off-stage right

George Thorn, theater guru – interview in THE OREGONIAN

2009-05-09T01:24:00.001-04:00

I had the great honor of being a student of George Thorn at Virginia Tech (I actually think I was his last graduating student). George and his partner in Arts Actor Research, Nello McDaniel, continue to be among the wisest counselors for theater and dance in the country – we used to call them gurus and I think it still fits. The books that were published by Arts Action Research still grace my bookshelves—and many of my friends.

Interview: George Thorn on the ecology of the arts community

May 02, 2009 09:00AM. OregonLive.com

If you're a struggling arts organization, who would you call for 9-1-1 advice?

Probably George Thorn, the Portland-based independent arts consultant who's likely in the Rolodex of every arts organization in town.

Off and on for more than four decades, Thorn has advised arts nonprofits around the country to plan and strategize finances, programming, board development and administrative infrastructure. Never, it seems, has this expertise been in greater demand than now, during a recession that has forced most arts institutions to cut budgets in response to, and in anticipation of, a difficult year.

Born in Indiana, Thorn, 72, studied theater at Butler University in Indianapolis and also at Yale University. In 1959, Thorn moved to New York, where he began a career as a stage manager and then general manager of Broadway productions. After three years in Connecticut as the executive vice president of the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, Thorn began to shift to consulting, eventually starting Arts Action Research with Nello McDaniel.

Thorn and his wife, Nancy, a former theater and television dancer, moved in 1996 to Portland, attracted to the city's modest scale and scrappy arts scene. Because of his partnership with McDaniel, Thorn spent much of his first 12 years in Portland traveling to New York for work. These days, Thorn spends most of his time in town, though he and McDaniel continue to work together.

Since 1996, Thorn has advised more than 75 Oregon arts and culture institutions of all sizes, disciplines and levels of success, including the Portland Art Museum, Portland Center Stage, Chamber Music Northwest, Northwest Children's Theater and the now closed Portland Art Center.

Last month, he was honored by The College of Fellows of the American Theatre, an organization based in Washington, D.C., that promotes professional theater.

Recently, Thorn talked with The Oregonian about the financial health of Portland's arts institutions, the state of fundraising here and other arts issues. The interview was edited for clarity and space.

Q: You were so immersed in New York's arts world. Why did you leave?
A: Nancy and I left New York in 1974 for a couple reasons. It was the time of New York City's first economic crisis. This great city was disintegrating. It was also the time of a great transition within professional theater. In the theater, professional producers used to be the ones who put the shows together. But at the time, there was this transition from professionals to people who weren't professionals but could raise money. I had another business partner back then and together we managed five different shows for one producer. That producer could raise money. But he had no sense of aesthetics. It was just time to move on.

Q: You've been an arts consultant during a time that spans the emergence and maturity of nonprofits. What's been the biggest development?
A: One difference is that there used to be this belief in an institutional model. Whether you were an orchestra, a small gallery or museum, you were supposed to fit into that model. People are now organizing in terms of the way they need to as opposed to the way they are supposed to.

Q: Is that good or bad?
A: It's a great thing because the idea that one model can serve a collective that is so wide-ranging is not healthy. Many small and midsized organizations tried to fit into a model when they shouldn't have.

Q: Having witnessed New York's economic collapse during the '70s, how bad is this current recession?
A: This is the most serious recession I've ever seen. It's not cyclical. When we come out of this, we will be different. I don't know how, but we'll be changed. There's little in our past experience to help with this.

Q: We've seen many arts organizations scale back costs because of the recession. But shouldn't we expect some to shutter entirely?
A: I would think so. The way I would describe it is this: If a nonprofit was relatively balanced before the crash and endowed with good leadership, then they'll find their way through this. But if a nonprofit was out of balance financially, then the stress will be a hundredfold.

Q: Nonprofits have made budget cuts. But given the cycle of budgets, isn't the worst ahead of us?
A: I think everyone is making cuts because income and endowments are down. So in December and January people began to rethink budgets and how to break even. But I think balancing budgets for 2009-10 will be much harder. When the crash happened in October, performance organizations, for example, already had subscriptions, and year-end giving was coming in.

But only now and into next year will we truly see the ramifications on ticket sales, fundraising and memberships. I suggest nonprofits conceptualize not only for the several months left in this year but also for the time carrying forward into next year and beyond. People need to be working on an 18-month cycle now.

Q: What other advice are you giving nonprofits?
A: Be income-driven as opposed to expense-driven. If you are expense-driven, you build an expense budget based on what you want or need to do. Then you create income budgets to balance that. But if you are income-driven, you will develop your expenses responsibly and in line with the money you have.

Q: What's the single biggest mistake nonprofits make?
A: Growing to a size and scale beyond the mission. That's when it loses its center, its mission, and tries to become something more than its resources indicate. Of course, it's easy to understand why this happens: Our society is based on growth. That's the primary criteria for success: Are we getting bigger, doing more programs? Groups thus feel this pressure to grow bigger. That's how nonprofits get a mile wide and an inch deep.

Q: Nonprofits talk a great deal about the shallow funding base. Do you think they're right?
A: Yes. Portland is the most difficult city to raise money that I've ever worked in. Portlanders surely appreciate what they have culturally. But what's missing, to a degree, is an understanding by them that an investment is necessary in order to keep what they have. They have to give money. Another reason is that there is a thin layer of support overall. What the city and the Regional Arts & Culture Council (the nonprofit devoted to arts funding for the Portland area) have done is important in terms of funding, but it can't compare to other cities. We also have a thin base of corporate funding because so many businesses are moving out. The foundations have been generous but that, too, is a small base.

Q: So it's difficult to raise money here, but do you think there is actually money to raise?
A: Overall, no. From individuals, yes. The corporations have been doing what they can. But again, that's a small base compared to other communities in other cities.

Q: You've talked in the past about a system of individual donors.
A: There is a window closing on the old system of donors here. The old system is composed of the families who long ago took responsibility for patronizing arts and culture and other sectors of the community -- Arlene and Harold Schnitzer, for example. As that generation passes, wealth is spread out across the next generation. But sometimes that next generation doesn't have the same interests and passions of their parents, though Jordan Schnitzer clearly does. Our large budget organizations, like the Portland Art Museum, will likely get through that closing window. But not others. What will replace that new system? We have some elements already -- RACC's Work for Art program, the Oregon Cultural Trust, maybe a dedicated funding stream down the road. In other words, there are a lot of individuals out there with money, but they aren't in the arts and culture system.

Q: In the visual arts word, there's been a dream to create a contemporary art center. There have been various attempts, but each has failed. Can it happen here?
A: I'm not sure there is a level of support for a center of the quality and size we desire. I think the first thing that would have to happen is that people would have to be prepared to commit a significant level of funding. Because if we are talking about a center with national, maybe international, reach and ongoing education programs, then that's a big price tag -- at least a $3 million or $4 million budget.

Q: Why isn't the support there?
A: I did a presentation about 18 months ago in Seattle. At the time, Seattle had just expanded its museum with a new outdoor sculpture garden. There was also a new great symphony hall and a new library designed by Rem Koolhaas. We just don't dream like that in Portland. It doesn't mean we don't dream. We just dream differently. We dream about light rail, sustainability, bicycles, green culture.

Q: Mayor Sam Adams recently introduced an idea to create a ballot measure for arts funding. What are the chances of such a measure passing?
A: It would happen only with a real educational effort to articulate why arts funding would add value to all of our lives. And we are a long way from that kind of understanding. On the other hand, if the arts community can rally all of its audiences, donors, members, workers and volunteers over one or two issues, then they won't be stopped.

Q: Don't you think the recession will affect people's willingness to give money?
A: Yes, but on the other hand, this is the best time to plan, to strategize, so that when we come out of this recession, we'll be prepared and ready.

Q: The ballot measure is really the mayor's idea. But he's been compromised politically because of the Beau Breedlove scandal. How will that affect any possible measure's chances?
A: I don't think the mayor will be that key. What's more important is whether a grass-roots movement develops. It will be a collective effort that won't be dependent on any one person.

Q: You and your wife, Nancy, could just enjoy a simple life in Portland after many years on the road and having accomplished so much professionally. Why bother with struggling organizations now?
A: It's simple. I get to work with terrific people and I love the work that I do.

NYTW – Great Twitter contest, even better customer service response.

2009-05-07T17:08:00.001-04:00

New York Theater Workshop has a fun Twitter contest that captures email address and offer core followers discounts. It started this morning with tweets for #TheatreThursday counting down to a ticket give-away (twitter category day where you are supposed to tweet followers you recommend). Then came the tweet with a link to this:

Welcome Tweeters!

Here's how to enter and win
a free pair of TwitTix to
Things of Dry Hours

Email marketing@nytw.org

with the subject line:
First Thursday TwitTix!

Please include your
name, phone number and
email address.

The first email received will win a pair of free tickets to be used during one of the following performances:
May 22 @ 8pm, May 23 @ 8pm
or May 24 @ 7pm.
Winners will be contacted by 6pm Friday, May 15th.

Good Luck!

I wanted to see what happened, it looks like a great show, and I wouldn’t mind seeing my friends work (shout out to Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Roslyn Ruff). So I emailed to see if I could win. Here is the very smart email I got back:

Dear Jodi,

Thank you for following NYTW79 on Twitter and entering to win TwitTix. Unfortunately you were not the first to enter. The good news is that next Thursday from noon to 5pm NYTW will be giving away another pair of free TwitTix.

For being an NYTW Twitter follower we would like to offer you a special discount for tickets to Things of Dry Hours. Purchase tickets by June 8 and tickets are just $32.50 each for performances on May 22 and 23 and $40 each for performances May 24 through June 28! (reg. $65). To purchase tickets, call (212) 947-8844 or visit www.broadwayoffers.com and use code DHTWR430.
*Offer expires June 8, 2009

Thanks again and continuing following NYTW79 for more free tickets and discount offers!

-Becky

Other Great Ways to Save at NYTW
CheapTix Sundays
All tickets for all Sunday evening performances at 7:00 PM are $20 (Limit 4 per customer and subject to availability). Tickets are available in advance but must be purchased at the NYTW box office on a cash-only basis. Student tickets ($20) are still available for these performances.

Student tickets
Full-time students with a valid student ID may purchase $20 tickets for all performances (subject to availability). Limit one ticket per ID. Tickets must be purchased in person and require an ID at the box office. For tickets, please visit or call the NYTW box office (212-460-5475). (full-time students only)

Rebekah Paine

Marketing Assistant

New York Theatre Workshop

79 East 4th Street

New York, New York 10003

P: 212.780.9037 X 114

F: 212.460.8996

rebekahp@nytw.org

Become a fan on Facebook

Here is why I am impressed:

First, it is personalized. It took a moment on the reply, but it was a nice touch.

Second, it was from a real person with a real email address who will now be the person I reach out to for NYTW tickets (Rebekah, you may regret that).

Third, I got a special offer as a twitter follower.

Fourth, they gave me other options as well.

Fifth, they captured my email address (and my cell number I just realized since it is in my signature) and reminded me to become a fan on Facebook (already am).

And finally, the whole thing felt like NYTW – downtown, cool factor – check, personalized community feeling (check), and bold compelling graphic (check).

Rebekah – I don’t know if this was your idea, but I will send this post to Billy Russo, if he can’t give you a raise he can tell you “job well done.”

Relationships between commercial and nonprofit theatre primer

2009-05-07T01:08:00.001-04:00

Partnerships between commercial theatre producers and nonprofits are becoming more and more common across the United States. Each season, I end up consulting on several of these agreements. For better or for worse the number of people who call themselves commercial theatre producers and shop/buy shows to/from nonprofits has increased significantly. The partnerships are happening nationwide.

Whether developing new work or creating a new interpretation of a classic, I think it is imperative that nonprofits take the position that as original producers of a show they are entitled to significant participation in the future productions. The strength of the negotiation position is usually derived from whether the nonprofit holds the right to the production and brings the project to a commercial partner or whether the commercial partner holds the rights. The former is always more beneficial in negotiations.

It is key for a nonprofit not to get trapped in the idea that these partnerships are just financial transactions – they are so much more than that. Here are some basics!

Simple definition of some key terms:

Enhancement: An individual, group or entity pays the nonprofit a certain amount to produce the show usually based on costs beyond the traditional budget of the nonprofit’s production of a similar show. There is usually a rights exchange between partners. This money is considered earned revenue and is not a donation. The nonprofit would most likely have future participation as original producer.

Non-recourse loan: An individual, group or entity “loans or guarantees” the funds or part of the funds to produce a show. The “loan” is repaid out of “net profits of the production.” This framework is not used as often as enhancement.

Production/producing partnership: a relationship between nonprofit and commercial theatre where there is no financial transaction but rights are assigned (usually from the commercial producer to nonprofit), but participation in future production is contractual.

Producer: Raises funds for and “manages” commercial production. Participates in producer’s gross royalty and producer’s portion of the net (usually 50/50 split before deals), above the title billing.

Investor: someone who gives money for a commercial production and is eligible for repayment of investment and a share of profits.

Donor: someone who gives money to a nonprofit in exchange for tax deduction or donor benefits

Participation: can include several terms on a future production including but not limited to, royalty, net participation, the right to raise funds for a production, billing, artistic approvals, consultation, etc. Participation does not necessary equal money.

Original producer’s royalty: Royalty varies, almost certainly includes gross participation (.5-2%) and can include net participation (2.5-10%). Level of participation usually depends on who has the rights and how “hot” the property is.

It is a myth that original producer can only have a role in the commercial production if they make a financial contribution. Defining future participation is key to any production agreement. Three most important factors to a nonprofit for any partnership in a commercial production – billing, who has the decision to close the show, and financial participation. Other important issues are approvals and expense/marketing decisions.

Billing is highly contested now. Most producers will now not agree to above the title billing without financial contribution to capitalization. The status of the theatre would certainly affect the deal they can make.

The most important, difficult, and controversial decision in any production is when to close the show. This is the decision that can ruin relationships between partners. The factors are not as cut and dry as how well is the show selling. There are many things to consider: sales, awards, artist relationships, investor relationships, subsidiary rights, and additional productions such as tours. More often than not these factors are at odds with one another.

I encourage every nonprofit entering into an enhancement deal to make sure that they are allowed to serve as actual partners on a future production. There are two basic models for acting as a Producer/investor in a commercial project if you are nonprofit theater – many organizations use both:

1. Form a for-profit subsidiary and raise funds or invest organizational funds (something I would advocate against). In this model, the nonprofit would act as any other commercial producer or associate producer would with appropriate financial participation and role in production decisions. Risk – IRS could determine income as taxable (unrelated business income), although many precedents against.

2. Raise or invest organization funds as the organizations itself. In this model, the nonprofit would act as any other commercial producer or associate producer would with appropriate financial participation. Risk – non-profits and for-profit can not be on same level in LLC structure, so in this model the role in production decisions would have to be legally defined. It also must be very clear that investors are working with the LLC or other corporate structure they are not donors to the organization.

Risk in either model is that the nonprofit could be asked to waive original producer’s royalty and participation, which I would fight. It is an easier fight under the first model, but the second model (my favorite) is becoming more and more preferred by many non-profits. I don’t think an organization should consider an enhancement agreement without the right to raise a significant portion of the capitalization. It is a right to do it, that can always be waived. But it is very important to have a choice as to whether to participate as a producer and participate in the producers financial portion of the commercial venture.

NOTE: There is no way for a commercial investment or enhancement to count as a donation. If there is an exchange of rights, billing, repayment of the investment, or other benefit it is not a donation. This is often confusing in the second instance above or with enhancement agreements. You must know if the commercial corporation or partnership that is going to be formed is going to account for the enhancement in it’s capitalization – if it is it cannot be counted as a donation in any way. Without question how funds are designated enhancement (which is earned revenue) or donations needs to be established up front and in writing and can’t be switched back and forth based on how a show does.

An issue a nonprofit should address before working with a commercial producer or transferring a show is whether Board of Trustees/Directors membership can be investors or producers in commercial productions: If the nonprofit theatre does not benefit in financial participation (for example it is not the organization’s show or the organization doesn’t participate beyond original producer’s credit), its role in the production or in billing, investment in any commercial production is considered a potential conflict of interest that must be disclosed, but is not normally consider a problem. If the organization is producer or as associate producer how board members who are commercial producer or want to invest in a commercial production might be a part of a production: (1) Enhancement of a production; (2) separate investment in production in which theatre is participating in (beyond original producer’s credit); (3) the Board member can serve only as supporting investors or partners in a production not competitors (in other words any funds from board members count towards money raised by the organization as part of their producer's participation as seen in model two above). Most theatres restrict the first two significantly. Obviously the third is the most ideal for the nonprofit theatre. Any participation in a commercial venture would require Board member to withdraw themselves from all votes and decisions regarding production or in some cases, a board will require a leave or absence.

Should note in terms of moving forward, a board traditionally would vote on the participation in the project but like all producing efforts the commercial participation in decisions and day to day operations would be limited to leadership staff.

Also it is important to say that this primer is exactly that. If your organization doesn't have a strong history with these types of deals or a strong negotiator – hire one. These deals can have a tremendous impact on an organization and you don’t want to be negotiating after the fact or regretting the deal you signed. These contract are among the most complicated that a nonprofit can enter into and can if done incorrectly threaten the nonprofit status of an organization. Make sure you negotiate smart and thoroughly.

If you are a commercial producer, rather than thinking you should just negotiate the opposite of all of the above, I encourage you to consider all that the nonprofit adds to the production and the fact that a good negotiation means that everyone walks away feeling good about the partnership. Nonprofits also have board members and donors who may be part of your future investor pool – this is more common than most people realize. It is also important to remember that theater folks tend to talk about relationships good and bad. I have certainly heard about deals that haven’t worked out well or other stories about how great a partner someone has been. Word travels fast in our community. And as more and more of these deals happen and as expenses keep rising the commercial world needs the nonprofit world for a lot of project development. This is one of the few situations where everyone can win if everyone works together with goodwill.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

No more waiting in line for rush tickets!

2009-05-06T06:20:00.001-04:00

I got this message this morning on Facebook:

A message to the members of reasons to be pretty: A New Play by Neil LaBute.

--------------------

Subject: New Student Rush Ticket Program!

Hey Reasons fans!

We've got some great news (you know ... besides our three TONY nominations!): we just launched a new student rush texting program!

All you have to do to get your $26.50 ticket is text 'reasons' to 42903.

You can start texting 10am on the day you want to see the show.

You’ll be notified with a return text of availability for that night. If there’s availability you will have a three hour window to pick up your tickets. You must present a valid student id at the box office.

Maximum two tickets per person/performance and cash only!

Be sure to send this along to your fellow students!

See you all at the show!

--------------------

People have been making a lot of noise about Reasons other texting program which is interactive for audience members who are already at the show. But this new program is a great use of technology. For all the cynics saying their grosses are low so this isn’t a big deal, you are missing the point. By using Facebook and text messaging the folks at Reasons are freshening up the age old practice of student rush tickets. Remember 10 years ago when Rent created a whole new energy around the show with their day of lottery? Rough times usually spark innovation – let’s hope Reasons lessons in using social networks and texting aren’t lost amongst the cynics.

And if you haven’t seen the show, if the three Tony nominations don’t convince you – take a look at my reasons for people to see Reasons to be Pretty.

If you are a student – take advantage of this new program, you won’t be disappointed. If you aren’t a student, you should still see the show. Buy your tickets here and NOW.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

Next to Normal the twitter performance

2009-05-05T01:07:00.001-04:00

So the folks at Next to Normal are trying something fun. At midnight, they begin a twitter performance of the entire show.

This musical if you haven’t been following it has been following a unique path to being the new darling of Broadway. It was developed at Second Stage in New York (GREAT company with a string of hits from Little Dog Laughed to Spelling Bee). But it still needed work so after it already had a New York opening its producer, David Stone, took the show out of town to Arena Stage to be reworked.

The show re-opened in New York at the Booth (after the short lived Story of my Life) with great success as the show has been receiving RAVE reviews. See Ben Brantley’s – one in a string of great reviews for current shows on the boards – I was beginning to think there was a conspiracy – The Times gave raves, thus making producers buy ads, thus keeping the theatre section and reviewers in business, but then I read the review of 9-5 which I won’t link to since I found the show to be a fun night out, although I agree with some point of the review, but I digress.

I haven’t seen the show yet – I am going at the end of this month (but maybe I will switch dates so I can experience the entire show via twitter and then see it). This makes the twitter experiment a bit more fun for me. It is the same experience someone might have if they whether they lived in Texas, Africa or any other place other than New York – exposure to a new Broadway show in a new media form. I have been adamant that theatre folks need to explore different ways to use the internet and mix it with performance. This certainly qualifies. I am really excited to see how this plays out. I will be tweeting and blogging my thoughts as I “watch” the show!

Click here for the show website.

Click to follow Next to Normal. Below are all of the tweets thus far leading up to the Prelude.

Starting May 5, follow the characters as they tweet their story – all the lows, all the highs – day by day, song by song.5:47 PM Apr 29th from web

Next to Normal: The Twitter Performance. For the first time ever, the full story of a Broadway musical will be told via Twitter.12:10 PM Apr 30th from web

Only 4 days until the N2N Twitter performance begins! Each day a new scene will unfold thru June 7th.1:44 PM May 1st from TwitterBerry

Next to Normal: The Twitter Performance36 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

Hear the Prelude - http://tr.im/ktuO 35 minutes ago from TwitterBerry

Reasons to see Reason to be Pretty

2009-05-04T22:17:00.002-04:00

I have been urging folks to go see Reasons to be Pretty since it was announced the show was moving to Broadway. I will be deeply disappointed if the play doesn’t receive a large handful of Tony nominations tomorrow morning. It may even make me boycott the entire ceremony.

It is the best new play on Broadway. On second thought, I don’t care what the Tony Awards nominations say and who wins. I don’t care what the box office grosses say, it is the best written new play on Broadway. The changes made between the off-Broadway production and the current production only sharpen the lessons to be learned and deepen the discussion that will undoubtedly occur.

From the moment the play begins you are dropped into Neil LaBute’s world mid-stream. It isn’t a very pretty world, but it is a normal, very real world. One filled with flawed people who are desperately trying to make their way through life without encountering too much unhappiness. Sound familiar? After all isn’t that what we are all really trying to do.

The cast is by far the best ensemble on Broadway – and what a surprise – not a celebrity among them.

Tom Sadowski is giving the most truthful, real and endearing performance in New York. His performance as Greg should be required study for every grad student studying acting. I remember being struck by Tom’s talent when I saw the show Off-Broadway, at that time I didn’t know his work. I wasn’t really worried that the performance wouldn’t transfer well, but you never know…delighted to say, Tom’s performance is even better in the current incarnation. His performance is flawless. You feel as if you know Greg, maybe you went to college with him or grew up on the same street as him. You want to leap on stage and pinch him when he makes a stupid mistake or comment and you want to hug him because you can see the pain his loneliness causes. Near the end of the play, after a journey of self-discovery, he makes a self-sacrificing decision that breaks your heart as much as it breaks Greg’s.

Marin Ireland and Steven Pasquale are both astounding. They are replacements from the off-Broadway company. I know both of these talented actors personally and have worked with them. I was in awe of the rawness of Marin’s Stephanie. The agony and fury of her insecurity was heart-wrenching. She took Stephanie to an entirely different level leaving me heartbroken that she and Greg couldn’t be together. Steven Pasquale who is one of the kindest and nicest actors I have ever had the honor to meet, plays Kent, one of the biggest assholes ever to be on a stage. Kent isn’t just a chauvinistic pig, he is downright emotionally abusive and manipulative to everyone else in his world. Piper Perabo has turned a part that off-Broadway was a bit two dimensional into a fully-fleshed out character that made me ache for her when she finally admits who her husband Kent really is. She rounds out this fabulous quartet.

Terry Kinney’s direction is superb and his design team did an amazing job. The production design transferred more or less intact (with a bit more automation). The lighting and sound assault the audience in perfect tempo with the narrative of the play.

I beg you go see this play. Buy your tickets here and NOW.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

Interesting articles/blog posts from last week – in case you missed them!

2009-05-04T09:14:00.001-04:00

Here is a round-up of what caught my eye over the last week. Let me know if there is something interesting I should be reading!

