. But then I am in the business, am familiar with the terminology and wasn’t really thinking critically about the effectiveness of the format and presentation because I was so grateful to have the subject tackled at all.

So if you think it is a good idea, go bug your local public radio station. If they are smart, they can turn it into a case for supporting the station as well. In an intro to the program I was listening to the station’s president talked about how the challenges the organization being interviewed faced were the same ones the station dealt with.

It has long been a custom to have music accompany fireworks displays. The 1812 Overture is probably the song most often pressed into this service.

However, I came across this bit on Slate noting that famed fireworks expert Takeo Shimizu used musical notation to plan his luminous displays.

The pyrotechnics expert Takeo Shimizu used a musical score to represent his designs: Each stave corresponded to a different firing location, and each note represented a particular kind of shell fired at a particular time.

A symphony of sight and sound indeed!

I set out to answer the comment made to my last entry with a comment of my own. But as I am wont to do, a short response morphed into bloviation and by the third or fourth paragraph I decided it was better as an entry.

If you haven’t already catch up with the preceding entry and join me in my answer to Heidi. (I promise, there is some wheat to sift from the chaff.)

Heidi-
Interesting comment and probably one that would take multiple entries to answer. The main concern I had when I wrote the entry you prove somewhat by being a UH Theatre grad living on the mainland. UH graduates students and they have no option to ply their craft but to leave or find a job in another industry and rehearse for Diamond Head and Manoa Valley at night.

That might be why the quality is so good–a large pool of well trained actors who didn’t leave when they graduated. I just feel bad that there isn’t even one company in the state with which dancers and actors can aspire to perform and be forced to go elsewhere because it is so difficult to break in to the company. Classically trained musicians at least have the symphony to gaze longingly at.

As for combating local perceptions. I think the solution differs from community to community. For example, what is the real scale by which shows are measured in Hawaii?– Las Vegas. For those who have always wondered where people in paradise go on vacation, it is Vegas. Before the recent inter-island airfare wars, it was often cheaper to vacation in Vegas than on a Neighbor Island. So many Hawaiians visit and live there that local cable shows are rebroadcast in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas definitely sets a standard much the same as Broadway sets the standard in other places. One of the tourist focused shows in Waikiki is Cirque Hawaii unabashedly modeled after Cirque de Soleil. I neglected to mention it in my post because honestly, I didn’t know it was an on going concern. I thought it was just an event that happened this past winter because I have heard no mention if it since. (I am guessing they focusing marketing on tourists.) On Maui there is a Cirque inspired show as well, ‘Ulalena. It has more of a local feel though because it employs Hawaiian dress and chant. (Don’t know if you were around when it started.)

But getting back to the question of how does one combat local perceptions that such fine work is par for the course. Ultimately, I am not sure you can or if is imperative to do so. If people are lucky enough to get good quality stuff cheaply and the volunteers are willing to invest the time and energy to maintain the high quality over the years, then the folks in that community are damned lucky. That is the power of the arts made manifest right there.

While I have certainly seen better than what Diamond Head, Manoa Valley and Army Community Theatre have produced, I don’t necessarily think there needs to be an Equity acting company or full time professional dance company (other than the hula hālau) for the sole purpose of bringing a higher quality product to the state. I am just really surprised that nothing has sprung up given the available opportunities. Though, as I mentioned I think the lack means the state exports creative minds and provides no incentive for such people to migrate in.

Ultimately I think it comes down to the value a community places on the experience. One of two episodes of Little House on the Prairie I remember from when I was a kid featured Pa making furniture by hand for the shop in town. The problem was, the shop owner could sell factory made furniture cheaper and the factory could make them fast enough to keep up with demand. He acknowledged that Pa’s chairs were much better than the factory ones but customers found the factory ones suitable for their needs and didn’t need such well-made chairs.

If people find the community theatre performances suitable to their needs because they lack the experience to discern between the quality of that performance and one at the local regional theatre, (or don’t think the disparity is great enough to pay more for the difference if they do perceive it), then the only option is to appeal to them with other criteria than performance quality.

In some respects, we should be happy that people are attending and participating in community theatre at all. My Little House example could as easily be applied to community theatre vs. DVD/Internet/movie/cable. This is not to say we should content ourselves with the successes of community theatres and count our blessings. We should always be raising the bar of expectations in every endeavor be it entertainment or education, (and if I may wax a little political, fuel efficiency and energy production.)