Interesting argument - Text Me Later (Or: How Theater Isn't Baseball) http://u.nu/5zz3

Cultural Groups ask what to mount next. The Answer - losses? Washington Post http://u.nu/3zz3

To gala or not gala - Iu2019m Honored. No, Actually, I Canu2019t Afford It. NY TIMES. http://u.nu/6xz3

How Much Does Mayor Bloomberg Want to Cut from the Department of Cultural Affairs? Clyde Fitch Report - http://tinyurl.com/dhcugv

Anonymous Giving Gains in Popularity as the Recession Deepens - Philanthropy.com - http://tinyurl.com/d45sky

More Valuable - The Ticket Buyer Or The Donor? - diacritical - http://tinyurl.com/d8sbrg

Bad Behavior at the Theater: Reviving an Old Tradition « Clyde Fitch Report - http://tinyurl.com/d4vjw4

Celebrities Are Taking All the Jobs - http://tinyurl.com/cm3ur9

Equal Time For Planned Giving http://viigo.im/rFc

Fundraising suffered big drop in 2008 http://viigo.im/rii

99seats: Priorities, Part 1 - http://tinyurl.com/d4sn4v

Let's Get Practical! - Artistic Manager and Resident Companies http://tinyurl.com/cpbdse

Broadway, Off-Broadway, Theater : How to invest in a Broadway show. Part I - http://tinyurl.com/d5cgur

How to invest in a Broadway show. Part 2 http://tinyurl.com/dnzg4t

Reasons to be Pretty to Encourage Texting at the Theater - http://tinyurl.com/c5o864

Union Calls City Opera Strike ‘Likely’ Given Demands - Bloomberg.com - http://tinyurl.com/tra5t

Why Twitter Quitters don't Get It http://tinyurl.com/c4neyh

HarvardBusiness.org: The 24/7 Employee http://tinyurl.com/dcz8mu

The World of Celebrity Giving: http://www.looktothestars.org/

IRS provides a mini-course on the new 990 form for charities - http://tinyurl.com/cuo8wh

There are BO users and AO [Twitter] users: Before Opera/After Oprah' ( http://tinyurl.com/cojbdc )

Parabasis: No One Edits Poets. Pondering new play development and collaboration - read the comments too. http://u.nu/4463

ArtsBeat: Barlow-Hartman, Broadway Publicity Agency, to Close http://viigo.im/q2W

Is Your Social Network Cool Enough To Be A Tree House? http://viigo.im/pS6

Social Net Fundraising - All Hype? The Agitator. (Pretty sound advice) http://viigo.im/pQW

A Nonprofit New York Times? http://tinyurl.com/cskgs3

Theatre vs. Theatre Companies (The Playgoer) http://viigo.im/pln

Wall Street Journal Only Top 25 Newspaper To Report Circulation Increase http://viigo.im/pfw

Diacritical: Do we need institutions to create art? http://u.nu/5dp

Why don’t we treat ourselves better?

2009-05-03T00:29:00.001-04:00

The other night I ran into a great friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. We caught up briefly. I was delighted to hear that she had reached out beyond theater to radio. But what struck a chord was when she mentioned how working outside of theatre, made her realize how tired she was from a life lived constantly in tech rehearsals. This made me think about how unhealthy our business can be.

Let’s start with the concept of tech. AEA standards and what producers can afford comes in packages of 10/12 hour days. Now let’s be honest on any given tech day very few people involved in the production work 10 out of 12 hours. Crew, designers, stage managers, etc. are always called before the actors and stay after for production meetings. Even the actors working under union rules usually work longer than the 10 hours, whether they are running lines, reviewing their blocking, etc, most actors during the tech period through opening are focused on the show they are doing more or less from the time they wake up until they go to bed. The theory is that the higher the contract tier, the more ten out of twelve days you can do. For example a Broadway show often does 10/12s from tech to press nights. Off-Broadway shows may do a week of 10/12s and then rehearse up to 5 hours more each day. It is exhausting. And in most cases, designers live in this process the majority of their lives. Even when a show is up and running there are understudy rehearsals, publicity events, put-ins, etc. The point is there is a heck of a lot of work outside of rehearsals and performances that most people don’t really think of they just live it.

The staffs of nonprofits, don’t escape the rigorous schedules. In addition to regular office hours, many leaders and staff members attend tech, have early morning committee meetings and evening board meetings, must participate in a variety of social events, should see shows at other theatres, and must be at the curtain of a show most nights.

In addition to the exhausting schedule, theatre folks spend the majority of their lives in building that are either so cold in the summer that you need a sweater or so hot in the winter that you can feel your throat dry the minute you walk in the door. Many theatres are in older building that don’t have the best air circulation. In tech or in nonprofit offices you can spend hours sitting in the same place, in the same position. Or you can spend all day running from meeting to meeting, rehearsal hall to audition space, etc. always in transition in and out of the elements back indoors.

An exhausting schedule, cabin fever, lack of fresh oxygen are just the beginning. For some reason, theater greenrooms, rehearsal halls and offices are usually filled junk food, snacks, endless supplies of caffeine, and tons of fast food or takeout. Between short meal breaks, long rehearsal hours and too many cocktail parties and events, keeping a healthy eating schedule is more or less out of the question.

As a group we are not eating well, can barely keep our eyes open and our minds focused, and spend less time outdoors than vampires. Then many theater folks are smokers. Musicals can wreck havoc on the body without proper training. Raked stages tear bodies apart (let’s just admit it – you try walking on a rake in high heels, I have had to do it too many times and I’m just short not an actor). Haze fills their lungs – sorry it aggravates allergies and asthma. And after a day filled with all of the above, who doesn’t want a drink.

Of course I have described the worst of it all. There are plenty of folks who make frequent appearances at their gyms or yoga classes. Many even train for advanced body conditioning. There a lots who have unbelievable discipline in what they eat and treat their bodies like temples (at least reformed temples if not orthodox ones). But as with many careers this takes a lot of hard work. Yet when theatres are built (and goodness knows we have built or renovated a whole lot of them recently for good or for bad), staff and artist amenities are the first things cut. What would happen if every theatre created a small gym and mediation room on site? What would happen if changed the rules and schedules so people could get a little more sleep and a bit more fresh air? What if we planned the entire tech process for each production rather than by industry standards? I challenge that rather than making the process take longer it may actually make us work more efficiently and with much greater focus. Who says you have to do 10/12s? What if we said that production meetings couldn’t go into the wee hours of the night and finance committees weren’t allowed to demand 9am or worse 8am meetings? What if we made all of our nonprofit staffs stop eating lunch at their desks? Sure it would be a big change, but actually it would be pretty easy to test. Of course there would still be people who don’t take of themselves, but maybe if we found a better balance more folks would take care of themselves, just a bit better and not have to take a break from working in theater to do so.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

MCC Theater Youth Company changes lives (last night they changed mine)!

2009-05-01T07:37:00.001-04:00

It is so rare in the theater to experience the visceral and emotional slap of truth or to have a piece of theater grip hold of your heart to the point that you find you have stopped breathing. But when it happens, you are transformed - not momentarily but permanently. Theater that does this leaves a mark inside of you that does not and cannot ever be removed.

Last night a mark like that was left on my heart and will forever burn in my mind.

It didn't happen in a Broadway house or even at a "professional" show. It happened when a group of high school kids (and 9 who had graduated and grown up a bit) took the stage for MCC Theater's 2009 Uncensored performance and 10th Anniversary celebration.

It was a raw, dark, funny, gut-wrenching roller-coaster ride into the hearts and minds of the kids who wrote and performed it. They were truly uncensored as they shared thoughts on life, self-image, drugs, race and sex - lots of sex. MCC Youth Company found a way to give these kids a voice and let them scream from the rooftops.

During the first half of the evening the current MCC Theater Youth Company (made up of about 50 kids who audition to participate in the year-round FREE training program that focuses on writing and acting), performed Uncensored (monologues and scenes they developed), one of four performances during a regular year. The second half was a one-night-only reunion of 9 alumni members and 1 current company member performing (one person from each of 10 years of companies) work created over the last 10 years intertwined with the affect that the Youth Company has had on their lives.

Throughout both performances I was on the edge of my seat. My heart and mind being banged and dented by the beauty of their work, their pure honesty, their fears, and their abundant hope. After hearing how the Company had changed and in at least one case saved their lives, the alumni called all current and past members to the stage along with my dear friend who founded, taught and lead the Company for 10 years, Stephen Dimenna. As I watched the stage fill with kids of every color, shape, sexual orientation and personality and embrace each other and Steve, I could see that they all stood a bit taller and were living a bit larger. I swelled with pride that I was there in the beginning of this one-of-a-kind program that is so deserving of more than a blog post – all you documentarians and New York Times feature writers get on it. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the celebration. I thought about the hundreds of kids who have been Youth Company members who found their voices and a theatrical home, and I realized I was breathless and the night had permanently left a mark on me.

Congratulations and Happy Anniversary to all my friends at MCC Theater, not only do they produce some of the best theater in the country, but they are doing so much more to impact and shape the future of the theater.

9-5 why Dolly is good for Broadway…

2009-04-29T22:13:00.001-04:00

New York Magazine’s just did a great profile on Dolly Parton (Dolly or Bust). It really gets to the heart of what a wonderful artist, person and businesswoman she is. Reading it gives you a tiny peek into Dolly’s world. Now, in all fairness, I am a huge Dolly Parton fan, I have been since I was little. When they announced 9-5, I thought it was a brilliant idea. Fun movie, had a great story even though it is dated, and Dolly is by far one of the greatest songwriters ever and knows how to tell a story in a song.

Now, when I saw the show, I had the time of my life – I laughed so hard I cried. The show was true to the movie while poking a little fun at it. I loved the cast and the music (again between Brian and I we probably own everything she has recorded). I sent out tweets and status updates declaring what a great time the show was.

Obviously the new musical competition is a tough category this year and the reviews won’t be out until Friday, I have to say, I think Dolly coming to Broadway is a really good thing for two reasons:

First and foremost, I think through the press push she is doing this week and the cast album she will introduce a lot of people to musical theatre.

Second, in a landscape filled with American Idols contestants it is good to see a mentor’s work hit to boards (with original songs). Elton John coming to Broadway had that same kind of thrill – and he has stayed (and it Dolly’s biggest competition this year, although she wrote the music AND the lyrics).

So welcome to Broadway, Dolly. Happy Opening and I hope you are here for a good long time!

Sookie: the theater dog

2009-04-29T22:01:00.001-04:00

View Full Album

I wrote this today for myself, but even though it is personal I think a lot of theatre folks can relate, so I guess I will go ahead and post it.

One of the great thing about most theatre people is that they are animal people. Almost everyone I know has a cat or dog that takes the career journey with them. It is common for dogs to be backstage in the dressing rooms, in the box office, or in the administrative offices of many theatres – many theatres have cats (hey, there is a mice issue). I have always thought that having animals around offices made for a better work environment. Thank goodness everywhere I have ever worked has not only allowed but encouraged this. As anyone who knows me (or reads the blog and sees the family photos on the left), I am a huge animal lover.

At the Arts Council job I had after grad school, my cocker-lab mix Elle travelled with me to the office and almost all of my off-campus outreach programs. She was more popular in the public housing units and Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, NC than I ever was. She was quickly joined by General the tea-cup Chihuahua. When I moved to New York, they both occasionally joined me at MCC Theater or at the Vineyard. People would always be shocked to find Elle asleep under my desk and General asleep in a tote bag. I went to many restaurants with little General asleep in that bag. When General passed at the age of 17+, Elle and our kitty Emmie were alone for a bit until Sookie joined the family. Sookie’s first day in New York was spent in the Signature Theatre Company’s offices, where she spent a lot of the next four years.

She was more of a theatre dog than any that came before her or those who arrived after. Sookie went to the office regularly where she tortured Chris our Production Manager by barking at him constantly – he barked back. She delighted in crawling up on the couch on with Adam and insisting he pet her despite the fact that he was allergic to her. She knew exactly where Jim kept treats hidden in his cabinet for her and would wait impatiently until the door opened. She sat through most dress rehearsals on my lap in full attention watching the show, completely quiet except for two notable instances – during The Regard Evening at the end of Bill Irwin’s big juggling sequence Sookie let go with a loud round of barking applause and during the The Baltimore Waltz when Jeremy Webb twisted the neck of the stuffed rabbit cherished by the lead character, Sookie almost leapt onto the stage in a fit of anger. I swear to this day that she watched and understood most of the shows. One night we lost electricity a few minutes into the first act of a performance, Sookie was in the box office and while I ran around trying to fix the problem a couple of audience members played with her. When we finally cancelled the show, Sookie was in my arms, and everyone joked that I was holding her on purpose since no one would complain with her little sweet eyes staring up at them (they were right).

When we came to Connecticut, our dear kitten Squeakers had passed at the age of two from breast cancer and Emmie was distraught and confused by the move, so Sookie didn’t go to the office as often and some new puppies came into the family who took turns visiting at the Playhouse, but none developed the taste for watching shows like Sookie.

This morning Sookie unexpectedly passed at the early age of 10. Thank you to all of my friends who called, emailed and sent Facebook messages as soon as they heard. We really appreciate it.

I am sure she has joined Elle, General, Squeakers and a host of other theatre dogs and cats who have kept an endless number of actors, designers, stage managers, producers, directors, etc. company during shows.

Our dear little Sookie - Brian, Emmie, Socks, Tipper, Shea, Roo and I will miss you terribly. In addition to an endless supply of treats, a giant yard to run around in, wherever you are, I hope you get to take in a show or two every once in a while.

A bright light off-Broadway: ROOMS

2009-04-29T20:51:00.001-04:00

The other night I had the luck of taking in ROOMS, a new musical off-Broadway. I don’t write reviews, but when I see something that makes me happy that I spent the night in the theatre, I want to make note of it. Sure the story was familiar, but the performances were wonderful and the music was fun. It is just the kind of show that off-Broadway needs (and used to jam-packed with). The design elements were perfect in the fact that they were sparse, meaningful and appropriate. There was a band – not just a piano. It didn’t have a gimmick, in fact in many ways it was the most traditional show I had seen in a while – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I left the show a bit more hopeful for commercial off-Broadway and with a bounce in my step. New work was making it to the stage, talented actors were working and there were people in the audience – I call that a good day.

If you wanna win the Bonnet put some bling on it…oh, oh, oh!

2009-04-29T00:22:00.001-04:00

A little while back I wrote a post about Extreme Fundraising that was being done for charities and I wondered what it would look like for the arts. I noted how the causes were usually very personal and that the people involved put themselves through some sort of rigorous event. Today I was reminded that theatre actually does have a form of extreme fundraising that is done during certain times of the year and takes a Herculean effort – it is the wonderful work done for Broadway Cares – Equity Fights Aids.

In a mere 6 weeks, through curtain speeches the theatre community raised $3,402,147. That’s right almost 3 and a half million raised by actors and stage managers, often aided by the crews, ushers, and other working on a show through curtain speeches (and ticket sales to the Easter Bonnet performance).

The Easter Bonnet is one of many events held throughout the season:

The Easter Bonnet Competition features a parade of bonnets hand-crafted by the cast and crews of dozens of participating productions which are presented in song, dance and comedic sketches. A "must-see" for the Broadway fan, the show is always a highlight of the spring season, with moments both hilarious and heartfelt.

This annual spring event is the culmination of an intensive six-week fundraising effort by the companies of Broadway, Off-Broadway and national touring productions.

Curtain speeches, sales of autographed posters and programs, auctions and cabaret performances are just some of the activities that enable these companies to bring in generous contributions from audiences on Broadway and across the country.

Honors are awarded to the companies that raise the largest amounts of money on behalf of BC/EFA during the fundraising drive. Companies offering the best designs and presentations of bonnets are also recognized.

Since 1987, 22 editions of The Easter Bonnet Competition have raised over $35 million for BC/EFA which, in turn, has supported programs at The Actors Fund including The AIDS Initiative, The Phyllis Newman Women's Health Initiative, as well as over 400 AIDS and family service organizations across the country.

If that isn’t extreme fundraising – I don’t know what is!

And for those of you who weren’t at the show, you missed a fun afternoon. Some of my favorite highlights included:

33 Variations “volunteer” [read be there or supposedly Jane will kill you] rehearsal skit – complete with Jane Fonda leading the cast in an aerobics workout.

Avenue Q – Puppet Rod vs. Howie Michael Smith singing a re-written “You’re nothing without me” from City of Angels (one of my all time favorite show tunes), only to be interrupted by the adorable Johnny Tartaglia (full disclosure, I was the GM on the original off-Broadway production and Johnny is one of the nicest, cutest most lovable people I have ever met or worked with).

Billy Elliott – the young ballerinas in the cast being joined by 105 year old Ziegfeld Follies dancer Doris Eaton Travis).

Tovah Feldshuh and Joan Allen (two of many masters of ceremonies) who were beyond funny.

The dashing Jeremy Irons being charming and witty during the final awards – someone should be booking him now to host a gala. His self-effacing humor was brilliant.

If you weren’t there you missed a wonderfully fun afternoon – even if there were a lot of Liza references and almost every skit parodied Patty LuPone’s on-stage rant. If you were at today (or yesterday), the title of the blog makes perfect sense…

(Fine – for those who weren’t there the Bonnet dancers did their own version of Beyonce’s hit – All the Singles Ladies, after declaring Seth Rudetsky Broadway’s Sasha Fierce.)

Michael Wilson, Hartford Stage

2009-04-28T19:25:00.002-04:00

Michael Wilson knows what he likes - AMERICAN THEATRE magazine.

Frank Rizzo interviews Hartford Stage's Michael Wilson, who is one of the most interesting artistic directors out there.

Wilson on undertaking the nine play Horton Foote Orphans Cycle: "It screws courage to purpose in the not-for-profit, professional theatre to take on an endeavor such as this. It clarifies why we are vital and necessary."

Couldn't agree with him more.

Bring it to scale

2009-04-28T07:23:00.001-04:00

Bridgespan has released a new report about bringing organizations to scale. Organization replication and scale is something we tend to forget about when it comes to the arts. But isn’t the first question we should ask - what is the “right-size” for an organization to accomplish its mission?

The Bridgespan report notes some key challenges for nonprofits in determining and fulfilling scale:

Distinguishing promising programs from proven ones is complicated, costly and essential. Many social service organizations have little if any evidence of their programs’ efficacy. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t producing results. But it does mean we cannot say for certain that they do.
Scaling requires rethinking traditional patterns of funding. If we want to make a pervasive impact on our nation’s most difficult problems, we are talking about supporting fewer organizations with larger sums of money. Concentrating resources on a few organizations is rarely how money flows today.
Scaling a nonprofit’s programs without investing in its capacity is a recipe for failure. Building organizational and human capacity – putting in place the strategy, systems and, above all else, the right people in the right jobs to convert money into results – is as important a factor in bringing a program successfully to scale as the money itself.
Ongoing research, evaluation and performance measurement are imperative as an organization scales. Put simply, there is no other way to ensure that even a well-funded program with proven outcomes will be expanded and sustained. A good idea absent its execution is in fact not a good idea at all.

Last summer at Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers, we spent a lot of time talking about scale. This was the first time I really fully explored the concept in terms of the arts and in particular theatre. In the post, I pointed out four strategies in terms of scale.

1. Get support for fixed costs (and maybe semi-variable costs), and have variable (and maybe or semi-variable) costs covered by earned income.
2. Franchise.
3. Engage in partnerships (or even possibly mergers).
4. Create a subsidiary of a commercial business.

Shouldn’t successful organizations and programs be replicated? What would bringing it to scale mean for theatre? Can we "franchise?" Aren’t co-productions, touring, or moving a show be a type of franchising in the theatre? Certainly education programs are replicated – it happens naturally more often than not without a strategic plan, but why not plan to replicate and take certain ideas for programming to scale. In a way the NEA Big Read program is doing exactly that.

When talking about funding models and whether theatre’s should be saved, if we can talk replication, we have to take mergers under consideration. For some reason in the arts, mergers are often interpreted as failures. But consolidation, restructuring, and resource-sharing can be VERY effective for theatre organizations and individual productions, so why not out-right mergers? Certainly in terms of scale it may make sense for organizations and the community.

We certainly are seeing a form of mergers in co-productions and new play development. Adrian Ellis wrote in the Art Newspaper that this would be one of the three ways to compensate for the losses in philanthropic, endowment and visitor incomes for museums, “what museums accept they cannot do alone, they will explore doing together more thoroughly and earnestly than in the past: collection sharing, joint acquisitions, pooling conservation resources, and pooling curatorial appointments.”

Without question determining scale is difficult and requires significant examination, but it seems to be an essential step which we don’t take enough time to address and plan.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

Key Issues facing the nonprofit theatre industry (a top ten list)

2009-04-27T07:00:00.000-04:00

Issue One: The business model is broken (if it ever worked). We need a new definition of fiscal health and sustainability based on individual organizations needs.

Theaters across the US are acknowledging that the traditional nonprofit theatre model is broken (60% earned/40% contributed). For many structural deficits have become the norm rather than the exception.

Other Earned Income resources can be explored but must not pull the theatre off mission. Enhancement income can be raised from aggressive new play development and active exploration within the industry. Although this is a somewhat unpredictable source of income when done under the right circumstances it can be very helpful in offsetting expenses. When done for the wrong reasons (read – for the money) it can be devastating. Co-Productions are another performance related income stream. Similar to enhancement income, the partnership is as important as the income source. Many Education Programs generate significant revenue through participant fees, vendor agreements with academic institutions, or corporate training programs. Real estate acquisition and utilization can be a revenue source for many organizations.

Rising Production costs must be reasonably contained, however, eventually many theatres might have to go through a certain amount of correction on their production expenses if they are “living beyond their means.” Programming, fund-raising and administrative needs of companies need to be assessed regularly.

Theatres need to address contributed revenue across the board – annual campaigns, specialized campaigns, and reserves/endowment. Alternatives to traditional endowments will need to be explored. Working capital must be addressed.

We must assess our governance structures and make sure there is balance between board, artistic and managing leadership. Too often healthy discussions become tyrannical demands by one or two of the partners.

Issue Two: Many of our mission statements have become interchangeable.

Writing missions by committee has watered down many theatres’ missions. Consensus has become a compromise to mediocrity. Organizational values are sometimes difficult to identify and in a few cases have been lost to the whim of leadership changes and egos. We must return to missions that address a need. Why do we have mission statements in the first place? We need a purpose. We have to have an identity right? A uniqueness? A reason our community needs us? We have to use our resources and capabilities to fill some social need. We need goals to measure our impact against!

Issue Three: We have lost our relevancy within our communities.

The first two issues have created the most challenging and threatening issue of all. Several organizations have veered away from their original mission and become increasingly irrelevant. Theatre has become about making the safe choice. We shy away from artistic risks over concerns for finances – just when we should be taking the greatest risks with our work. We aren’t spending enough time getting to know our constituencies so aren’t picking work that matters to them. We must live up to the responsibilities we have to our community.

Issue Four: We aren’t investing enough in new kinds of theatre – the evolution of the form.

Theatre has a bad tendency of being behind the times, we must explore how we use new technologies, environmental theatre and challenge the definition of the theatre or new forms will evolve without us.

Issue Five: We should partner more often with other arts organizations or social service organizations.

We must identify mutually beneficial partnerships and eliminate those that drain resources. Natural partnerships have formed with other theatres and some arts organizations, but we must actively pursue new bonds and relationships that allow us to share resources and fund our expenses.

Issue Six: We don’t do enough for families.

As members of a community, we must do more for families. In a world where group experiences are becoming more and more virtual we must provide programming that brings families together under our roof to experience live storytelling. We must make theatre-goers. If you haven’t experienced something you will never miss it. We need to provide flexible services and scheduling to parents as well as provide the tools with which to explore theatre together with their children. We need to have programming that reaches audiences of all ages focusing on the major transition periods.

Issue Seven: We need to make theater more accessible.

Programs that lower ticket prices must be created so that more people can see shows. We have marginalized much of the theatre-going experience to the affluent. Of course not all programming will be accessible to everyone (that is unfortunately inherent in the arts structure). But we have reached a point of imbalance. A correction is essential to remain relevant, to serve most missions, and to keep theatre alive.

Issue Eight: We need to build theater’s Audience Base.

We must create participatory experiences beyond productions. Education programs, outreach programs, audience development programs – whatever you want to call them, must be at the center of the organization along with productions. We cannot afford for them to remain or become satellites to production. When all of the information in the world is available in a few keystrokes in a google search, we must feed the desire for deeper, more qualitative, more educational experiences. We have to listen to our audiences, create a dialogue, and create forums for ideas to be expressed. We have to work as diligently on the relationship with the audience as we work on producing the work. We must speak their language and use their communication tools.

Issue Nine: We need to build theater’s Donor Base.

We must work with the entire nonprofit community to stop complete marginalization of the arts. We must finally create a multi-layer argument regarding the value of the arts. We must stop the competition and aggression towards other arts organizations. Again, we must listen to our donors and create loyalty and generosity that is based on something more than a rewards system for patrons.

Issues Ten: We must empower and invest in our staffs.

Without committed and seasoned staffs we will not achieve any of our goals. We need the staffs of organizations to drive programming and ALL activities of the of the organization in partnership with the board to achieve appropriate growth, long-term strategic goals and the necessary fund-raising to sustain the organization. We need to invest in continuing education for our staffs. We must break the cycle of short-term employment and increase staff retention.

As with any list about an entire industry, of course there are folks working on these issues. Please share what you are doing! Learning from one another and working together is the only way to address these issues industry-wide!

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

Recent news worth reading!

2009-04-26T21:52:00.002-04:00

Someone asked me for a list of the articles that I either tweeted about or posted to Facebook. So I thought on Sunday nights, I would send out the links of things that caught my eye during the week. Let me know if you found something I should read! If you are on Twitter please follow me: JodiSC.

Corporate philanthropy at risk amid recession http://www.abc.net.au/news/

WMA and Endeavor are one. http://u.nu/6wk

http://u.nu/76j America's most promising Social Entrepreneurs - Business Week

Fewer Donations, Shrinking Assets Force Nonprofits to Get Fiscally Creative http://bit.ly/5mb6H

More Family Foundations Transferring Assets to Donor-Advised Funds http://bit.ly/PhjUG

NPR For Downsized Actors, Performance Anxiety Looms http://tinyurl.com/da529s

WSJ America's Newest Profession: Bloggers for Hire http://tinyurl.com/de99vh

WNYC Revives Radio Drama http://viigo.im/nB4

Race an Issue in Wilson Play, and in Its Production NY TIMES http://tinyurl.com/dg6sv5

Nonprofits urged to be more open http://viigo.im/mXb

White House Social Innovation Office to Have Three Goals http://tinyurl.com/dkodn6

Nonprofits strained to breaking point by recession http://viigo.im/mWW

Board Eats Endowment, Gloom Deepens at City Opera: Commentary http://tinyurl.com/cz6btn BLOOMBERG

Artists vs. Blight - WSJ - will Cleveland be the next artistic center, can artists save an entire city? http://tinyurl.com/dlw5w6

Staff cuts loom for nonprofit groups - Philanthropy Journal http://viigo.im/lDE

Off B-way packs them in (but it's not enough for most to make up contributed losses) CRAINS NY http://tinyurl.com/c7ydq2

How to Sell a Nanny, a Mermaid and a Lion NY TIMES http://tinyurl.com/c9w7an

City Opera Taps Into Endowment NY TIMES http://tinyurl.com/cw427k

More nonprofits engage in mergers for survival BOSTON GLOBE http://tinyurl.com/cqaepu

Hiring freeze spreads - VARIETY http://tinyurl.com/damkmu

List of Bloggers who attended the first Theater Bloggers Social

2009-04-25T15:48:00.001-04:00

Will be adding these to their own special blog roll but here they are:

www.creatingtheater.com

www.pataphysicalscience.blogspot.com

www.me2ism.blogspot.com

www.ccaggiano.typepad.com

www.zackcalhoon.blogspot.com

www.off-stage-right.com

www.corinescorner.com

www.theatreaficionado.blogspot.com

www.theproducersperspective.com

www.ryanjdavis.blogspot.com

www.JeremysGreenRoom.com

www.thedjf.blogspot.com

www.broadwaybullet.com

www.onenycstagehand.blogspot.com

www.lezbehonest.tumblr.com

www.stagebuzz.com

www.theclydefitchreport.com

www.justshowstogoyou.com

www.broadwaystars.com

www.ushernonsense.com

www.stagerush.blogspot.com

www.thatsoundscool.blogspot.com

www.sarahbsadventures.blogspot.com

www.oneproducerinthecity.com

www.adaumbellesquest.com

www.aislesay.com

www.tynansanger.com

www.BroadwayAbridged.com

www.kimweild.com

Audience and Donor Types - are you a tag-a-long or loyalist?

2009-04-25T08:36:00.002-04:00

Whether you are talking about donor or audience members there are some general types – motivations - that apply (as with all things in life). It is important for every show or in the case of institutions, every season and community, to be analyzed to see which of these types may be predisposed to attending a performance or making a donation.

Type: Preview Chasers (always try to attend prior to a shows opening)

Subtype: Those looking for a cheap ticket. This is pretty self explanatory. Lots or papering services customers here.
Subtype: Those looking to be the first one in their social group to see a show. This group is a bit savvier and tends to attend a show late in previews – often targeting the press nights. These group contains the a lot of theater aficionados – they want to express their thoughts on a show rather than having their opinions shaped by reviews. They see most of what plays on and off Broadway. They are inclined to purchase memberships or subscriptions to nonprofits. This group has sub-subtypes - new plays, musicals and classics. This is probably one of the smallest groups but the most cherished for word of mouth. Most of the theatrical blogger movement comes from this group.
Subtype: Those looking for a train wreck. There are people who simply want to see if something will go wrong, usually on a large musical or star studded straight play. I know plenty of people who rushed to see if Katie Holmes would be able to project enough to fill a theatre, let alone create a character on stage. This group is particularly happy when a whole show gets branded a train wreck – Dance with the Vampires. They spend a lot of time on sites like www.allthatchat.com. Sad to say that this group has a lot of (bitter) industry members in it.

Type: Review Chasers (purchase based on good reviews from critic(s) they trust – most often, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.)

Subtype: Those looking only for Raves in major periodicals. No mixed reviews for them. These folks show by the adjective or quote ad. They are looking for only the hot shows. They may subscribe to a nonprofit company that has a strong streak of successful shows – to make sure they get in with good seats, but without a good review they simply let the tickets go to deadwood. This group also has sub-subtypes for Bway, off-Bway, off-off, cabaret, etc.
Subtype: Those looking for easy access. This group more or less lets the show find them. They don’t seek out the show, but they sample one when they happen upon a good review. They are casual theater-goers who will risk a mixed review if it has the show has an interesting hook – an artist they like, a very familiar title, or a last minute purchase

Type: Event Lovers (if there is a star, a limited run, a British import – or better yet all three – this group is there)

Subtype: Those looking for stars. Reviews or venue doesn’t necessarily matter. If there is a famous person on stage, they are in the audience (and usually at the back stage door). Just think of the advance from Three Days of Rain with Julia Roberts.
Subtype: Those looking for a once in a lifetime experience. This group went for the marathon of Coast of Utopia or flock to BAM to see the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Subtype: Those looking for a party. Through a gala or benefit and they are there.

Type: Loyalists

Subtype: Those looking for a relationship with an institution. The ever-shrinking subscriber population.
Subtype: Those looking to see everything a certain artist does. If artist X is in or wrote it, these fans are there.

Type: Knowledge Seekers

Subtype: Those looking for an exploration of a subject or time period.
Subtype: Those looking for a learning component. This group loves partnership programs - talk-backs, behind the scenes workshops, book clubs, symposiums, related programming from other art-forms, etc.

Type: Tag-a-longs

Subtype: Those who were looking to make someone happy. The devoted partner or friend who puts up with a night in the theatre (usually in exchange for something else – a night at the symphony or a baseball game).
Subtype: Those looking for a way out. Someone forced them to come. We all have seen these folks. No matter how good the show is they are shifting in their seats and doing a really crappy job of hiding the fact that they are checking their email on the blackberry or I-phone

Type: Gatherers

Subtype: Those looking for a large group experience. Whether it is a church group or club, their attendance is based on a gathering of peers.
Subtype: Those looking for a social experience. Whether they attend wine-tastings, ladies night, singles nights, young professionals night – you get the gist.
Subtype: Those looking for social-standing. These folks want to be seen, be part of the crowd – especially opening night.

Of course a gatherer looking for a social experience might be at the show with a tag-a-long looking for a way out or a loyalist could be looking to be the first one to see a show. There are infinite combinations of these types and subtypes among individuals, pairs or groups. The difficult choice that one must make for each show or season is how to communicate before, during and after a “transaction” with different types and subtypes of audience members and donors. And as with anything in life, you can never please everybody and you may not be able to hit every type on every show.

For example, let’s say a show has a well known artist attached to it perhaps advertising can be either very bold or viral and you can reach several types. But to get those review chasers you will have to use quote ads in the major publications. Every night you will have Tag-a-longs, at least you can make sure they have a pleasant customer experience, so that they aren’t so active in looking for a way out.

We can drill down even further on these types and subtypes and depending on you ability and budget to do niche marketing it can be very useful. No matter what our budget is or what our staff capacity is, we have to get better at have a handful of messages for each show. Unfortunately, many nonprofits have not mastered this as well as the commercial sector. It is common for me to get a subscription brochure and postcard in the mail with the exact same language. That language is usually word for word in all materials from press releases to e-blasts to show posters in the lobby. Of course repetition is good but replication is boring. A little tweaking to specific types can go a long, long way!

Theatre Bloggers’ Social

2009-04-24T19:35:00.001-04:00

Last (Thursday) night, Ken Davenport (www.producerperspective.com) hosted a theatre bloggers’ social. I got there a bit late but I still had time to “social.” It was great to see old friends, Jeremy Dobrish and Jill Duboff. Surprising and fun to see fellow Texas Wesleyan University grad, Meredith Lucio. There were about 30 people there – and that was the tip of the iceberg of theatre bloggers in NYC from what I gather.

There was a some interesting discussion around the power of the theatre blogosphere. It was a very fun night with some tips on blogging that I spent last night toying with (anyone playing with www.tumblr.com?).

I did find it very interesting that with the exception of a few (Davenport’s and Leonard Jacob’s Clyde Fitch Report) all of the bloggers dealt primarily with reviews or feature stories. I was the only blogger that had a focus that included nonprofit theatre. I know there have to be more nonprofit folks in the NYC area who are blogging about theatre – so where are you guys?

It did give me some new ideas that I am going to implement over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for some new features to come to Off Stage Right!

A smart e-blast…

2009-04-24T08:44:00.001-04:00

Maybe I am late to the party, but I was very impressed with the message I got on facebook from a couple of friends.

Give the gift of great theater - go to www.reasonstobepretty.com/share and send a customized e-blast to your friends. It's that simple.

I was struck by not only the simplicity of this but the pure genius of getting instant word of mouth from a trusted source. This is the third example I have found/discussed that asks an audience member to participate directly in the marketing of a show. Long Wharf Theatre puts postcards in their lobby and asks audience members to address them and return them to the box office to be mailed – a “wish you were here” campaign and I have been having several conversations about encouraging audience members to tweet about shows during intermission or after a show.

Of course the one problem with the e-blast campaign is that it is not immediate. I have two friends performing in the show, worked at the theatre it was originally produced at, know most of the production team and producing team, and I LOVED the show off-Broadway, yet, I still haven’t made my own e-blast up. Now I could tell you that I am seeing the show May 2, and I was waiting until then to send it out, but it would be a bit of a lie. Frankly, I have been touting the show left and right on facebook and twitter – to the point that many friends thought I was working on it. Unfortunately even though I see the box office grosses each week, so I know that I should have sent the blast the minute I got the message, the message itself didn’t imply any urgency to me.

This is the issue with all three ideas. If you are going to ask the customer to work for on your behalf, you need to make them feel needed. Some how you have to get them to know that if they loved the show, they HAVE to tell everyone they know or the show won’t be around for them to see or their friends will miss out on something. In the case of the Reasons e-blast you are asking them to take the time to type up to fifty emails. That is a lot of work and time commitment (at least suggest they copy paste them too). I have to wonder if it would have been a good idea to have hire a few people to stand outside the theatre at the end of the show with postcards with the link on them – with a message that implied “save this show.”

For the postcards, what if they were handed out with the programs and the pre-show announcement asked people to turn them into the box office (and said where they could pick up more in the lobby).

Certainly we can also think of ways to ask audiences to tweet their thoughts on the show through encouragement in announcements – I noticed at least one or two nonprofits must be using computers in their lobbies to send out tweets of audience responses on their institution’s twitter account.

After all if I got an email, postcard or tweet from someone whose opinion I trusted, I would check out the show. It certainly seems worth the cost of a bit of manpower to make it happen.

I have to go now – I have an e-blast to send out through www.reasonstobepretty.com/share. In case I don’t paste your email in. TRUST ME GO AND SEE THIS SHOW. Don’t wait, buy your tickets now.

Jeremy’s Green Room

2009-04-24T01:53:00.000-04:00

So if you haven’t checked it out – I wanted to recommend Jeremy Dobrish’s new site. I ran into Jeremy at the first Theatre Blogger’s Social. He is a wonderful director/playwright. He is working on his blog with one of my absolute favorite sound designers and dear friend – the one and only Jill B.C. Duboff. In addition to blogging, he has added video interviews (one with the incomparable Lorenzo Pisoni). His latest post deals with all the types (and subtypes) of people working in the theatre.

His post sparked some thoughts on the types of people who that fill our audiences and donor circles. So, go check out the Jeremy’s Greenroom – especially Lorenzo’s interview and Roslyn Coleman’s upcoming interview, and I will go write up a post looking at the types of people we need to make a play move from rehearsals to performances.

Another Twitter battle in the making…Pogue vs. Marshelak

2009-04-22T16:59:00.001-04:00

So, David Pogue whose column I read in the Times and have probably since he started it, had a great idea. He is a twitter user @Pogue, and tends to send out questions or thoughts of the day as Tweets. His idea was a book of Twitter questions and answers – whole post below because it is short.

The World According to Twitter by David Pogue

It all started with a live demo of Twitter.

During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?”

Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds. In fact, the one-liners rained in for days:

I used to work at an orange juice factory, but they canned me because I couldn’t concentrate. (@alancshaw)

She was only a moonshiner’s daughter, but I loved her still. (@matthewdooley)

Two TV installers met on a roof and fell in love. The wedding ceremony wasn’t so great... but wow, the reception! (@marqueO)

Man, this was AMAZING! Real-time feedback from the masses!

Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever (click here to read).

Then came my call for the best advice your parents ever gave you. This time, there was more than humor; there was practical information and real emotion, too:

Son, there’s a time and a place for everything. It’s called college. (@BarrSteve)

Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom. (@_hillary)

Don’t let school get in the way of your education. (@Navesink)

If you caught a fish every time you went fishing, it’d be called catching. (@BruceTurkel)

If you buy the dress, the occasion will arise. (@haejinshin)

If someone offers you a breath mint—take it. (@dsr)

Two eyes, two ears, one mouth. Use them proportionally. (@pcz)

If at first you don’t succeed, we’ll still love you. (@zwb)

That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of these responses, written by my 200,000 followers.

Every night for the next few weeks, I’ll pose another question on Twitter. For example:

What’s your greatest regret?

Sum up your life story in six words.

Tell us about your wedding proposal.

What’s the best toast you ever heard?

What’s the best Internet joke you ever got emailed?

Anyone seen any good bumper stickers lately?

Tell us about a Brush with Greatness (a celebrity encounter).

What was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you?

Write a haiku about your childhood.

Send me your best anagram of a current famous person’s name.

Each two-page spread of the book will contain the best of your responses to a single question.

“The World According to Twitter” will be a charming, irresistible, extremely hilarious little book, a book that couldn’t be written in any other way.

If I publish one of your tweets, I’ll send you a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally. I’ll also credit your response in the book, using your Twitter name. (Don’t come crying to me if you suddenly pick up hundreds of new followers!)

So that’s it: a challenge, a ride, a crazy experiment.

Let the communal book-writing begin!

Now I thought this was a grand idea and that Pogue was the perfect person to write it as his field is well – technology. But today, he tweeted the following post by Russ Marshaek (whose post in fairness I will put in its entirety as well.

@heywritemybookforme

April 22, 2009 at 3:41 pm by Russ Marshalek in Books, Pop Culture

Forget the Kindle vs. paper books debate — apparently the days of actually “writing” a “book” are slowly coming to an end. You know, craft, art, substance(s), the actual minutia that all go into making a book a piece of work — it’s all becoming as outdated as banks crash, attention spans diminish, and robots begin serving us dinner in capsule form (OK, that last one won’t happen ’til 2011). In this new cultural landscape, we will need leaders, like the Jonas Brothers, to rise up and, with a firm hand, guide us to new levels of social media interactivity. Fortunately David Pogue, New York Times columnist and author of many books that teach your grandmother how to check e-mail on her eMac, is here to save us via his forthcoming The World According To Twitter.

From the blog of Pogue (David Pogue, not the Pogues the band, because you know very well that I’d heap high praise on anything penned by Shane MacGowan):

It all started with a live demo of Twitter. During a talk, I was trying to demonstrate the real-time nature of Twitter. On stage, I typed: “Anyone got a pun that can fit in 140 characters?” Your responses started flowing within 10 seconds….

Wait, wait, dear Culture Surfer reader, don’t check out yet, it gets better (in the way that “better” means “worse”):

Next, I posted a picture of a squirrel in my yard, and asked for captions. You turned out to be the wittiest caption writers ever!

(Oh, sorry, I added that exclamation point up there. It just needed it, didn’t it?)

That was it. I knew my mission in life: to compile and edit a whole book of (Twitter) responses, written by my 200,000 followers.

In today’s collapsing publishing landscape this book screams both timely and vital. I’ll be greatly looking forward to Pogue’s well-thought-out treatise on Friendster soon!

No, really, all snark aside, this sort of attempt at an of-the-minute cash-grab really irks me. While publishers, authors and other various incidental folk in the book business are actually working, diligently and full of heart, to discover what it’s going to take to turn the sinking ship of books around, Pogue’s trying to ramp up excitement for 200 pages of @SomeGuy tweeting “hey I really like dogs.”

And speaking of @someguy — if you, lucky you, end up being selected to be a part of Pogue’s scam project, you certainly get compensated, right?

Of course you do. Per Pogue himself, he’ll send you “a free copy of the book, inscribed to you personally.”

Oh, wow, lucky day!

Meanwhile, he’ll certainly be charging at least $19.95 for the book.

Also, while Twitter may be the super-hot “this is going to save the world as soon as we figure out how to use it” topic on the tip of many a CEO’s tongue … well, that’s it exactly. In a matter of time, Twitter will be to to some new social network what Myspace now is to Facebook. Trying to document any social network, in any way, via printed text, reminds me of when I, as an undergrad, was paid far too much money to copy write for what was aiming to be the “first printed guide to web sites” — since, you know, websites tend to stay around forever.

I don’t think it ever actually took off the ground. Imagine that.

Anyway, it saddens me when I can genuinely say that I prefer Oprah and Ashton Kutcher’s manipulation of Twitter for their own gains over David Pogue’s “you guys can do my job for me and I’ll insert the hot social network of the moment into it to make it timely” approach, but I do. I mean, Oprah’s like everyone’s crazy aunt, so she’s forgiven to being late to the party.

Also, at least Oprah isn’t asking her Twitter followers to write a book for her.

Now here is my question – David seems to me to have presented an exciting idea that could result in a great book. Russ seems to be a bit judgmental. After all, it’s almost all pop culture of the moment? And a lot of great art has been created in the moment. Would Russ hate improv or poetry slams I wonder?

Relationships!

2009-04-22T09:17:00.001-04:00

I don’t care about the economy there are some things we can’t afford not to do! We can’t afford to stop communicating or planning during the downturn. Now is the time to build/strengthen relationships.

I was talking to a development director the other day who was saying that she didn’t even want to call individual donors or foundations directors most days because of the economy. After lifting my jaw off the floor, I went into a passionate rant about how now more that ever it was important to strengthen relationships and build new ones. Economy be damned here are five quick tips you can do to make sure you don’t lose donors during the downturn and more importantly you still keep attracting new donors!

1. Take a donor out for coffee. Not lunch, not dinner – coffee. Conservative cost and much easier to schedule. It is also easier to talk over a cup of coffee rather than dealing with ordering and eating.

2. Make it clear that you are there to talk about your relationship and your organization not necessarily to make an ask. Let them know that you have been wanting to build a relationship with them – a LONG term one.

3. Don’t rule out making an ask. A major donor once told me the worst thing you can do is ask for too little from a donor. It is insulting. If you ask for too much it is a compliment that you think they have that kind of money. Same philosophy applies in downturn. If you stop asking or ask for too small of an amount you could very likely be insulting the donor. Perhaps that particular person isn’t experiencing any particular issues or perhaps he or she doesn’t want folks to know they are experiencing problems.

4. Be completely honest about the state of your organization, but walk the middle line. Don’t be overly optimistic or too pessimistic. Share action steps that have worked and share your concerns. Perhaps the donor has a perspective that could be enlightening.

5. Follow-up!

Save money on employee benefits (and increase your coverage)!

2009-04-21T23:41:00.001-04:00

Ken Davenport wrote a post last week about the outrageous costs of healthcare on commercial shows. It created a lot of conversations in the blogosphere and beyond. At last night’s American Theatre Magazine Benefit, I spoke to several people who were in the process of trying to cut expenses and worried about staff retention. Late last month I had sent the below email to a few close friends, several who have taken action and will be seeing some savings coming their way! So recent conversations made me think I should just put it up here for the world to see.

During these trying times I have been talking with many of you about how to cut expenses, reward employees and retain what meager staffs we have at nonprofit theatres. It keeps me up at night. While complaining to my dear friend Greg Martin about the state of theatre in general he offered to help in any way that he can. So I am teaming up with him to get the word out that you can sometimes accomplish all three. And remember as you read this there is no charge for any of his company’s services. It doesn’t matter where you are located or what type of business you run!

Now, first question who the heck is he? Greg runs Manchester Benefits – a full service broker for health, disability, and life insurance benefits. 10 years ago, when I was at MCC Theater I became Greg’s first client when he started the company. I have used Manchester Benefits at EVERY company I have been at since (and they all continue to use him to this day) and have recommended him to several other organizations since started working with him. He is working with everyone from ART-NY to NYTW to TDF to HERE. He can help any organization of any size – for profit or nonprofit.

Second question how can he help? We all know dealing with benefits for our employees is a difficult process. Greg is often able to work out a better set of benefits than the employees had before (dental, optical, long term disability) and he works with you on what is affordable. I have always been conscious of multiple bids and Greg has always found the best coverage for what the organization can or can’t afford.

Third question, why him over any other broker – aren’t they all the same? Actually they really aren’t all the same. At three organizations, I inherited a different broker and none of them showed the caring or the customer support that Greg does. Greg takes time to meet with your employees and explain the coverage to them. His office when notified will follow a claim from start to finish. Those of you who know me, know I am pretty accident prone, well, last time I was at the ER, I emailed Greg to let him know, and he followed up immediately to make sure everything that was done was covered and I didn’t have to do a thing. He actually encourages clients to include his staff and him in the process.

Fourth question, why does he do it? Frankly, he is just a really great guy who cares about people. He is actually passionate about insurance coverage and employee benefits (I know crazy, huh?). For example, I once complained to Greg about how none of our off-Broadway electricians and carpenters had insurance coverage because they couldn’t afford it and weren’t full-time at any theatres. He actually went out and started a program for them to get emergency coverage at an affordable rate.

Fifth and final question, why does this seem just too good to be true? Well, we are so used to being treated as second class citizens by most vendors. Sad but true. So stand up for yourself and your employees and demand a little more and call me and I will put you in touch with him immediately or just call him (212) 986-9339 x 114. If nothing else you can just let him review your current coverage – no strings attached to see if he can help you. Trust me you won’t regret it. Check around with other companies that use him and you will see how much they adore him.

Embrace Technology!?!

2009-04-21T08:29:00.005-04:00

The Wall Street Journal featured a wonderful take on digital books by Steve Johnson, that is both realistic about embracing technological advances and fascinating about exploring the possible positive advances to the literary form (and some of the negatives). How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write also is a perfect example of the kind of thinking we in theatre should be doing about integrating technology further into the art form and what are some positive results we can achieve in the digital age.

I find it much easier to think of the wonderful possibilities to enhance and improve the production process. Dramaturgical possibilities are endless. The support for collaboration is obvious. The impact that technology has had on lighting, sound, etc is apparent, but I imagine it is the tip of the iceberg. We talk a lot about the marketing and social media implications - certainly areas we haven't even begun to dig into, but I would also love to hear more about how people are integrating technology into the creative and collabortive process (other than the very real question - how did we ever make it through tech without the Internet?).

What I find interesting is that in Johnson's article the fundamentals of the art form are not lost. In fact several of his predictions would require a tremendous amount of precision and decisiveness in the writing process. In many ways, this holds true the technology in theatre. Digital control of lighting instruments certainly makes dimmer check easier (among other things), but it doesn't eliminate the fundamental knowledge a designer must have about light interacting with space, color, costumes, and actors.

To think about the implications to performance or performance delivery (can't think of a better word despite how cold distribution or delivery feel) is, at first, much scarier. The idea of theatre not being about gathering people in one space for a performance is challenging to imagine. Opera and dance are using simulcast and recorded performances at movie theatres and economically these are seemingly paying off. However, the visceral experience of being in the same room with the artists can't be replaced. Can it? Should it? How/can we enhance the performance experience by utilizing technology? These might be some of the most important conversations to be had about the art of theatre.

I have repeatedly stated since starting this blog that keeping theatre we create relevant and current is key to everything from community engagement to survival. Embracing technology and looking for the opportunities it may bring could be a key tool to these endeavors. It doesn't have to be a obstacle or hindrance.

Mike Daisey

2009-04-20T10:28:00.002-04:00

So for the last year or so I have missed each opportunity I had to see Mike Daisey - How Theatre Failed America. I had read the essay that originally inspired it, and I found that there were things I agreed with and things I didn't. Missing the performance didn't really bother much until now. Reading Todd Olsen's (AD from American Stage Theatre Company in Tampa Bay) open letter to Daisey's response has left me quite frustrated with myself that I didn't make time to see the show when it was a the Public (I was in tech and in a run for a show where I thought the actors needed me around during the performances - but still I could have slipped away one night), or I could have missed whatever it was I did at the TCG conference instead of seeing the performance.

I am a bit sad because I feel that some of his frustrations are things I have posted about and have been trying to solve - espeically RELEVANCE in theatre today. But more so, because I think I would love to see his show and have a discussion with him about it - I am sure we would find plenty of things to agree upon, however, more importantly I think the heathly debate where our opinons might diverge would be informative and thought provoking.

Mike - since I assume you have a google alert going or at least I hope you do - I look forward to catching the show and following you more closely. Sorry it took me so long. I also look forward to agreeing and disagreeing on varying points! Whatever side folks find themselves on, it is a conversation we should be having.

No matter where you stand, you should read the Olsen letter and response here.

Regional - the word

2009-04-18T08:23:00.004-04:00

David Dower at the New Play Blog (Is "Regional" A Pejorative Term?) examines my post, Why I hate REGIONAL theatre, which was about the word "REGIONAL" and some of the negativity attached to the word within the theatre community. David suggests I embrace my inner regional-ness (although I think we are more on the same page than David's post implies).

As someone who USED to work in New York and similar to David, I chose to leave the City so I could have a certain kind of life I couldn't get in New York (have a yard, be able to garden, and live near New York but not in it). I also wanted to see more clearly the impact of the work I was doing. I started out in my career in Texas working in regional theatres while going to school and then worked in North Carolina as an Outreach Director for a multi-arts organization, so I wanted to create great work like I did for 10 years in NYC, but be able to know the folks that were in the audience and my community more intimately.

In my post, I was lamenting that the term "regional" has become "pejorative" to many in the industry – especially the New York marketplace (which does consider itself center) – and that as David himself points out, in a really wonderful way (love the term) that some theatres are acting as "satellites" to several centers.

As I said late in the post to MANY (not myself) the word "regional….has come to mean something less than … agents don't want their clients doing 'regional' theatre. But in reality isn't most of what is being done in New York on commercial stages coming directly through the nurturing and development of these so-called 'lesser' regions… "

This is why I now find myself cringing when the word is used. I hear the negativity or worse the self-depreciation that is often underlying. I have been surprised by who I have heard this from including often the folks who work at regional theatres. This wasn't the intention of most of the artists who built these theatres from the ground up in communities across the country as the quotes in my post from Joe Dowling, who was quoting Tyrone Guthrie stated and as David Dower reiterated beautifully when he said…

I think what people are reacting to, fundamentally, in this call to re-regionalize the regional theater, is a sense that many regional theaters, those which established the movement and those which followed to sustain and build on it, have somehow become more satellites than regions. That they are, as Jodi implies and many others assert directly, now orbiting the New York marketplace like moons, reflecting its heat but generating none of their own. I hear from artists, ensembles, and small producers all over the country (including that micro-region: Manhattan) that they feel we're in a period where, to paraphrase one of the responders at the Humana Convening, "we're shipping the same ten plays around the country and every theater's season looks more alike than distinct." This sentiment is particularly acute among new play practitioners, whether playwrights, play labs, ensembles, or new play producers. Of course this is overly general. And in the earlier post I started to try to spotlight examples where different models and artistic priorities hold sway. But there's no denying it's a widely held and frequently expressed frustration.

I would add that unfortunately the economics of producing have added to this homogenized programming at many theatres. Certainly co-productions have become a fiscal life-saver for many companies and for some a necessity, but when a large group of theatres are working together to present a show, naturally their seasons, slowly start to look like each others. (Before anyone thinks I am against working together – I am not, I actually think co-productions have much value beyond an assumed expense savings and should be looked at first for those values).

As I stated in my post, I celebrate the work David was talking about in his post Putting the Regional back in Regional Theatre. I think it is wonderful when local artists are championed, even if they have moved on to other areas. Without regional theatres, there would a drastic decrease in new work and we would eventually have no audiences for theatre. The later can't be valued enough to the entire art form. If you don't ever experience theatre you won't miss it, and without audiences there isn't any theatre, just rehearsals. Most of the amazing work being done in theatre – on stage and off - isn't happening in New York (or London – but let's not even go there) which is why I don't like that the word is used by some in an unfavorable way or the implication that there is a center for others to revolve around. The argument could be stated perhaps in the terms of nonprofit vs. commercial theatre but as David pointed out the negativity does sometime emanate from New York regional theatres – the majority of which never use the word.

I also pointed out our transitory society in my post to illustrate how a theatre can have a lasting and larger impact. David brings up an interesting point that theatre-makers have long been living this life. Unfortunately with the loss of many (the majority) resident companies across the nation, it has created as David states, "the annual march on New York that fans out from the graduation ceremony of nearly every theater training program in the country."

I can agree with David that in definition of the word regional doesn't demand a center.

…the term doesn't so much assume or require there to be a center. If we were talking about satellite theaters, I'd be more convinced there's an implied center of greater importance than its off-shoots. Think of regions more like segments of the brain, "regions" of the brain, and you're closer to the way I have always felt about the term. It takes all of these regions, healthy, communicating well, firing on all cylinders to reach the full capacity of the human body.

However, I wasn't talking about the definition as much as how the word is used by others and the resulting impact of the word. Similarly I think theatre is a great tool for community building, but the word "community" in context with theatre implies non-professional.

I do believe that many people have had a part in some of the negative connotations associated with the word. Perhaps David it is right that it is "self-inflicted." But I would assert that whether there is a center or not, there are some other factors at play in the friction around the word – all surrounding the future life of work whether through publication, other regional productions (including New York) not the organization's work within its community. The factors include: (1) a renewed pride from theatres about creating new work or new interpretations of classic outside of New York, (2) the increasing demand for credit for that work, (3) the lines between commercial and nonprofit theatre being more blurred that ever before, and (4) an increased dependence/pressure for commercial producers (and even New York nonprofits) for regional nonprofit theatres to develop work before it comes to New York. When it comes to this future life for work, I think those who were there in the beginning should be championed!

Most importantly, I think there are so many theatres out there doing so much great work in their local communities/regions that no one should diminish the impact they have locally, nationally and in many cases globally, because of another.

Hopefully all theatres will re-regionalizing (if they need to) to serve its audiences, community and "act locally, think globally," -- a brief summary of David definition and what I have been championing in this blog since the day I started writing it, I just refer to it in terms of mission and community. Post after post, I have said this is key to survival and future sustainability, but I am not sure it will change the negative associations with the word "regional" by others.

So David as you ask – personally, I embrace my regional-ness - as you defined it, however, I still hate the fact that, to many folks out there "regional" still has other meanings that aren't so positive – and I refuse to accept those implications for the theatres I know are making a huge impact on the American theatre, but you are right about us all being on the "bus" together whether the bus is the A Train, a bus, or Metro North.

So from one former New Yorker to another, thanks for the conversation!

Harvard Business Publishing Management Tip of the Day, April 15, 2009

2009-04-16T00:01:00.002-04:00

Great tips and article link below. In times like these we forget how impactful our words can be to our staffs, boards, and other constituencies. These are some good rules to live by!

Harvard Business Publishing Management Tip of the Day:

APRIL 15, 2009

4 Ways to Talk Tough Without Creating Panic

While you may be tempted to use words like "Armageddon" and "disastrous" when talking about your business these days, now is not the time to tell people the sky is falling. In times of crisis, leaders need to choose their words wisely and convey calm and confidence. Think about these four things when addressing your team:

1. Pause before you speak. A well-used pause conveys calm, thoughtfulness, and seriousness. It also gives you time to think before responding.

2. Don't blame. While certain senior managers may be more culpable than others, singling out individuals does not instill faith. Instead of pointing fingers, honestly address the situation and describe a plan of action.

3. Avoid exaggerations. Using words like "catastrophe" and "meltdown" can cause unnecessary panic. To de-escalate tensions, use words like "serious," and "tough" to make your point.

4. Tell it like it is. Tough times demand tough talk and you owe it to your people to be honest and truthful. Don't gloss over serious concerns, but do focus on facts.

Today's Management Tip was adapted from "Cut out the Gloom and Doom talk" by John Baldoni.

5 things to do for your staff today!

2009-04-15T08:26:00.002-04:00

Without a staff an organization is nothing. So take a moment and do something for the wonderful people who work with you today (notice I said with not for).

1. Celebrate a success. It doesn't matter how big or little but take a moment and celebrate an achievement from the past week

2. Eat something together. Order pizza or cupcakes or whatever without reason, but bring everyone together in one room. Eating or snacking together breaks down walls. It creates an environment for casual conversations and bonding.

3. Ban email for the day. Remind people to talk to one another instead of holing up behind cubicle walls.

4. Create a staff "fun" committee. Put a small group of people in charge of creating staff activities that are silly yet fun, and allow for breaks in the 12 hour days we all work at nonprofits.

5. Say "thank you." In an office these two simple words cannot be said enough, and sadly in the mad rush of thing we tend to forget to say them.

Remember, as in life, the little things count as much as the big things - perhaps even more.

Why I hate REGIONAL theatre

2009-04-14T13:13:00.007-04:00

Now that I have your attention.

What I hate is the word "regional" and what it has come to imply and more or less mean.

It seems like every day I find another person talking about "putting the regional back in regional theatre" or "making things local." When I read the folks post (see below links), I have no disagreement with what they are saying so why in the world do I cringe every time someone says the word regional?

I truly believe that it diminishes what our theatres are/should be doing for their communities and the national (and international) impact that this work can have not only the theatre industry but changing the world and making an impact.

I think Joe Dowling , speaking to the 2007 TCG national conference about the Guthrie as a national theatre center, can say it better than I when looking at the productions impact on the field:

The self designation—a national centre for theatre art and theatre education—helps us to articulate the extent of our ambition. We have no desire or indeed opportunity to become a national theatre. But we do see the potential of developing our work so that it continues to have wide local support as well as attracting national attention. We have defined a national center, here in the center of the country as a place to which work will come and from which work will go. I have long resented the notion that theatres like the Guthrie and many others around the country are deemed “regional” as though there were some center to which we all looked with awe. There’s a pejorative implication in the word regional that I reject and I believe currently there is no center for not- for profit theatre in the United States. Yes, New York is a great cultural capital and there are numerous brilliant companies there both for profit and not-for-profit. But essentially if you examine it, it is the center for commercial theatre. And the focus is on Broadway in the exact same way Guthrie, Zeisler and Ray believed a big change was needed. Almost 45 years later I believe it is essential that we begin to change the language by which we are designated. Many other theatres around the country could equally be designated as national centers and that is why we’ve always used the “a” rather than “the.” By changing our focus, by developing a comprehensive program that serves both our local community and influences the national movement we can fulfill the original intention of our founders and create a momentum that will help to define American theatre in the 21st century as we did in the second part of the 20th century.

Now, to be fair - this speech was in the context of introducing his new theatre complex to 800 of his peers. What I think of the new building and how we have spent the last decade building some amazing buildings (however occasionally at the expense of building the organization who is to live in the building) is another topic all together. But I think Joe's core idea that there is no center to the nonprofit theatre movement so therefore how can there be regions is pretty spot on.

In Putting the regional back in regional theatre on the NEA NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT BLOG David Dower simply and beautifully complements several theatre who are giving the stage to hometown playwrights and artists. At A POOR PLAYER, TW Loughlin's Locally Grown and Produced - Art laments the "big business practice" in our industry. In comparing theatre to the food movement in the country he makes some interesting points - especially about the acting pool basically being forced into two markets.

As for what the word "regional" does to minimize the impact we have on our audiences, we have to all agree we live in a transitory world. Most people don't spend their lives in one place anymore. Gone are the days where mom, kids and the grand-kids all lived on the same block (much the detriment of society in some ways), but this means when we are reaching out to audiences in our local community, we are addressing issues of living in this world, we are preparing them to go live in other communities, and hopefully, we are spurring them to action to make the world a better place (hello - think globally, act locally!).

I also think the word regional used in context with a theatre has come "to mean something less than" as Dowling alluded to - agents don't want their clients doing "regional" theatre. But in reality isn't most of what is being done in New York on commercial stages coming directly through the nurturing and development of these so-called "lesser" regions. In my book - if it is good enough to develop and produce the show than it is as good as where the show end up. Just because it cost more to produce it in New York doesn't mean it makes the show any better - and yes I have spent the majority of my career in New York City, so I clearly know the stakes of doing a show in New York and what it can mean. I just don't beleive that commerical productions are any more valid that nonprofit productions and I fear that is exactly what "regional" implies.

[Make sure to also read the follow up post to this Regional - the word.]

Dowling's recounting of the Guthrie's history during that same speech has some good nuggets from our past leaders that some of us may want to pay attention to so here are a few more excerpts:

It was some 47 years ago that three great men of the theatre Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Ray, and Peter Zeisler—a name indeed well known to TCG circles—met in Guthrie’s ancestral home at Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan in Ireland, the place to discuss the profound, and somewhat original then, notion of providing the best in world class theatre to an American audience far from the bright lights and the big budgets of Broadway. They announced their intentions through the good offices of the New York Times and they were somewhat delighted when they had seven cities express an interest in hosting a new repertory company around the country. And so it was in 1960 that managing director Oliver Ray and artistic director Tony Guthrie ventured forth to find a place to plant an artistic garden in the heart of the country. Peter Zeisler stayed back in NY because he was stage managing The Sound of Music. And a small plane brought the crew to Minneapolis/St. Paul. When they stepped on the tarmac, according to Guthrie, "The temperature was 30 degrees below zero and the wind was a bright sharp sword that pierced your bowels through and through." Here they met a steering committee headed by John Cowles Jr. and this committee was determined that they were going to win out over their 6 rivals. And later Guthrie wrote, "We wound up offering our rather runty apple of our artistic mission to the Twin Cities because we wanted to work there. Why? Was it the weather? The people? The river. It was the river, itself, that most charmed and amazed us. It had not yet frozen over and was flowing with a lively sparkle through winding forges that are still beautiful despite being exploited in the interest of trade. Eventually,” Guthrie wrote, "the Twin Cities will realize that their river can be and ought to be a wonderful and life giving amenity. It has taken London 2,000 years even to begin to appreciate this about the Thames. Perhaps it is not unreasonable to expect the Twin Cities will make the most out of the Mississippi in a mere 100."

While it’s widely regarded as one of the flagships of the not-for-profit theatre movement in America the foundation of the Guthrie Theater in 1963 was not, as many of you here know, the beginning of the resident theatre movement in the United States. For some years before our dramatic arrival on the scene, pioneers such as Margot Jones in Dallas and Zelda Fichandler at Arena Stage in Washington among others, had the vision to recognize that if theatre as an art form was to prosper and to thrive throughout the country, it was essential to establish resident organizations in different regions that would serve their own community with a balance between contemporary and classical work. However, the creation of the Guthrie was significantly different from other pioneer theatres, I would argue. Because while the founders of many resident theatres around the country were brave, brilliant and resilient artists, they were mostly young and untried outside their own areas. But Guthrie and his colleagues when they decided to decentralize American theatre and to create a new movement with a different theatrical energy, they were already major figures in New York, and indeed in Guthrie’s case, throughout the world. He was—at that time—the preeminent director in the English speaking world. So inevitably, the fame of Tyrone Guthrie and his original company that included Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Zoë Caldwell and George Grizzard was such that the new institution was seen immediately as the hope of the whole movement.

While the Guthrie has continued to evolve into a major resident institution of vital importance to its own community, it’s clearly not and never could be a national theatre for America. Nor do we ever aspire to such a status. Given the vastness of this country, the geography, the diversity of its culture, a single American national theatre is not a realistic prospect—and in my view not a desirable objective. What the Guthrie Theater has aspired to do is what so many theatres around the country also do and that is reflect back to its own community an awareness of the continuity of human feeling and experience through great dramatic literature, whatever the culture, whatever the century. It’s also been responsible for creating a standard of excellence and of community involvement that has been emulated throughout the country. Quality of life in our community has been enriched beyond measure by the emergence of the Guthrie and the subsequent flowering of a rich theatrical tradition that has become the envy of many cities twice our size.

The founder of our theatre, Tyrone Guthrie, put it very well I believe 40 years ago when he said, “I believe that a theatre where live actors perform to an audience which is there in the flesh before them, will survive all threats from powerfully organized industries which pump pre-fabricated dramas out of cans and blowers and contraptions of one kind or another. It will survive as long as mankind demands to be amused, terrified, instructed, shocked, corrupted and delighted by tales told in a manner that will always remain mankind’s most vivid and powerful manner of telling a story. I believe,” Guthrie said, “that the purpose of theatre is to show mankind to himself and thereby to show to man God’s image.” The coming together of a group of people in the theatre as we all know is to experience an act of artistic creation has indeed a spiritual dimension. An audience relates to one another and to performers both in a physical and a spiritual way and the influence of one on the other can be profound. What makes theatre special and indestructible is that bond that is created in the immediate time and space. No two performances can ever be the same and each separate audience sees and hears a unique event. The immediacy of human connection is such a part of what attracts people to theatre. The strength of theatre lies in that power of that interaction between actor and audience. But in the case of this theatre, and so many others, it also is about the importance of a broader relationship between the theatre and its community.

Charity Navigators 10 predictions for the future and what affect they might have on the arts - most importantly opening your books to the world

2009-04-13T13:44:00.007-04:00

Ken Berger (President & CEO of Charity Navigator) posted his 10 predictions about the non-profit sector on his blog. He provides detailed thoughts behind his predictions but here they are in short:

1. Increased Funding by the Federal Government
2. Decreased Funding from Other Sources
3. Rising Demand for Charities to Provide Information on Their Impact
4. Mergers, Program Closures and Layoffs
5. Scandals As Always, Only More So
6. Charities Having Problems Filing the New IRS Form 990
7. A Greater Divide in Opinion Over the Role of Government in the Charitable Sector
8. Arts, Humanities and Cultural Charities Take A Beating
9. Health Care Charities Remain King of the Hill
10. Religious Charities Remain Strong

With the exception of number one, I pretty much agree with his predictions (I think the government will pressure social sector but not necessarily fund it).

I think there are several the arts should be paying attention to:

Number eight: Obviously. Berger points out the admissions, reliance on affluent donors, and competition from social services sector are major factors. I addressed this competition aspect late last month. I could spend all day linking to my thoughts and others that I have tied into regarding ticket prices and donor dependence, I think we are all pretty clear that we have priced ourselves into smaller audience sizes and have not found the correct balance for the majority individual organizations. This will of course lead to several more organizations joining those who have already closed.

However I think number four, five and six are very pertinent to the arts as well.

I have written a bit about resource sharing, but not enough about mergers (which my next post will examine along with the idea that is becoming more and more annoying to me "putting the regional back into regional theatre" let me post before the angry comments pour in).

But let's focus for a minute on 990s and scandals. More and more I am seeing articles of executive compensation in nonprofits being torn apart. I would actual argue that the clarity on salaries and major donor relationships will be a source for scandals - real and made up. The 990 is something many executives and board pay no attention to, I think this is a MAJOR mistake. The 990 is the most public document regarding an organization. Most are posted on the Internet in many different forms - any one can look at them, peers, donors, government officials, etc. As the form is getting easier to read and understand, more and more people will have more and more information on your organization. I urge all executives and boards to take a serious look at what their 990 says about them. In fact, I would ask someone from a "competitive" organization to tear through them with a vengeance. After all there may be some IRS agent out there who will or worse a major donor or press person who will.

990 resources -

Want to read almost any organizations 990 - www.guidestar.org you have to register but is free.

Philanthropy Journal article Get Ready for the new 990.

Book time to think!

2009-04-10T09:17:00.001-04:00

For theatre people crisis management is easy. It is technically what we do for a living. Production is one series of crisis management after another – even on the best of shows. We are often doing more than one show at once so we are constantly juggling crisis and topics. This makes strategic thinking and long term vision very difficult to manage. So in addition to breaking down department barriers – here is a radical thought – book time to think each week or every other week. I can hear many people saying - we are all so busy and the strategic planning process is for those useless board retreats. Well actually, we are so busy because we don't take the time to think and so we create more crisis to deal with and the board retreats are useless because strategic planning should be a constant in our process not something we think about once a year. Now I am not talking about strategic plans being those long documents that no one reads. I am talking about thinking strategically and having long term vision. Your key team (Board leadership, MD, AD, department head – whatever this means to your organizations) need to meet regularly to address this!

This means know the values of your organization and occasionally reviewing your programming to make sure it is aligned with the values.

It means mission assessment – note that values were before mission.

This means measuring the impact your organization is making.

This means thinking about the scale of your organization and if what is to scale and what needs to be expanded.

This means thinking about new models – for funding and programming - and addressing core issues that need to be resolved.

And, as a leader, I recommend you take one hour a day (start with a half-hour if you have to) – this is the most difficult of them all – to read, think, write or whatever you need to do to get away from the day to day, to get away from the crisis and THINK. Since every theatre person I know is working from the minute they wake up and check their blackberry in the morning until the read the performance report late at night, it really isnt' much to ask that you take a full hour. It may mean while you eat your lunch at your desk you look at www.playbill.com, www.broadwaystar.com, read an article at www.hbr.com or read someone's blog! It may mean you go walk a few blocks or around the parking lot. Your work, leadership, and organization will be the better for it.

12 things to learn about each donor or audience member

2009-04-09T08:22:00.006-04:00

As a follow-up to my post about box office and front of house staff, I got several emails about what kind of information should staff try to learn about their customers beyond how they heard about the show they are seeing. Any information is good information, but below are the top 12 things I try to learn about donors, audience members, and anyone I work with (agents, artists, etc). The information is only useful if it recorded somewhere, don't forget that! For example, I copy the answers to these questions from our donor/ticketing software into the notes field of my outlook contacts. For agents I add their client list to the notes, and for artists I add every show I have worked with them on and all of their representation. Some of the information comes from phone calls, some from a little research, and some from conversations, but I track it all and ask that my staff does too.

1. What is their spouse's name (and track whether they stay married)? The reason is pretty obvious – whether it is for ticket pick-ups, events or phone calls – best to know who is married to whom

2. Do they have children? Names? Ages? Again, obvious reasons for tracking this – programming options, the occasional question about how they are doing. It is good to get what schools they go to (for educational program discussions) and speaking of schools…

3. Where do they work and what do they do? Another obvious one – you can learn a lot about what people might like by what they do for a living.

4. What colleges did they go to? Often they are active in alumni groups (hello group sales), they may be on the board (hello connections), or they may just follow that sports team (always an safe conversation topic).

5. Do they have pets? I have five dogs and a cat – no kids, enough said.

6. Where were they born? This is a great one to figure out through research and toss into a conversation – always impresses and makes a very personal connection.

7. Who are their friends? Or as I like to think of it – who are they going to bring to me as potential audience and donors! It is about networks and always has been, we are just more aware of this in the era of social networking (plug for fun site – muckety.com - It is a great way to find out a lot of info it actually tracks their former business associations and boards that they serve on and creates a cool graphic of it, in addition to Google and Wikipedia searches of course.)

8. What are their other causes? This is a great way to find future partner for programming or to identify programming that folks may be interested in. Perhaps you offer another organization they support free tickets for their employees or constituencies, it can really strengthen relationships and make you feel good about helping another organization.

9. What is their religion? Touchy subject, but it is more embarrassing to invite someone to an event scheduled on – say – Yom Kippur and completely insult them. Also religious organizations can be good programming partners (as in number 8).

10. What are their special needs or even just likes? Do they really prefer an aisle is as important as if they require it. Are they injured and need special assistance? Do they love the mezzanine (or hate it). Do they like to arrive early to socialize or get in and get out quickly. You can't also meet their desires, but acknowledging you couldn't sometimes is just as good as not meeting them.

11. What are their other interests? Knowing they are a baseball fan is not enough – Mets, Yankees or Sox? Guess the wrong one and you could be in trouble. Do they love gardening? Play tennis every morning? Write a blog? If you know you are going to see them – use a personal hobby as a conversation piece.

12. Are they talkers? This is a tough one, but you have to be careful. Some people don't want to chat or make small talk with you – it isn't anything about you, perhaps your organization is really their spouses passion and they are really just supporting their spouse, so they really don't want to hear about the great new programs you have. Some people are just very uncomfortable with small talk especially in a crowded lobby or group, but one on one are happier. Believe it or not I often learn this from a box office person. I will be curious about someone who never really wanted to talk before a show and the box office will tell me how odd it is because they are Chatty Cathy on the phone when getting their tickets, so I follow up with a one on one call, and make stronger connection to that person in the manner in which he or she prefers.

Lose the department borders and territorialism! Assign tasks by expertise!

2009-04-08T01:57:00.001-04:00

There are way too many walls in a nonprofit theatre office, and it is creating problems. It is time to break down some walls and blur the lines between what each department does. If you have a great staff they will work better together if we follow the way we handle shows for every major task we have.

Switching completely to project management mode might save your staff. And I mean save in the truest sense of the word. Theatre staffs are overworked, underpaid, and over-stressed. Changing a few simple things may save folks.

Internal collaboration is the correct business term – but I think the production process is exactly that. On a show everyone knows what they are responsible for but they also know that they must collaborate with everyone's department and help out when help is needed. The process is at its best when there is no territorialism – boundaries of course are respected, but it is a solid team effort.

If you have ever produced a gala, this is the only healthy way to do it – treat it like another production, give assignments out to people based on their expertise and you will have a successful process. When the development department tries to do it all on their own, it is a recipe for disaster. If there is a performance component or artists involved, why would you not have company management, production and the experts at your organization in charge of it? The communications and graphics should be coordinated through marketing. It is just another show.

Since many already know that about events let talk about something most people wouldn't think of first. Your annual audit is another production. What? That is the finance department's job right? No it is not. If everyone is aware of what goes into testing, every department can be working on the audit throughout the year. Usually every donation over $5,000 is subject to testing, can't the development department just make an auditors copy when a donation is processed and put it all in a notebook for auditors. All contracts over a certain amount are tested, can't each department create an auditors copy at the time it is done. Sample contracts, marketing materials, and many other testing materials don't change and won't change, so why not have each department tracking it throughout the year. Wouldn't this also foster a better understanding (and relationship) with the finances and finance department?

Marketing and Development department who work together will generate customers for each other. Let's extend that say to production vendors. What if each production vendor was treated as a potential donor? We did this with rental inquiries at one organization and converted many rentals into corporate sponsors who among other benefits received building usage – but for a much higher amount than the rental would have generated.

There are so many projects we do each year that if we forgot about whose department it belonged in and instead focused on who the best people were for the project and assigned them the responsibility we would be a lot more efficient and might just save our staffs especially when they keep getting smaller and smaller.

Better box office and front of house service keeps your customers coming back – almost as much as your programming

2009-04-07T10:57:00.003-04:00

Several months ago, I wrote a post on market research for theatre – who to talk to, where audiences might come from, and initial methodology that I have been meaning to revisit for ages. My Harvard Business Publishing update reminded me of it but brought up some really important ideas that I wanted to address as well. Of course, since many don't have access to HBR website I pasted the post below.

Peter Merholz makes some really important points about staff right up front. I have had many conversations with other leaders about our box office staffs. They are usually the youngest and worst paid staff members. We work diligently to keep them up-to-date on programming, updated information, and institutional information, but many if not most are part-time and more often than not our work to keep them informed is subpar. And let's not face it customers are not always nice, so when you are young, underpaid, and unprepared, it is pretty easy to be short or even rude to customers. And for a large part of our constituencies this is not on the first contact that they have with our organizations but the majority of our audiences probably only meet or talk to the front of house staff. Many of our subscribers only ever interact with the front of house staff. This is more than our "front line." So how do we improve customer care?

Perhaps we should do some analysis on what we pay for part-time employees, telemarketing and other interactions and really explore the idea that the box office staff and house management staff should be experienced, middle managers who are capable of handling difficult decisions.

Also, by nature, most box offices are separate from administrative offices. I really recommend to any one building a theatre, think of connecting the two. Satellite offices naturally receive information at a different rate and are by placement alone separate from the day to day conversations and camaraderie of the general office staff. The box office should be closed for full staff meetings and all box office staff should be in attendance at these meetings.

Of course staff structure is different at each theatre, but there must be a strong connection between marketing and development functions, as well as a system for staff education that makes sure that these front of house staff members are in the loop as decisions are made. These key intermediaries between the audience and the organization MUST have interaction with the artistic department and artists – and not just booking their tickets, showing them to their seats or letting them know about house sizes. It must be healthy, quality interaction about the work happening on stage.

As for the information that these staff members collect about customers from conversations and sales interactions, it has to be recorded somewhere. I don't care how busy the phone lines are – we have to learn more about our customers and what better way than through the person talking to them.

If we are going to connect with people, the connection should be as intimate as theatre itself with as many of our patrons as possible and at all levels of the organization. People can get cold, canned, impersonal experience from the majority of businesses they interact with throughout the day. If they don't want a human experience they will buy on-line. But most people who come to the theatre are coming for the human connection whether social, emotional or intellectual, they want a connection. We have to give them a positive, well-informed one.

From Harvard Business Publishing Blogs:

It's Not Who Your Customers Are, It's How They Behave by Peter Merholz

9:28 AM Wednesday February 11, 2009

Businesses cannot exist without customers, so it's sadly ironic that many, if not most, businesses, actually understand so little about them. As a company grows, a smaller and smaller percentage of the staff interacts with the customers. In fact, those folks on the "front line" (think call centers, service counters, retail stores) are typically among the lowest-paid and have the least authority.

Meanwhile, back at headquarters fundamental decisions are made with extremely limited information about customers. There, understanding the customer is often considered someone else's responsibility, because, "we have a department for that." No department has a complete view of the customer, however, and so in place of true understanding are models and frameworks that attempt to describe the customer. Many companies don't go beyond demographics and market segmentation. While it's helpful to know how they break down by age, sex, income, region, and other easily measurable characteristics, there's actually very little you can actually do with that information. In order to become customer experience-driven, you need to go beyond who your customers are, and understand what they do.

When companies think of how their customers behave, it's typically in one of these four ways. See if any of these resonate with you:

1. "A gullet whose only purpose in life is to gulp products and crap cash"

That quote comes from The Cluetrain Manifesto, still one of the best books on how companies should embrace a new way of communicating with their customers. Very few companies would admit it, but you know that some still see their audience this way (I'm looking at you, broadcast media.)

2. Sheep

This view holds that with the right "messaging", you can guide people to behave in certain ways, because they're docile and gullible and respond only to emotional tugs. And while this might be fine in the world of packaged consumer goods, where there's not a lot of complexity in using (i.e., literally consuming) the product, it breaks down when your offering is more complex. During the first Web boom, I remember companies spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising, and a tenth (or even a hundredth) of that on the site experience. You can no longer simply hound people into buying your product.

3. Homo Economicus

If Sheep are one side of the behavioral coin, this is the other. This view argues that customers are highly rational beings who want to maximize the utility of their purchases. This leads to an assumption that what matters most is "bang for the buck," which in turn gives us products with bloated feature lists, because who wouldn't want to buy the item with 14 bullet points on the packaging over the item with just 10? Sadly, there's research that suggests that many customers do make just this purchase decision; however, there's also research that up to 50% of product returns are for items in perfectly good working order -- they're just too confounding to use.

4. Type A Personality

Perhaps the most sophisticated common view of customer behavior is the one that understands customers are completing tasks in the process of accomplishing a larger goal. This view comes out of the world of software and Web design, where the functionality can get quite complex. This perspective becomes problematic when taken to the extreme -- that people are some kind of flesh robot seeking to maximize productivity. This leads to offerings that work, but can be joyless and dull. Perhaps you've used some of Microsoft's products?

Now, these perspectives aren't wholly wrong (well, maybe the gullet), but clearly they're not quite right. In order for a company to deliver truly outstanding products and services, it must embrace the messy complexity of human life, and endeavor to understand its customers as people. In other words, understand your customer as you understand yourself.

This means going deeper than tasks and goals to appreciate behaviors and motivations. A few years ago, I worked with a large national bank to help them better understand how customers decide to purchase the bank's products and services. The bank had a sophisticated demographic model, but didn't understand what cinched the deal.

Our initial efforts focused on the "goal" of buying a product, and we were able to outline the steps that people took to achieve that goal. They researched banks online, then compared products within banks as well as across banks. They visited nearby branches, and spoke with representatives in person or on the phone. And once they amassed enough information, they committed.

In our analysis, we realized this was only part of the story. We asked the research participants to retrace their steps, focusing on the Web site, to walk us through their experience. And in doing so, we saw that while there was a set of discrete tasks that lead to achieving a larger goal. More importantly there was an underlying motivational layer of emotion that actually guided their decisions. Buying financial products is challenging, because unlike physical goods, it's hard to define what you want ahead of time. At Best Buy, you can point to a 52″ television and say, "something like that." You can't do that with a loan or a line of credit.

So what happened was that while people appeared to engage in the appropriate steps to make a purchase decision, because they couldn't articulate an end state, they were simply going through the motions and would never commit. We realized that customers must satisfy three sets of requirements -- functional (does the product meet my basic needs); intellectual (through comparison, am I confident I'm getting the best deal); and, crucially, emotional (could I have a relationship with this bank?). The bank wanted to drive all applications for new products online, but the customer research analysis made clear the importance of maintaining a quality cross-channel experience. Potential customers often wanted to meet representatives, either in person or on the phone, before committing to an application, even if they've done all their research online.

Peter Merholz is a founding partner and president of Adaptive Path, an experience strategy and design firm. He has worked with a wide variety of clients from large multi-national companies to smaller, avant-garde firms and start-ups. Past clients include Hallmark, Socialtext, Intuit, United Airlines, and The Vanguard Group. Peter is an internationally recognized thought leader on user experience. He co-authored Subject To Change: Creating Great Products and Services for an Uncertain World, published by O'Reilly. Peter's thought leadership is perhaps most dubiously demonstrated in his coining of the term "blog" in 1999 when it was a nascent genre.

A get together for independent theatre bloggers!

2009-04-06T22:25:00.003-04:00

Blogger Social! Ken Davenport has come up with another great idea! A independent theatre blogger get together. Who shoudl come and what not is on Ken's post - hit the link. He also is taking RSVPs by comment, but the pertinent details are:

1ST Theater Bloggers Social:
Thursday, April 23rd
6 PM - 8 PM
Planet Hollywood
Broadway at 45th St.

Cris-i-tunity

2009-04-06T09:16:00.002-04:00

The post below is something I wrote for a new blog or perhaps even a book that I plan to start writing soon. It has been on the sidebar of Off-Stage-Right for a while, but some readers suggested I bring attention to it by making it a post. I will still leave it on the sidebar, it is a guide for me in a deeply personal way. As I was thinking today about why I am writing this blog, I realized the friends who suggested it be a post here were right:

I can't help but feel that we (and unquestionably I) have entered a new era and that we must shed the past, taking with us what we learned but facing the fact that none of it may be useful in the future.

Everyone is more than aware of the global economic turmoil we are experiencing. It is impossible to escape TV reports, newspapers and magazines, internet alerts, etc. that let us know how horrible the situation really is. Even the President of the United States has to be honest that these are trying times, and they are going to get worse. And, no one can really say how long recovery will take or what recovery looks like. We find it difficult to even discuss or if it is recovery or is it more truthfully outright change.

The world of theater - especially nonprofit theater - is not experiencing a bump in the road, a correction, or simple challenges. We must acknowledge that we are entering a new reality and must adapt our organizations and, yes, our art to thrive in this new reality.

Personally, I am also going through circumstances beyond my control that are creating a new reality for me. I have lived my professional life in the world of theater - although I had a global perspective in learning, I rarely journeyed outside of the theater world, and today I am faced with a great unknown as to whether I can or will continue to do so, or whether I am supposed to be traveling another path.

Without question this personal, national, and global crisis has manifested for myself and I am sure many others a response similar to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief -denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I am sure that dissertations have been written relating grief to life changes or periods of crisis.

However, I posit that for life changes or crises there is a sixth stage. A stage in which we take action. That stage is opportunity.

Therefore, even though my professional and personal life may be in crisis and the world is facing tremendous social, economic and cultural crises, it is time I emerge from denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance into opportunity. I expect there to be minor/major shifts and bumps in the road, so I will just call this period - Cris-i-tunity.

What is this blog? Why am I writing it?

2009-04-06T09:08:00.002-04:00

It is…

Off-Stage-Right is a strategic look at the process of running a nonprofit theatre, and all of the factors that affect the process (with the occasional personal story tossed in). It is a source for all theatre practitioners, but topics addressed are a necessity for all nonprofit theater leaders to be thinking about. Issues explored include: marketing, development, leadership, nonprofit tools and most importantly why the heck to produce theatre in the first place.

Why am I writing it?

If we can’t make theatre relevant, why do it? If we can’t make it affordable and sustainable, we won’t be doing it. I want to make theatre relevant, affordable and sustainable - this is my way of thinking about what might do that.

Recession and post-recession Marketing

2009-04-04T10:12:00.004-04:00

With all the talk about discounting, buying patterns, and subscriptions, I started to think about the trends we are setting (yes, I said WE are setting).

As the old saying goes, it takes two to tango and we have been a terrific dancing partner in the avalanche of discounting, last minute ticket purchasing, and the demise of the subscription model.

We didn't have much choice and hindsight is 20/20, so rather than looking at what got us to this point (there are many great posts on that on other blogs and even a few in my past posts), I am thinking about the impact we are right now during these exceedingly tough times.

The cultural shifts in ticket purchaser's patterns will likely stick after the recession. We are shaping a lot of consumer's ideas about attendance during this time, and we are actually instilling future habits.

Can the last-minute buying trend be reversed?

Why don't we reward early-adopters like say software companies products? Free betas of software are common – try it out for us and help us find the bugs and in exchange it is free. Isn't that sort of the exact same concept for previews? Lots of folks make these preview prices earlier, but what if we took it further. Web-site start-ups often let the initial "customer" have free or low cost membership forever. Why aren't we rewarding those who buy early?

Without question buying early and loyalty of repeat customers should be rewarded. However with all the last minute discounts, subscribers or members tend to pay on the higher end of the price scale. We justify this by saying to ourselves that when a show is a hit, they are guaranteed their seats or through so-called benefits (exchanges, extra events). But let's be honest, the traditional pick your seats in the advance program really only works for one thing – a subscriber who wants to sit in a specific seat, in other words, the traditional much older subscriber.

What would happen if the subscribers were guaranteed a steep discount? I think it is really important to do some number crunching and see if lowering subscription prices significantly can increase your number of subscriptions and make up for the lost income with number of butts in seats. After all it is about having the cash in the bank AND the advance ticket sale.

However this can only work if last minute buyers aren't rewarded more for their "bad" behavior than subscribers.

Frankly, we are treating theatre subscribers like the gadget industry treats its customers. To get the cool new thing (or the possible hit show) you actually have to buy in at the higher price than those who wait. Is the Kindle or Ipod model really what most theatres want to be? A few privileged few who can afford it get it first? After all two months after the first Iphone release Apple had to drop the price $100 to increase sales, isn't that the same thing we do with single ticket discounts?

Lot of folks talk about the airline model being applied to theatre – where the earliest and the last customers are rewarded with the best price, this does fill seats that would go empty. It certainly is work exploring.

Other folks are experimenting with scaling of prices based on demand. This resulted in the last minute premium ticket prices that some find insanely over done, but perhaps it teaches a bit better behavior. Perhaps scaling should be extended to daily performances. If Saturday night is the hardest ticket to get shouldn't it be the most expensive?

Let's use some simple numbers – what if ever subscriber paid $1 per show, single ticket buyers who bought during the first 10 days tickets were on sale paid $1.50 and those who bought in the few weeks prior to the show paid $2-3, and a few rush tickets were sold at $1 a show. Would the capacity shifts actually increase overall income?

Whatever route a theatre decides to take, this is the time to experiment with ticket prices and to create good habits that help theatres with advance sales.

I am including in this post excerpts from a proposal I wrote (with a great Institutional Grants Manager) for TCG's Think It! Do It! Grant. It is about deconstructing the traditional subscription model – we didn't get the funding and I am not at that particular theatre to implement it (nor are they), but I think it has some good thoughts on how seasonal planning can also play into pricing and advance tickets sales. I certainly wouldn't advise it for every theatre – but if you read this blog often you know that I don't prescribe anything for all theatres except individuality, uniqueness, and self-examination.

May 15, 2008 proposal for TCG's Think It! Do It! Program (in partnership with Met Life). This was submitted under the Do It! Guidelines.

How do we increase ticket sales, increase working capital and broaden our audience base? This is a question familiar to any performing arts organization. As reported in Theatre Facts 2006 and based on the TCG Fiscal Survey of 105 Trend Theatres between 2002 and 2006, the percentage of seats filled by subscribers is on a steady decline and there is a decrease in overall subscription packages sold.

Many theatres have struggled to maintain a subscription audience and have found that a significant amount of staff time is dedicated to the exchange of tickets and updating subscribers with changes in programming and other information. Industry-wide, the last five years have marked a steady change in buying patterns with an increase in single ticket purchases, especially for a specific date or performance in the distant future. Pricing models are in flux; theatres are trying different types of subscription packages, single ticket initiatives, flexible purchasing options, and audience initiatives focused on filling seats and reaching a varied demographic. Perhaps most pressing is the struggle to maintain working capital. Theatre Facts 2006 reported that of the 190 Profiled Theatres that participated in the survey, 64% experienced negative working capital. Theatres consistently struggle with the challenge of maintaining a steady income while producing first rate art and decreasing our dependence on a once a year season announcement, an annual gala and an annual appeal.

What if a theatre were to throw out the traditional season-based subscription model and transition to an advance, multiple ticket sales model by introducing productions on a rolling basis. Perhaps, three times a year, the theatre rolls out the next eight months of programming, offering the opportunity to purchase multiple tickets to be used in any number at any of the listed events. While the theatre may still offer the traditional keep your seat/pick your day subscription model, it will no longer be the primary sales focus. The intention is to shift the focus from seasonal programming to ongoing programming, giving the theatre multiple marketing opportunities and creating a more consistent cash flow. This model may provide audiences more choices and flexibility with how and when they choose to use their tickets. The theatre would have greater flexibility in terms of ticket pricing and artistic programming.

I was inspired by the 2007 TCG Fall Forum to think about making radical changes to our business model – which is where this grant idea was formed. At the forum, business leaders proposed that innovation and the need for major change were necessary in order for theatres to survive in a shifting consumer market. People were working on this.

Some theatres attempted to address these issues by introducing a "Flex Pass" to the subscription model, allowing patrons to choose from any number of shows in our season with a variety of pricing options. Other theatres have offered flat rate performances, student rush passes and vouchers redeemable for any production within a given season. Talk back's, pre and post show social gatherings, and other social events have been introduced to enhance programming and to draw more patrons to our nation's theatres. I believe that these tactics were acting as "band aids" to the larger problem of an antiquated system, and began to strategize a whole new way of looking at sales and programming.

This could yield an exciting opportunity for Artistic Directors by not being limited to the traditional season model. Being released from the confines of securing an entire season at one time, the artistic staff will be given more options, planning can be multi-dimensional – a programming arc of four months can than become larger affecting the next four months, and then the next, rippling out to present a more powerful and fluid vision. An Artistic Director could find freedom to focus not only on our mainstage productions, but also on our ancillary programming that enhance the themes of the theatre's productions. In addition, the artistic staff will be able to capitalize on last minute changes that occur in programmatic and talent availability, as well as having the opportunity to adjust programming to address changes in our larger social landscape; remaining current and vital.

Marketing will be key in communicating the new model to patrons. Finance will face some adjustment to our accounting practices, including changes in pricing models, marketing budget and economic projections.

The desired outcome is to increase the sale of multiple advance tickets. By being in constant dialogue with its audience, a theatre will change the audience's expectations and inspire them and give them more opportunities to purchase multiple tickets in advance. A new ticketing model could give a theatre more flexibility with pricing models, and more fluid artistic programming.

Extreme Fundraising

2009-04-03T12:29:00.011-04:00

So I am reading the April 13 edition of Forbes Magazine. There is an interesting article in it called Extreme Fundraising. It is one of the few magazines I get in print, so I am not sure if it is available on-line (google it). Anyway it is about these athletes going to, well, extremes to raise money for charities.

The people involved were amazing individuals who in all cases had been touched personally in such a deep and affecting way that they were driven to push themselves to the edge of their endurance in order to raise funds and awareness for their causes.

These are REAL extremes, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean extreme. Most seem to be for medical causes and most seem to be related to sports, but it begs the question...what would be considered extreme fundraising for the arts?

Is there a marathon for the arts?

Does someone paint a skyscraper for the arts? (I know I got a city bus painted for the arts - bright pink and at a community arts festival children painted pictures on it - every time I saw it on the street I smiled, but I digress.)

Does someone sing across America?

A cross country theatre-thon? (What in the world would that be?)

Or is simply about creating that kind of unique, somewhat insane fundraising event?

What captures attention with these extreme fundraising profiles in the article is that they are such personal causes. There are great back stories and the fundraisers themselves are fascinating characters.

Can we capture this sort of thrill in the arts? Can we inspire this kind of personal challenge for the arts? Can we create this kind of personal journey in our fundraising? After all, we certainly have wonderfully passionate, entertaining, and exciting individuals in the arts. Many artists and arts participants have been profoundly affected by the arts.

The other day, I was having a discussion about how difficult it is for some organization's leadership to ask artists to help with fundraising - they are so busy, we pay them so little, it isn't any fun, and they get asked by so many. I take the position that if you are passionate about your organization you had better ask the artists to help with fundraising and frankly the artists should and usually do want to help.

If we want to figure out a form of extreme fundraising for our individual organization...we are going to have to take a huge risk in creativity and have our artists work with us on it.

Any extreme fundraising ideas being used in your organization? Email me because I would love to hear about them.

Working together even if you are direct competition - technically...

2009-04-02T18:48:00.004-04:00

In a posting last month I talked about the restructuring or the possiblilties of resource sharing. Here is a great example taking a co-production a bit further than the norm with two great nonprofits teaming up!

Playwrights Horizons, Vineyard team 'Burnt Part Boys' opens spring 2010
By DAVID ROONEY

Off Broadway stalwarts Playwrights Horizons and the Vineyard Theater will team for the first time to co-produce the musical "The Burnt Part Boys," scheduled to bow in spring 2010 following two developmental productions.Written by Mariana Elder with music by Chris Miller and lyrics by Nathan Tysen, the show is set in West Virginia in 1962. Coming-of-age story traces the odyssey of a group of teenagers whose fathers were killed years earlier in a tragic coal-mining accident. Erica Schmidt ("Humor Abuse") will direct.

The tuner has been the subject of Gotham transfer rumors since it was first seen in summer 2006 as part of the Barrington Stage Musical Theater Lab. The Vineyard will further workshop "Burnt Part" in a developmental staging running May 26-June 6, followed by a summer presentation as part of New York Stage and Film on the Vassar College campus. The official premiere will take place in 2010 at Playwrights.

Both Playwrights and the Vineyard have a history of shepherding unconventional musicals, the former with shows such as "Grey Gardens" and "Sunday in the Park with George" and the latter with "Avenue Q" and "[title of show]," among others.

Email, email, email....

2009-04-02T08:33:00.004-04:00

If you are like me you get hundreds of emails a day - let alone facebook status updates, tweets, and RSS feeds, and it takes a really long time to get through everything. Most people who know me don't forward cute stories or funny picutres (unless they are REALLY good). I don't sign up for that many "email lists" - no stores, no "word of the day" types, and very few periodicals. I keep meticulous files of past emails. I even use a different email address for on-line shopping so that I won't have to deal with much spam.

I do have one complaint. The one word, unnecessary responses that seem to populate my email box from every organization I have worked with.

I do subscribe to all of the updates from Harvard Business Review and Harvard Business School. Honestly, I click-thru on their emails probably 90% of the time. So before I go through the 185 unread emails and RSS feeds from this morning...I thought I would post this handy advice.

Harvard Business Publishing Management Tip of the Day...

David Silverman

4 Tips for Writing Better Email

After all my posting about what makes for bad business writing, what is my advice for writing well? I'm glad you asked — because that's the subject of the list below.

1. Call to action. The number one thing that separates a memo, report, or PowerPoint from A Tale of Two Cities is a call to action. A novel is to be enjoyed. Business writing is intended to get the audience to do something: invest in a popcorn factory, fill out a kidney donor form, or flee the building in an orderly manner. Questions to ask: Does my email ask the reader to do anything? If not, why am I sending it?

2. Say it up front. M. Night Shyamalan is paid to surprise folks. We are paid to not surprise our boss. Whatever the purpose of your missive, say it in the first line. Mystery and story are great ways to entertain and teach, so unless you're looking for a job doing that, spit out why you're writing up front. Questions to ask: Can the reader tell from the subject line and first sentence what I'm writing about without going further? If not, why are you insisting that they guess?

3. Assume nothing. Does the reader need to know that the project won't succeed if the subway workers strike, that everything depends on a category 5 hurricane not happening in the next 100 years, or that if Lehman goes under the entire firm will implode? Let the reader know what thinking has gone on behind the scenes. And when following up, don't assume everyone remembers everything you've said. If you've got any worries that an acronym, term, or reference is going to elicit a confused moment, just explain it. Questions to ask: Am I relying on what the audience knows or what I think they ought to know? Am I hiding anything from the reader unintentionally? If so, why do I want to surprise them later on?

4. Do the thinking. How many times have you gotten an email that says, "What are your thoughts?" followed by a forwarded chain of messages. That's the writer saying, "I can't be bothered to explain my reasoning or what I want you to focus on." When you write, make sure you've explained what you're thinking and what you want the reader to spend time on. Questions to ask: Is my email giving my opinion and options for the reader to respond to? If not, why am I making them try to read my mind? What makes business writing good or bad in your opinion? Is this something that can be taught, or do you just have to have an instinct for communicating? What are your tips?

Some interesting stuff - you might have missed...

2009-04-01T23:24:00.004-04:00

Has the Backlash Against the Arts Arrived in the Form of Gov. Bobby Jindal? - call to action

Judith H. Dobrzynski makes a great point about the NEH - http://tinyurl.com/d4x8bq

Mellon Foundation foots bill for Foote play - wonderful news for the Hartford Stage/Signature Production!!! http://tinyurl.com/ca6nbw4

NY TV Tax incentives - it could be worse news http://tinyurl.com/cfllts

Great post about the effect of discounting tickets for shows from A Producer's Perspective MUST READ http://tinyurl.com/cjm8zf

Great tips for an organization starting to use social media tools and outsourcing some of the work. http://tinyurl.com/d2pred

BRILLIANT:Text Like a Man. 'Jersey Boys' student tickets go mobile on Broadway http://bit.ly/1qSe6

Can theatre still shock - shine a light into the darkest recesses of the human soul... http://tinyurl.com/d6dwyd

Harvard Business Publishing Stat of the Day

2009-04-01T23:08:00.002-04:00

Americans Keep Cutting Entertainment Budgets

According to a March Harris Poll, 74% of American adults expect to spend less on entertainment and eating in restaurants in the next six months, an increase over November when 65% planned to decrease spending on eating out and 64% expected to reduce entertainment spending. Only 21% say they expect to have more money for discretionary spending in the next six months, slightly down from 25% in November.

Source: Harris Interactive

Moments to remember

2009-03-30T20:22:00.003-04:00

I have been asked a lot recently about why I work in theatre…here are just a few examples why…

Each time I walk into a theatre I haven't entered before, whether for work or simple pleasure, I am awed by the sacred space in which artists do their work. No matter how small, how large, or how odd a space is, the magic that is created within it engulfs me in feelings and sensations. It is equally exciting to walk into a space that has been utterly transformed for a specific production --space that has been transformed to support a vision and convey a message.

Above all else I cherish the first moments I walked through the doors of theatres I have worked for, lived in. I remember vividly the first things I saw, the smells, the people who were there, and my stomach fluttering with excitement - whether it was MCC, Union Square, Vineyard, Signature, WCP, or the three academic institutions that shaped my love of the world of theatre. I hold those first moments in the deepest part of my heart and soul.

The show that had the most significant impact on my life professionally and personally was the original Off-Broadway production of Wit. I remember lying on the floor of my New York sublet reading the script and knowing it was something special. Of course the script has some flaws – there are no perfect scripts -- but I knew just from the first reading that it would reach into audience members' hearts and remind them to connect to the people in their lives with love and respect. The company of artists on the show became a true family – theatre people often say that but in truth, it's a very rare occurrence. I remember the break-through moment that took the show from good to great – when the set designer eliminated the rolling walls from the set and added the curtains on tracks. That simple but profound decision visually and psychologically opened the staging in a way that tied together all the elements -- the writing, directing and acting -- and fully served the arc of the piece. It was a wonder to behold.

Kathleen Chalfant led the company with grace and taught me that kindness, equity, respect and dignity were the most important tools a person could possess. It was my first show to transfer to a commercial run. I worked with all three New York companies, even after I had left MCC. I was so proud when I was introduced to Judith Light and she told me how glad she was to finally meet me because the entire company kept telling her I was the one who knew the show best and held it together. I fell in love with my husband on the show and was honored that Kathleen did a reading at our wedding and most of the members of the three companies were there to see us married, years after the show and tours had closed. Most of all I love that Maggie Edson told the story she wanted to tell, said goodbye to a dear friend after helping him achieve a directing legacy, and went back to teaching kindergarten.

At the Vineyard, I recall reading the treatment for Fully Committed and knowing it would either be brilliant or a disaster. Thank goodness it ended up the former. For weeks on end Mark Setlock (the actor playing tens of roles) and Becky Mode (the playwright) would run from the rehearsal room to our administrative offices and gather us quickly so they could run an idea by us to see if it was funny. It was a period of great spontaneity, collaboration, and fun. It was wonderful to watch the audiences each night laughing at the rudeness or foolishness of the play's restaurants' customers some of them unaware they had acted in the exact same manner towards the box office when purchasing or picking up their tickets. Our box office even wrote their own version of the show which was performed for Becky and Mark after the closing performance.

I am grateful that I got to hear Anika Noni Rose, Mandy Gonzalez, Ronell Bey, and Judy Kuhn sing the songs of Laura Nyro in Eli's Coming every night (except Mondays) for ten weeks. I hadn't even heard of Laura Nyro when we started creating the show, and although the storyline never pulled together, the music and performances were among the best I have ever witnessed. It was on this show that the true art of orchestration and arrangement was taught to me.

I was at the Vineyard on September 11, 2001. I couldn't get into the City from Brooklyn and watched it all from my roof just across the river. Our crew had gone in at 8 am that day and the master carpenter's wife worked in the North Tower –so everyone worked together to find her (thankfully we did). I remember Doug Wright who had written and directed the show that was in rehearsals at that time was also stuck in Brooklyn and we spent most of the day on the phone. We were talking when the Pentagon was hit, and I can still here Doug saying, "Jodi the world will never be the same, what is happening?" We were back in rehearsals two days later, bound together forever by the experience of walking through Union Square each day looking at the posters of those missing and the vigils. I think we all survived that week by being in the theatre working on a show.

I am one of the fortunate people in this world to have lived on Avenue Q. I learned all the ups and downs of enhancement deals on the production – if it could happen it certainly did on the original off-Broadway production. We went through six full set design versions before finding the right one for the show. We had to learn an entire art – puppet making and maintenance. We had an actor fall off stage and have to perform all of previews from a wheel-chair on the side of the house. But the entire time we laughed until we cried. I had fractured my ribs right before the tech of the show. During the tech rehearsal for the love scene between Princeton and Kate Monster, I actually laughed so hard that I re-fractured a rib. I spent the rest of the week and previews watching the show with pillows stuffed around me in my chair.

Simultaneously, with Avenue Q, I began work at Signature – working 60 hour weeks covering both jobs for 30 hours each. It was glorious. Downtown, I had the kids on Avenue Q and uptown, the talented cast of Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July. When it opened I was general manager for both the biggest hit musical in town and the hottest play revival.

At Signature there are almost too many profound, life-changing moments to list: my first conversation with Arthur Miller (very relaxed and inspiring), my first conversation with Edward Albee (very awkward and unnerving), watching Bill Irwin endlessly disappear into that trunk, and on and on.

I do have to talk about the luminous production of Horton Foote's Trip to Bountiful. The only other cast that was a family to me and still truly is to this day. I am not sure why but of all the playwrights I have ever met and worked with, I connected most powerfully with Horton . Perhaps as a fellow Texan, his words spoke to me in a special way, or perhaps it is simply that he was a true gentleman of the theatre. I am blessed to have known him, and his wonderful words will live with me forever.

There are so many more shows or moments that I could go on and on about good or bad but all cherished – like the night at the Vineyard when the grocery store above the space decided to defrost their meat freezer and the drain poured meat "by-product" that had been in the drain onto the stage and the actors. The night that a prop gun didn't go off and an actor jumped up and down on stage screaming bang, bang, bang until the other actor picked up the cue. Each standing ovation is its own memory – the ones that were earned and not obligatory as they so often are on Broadway. Or the endless times I sat watching the audience, seeing them lean in as if they could feel the moment even more if they were just a bit closer to the stage. Or the artists who proud of their performances or filled with joy of seeing their work on stage lit up a room with their smiles. And those are just the shows I worked on.

Not included are the wonderful events, galas, readings, and education programs that I carry with me. Angela Lansbury singing "Nothing's going to harm you," or David Hyde Pierce singing a John Kander song that had never been heard before by anyone as John had written it for a lost love . Kevin Bacon bringing down the house while honoring Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. And there was the magical moment when Harper Lee toasted Horton Foote on his 90th Birthday (and told me to call her Nell).

And all of this still doesn't include the shows I have seen but not worked on. Those unforgettable moments that are burned into your memory– the frying pan in Beauty Queen of Lenane or the grabber in Well. Or the emotions that well up when I think of a show I have seen, for instance, the sheer anger of Stuff Happens or the pure awe of anything done by Cirque du Soleil. Or the opportunity to see some of the great talents of our time on stage – Paul Newman in Our Town or Meryl Streep in Mother Courage. Or the joy one finds in discovering a new talent – Tom Sadowski in Reasons to be Pretty. The shows that were embarrassingly fun – Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys. Or the shows that hit you so hard in the gut that you can still feel the pain of watching them – Grey Zone or The Baltimore Waltz.

I could write forever on how much I love, crave and belong working in a theatre, watching theatre, and producing theatre. It is in a theatre that I come as alive as the actors and audience. I love the interactions with actors, crews, playwrights, directors, and the staffs who work far more hours than they can ever be financially compensated for. I could write another six pages about the moments where I saw an education program impact and change someone's life in an instant. I could certainly write a book about how the theatre has changed mine.

Who should get funding in times like these?

2009-03-29T18:11:00.006-04:00

Controversy in the funding community...see Wall Street Journal article below

We all know that the arts are facing some serious challenges. Unfortunately, it is a reality that now more than ever we are competing for dollars against social service initiatives.

Let's be honest - feed a homeless child or help a theatre put on show? I have to admit - I would probably give my dollar to the homeless child. In times like these most people will. Of course there is the argument that Arts feed the soul. But who are we kidding, as with September 11 and Katrina, we need to adjust our funding requests and justifications.

I am not suggesting we all go out and start a bunch of new programs directed to the increasing "poor." Quite the opposite. I think we all need to think about our missions. Are truly serving our communities as we want to or are we only serving the upper echelon of our society? We have to ask ourselves honestly does our organization only want our programming (except maybe education programs) to serve the upper echelon of society.

Unfortunately the majority of the professional theatre in this country is produced and presented for wealthy. It is an assumption I am making - before everyone comments asking for proof - based on price of tickets alone (let alone the cost of baby-sitters, dinner out, and transportation). Of course discount and outreach programs open the doors to a few others, but as a whole you have to have a healthy weekly pay check to catch a performance. What are we as theatre managers to do to open up our houses to those who can't afford $35-65 tickets? And do we really want to? And if we can't or don't - how can we or should we compete with all of the social service and education initiatives out there, especially when most of our donors have a lot less to give?

Just the beginning of the conversation.

MARCH 23, 2009, 8:18 P.M. ET

Foundations Oppose Call to Target Grants

A prominent philanthropy watchdog has riled some foundations by releasing a report suggesting they should devote half their grants to minorities, the poor and other disadvantaged groups.

The report, released this month by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, argued that foundations should meet a handful of benchmarks to practice "philanthropy at its best," including making half their annual grants to "lower-income communities, communities of color and other marginalized groups, broadly defined."

Several foundation leaders have called that benchmark overly prescriptive and argued it could exclude philanthropies that pursue missions such as the arts, medical research and education -- areas that might not always directly affect the groups identified by the committee. In addition, the committee lobbies Capitol Hill, so some fear the report could spur stricter regulation of foundations' activities.

Criticism of the report has intensified in recent days, with a well-known foundation president blasting the report's findings on an Internet blog and another large foundation canceling its membership with the committee. The committee in turn circulated a memo attempting to shoot down criticisms.

Aaron Dorfman, the committee's executive director, said his group doesn't seek to codify the benchmarks and that he has been "surprised by the amount of venom" the report's suggestions have produced.

"We couldn't have been clearer that this isn't intended to be a set of legislative suggestions or mandates in any way," Mr. Dorfman said. "This is a document to spark discussions among the leaders of our nation's grant makers and to challenge them to be more responsive to marginalized communities."

The debate over the report comes as foundations face increased economic and political pressures. Foundation assets fell about 28% last year amid tumbling world-wide markets, according to the Council on Foundations, a Washington group that lobbies on behalf of more than 2,000 grant makers.

The committee's philanthropy benchmark report found that most foundations steer about a third of their grants toward "marginalized groups," defined to include the poor, minorities, women, people with AIDS, the disabled, the elderly, immigrants and refugees, and crime and abuse victims, among others.

The committee advocated 10 benchmarks. It said foundations should distribute 6% of their assets annually, up from the current legally required 5%. The report also advocated better transparency and more-diverse boards at foundations.

But the benchmark on grant allocations drew the most fire. Paul Brest, president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, called that proposal "breathtakingly arrogant" in a blog entry on the Huffington Post Web site.

"I don't agree with it at all," Mr. Brest said in an interview. "Whether you call it arrogant or inappropriate -- you could imagine 10 different organizations deciding the most important issue is cancer" instead of marginalized communities, he said.

The California Wellness Foundation canceled its membership with the committee and asked for money to be returned after reviewing the report. The report "sounds like an attempt to endorse a one-size-fits-all approach for all foundations," said Gary Yates, the foundation's president. He said the foundation canceled its membership because it didn't want to be viewed as "tacitly endorsing positions" the committee takes.

Many foundations, charities and nonprofit leaders endorsed the report. Among the most prominent was the Atlantic Philanthropies. Many critics are "misreading" the report, said Lori Bezahler, president of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation, another endorser.

"This is a set of ways we can look at our work," Ms. Bezahler said, adding that many other groups have explored best philanthropic practices.

In a follow-up report addressing criticisms from foundation leaders, the committee said "flexibility is important" for foundations and that their leaders should decide whether to meet or exceed its proposed benchmarks.

Nonprofit Compensation

2009-03-29T10:56:00.003-04:00

With the A.I.G. scandal so widespread, it is not surprising to find the Wall Street Journal article below:

MARCH 27, 2009

Pay at Nonprofits Gets a Closer Look

The furor over big bonuses at American International Group Inc. and other Wall Street firms is prompting nonprofit organizations to brace for more scrutiny of their executive pay practices.

Though they haven't received taxpayer bailouts, charities benefit from billions of dollars in subsidies through their tax-exempt status, which could expose nonprofit leaders to the same level of scrutiny that executives at subsidized financial firms are facing.

Nonprofits of all stripes were feeling greater heat over pay even before the AIG bonus furor. At the University of New Mexico, faculty are in an uproar over pay for the school's president and other top executives. For the first time in 20 years, the Internal Revenue Service recently imposed stricter disclosure requirements on executive pay. The IRS also has scrutinized pay for nonprofit hospital executives, while the Chronicle of Higher Education has put the spotlight on big payouts for professors, administrators and athletic coaches.

"The train of greater focus on nonprofit executive compensation has left the station, and charity boards better get on, or they're going to suffer greatly for noncompliance," says Michael Peregrine, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery LLP, who advises nonprofits. Nonprofits should start reviewing their pay policies in light of the current political environment, he says. "It just cannot be business as usual."

In higher education, the University of New Mexico's faculty delivered a no confidence vote last month against its president, David Schmidly, amid consternation over executive pay and other issues. Mr. Schmidly took home $587,000 in total compensation in fiscal 2008. A recent university report showed budgeted salaries -- excluding other perks -- for senior executives increased 71% to more than $9.8 million between 2002 and 2008. (Mr. Schmidly took the reins in 2007.)

The increased pay for these university leaders has created "a similar sense of disparity" that others have voiced about paydays for Wall Street executives, says Douglas Fields, the university's incoming faculty senate president.

Mr. Schmidly, who recently instituted indefinite pay freezes for himself and other top executives, expressed disappointment in the faculty decision, but in a statement after the vote vowed to "reach out and gain the support" of the university community. He declined to comment further through a spokeswoman.

In a survey by the Chronicle of Higher Education examining large compensation packages at universities, David N. Silvers, a Columbia University dermatology professor, was the top-earning academic, bringing in $4.3 million. In a statement, Columbia declined to discuss Dr. Silvers' pay but said he is "renowned in the field and has significant responsibilities in directing a highly specialized lab" at the university's medical center.

Universities point out that their officials help generate millions of dollars in revenue. And even the best-paid nonprofit leaders don't come close to making the tens of millions of dollars reaped by some on Wall Street. At the largest nonprofits, or those with budgets exceeding $50 million, top executives earned $476,383 on average in 2006, according to the most recent figures compiled by GuideStar, an electronic database that gathers information on nonprofits. Some argue that nonprofit leaders are underpaid, which may lead to the same "brain-drain" phenomenon that Wall Street executives have warned about in light of new pay restrictions.

"I've run into a lot of people who are great leaders of great nonprofit organizations who end up having to leave to go into business to make some money, because they have kids they're going to need to send to college," says Steve Case, the America Online co-founder who now chairs his own foundation.

Still, the IRS has signaled more aggressive oversight of charities as various compensation scandals crop up among nonprofits. The agency overhauled the annual tax form nonprofits must file. Now, nonprofits are required to disclose compensation perks under certain circumstances, such as when an employee makes more than $150,000. Among the compulsory disclosures are benefits that have featured prominently in recent compensation scandals. They include first-class air travel, expense accounts, housing allowances and the use of bodyguards, chauffeurs and lawyers.

The IRS also has homed in on hospital pay. In a report, which surveyed 489 institutions, the agency found pay for the top official averaged $490,000 a year. Among a select 20 hospitals that paid relatively higher amounts, the compensation figure averaged $1.4 million. The IRS declined to name the hospitals.

The IRS can currently impose penalty taxes, called "intermediate sanctions," on an executive receiving excessive compensation from a charity. But the agency also has established a procedure, called the "rebuttable presumption of reasonableness," that allows charities to avoid the penalty. To do so, the nonprofit must demonstrate its board approved the pay and used comparable compensation data from similar organizations to determine it, among other things.

Critics say the standard is loose and puts the burden on the IRS to show compensation is excessive. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee who has pushed for stricter regulation of nonprofits, is considering legislation that would put more pressure on charities to prove their compensation is reasonable, an aide said.

Others say the policy has already spurred charities to more prudent governance. "We have encouraged our clients to use it religiously" to ensure compliance with IRS rules, says Victoria Bjorklund, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP who represents charities.

Still, squabbles over nonprofit executive pay continue to emerge. In the fall, a controversy swirled around a $1.2 million pay package for the United Way of Central Carolinas Inc.'s chief executive, Gloria Pace King. Board members resigned and Ms. King was ousted as a result.

Ms. King couldn't be reached for comment. She recently told the Charlotte Post that she thought her performance justified her compensation.

Theatre and its Community

2009-03-28T17:16:00.003-04:00

I was recently asked what a theatre's responsibility to its community was...here is an excerpt of my response:

Every theatre has the responsibility to create a world where individuals can come together for a shared experience where stories are told, ideas are explored, and conversations are inspired.

The written word has long been an important outlet for the creative exploration of the human emotional and social experience. Theatre—like no other medium—has the unique ability to create a dialogue between writer and audience that also bridges the gap between the individual and shared group experience.

Theatre evolved as a social convention to teach people morals and; spur people to action through learning from the action on stage. Throughout the decades it has served as as a way to “communally experience" a situation-- family drama, war, disease, loss, or triumph -- providing an opportunity for connection or catharsis.

Although the physical structure in which theatre occurs is important what is most critical is the feeling -- the atmosphere -- that the building exudes. I believe all theatres should emulate the comfort and welcome of a living room or an old fashioned drawing room – an intimate space where friends gather for good conversation or a lively debate.

A theatre organization should strive to do the following in its own community:

Identify and explore relevant social issues happening at a global, national and local level.
Provide a safe forum for discussion and learning for people of all ages.
Make the theatrical experience as accessible to as many people possible through price, location, customer service, and other forms of outreach and support that remove barriers to attending.
Inspire audience members and participants to take action towards changing the world.

It should be noted that leading a theatre means that you must also accept certain community responsibilities. You must personally get to know your local community and be an active participant in that community. You are taking the position of an educator –the most influential person in any community. Being an educator means that you can inspire minds, both young and old, to seek their personal best and demand the community be at its best. You must accept the mission to make sure that there is a future audience, a future generation of artists, and future funders. You must help create experiences similar to the one that sparked the fire of passion inside you, that led you to pursue a life in the theatre.

You also have the responsibility to bring the national and global community to your home and to explore how the broader issues relate to us and why they are so important. Remaining relevant and current is the key to artistry. Theatre cannot be meaningful if it doesn't grow organically from your community (local) needs and yet rise to meet the national and global challenges facing us all. It cannot be forced, it must be studied, learned and lived.

What should we ask theatre artists to do for our community?

Create a world on stage where the artists often teeter on the brink of destruction or utter happiness and we, as the audience experience living on the edge through them, without having to actually do so to understand it and learn from it.
Bare their souls in telling a story
State the unthinkable.
Do the unforgivable.
Act in weakness.
Be trapped in fear and do nothing.
Inspire us to speak or be safe in silence.
State what must be said.
Act heroically. Take risks.
Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us do both at the same time.
Teach us about our neighbors, people of distant lands, people from the past, and people from the future.
Force us to lean forward in our seats, hold our breath, and wait for the next word, moment or action.
Make us feel alive.

The New Statesman: On the Arts by Kevin Spacey

2009-03-27T13:20:00.004-04:00

While googling for a study from last month (that I thought I printed) on the economic arguments for the arts, I ran into this.

The New Statesman: On the Arts by Kevin Spacey

Published 19 March 2009

Amid the never-ending talk of credit crunch, downturn and recession, it is inevitable, say the doomsters and gloomsters, that there will be less money for the arts and culture. So the question then becomes: does it matter? Surely these are luxury items that we can do without when times are tough? As strongly as I can, I would argue no.

I believe in arts and culture and I believe that, far from being luxury items, they are a necessity in our lives, as individuals and as nations. Countries may go to war but it is culture that unites us: the words of a great writer, the style of a legendary dancer, the brilliance our favourite actors display in bringing life to their roles, a Mozart piano concerto, the endless mystery of Mona Lisa’s smile, the flickering images on celluloid and the countless stories they have told. Here in Shakespeare’s country, this should be understood more clearly perhaps than anywhere else in the world – that the arts inspire, uplift, challenge, stimulate our conversations, drive our debates and remain in our memories.

What I have come to recognise, in my six years of fundraising for the Old Vic theatre in London, is that those of us who make an argument for supporting the arts have not used the economic impact of arts and culture as the centrepiece of our appeals as much as we should. Too often we focus solely on the social aspects of what we can achieve, or the artistic merits. These are important and valid, but I believe we should change tack at this time. Instead of apologetically holding our hat in our hands, we should cite the economic successes of what is called show business. We can do better by recognising how much our cultural life contributes to the health of communities across our nation and, indeed, around the world. Those who enjoy culture should be more aware of the financial contribution arts institutions make to their communities.

Relationships between business and the arts offer a real chance to achieve financial success – not only for each other, but also to generate income for the hotels, restaurants and countless other businesses that populate the neighbourhoods where cultural centres operate. I for one do not want to see another regeneration plan that does not have arts and culture at the heart of its offer. Without it, we are not building rounded communities, but ignoring the fabric and soul of society.

It is also important that the arts remain high on the agenda of government. I was hugely encouraged to see that President Obama’s stimulus package included an additional $50m towards investment in the arts, despite efforts by some to remove that amount before the Senate was to vote on it. Even at a time when economic issues dominate, the president of the United States only needed to look at the successes we have achieved to conclude that culture should not suffer. But it is not going to be easy to maintain or increase the amount that government contributes. We are going to have to fight for it. We must learn to make the economic arguments that will sway even the most hardened opponents of support for the arts.
In addition, education through the arts enriches the next generation, not just of artists, but of our whole workforce. Theatre, for example, teaches young people to share, to communicate, to resolve conflicts and to explore ideas. All of this is good for business because it contributes to interpersonal skills, which then translate into customer care. So it’s not charity or empty philanthropy, it is an investment in the future of our society.

If we lose more of the places where emerging talent can develop, where does a young person go to learn their craft? How does someone ever get to work on a West End stage if there is no longer a place to challenge and develop talent when young? If more theatres close in our provincial towns, if more of our cultural centres face a threatened economic future, if more of the smaller venues lose their funding – then the more our society will suffer. And if we don’t do what we can to stem this tide, we risk allowing our rich cultural life to lose its rightful place – or, even worse, fade from view, becoming reserved only for those who can afford to pay the big prices, in the big cities, for what has been too often in the past an exclusive club.

In these turbulent times, our concepts of what we value are being reconsidered. Banks may collapse, individuals might display unprecedented levels of greed and innocent people may become casualties. But what we can rely on is our creativity, our inspiration and our passion.

The creative industries lead the UK economy. They constitute one of the nation’s most powerful natural resources. We must do everything we can to ensure that our cultural heritage is protected – for we abandon the arts at our peril. Our arts and culture are the envy of the world and the jewel in Britain’s crown. Let’s shout louder to make sure those in positions of power and influence realise their value to our economy, as well as to our collective soul. The question is not “What can the economy do for our arts?” but “What can the arts do for our economy?” The answer: a good deal.

www.oldvictheatre.com

NY Times Article on Kareem Dale from Wednesday, March 25

2009-03-27T12:56:00.004-04:00

For those that missed this in last Wednesday's NY TIMES. I know a lot of folks out in the blogosphere and arts community are very pestimistic about the Kareem Dale "appointment," and more importantly the position he is creating even if temporary, but I for one am going to remain cautious but optimistic. We all have to agree even though there are reasons for many concerns we still actually have a President in the White House is aware of the arts, encourages his own families participation and no matter what it has to be better than the last 8 years. I hope that we can all keep focused on the sound recommendations and quality thinking that has been happening and keep sending that on to all of our elected officials.

March 25, 2009

Problems Persist, but Arts Advocates See Progress Under Obama
By ROBIN POGREBIN

Washington continues to be consumed by economic turmoil, but cultural professionals say they are cautiously optimistic about the future of the arts under President Obama. Among the positive signs: The $50 million in stimulus money going to the National Endowment for the Arts, the additional $10 million for the Endowment in the recent omnibus spending bill and the decision to give a White House official responsibility for arts and culture, though this has yet to be announced. There is still a considerable distance to go, arts advocates say.

More than two months into his presidency, Mr. Obama has yet to name a new chairman of the Endowment. This leaves the country’s most important arts agency without a permanent chief, as arts groups around the country scramble to submit their applications for stimulus funds by the April 2 deadline. The $50 million in stimulus money apportioned to the Endowment — after a fight in Congress to get any money at all — is not a lot, given that it is to be distributed nationwide.

Moreover, only groups that have received grants in the last four years are eligible to apply. The Endowment said this was to make sure that all applicants had been vetted at least once by the agency’s peer panels, who will select the stimulus grantees.

Robert L. Lynch, the president of Americans for the Arts, a lobbying group, called the requirement limiting. “There are 100,000 arts organizations out there,” he said. “They’re all in need.” The $10 million increase for the Endowment — the same amount given to the National Endowment for the Humanities — brings the annual budget to $155 million, still considerably short of its high, $176 million, in 1992.

It is “a step up from what we’ve had before,” said Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a New York Democrat who is co-chairwoman of the Congressional Arts Caucus. “I don’t think we’re yet up to where we were.” And, she added, “I would certainly like to see that.” Still, Ms. Slaughter said she was heartened that the administration’s point person for the arts would be working out of the West Wing, rather than from the first lady’s office, as in the past.

Shin Inouye, a White House spokesman, said, “President Obama recognizes that support for creative expression is an essential part of who we are as a nation and he is committed to ensuring that the arts community has an open line to the White House.”

The staff member charged with the arts portfolio, Kareem Dale, is relatively young (in his 30s) and potentially overextended (he is already special assistant to the president for disability policy) with little arts experience. And his position has yet to be defined. Mr. Dale is expected to serve temporarily and to be replaced by someone with full-time responsibility for the arts, said a White House official, who asked to remain anonymous because personnel issues had yet to be resolved.

Mr. Dale, who was trained as a lawyer and is partly blind, served on policy committees for arts and for disability when Mr. Obama was an Illinois senator. Mr. Dale will work in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs under Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president. Mr. Dale served for nearly five years as chairman of the Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago, succeeding his father, Bob Dale, an advertising executive.

As chairman, Mr. Dale helped raise $15 million for a new building, said Jackie Taylor, the theater’s founder and executive director. “He was very strong,” Ms. Taylor said. “He was a good leader.” Ms. Taylor said Mr. Dale’s first involvement with the company was onstage as a teenager; he had a small role in a musical in 1991. “His father wanted him to get past his shyness and to be an extrovert,” she said. “So we put him in a production.”

Of the stimulus money, 40 percent will be distributed by formula to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations. The remaining 60 percent will go toward individual projects. “It’s good, but when you consider the United States of America, they’re trying to do a lot with a little,” said Celeste M. Lawson, executive director of the Arts Council in Buffalo and Erie County in upstate New York. Until 1995 the Endowment gave grants to individual artists and also allowed organizations to use grants for general operating funds. The so-called culture wars put an end to both practices.

“I am a passionate supporter of unrestricted operating support,” said Margot Knight, president and chief executive of United Arts of Central Florida, which raises funds for arts and science organizations. “We need an Endowment for this new century.” During the presidential campaign Mr. Obama was one of the few candidates with an arts platform and an arts policy committee. During his transition he dedicated a team to the arts and humanities. Just what shape the Endowment will take under the Obama administration will depend largely upon whom the president appoints as the agency’s chairman.

Patrice Walker Powell, the Endowment’s deputy chairwoman for states, regions and local arts agencies, has been serving as interim chairwoman since Feb. 2. Michael C. Dorf, a lawyer who served on Mr. Obama’s arts policy team during the campaign and was an adviser during the transition, emerged as an early favorite, and a few other names have been floated. But there have been no concrete developments, even as cultural organizations are cutting back drastically or closing their doors because of the economic downturn.

Representative Norm Dicks, Democrat of Washington, chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which oversees the National Endowment for the Arts, said convincing his fellow legislators of the importance of the arts remained a challenge. “There are still some people in the House — a handful of Democrats and a significant number of Republicans — who vote against us,” he said. He said Mr. Obama had requested $161 million for the Endowment for the coming fiscal year, which starts in October. “I think that’s a little modest,” Mr. Dicks said, adding he thought that the budgets for both the arts and humanities endowments should increase to $170 million. “There was a big reduction when the Republicans cut us,” he added, referring to a 40 percent reduction in the budget in 1995. “We’re still coming back from that.”

Given the battle in Congress to include money for the arts in the stimulus package, cultural groups say Washington officials still fail to recognize artists as workers. “The third violinist in a chamber orchestra goes out and buys groceries just like everybody else,” said Bill Ivey, a former chairman of the Endowment.

Teresa Eyring, the executive director of the Theater Communications Group, which represents the country’s nonprofit theaters, said: “Local and regional elected officials and community leaders are seeing and talking about the connection between the arts and the overall health of their communities. The same sensibility hasn’t quite landed at the national level.”

“In President Obama we have a leader who is making the connection,” she added, “who seems to understand both the spiritual and economic necessity of the arts to our nation’s strength.”

Mr. Ivey, who led the transition team devoted to the arts and recently met with Mr. Dale, said he expected the White House position to involve coordinating the work of the Endowment, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

“It’s great to have a direct West Wing connection,” Mr. Ivey said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had an administration that thought about the vibrancy of our cultural life as a central public policy,” he added, “as a marker of quality of life in a democracy.”

Blogged with the Flock Browser

HAPPY WORLD THEATRE DAY

2009-03-27T09:14:00.001-04:00

March 27, 2009 is World Theatre Day

Augusto Boal's 2009 Address:

All human societies are “spectacular*” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special moments. They are “spectacular” as a form of social organization and produce “spectacles” like the one you have come to see.

Even if one is unaware of it, human relationships are structured in a theatrical way. The use of space, body language, choice of words and voice modulation, the confrontation of ideas and passions, everything that we demonstrate on the stage, we live in our lives. We are theatre!

Weddings and funerals are “spectacles”, but so, also, are daily rituals so familiar that we are not conscious of this. Occasions of pomp and circumstance, but also the morning coffee, the exchanged good-mornings, timid love and storms of passion, a senate session or a diplomatic meeting - all is theatre.

One of the main functions of our art is to make people sensitive to the “spectacles” of daily life in which the actors are their own spectators, performances in which the stage and the stalls coincide. We are all artists. By doing theatre, we learn to see what is obvious but what we usually can’t see because we are only used to looking at it. What is familiar to us becomes unseen: doing theatre throws light on the stage of daily life.

Last September, we were surprised by a theatrical revelation: we, who thought that we were living in a safe world, despite wars, genocide, slaughter and torture which certainly exist, but far from us in remote and wild places. We, who were living in security with our money invested in some respectable bank or in some honest trader’s hands in the stock exchange were told that this money did not exist, that it was virtual, a fictitious invention by some economists who were not fictitious at all and neither reliable nor respectable. Everything was just bad theatre, a dark plot in which a few people won a lot and many people lost all. Some politicians from rich countries held secret meetings in which they found some magic solutions. And we, the victims of their decisions, have remained spectators in the last row of the balcony.

Twenty years ago, I staged Racine’s Phèdre in Rio de Janeiro. The stage setting was poor: cow skins on the ground, bamboos around. Before each presentation, I used to say to my actors: “The fiction we created day by day is over. When you cross those bamboos, none of you will have the right to lie. Theatre is the Hidden Truth”.

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

- Augusto Boal

Board retention in good and bad times

2009-03-26T00:01:00.001-04:00

One thing I have been thinking about a lot in the recent weeks and keep meaning to write about is board member retention during these difficult economic times. The Wall Street Journal article below was a kick in the stomach reminder that we need to be focusing some significant attention on our boards. In times this dire, it is essential to keep key stakeholders engaged. With the pressing economic concerns for both the organizations and the individual board members, a delicate balance must be maintained between being honest about situations and being overly negative or pessimistic.

It is a necessity to remember to celebrate successes no matter how small. Even in good times this is something many nonprofits forget to do. By nature we are problem solvers and excellent at crisis management, once something has been achieved we often make the mistake of moving onto the next task before congratulating ourselves on our accomplishments.

Our boards need to know that they are important to us in every way possible - as a workforce, as information resources, as access to networks and as funding sources. There are plenty of reasons for board members to be concerned - if we are conscious of this during our interactions we will find a proper balance. But the MOST important thing is to keep them engaged!

Believe it or not most board members join a board for some reason other than to write a check - a deep connection to the mission/cause, a desire to make a difference in his or her community, social-standing/prestige, or a slew of others reasons. Hopefully during the recruitment process and the individual's time on the board the reasons that drew the person to the board are clear. Our job as staff leadership is to make sure that we take time to address these reasons with positive reinforcement during these times (and all others).

In times like these we have to fight the impulse to hunker down and have a small group make the tough decisions. A healthy process must be maintained. We need to work with our board leadership to ensure that each board member has a chance to be heard and be part of key decisions -- especially organizations that are truly at risk or on the brink. After all very few people join a board if they don't want to take responsibility for the organization's well-being.

Healthy board management is going to be very important the in the months ahead.

From the WALL STREET JOURNAL

GETTING PERSONAL: Charity Board Members Insure Against Risk

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Even at charities, boards of directors are watching their backs.

In an environment ripe for investment- and employment-related lawsuits, a number of nonprofits are increasing their directors and officers coverage - or D&O - while insurance companies say they have seen an uptick in the number and severity of claims.

"Individual directors are now more concerned about making sure insurance is in place to protect them and their organization," says Michael Schraer, a vice president and not-for-profit product manager at Chubb Group of Insurance Cos.

Several prominent charities have been caught up in recent investment frauds, including the alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme run by Bernard Madoff, and most are struggling with shrinking endowments because of the market decline.

Charity board members can be held personally liable for mismanagement of investments or employment mishaps, among other things. An individual's umbrella insurance policy won't necessarily cover these claims.

"If a board member is sued, it means their house, their retirement savings, their investments that could ultimately come into play," says Scott Simmonds, an independent insurance consultant who advises nonprofits on D&O insurance.

This kind of insurance "pays for poor decisions," he adds.

Coverage, which can start at around $1,200 a year for organizations with fewer than 25 employees, varies by plan and carrier but D&O policies typically cover claims over misused funds or mismanaged assets.

Policies also address employment issues such as wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment - important at a time when many hard-pressed charities are being forced to trim jobs and other costs. More than 90% of claims against boards of directors involve some type of employment dispute, according to the Alliance of Nonprofits for Insurance Risk Retention Group.

Know the Rules

Most states have volunteer immunity laws that protect board members from personal liability when acting in good faith. However, coverage is limited and these laws may not protect against federal civil rights and anti-discrimination laws. What's more, volunteers will likely have to pay fees to defend themselves.

Nonprofits usually say they will indemnify board members, or pay for legal costs. However, nonprofits may not be permitted to indemnify board members against all types of actions and may require the board member to pay legal fees first and then get a reimbursement.

And if the nonprofit doesn't have enough money to cover the claims or has gone out of business, the individual could be held accountable.

"Foundations that go out of business because they had all their assets invested in Madoff will not likely be able to pay for defense costs," says A.Q "Skip" Orza, a vice president at RLI Corp., an insurance company in Peoria, Ill.

D&O insurance policies can serve as additional coverage - typically at least $1 million of coverage per year - or pay claims on behalf of the nonprofit so the organization doesn't have to dip into its funds.

Sizing up your policy

D&O insurance can differ from other types of liability insurance and policies should be reviewed annually.

It typically covers lawsuits filed while the policy is in force, regardless of when the wrongful act occurred. And limits are aggregate, not per occurrence: Unlike an automobile policy that pays up to a certain amount each time you get into an accident, D&O insurance will only pay up to a set limit for all of your claims that year.

Since contracts can span 30-60 pages, board members should carefully read the terms and conditions to determine what is deemed a wrongful act and what is excluded from coverage - such as bodily injury or sexual abuse.

Board members should also keep tabs on the financial strength of insurance providers using ratings issued by companies such as A.M. Best Co.; Moody's Investors Service, a unit of Moody's Corp.; and Standard & Poors, a unit of McGraw-Hill Cos.

MARCH 10, 2009, 3:31 P.M. ET

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Hartford's Cultural Institutions Take Steps To Weather Economic Storm -- Courant.com

2009-03-22T16:46:00.001-04:00

Hartford's Cultural Institutions Take Steps To Weather Economic Storm -- Courant.com

This article gives a great overview of one city's cultural institutions. Nice to see some smart thinking happening here in Connecticut.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Other bloggers thoughts on the business model issue

2009-03-19T13:25:00.003-04:00

Read these!

Beth's Blog: how nonprofits can use social media: The Crumbling of Nonprofit Arts Organizations (includes great map)

A. Fine Blog: Greatest loss of 2009: Social Capital

diacritical

2009-03-19T09:49:00.003-04:00

Douglas McLennan of Arts Journal has started blogging - I know I thought all along surely he was, but alas... His first full post is a nice companion to many of my posts last week.

Is the NEA bad for the Arts?

Recent Articles

2009-03-17T09:23:00.004-04:00

Some recent articles that I missed until today - maybe you did too.

Seattle Post Intellegencer goes digital only - no more print. March 16

Bloomberg Musical has cure for Broadway Blahs - in seat drinks service? on Broadway? March 17.

Guardian Arts World braces for a hurricane - a look at UK arts organizations' issues during the global financial crisis. March 14

Chronicle of Philanthropy 52% of donors plan no decrease - new survey results by Cygnus Applied Research

Nonprofit Fundraising Trends - Retriever Development Counsel survey results

Crains Experts give nonprofits tips in weather tough economic times

NY Times The Problem with Nonprofits - mini review of the book UNCHARITABLE. March 9

NY Times Charities say Government is ignoring them in Crisis - deals with implications from Obama charitable tax deduction changes. March 4

Restricted Gifts and the Arts in difficult times

2009-03-17T07:53:00.003-04:00

In what certainly will become one of the largest examples of trying to "re-purpose" restricted gifts, Brandeis University announced a few weeks ago that it was going to close the Rose Museum to the public and sell off it's art collection to help make up for endowment losses and budget problems. Yesterday the Rose family publicly denounced the plans (see Boston Globe pay special attention to the comments).

One would think this would be national news considering the precedent it seems to set. And in different times it might be. However considering the economic news coverage and the recent, growing debates about money going to the arts or sports sponsorships from corporations, I think we are lucky this story isn't gaining too much national momentum.

Let me state first, foremost and unequivocally, restricted gifts are restricted gifts. It is up to a donor and institution to negotiate the restrictions or adapting the restrictions, but it is a partnership in which the donor's wishes will always over-rule the recipients. As the saying goes you can't have your cake and eat it too, that is just the way it is and it should stay that way. If this were to change, every time there was a shift in leadership - staff or board - the use would be open to adjustment based on an individuals whims and desires, long term strategies would be difficult to implement and the organization would likely be subject to significant mission creep based on said individuals whims and desires - even with the restrictions some individuals try to circumvent the restrictions with personal agendas.

Without question, one of the most difficult decisions an organization is faced with is when a donor want to make a restricted gift that does not fit the mission of the organization. For years, programs specific grants created many instances of ineffective results or "next new thing" programs. However, lets imagine all grants were general operating grants. Does anyone really believe we would have many of the amazing education programs that arts organizations have? Does anyone really believe that as much new work would be created? Imagine how destructive the tension between artistic staff, management staff, and the board would become.

Let's face it, we need restricted gifts.

At organizations I have worked at, I have had "passionate discussions" with an Artistic Director or Board members about restrictions on certain funds, and almost every time I have been grateful to the donor for said restrictions. If a project was clearly mission based and close to the core - it was usually easy to make the restrictions work or to renegotiate them, if not, well the restrictions certainly made the decision easier.

Are the arts a luxury or necessity?

As for the second and more important issue at the forefront of the Brandeis situation - at what point in the economic crisis do the arts become a luxury that must be eliminated or sold off? Literature and life are filled with the tales of families caught in horrible economics that must sell off their personal belonging to rebuild their lives or survive. Of course, organizations can reach a point where they are required to do the same.

In a similar situation, the Metropolitan Opera just mortgaged it's most famous art work to raise cash. I consider the Met's decision to be creative - the mission is about Opera and leveraging the artwork in these difficult times seems like a reasonable risk.

In the case of Brandeis, I have to ask if this is a "quick/easy/obvious" decision - if it were just about closing off the museum to the public perhaps a mission argument could be made, but the proposal as a whole seems pretty drastic. Is Brandeis really at that famous Scarlett O'Hara moment - do they need to make a dress from the curtains already? I hope not, we are still pretty early in this financial crisis, and you would hope the university was better managed than to have already reached that point.

But back to the bigger more global question that looms - is there a point where the arts are just a luxury that should be eliminated? We are back to that relevancy issue and making an argument for the arts. A lot of my recent posts have circled around a major point that I want to reiterate - the key is to get past the idea that all of the arts arts elitist and making the arts more accessible if in cost alone. We have to embrace that the definition of art has evolved and needs to evolve. We have to broaden the donor and audience base. We must be relevant to our communities, or we will become a luxury not a necessity.

Andy Horwitz proposal for the Arts: Should create a lot of discussion...

2009-03-16T15:22:00.003-04:00

Andy Horwitz proposal for the Arts from Culturebot.

A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR THE ARTS IN AMERICA

1. Consolidate, Innovate and Reposition

The first thing we need to do is reposition the role of arts + culture in society. For many reasons the arts have moved to the fringes of cultural conversation. We need to reintroduce the idea of the arts as a place of civic discourse. Artists and curators need to work much more closely with non-arts partners - economists, sociologists, scientists, computer programmers, city planners, demographers, etc. - to identify the pressing conceptual issues of the day. Art - no matter the form- is about creating an object or event that focuses attention on a specific idea; it is a tool for enabling human beings to collectively and simultaneously focus their thought processes - thus the arts need to collaborate directly with non-arts disciplines and start leading the conversations America will be having as we move into a global future.

Part of repositioning is innovating the modes of public engagement. Taking its cue from Harold Skramstad’s seminal 1999 article “An Agenda for American Museums In the Twenty-First Century,” the contemporary museum world has already made great strides in redefining the way the public interacts with art. In a multimedia, multidisciplinary, hybrid, networked, on-demand world we can no longer privilege one form over another. We should be looking at the members of the Contemporary Art Centers networks (The Walker, the Wexner, Yerba Buena, etc.) for scalable, multidisciplinary presenting models that will allow us to consolidate resources, streamline curatorial processes and cultural production as well as promote multidisciplinary ideas-based investigations. Certainly as the economy falters and the visual arts lose their economic engine the value of other art forms will rise - we need to leverage this for the benefit of all.

Part of this innovation is to consolidate bricks and mortar. Contemporary arts and culture spaces must be multidisciplinary with adequate, adaptable theatrical space for all different kinds of performances integrated with visual art space, screening rooms and multimedia/virtual spaces. They should be smaller. As we become more and more accustomed to mediated space and networked environments, where mass entertainment happens in sports arenas and stadiums, the unique experience of intimate live performance and/or interaction with art objects and other human beings becomes ever more valuable. Keep it small and keep it flexible. If you are presenting an artist who can draw 10,000 people, then do ten shows for 1,000 people each. It’ll be a better experience for everyone involved.

In this day and age, where one person’s iPod may well contain a dozen different kinds of music next to each other, discipline-specific delineations are less relevant than ever. While some may prefer dance and some theater, some classical and some world music, all of these disciplines can - and should - cohabitate. If we view art and culture as an essential part of civic dialogue then the public should be exposed to all forms, frequently in juxtaposition. The public must be educated to experience culture regardless of discipline and become as savvy in the parsing of cultural product as they are savvy with entertainment, movies, popular music and video games.

The hardest part of Consolidating, Innovating and Repositioning is making room for the new by LETTING THINGS DIE. It is absurd to have a regional theater, a symphony, a ballet company, an opera, and other cultural enterprises all with their own buildings, all with their own administrative infrastructures, all in competition for the same funds. Let the regional theater system die. It is antiquated, expensive and largely irrelevant. Consolidate, share resources and place art in juxtaposition. Let’s focus on the notion of a cultural “civic center” run by trained, qualified administrators and housing a variety of different arts organizations - of varying sizes, disciplines, aesthetics and ambitions.

2. Develop Sustainable Cultural Infrastructures

There are many different components to creating a sustainable cultural infrastructure. In America today it is more likely that an arts institution will embark on a capital campaign to build a new building then it will engage in an endowment campaign targeted at increasing its general operating budget to provide living wages and better quality of life to its employees. This is a HUGE MISTAKE. The arts - more than any other industry - requires sustained institutional knowledge management, innovative and nimble administrators and the ability to retain the most qualified and effective workers. However, wages in the arts + culture sector are phenomenally low, there are almost no incentives or rewards for success, opportunities for professional development are few and far between and human capital is widely seen as expendable. I could go on a foul-mouthed furious tirade about this -and have - but for decency’s sake, I’ll leave it there and move on to the key issue that is: if you want to have sustainable arts ecologies then you need to invest in people. Here are a few ways in which arts + culture could improve the lives of its workers and make it a more attractive profession:

Pay a living wage with health benefits, retirement, etc. Arts administrators should at least be on a level with teachers, the two professions are deeply related and require similar skill sets.
No more M.F.A.s! There is nothing more useless than a Master’s degree in arts administration or an arts administrator who possesses one. Not only does the “book learning” rarely have anything to do with the real world, it creates a peculiar breed of person who feels entitled to respect (and a senior position) without possessing any prior actual experience. Cultural institutions don’t need more MBA-style administrators who are constantly looking for the next best opportunity. Cultural institutions need administrators who are hands-on and capable. More importantly, because of the extraordinarily ephemeral nature of arts + culture, the institutions need the knowledge management which comes from long-term employee retention.
Bring back apprenticeship! A young arts administrator should come into an organization and be able to stay for 5-10 years, learning the trade and gradually moving up. Cultural institutions are not corporations, they are organic and complicated, they are about knowledge, creativity, education and imagination. As such, without a tangible product or revenue stream, the “collective memory” of the institution must be sustained and moved forward through the cultivation of its human assets.
Reward success. Provide opportunities for professional development, provide clear pathways to promotion and advancement, implement institutional mentoring programs, subsidies for continuing education and skills acquisition. Treat Arts Workers like Valuable Human Beings!!

In addition to revamping the culture sector’s approach to managing its human resource capital, there are other key factors to developing a sustainable arts ecology/infrastructure. I return to my previous point of consolidation.

Despite what Wall Street would have you believe, running a cultural institution is incredibly hard work. The kind of crap the banking, automotive and real estate industries get away with would never fly in the non-profit sector. For every arts organization, theater, dance company, etc. to have to function as its own 501(c)(3) is just insane.

We need to not only consolidate bricks and mortar but consolidate arts administration. The Public Theatre in NYC has actually made great strides towards housing multiple companies of various size in its building. Here is where urban planners and cultural institutions need to start innovating - how do we devise public cultural spaces that provide both physical resources and administrative infrastructure for multiple arts organizations. If a ballet company, theater company or a musical ensemble didn’t have to have a fundraiser and an executive director and a bookkeeper and all this administrative overhead, they could focus on making art. They could probably make it faster, cheaper and easier. How do we build an infrastructure that alleviates the administrative burdens on arts creators and incentivizes top-notch administrators to stay in the culture sector?

Public cultural spaces should be transparent public/private non-profit partnerships. Administratively they should be managed as public trusts, dedicated to serving the community-at-large through arts, education, humanities and enrichment. The administration of the physical plant, the fiscal dealings of the organization, all of the operational logistics should be completely separate from the creative and curatorial administration. In addition there should be alternative, innovative housing solutions that integrate artists and educators into the daily life of the community they serve.

We must renew the civic commitment to public cultural institutions. Just as those of us in New York are constantly being asked to underwrite the construction of stadiums, ballparks and basketball arenas for the benefit of massive corporations, so too should the public be responsible for funding arts and culture. The arts, at least, provide intellectual development, aesthetic refinement, the cultivation of emotional complexity and moral uplift; considerably more positive benefits than the steroids, arrogance, sexual violence, licentiousness and ignorant conspicuous consumption promoted by so-called professional sports.

This leads back, inevitably, to the notion of repositioning - if we are going to ask the public to participate in sustaining and arts + culture infrastructure we need to reassert arts + culture relevance in civic life. Which leads back to requiring artists and curators to work much more closely with non-arts partners - economists, sociologists, scientists, computer programmers, city planners, demographers, etc. - to identify the pressing conceptual issues of the day and what conversations we need to be having for the future and start having them.

Funding-wise if arts organizations had sustained and reliable general operating expenses this would alleviate the fear and stress engendered by a constant state of financial peril. This would encourage evaluators to assess administrator performance using other criteria - such as relationship building with non-arts institutions, program impact, possibly even revenue generated through the creation of intellectual property.

If arts + culture institutions invested in human capital to make administrator jobs really valuable and hard to get, they would attract better people by introducing a wider field of competition - just like Wall Street! This would also open the field in a way that no longer privileges the privileged. Currently the major qualification for executive arts leadership is often donor cultivation - which is best done by peers. This does not necessarily correspond with managerial prowess, vision, leadership or accountability.

Providing an adequate baseline of funding for a multi-disciplinary shared civic cultural space and increasing arts administrator wages so that it could be a lifelong career would create competition; rewarding experience and talent over privilege.

This would also require the implementation of a more visible and definite line between the administrative and curatorial arms. But an adequate baseline of funding would alleviate the fundraising pressures, strengthening the administrator’s ability to manage in a responsible way. It would also remove the pressure for art to be commercially viable or conventionally successful - concerns best left to the entertainment industry.

3. Decentralize Cultural Production

Think globally, act locally, get connected. Use the internet, new media and all tools available to facilitate conversation and information-sharing and artist exchange. “Regional” rtist shouldn’t have to mean “provincial” artist.

As the cost of cultural production skyrockets in major urban centers, we need to decentralize the process - finding cheaper places to build arts and culture while assuring quality and sophistication that will be competitive in a global arts market. In this day and age there is no reason why cultural civic centers can’t facilitate ongoing global dialogue, artist exchanges, residencies and public programs on the relevant issues of the day.

In addition, we need to cultivate and improve networked performance and real-time trans-geographic interaction. We must identify new ways for artists to collaborate over distances, find ways for audiences to engage regardless of place.

Ultimately this will not only benefit the field of arts and culture but it will bring the arts to life in a new way in each city and/or region. Local art museums should show local artists. Local theaters, symphonies, operas and cultural centers should all actively support the creation of new work in their communities. Projects like the New Museum’s 3M or Museum As Hub initiatives suggest possibilities for collaborative development.

Alternately cultural production could be distributed regionally according to resource availability.

4. Increase Arts Education, Widen the Frame and Democratize Cultural Access

Let’s start by “widening the frame” of what we identify art so that young people find arts and culture are RELEVANT and USEFUL. We must now remedy the 30 years of intentional destruction of the arts education in America and make the arts accessible to all and relevant to the younger generation.

That doesn’t mean forcing them to listen to opera or go see mediocre, didactic plays - it means identifying the new, encouraging innovation and inviting young people into the process of creativity; it means identifying what young people are already doing with technology and encouraging them to contextualize their natural curiosity and creativity as art.

Video games, digital music production, digital video production, web-based interaction - all of these new technologies are not merely utilities they are landscapes for imaginative play. We must encourage young people to move beyond utility and look at technology as fun - a way to make art and play and imagine and dream.

We can’t start arts education with the old, demanding that today’s kids learn about theater, classical music, poetry, etc. on our terms. We must re-frame expression and experience in a way that affirms the aesthetics of our on-demand, “personalized” society and creates new access points to art. Once we re-introduce the idea of imaginative play we can grow young people’s awareness of the history of the arts and culture, point to precedents and empower them to investigate the world around them.

We must be willing to relinquish the dominant narrative and educate young people, give them the tools to express their personal agency in the construction of narrative with intellect, insight and responsibility.

Widening the frame cannot succeed without a commitment to arts education and art appreciation in the schools. It cannot be an afterthought - it must be restored to the core curriculum along with basic science, mathematics, English and social studies.

As culturally-specific museums renegotiate their representations of identity, they are creating literally thousands of new access points to culture for people of all identities, ethnicities, backgrounds and social status.

We need to reintroduce the arts as an educational tool and a tool for empowering young people with the skills of critical thinking, creativity and innovation.

We also need to understand that arts education is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor and consciously tailor artistic educational programs to demographics. Affluent students who come from historically philanthropic backgrounds may well require different educational access points and priorities from those who come from less comfortable backgrounds. The end goal is not unified arts education but providing as many access points as possible and giving young people whatever tools they need. Democratizing access to cultural resources also means scaling those access points strategically. It is not enough just to make things cheap - we need to make things relevant.

Arts Education is not one-sided - arts + education need to be integrated more fully and thoughtfully. We must revise and innovate the integration of educational components into the cultural production process. Every cultural institution should have in-house dramaturges and educational curriculum development professionals. They should keep records of research and process during the creation of new work, developing bibliographies, guides, online documentation and all the paratext surrounding the work. By having educational and dramaturgical professionals on-hand, working on parallel and simultaneous tracks, we can increase the transparency of the artistic process and reinforce the connection between art, ideas, public policy, politics, cultural attitudes, philosophy, economics and entertainment.

To have an informed populace in the information age, they must have the tools to parse the media - and art can create a critical context for developing skills in media analysis. Even though this sounds abstract, the right approach can make it accessible to anyone. Whether it is talking about why video games look the way they do, or why a specific camera angle is chosen, today’s youth need to be educated as much in visual and media literacy as in textual literacy. Arts + Culture is a great tool for that.

In this new world, everything is art if you see it that way. Culture is vast and all-inclusive. We must provide the citizens of tomorrow with the tools to frame cultural experience in an intelligent, empowered way. If America is to remain a dominant global cultural force then we have to be artistically and culturally advanced, conscious of the images we create and messages we disseminate and we must have a population that is literate enough to engage in these conversations.

5. Innovate Funding and Revenue Models For Cultural Production and Distribution

This is the big one - and I’m not giving it away for free. Not yet. But if you’ve read everything I’ve written thus far and think I’m talking big government and socialism, um, you’re wrong.

*I HAVE WRITTEN LITERALLY HUNDREDS OF PAGES ON THIS and would be able to write a much more cogent and complete assessment if offered a book deal [and editor!) that would enable me to quit my job and devote my energy to writing. I would love to write a lengthy treatise on the economics of cultural production in the U.S. and the systemic function it breeds, but for expediency’s sake I am reducing it to some bullet points and short paragraphs on how to fix the arts + culture infrastructure and reposition the arts in relationship to both the public and private sectors

Adrian Ellis raises some interesting questions for the museum field but they certainly carry over to all of the arts!

2009-03-16T12:08:00.002-04:00

The recession and US museums

How to compensate for the loss of philanthropic, endowment and visitor incomes

By Adrian Ellis | From Editorial & Commentary | Posted: 11.3.09

“That was then; this is now.” A blunt expression often used in negotiations when one party wants to make clear to the other that previously reasonable expectations are unlikely to be met because of some adverse and unalterable change in circumstances. It is an expression that the cultural sector’s leadership is likely to hear frequently over the next few years as it seeks to navigate a radically changed economic and political map. The global recession that we have entered will not just knock the froth off things; it will permanently reconfigure the cultural landscape. This may happen more slowly and the events may be less flamboyantly newsworthy than the bankruptcy of Iceland, the collapse of the international banking system or the failure of the American mortgage industry, but the underlying forces at work are just as strong—indeed, they are the same forces.

This observation is hardly revelatory. The past five years of the decade-long upswing of the art market—predominantly the contemporary art market—has been largely speculative in nature, and the market correction that we are experiencing has been predicted by most parties who do not have a vested interest in the prolongation of the bubble: a period of declining volumes and prices and a shrinking of the market’s entire infrastructure—galleries, auction houses, art fairs and ancillary publications, and public relations. (In February, Standard & Poor’s gave Sotheby’s a credit rating of BBB, for example.) The scale and duration of the contraction will be directly related to the scale and duration of the wider recession. The art market trails the economy—as a whole reluctantly, but obediently. To give some indication of what’s ahead, the last time the art market experienced a major slump followed the 1987 stock-market crash. The art market fell later but further than the stock market, finally hitting bottom in 1993, with prices falling 56% on average. The market was thinner then, and therefore more volatile, but the current recession is broader and deeper, and likely to last longer; and the fall is from a higher speculative peak.

The impact of world recession on museums will be more subtle, but no less profound. The conspicuous consumption that has fuelled the art market is umbilically linked to the conspicuous philanthropy that has fuelled much of the growth in contemporary art museums throughout the US, the Middle East, South East Asia and Europe. These institutions have been significant beneficiaries of the growing and, to many, morally indefensible disparities of wealth throughout the world. It has left them heavily reliant on, and overly attuned and attentive to, a narrow constituency whose long-term appetite or capacity for support is highly questionable. The sector has come to rely disproportionately on the very wealthy, and on the role that museums can play as mechanisms for the translation of wealth into status, and status into power.

Most fundraisers in the arts freely acknowledge how much the pyramid of giving has narrowed in the past decade, with a greater reliance on an increasingly diminishing number of very wealthy donors. In Russia, India and the Middle East, the pyramid is practically a sheer-faced column—the museum sector is to a large extent the domain of the newly super-wealthy. The almost inevitably speculative nature of rapidly acquired wealth can lead to dramatic reversals of fortune, and thus of largesse. Interestingly, the success of President Obama’s electoral campaign in using web-based social networking to secure smaller donations is the talk of the charitable sector internationally. But art museums are not just short of the technological know-how to widen access to a donor base. They are also short of the arguments to galvanise them, as can be seen in the reaction of the US Congress to the provisions for the cultural sector in the Federal Bailout Bill. Museums have given a great deal of time and attention to stratification and hierarchy for the upper tiers of donors. With conspicuous consumption less in favour, speculative fortunes trimmed and priorities adjusted, the social class that art museums have smooched with most intimately is also the group most likely to sit out the next few dances.

The contraction of anything short of all-weather philanthropic support is, of course, compounded by dramatic drops of 30-50% in endowment income (whether museums’ own or of the trusts and foundations on which they rely). The precipitous drop in Brandeis University’s endowment led to its president’s ill thought-out plan to close the Rose Museum and sell its collection. A more wily plan may well have attracted less attention. It is also compounded by cuts in public expenditure as local and national governments enter a prolonged period of austerity, reflecting their reduced tax base and the increased demands for fiscal intervention. UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham said in January: “All parts of government have to hear that message and live in the real world. Some people may not like it, but the arts has [sic] to live in the real world too. Nobody is immune from what is happening.” In the US, the State of California is sending out IOUs instead of the tax rebates it owes, and most state and city arts departments—far more significant in the US than federal arts funding—have either implemented cuts or warned that they are on their way. Layoffs, furloughs (unpaid leave), pay cuts and shortened public openings are common in smaller museums and galleries in the US.

Museums of art have tended to rely more heavily on spectacle than programme to attract visitors—loud headlines rather than a fine print of involvement in the community. This is despite exhortations by trade associations such as the American Association of Museums in the US and the Museums Association in the UK that their members adopt agendas that increase and parade their social relevance, and myriad programmes of outreach and social engagement.

In the painful process of the prioritisation of public expenditure, the prospect of political underwriting—that is, a sense of obligation to sustain cultural institutions by civic leadership—is greatly diminished both by the realities of public expenditure constraint and by the growing sentiment of politicians that the art world, at least at its current scale of activity, is simply not central to a civic agenda congested with crises in health, housing, employment, education and the environment.

The brunt of the squeeze will be borne disproportionately by operating budgets (exhibition programmes, education programmes, conservation, research and curatorial functions). This is because, short of closure, the fixed costs associated with expanded infrastructure (new buildings, wings etc.) are just that—fixed. It is the need to balance the books from a higher baseline of fixed cost that is causing the pain. The drift is clear: we are entering a period when all but the most privileged and well-connected of art museums are going to come under very real financial constraints and many will be doing so with a weakened safety-net of well-disposed stakeholders. Outside of the restitution of art to Holocaust victims and the occasional censure of miscreants, museums have for the most part shown limited capacity for effective collective action. Industry-wide responses to problems (analogous to those for banks or the automotive industry) would require an appetite for solidarity that does not come naturally, even if the industry found a more willing ear in government.

Much of the reaction to these trying circumstances will therefore be confined to what individual museums, or small coalitions of museums, can do. Museums’ boards and directors are—quite reasonably, given their central mission of stewardship—highly conservative and, perhaps less reasonably, highly motivated by peer approval. Therefore, radical alternatives to genteel but irrevocable decline—such as merger, relocation, restructuring, resource sharing—are only likely to be contemplated as a last resort when an institution is faced with imminent closure. By that time, solutions are significantly more difficult to implement, as the time, money and organisational will required have been exhausted. As Hegel said, “the owl of Minerva flies at dusk”. It is interesting, if not entirely comfortable, to speculate on some of the fault lines that are likely to grow as the pressure caused by the triangulation of the dark forces of speculative expansion, recession and a diminished civic mandate increases.

Here are three possible ideas. First, dramatic and competitive physical expansion and large-scale temporary exhibitions have, in a sense, substituted for an effective agenda of community engagement. These strategies have served as a way of generating buzz and money while interest in the traditional mission of the art museum was waning to the point where it was insufficient to generate the funds required. These strategies are now stalling because of their expense; the contraction of the philanthropic and public sector funds and the cultural tourist market on which they are premised; and the diminishing returns the strategies secure in a crowded, winner-takes-all marketplace. Art museum agendas will have to shift to seek viable alternatives to these warhorses and with them, the skill sets required of museum leadership will also shift.

Second, in the search for resources, the desire to explore ways of capitalising collections will continue to grow. The straightforward fiat that is the current international norm—no deaccessioning unless you spend proceeds on more art—will either be finessed or ignored under the pressure of financial realities.

Third, what museums accept they cannot do alone, they will explore doing together more thoroughly and earnestly than in the past: collection sharing, joint acquisitions, pooling conservation resources, and pooling curatorial appointments. The museum economy is increasingly globalised and these trends will be global in their impact. The alternative to the open-minded exploration of radical alternatives is a sombre one, in which the energies and ingenuities of the sector are devoted increasingly to the support of a dysfunctional pseudo-mission: that of maintaining appearances at any cost, even if the museum becomes a sort of “living dead” organisation, in which any capacity for aesthetic or intellectual endeavour is sacrificed to the goal of keeping the institutional ego protected.

The writer is a regular columnist for The Art Newspaper and a director of AEA Consulting

Funding Opportunities

2009-03-16T11:45:00.003-04:00

Below is a great summary of some of the funding opprouniutes for the arts from the Stimulous package - notice it isn't just the NEA funding, there is a little money out there - for better or worse. Get creative people.

http://www.nasaa-arts.org/nasaanews/stimulus-opportunities.shtml

And, the NEA and NEH got $10M budget increases from the FY 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act.

http://www.americansforthearts.org/news/afta_news/default.asp

Cultural Post in the White House

2009-03-14T14:51:00.004-04:00

The day after the Presidential election I started here from several friends and organizations about a push for an arts-related staff position in the Obama White House. At the TCG fall forum, the Performing Arts Alliance and American for the Arts platform clearly called for a Arts advocate on staff in the administration. Then we heard cries for a cultural czar or a cabinet level position be established and internet petitions begin. It seems the work paid off.

According to the New York Times President Obama "has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs." No other real information is in the article (copied below) other than the person who is to fill the position is Kareem Dale (brief bio from Google search and a link his campaign blog below).

I have to say I am sort of glad that the call for a Czar or Cabinet level position didn't pan out. I always felt that it was asking for trouble and I didn't quite like the idea a federal arts directive under any administration. But a staff position is a completely different angle and could be something that really works well for the arts. Of course without a job description and frankly with no idea what the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs really does, I guess we will have to wait a bit to see what it really means.

I am going to remain optimistic. I hope that Mr. Dale is able at the highest level to help clearly define the value of arts in this country - for educational, cultural, and economical reasons (it's not like we artists have been doing that great job of it). We have a unique opportunity at this time to reinstate the value of the arts to society - our President and first family seem to be active arts participants by choice not force and in times of great change/challenges the arts usually become a touchstone for society. Let's put all of our creativity into creating great art and getting the word out and maybe we (with the help of the Obama administration) will be able to put the arts in a better position than they have ever been in.

Kareem Dale's Campaign Blog

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Dale previously served as the National Disability Director for the Obama for America campaign. He also served on the Arts Policy Committee and the Disability Policy Committee for then-Senator Obama.

Dale graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor's degree in Advertising in May 1995. He received his JD/MBA in May 1999 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Cum Laude. While attending law school, Dale was also active in community service, including serving as president of two organizations, the Black Law Students' Association and Open Forum.

New York Times
March 14, 2009

Arts, Briefly

Cultural Post at White House

By ROBIN POGREBIN; Compiled by Patrick Healy

President Barack Obama has established a staff position in the White House to oversee arts and culture in the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs under Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser, a White House official confirmed. Kareem Dale, right, a lawyer who last month was named special assistant to the president for disability policy, will hold the new position. Mr. Dale, who is partly blind, previously served as national disability director for the Obama campaign. He also served on the arts policy committee and the disability policy committee for Mr. Obama when he was a senator from Illinois. Bill Ivey, who served as the administration’s transition-team leader for the arts and humanities, said he was encouraged by the appointment and would meet with Mr. Dale next week. “It’s a big step forward in terms of connecting cultural and government with mainstream administration policy,” Mr. Ivey said in an interview on Friday. The White House declined to describe the position in detail, since Mr. Dale’s appointment has yet to be formally announced. Mr. Ivey, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, said he expected that the job would mainly involve coordinating the activities of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services “in relation to White House objectives.” Although there have been staff members assigned to culture under past presidents, they usually served in the first lady’s office, Mr. Ivey said.

Facebook - Innovative idea for getting butts in seats!

2009-03-13T18:01:00.003-04:00

Now here is some fun forward thinking. Lynn Baber from Northlight thought of a great way to use Facebook to get folks to attend their production of Mauritius. Below is a note she posted on Facebook. The best part is that someone I was following in England on Twitter sent it out as a tweet, which is how I heard about it. It will be great to hear about Lynn's response.

Lynn Baber's Notes:

Dear Fan of Northlight,

Want cheap tickets to Northlight shows? You got it. Here’s how.

Change your Facebook status to “____ is seeing Mauritius at Northlight Theatre for only $1, and you can too. Ask me how!”

Then print out a screen shot of your status and bring it to the Box Office. Your ticket is just $1 (a handling fee)!*

(Of course, we’d love it if you let interested friends know how to participate when they ask you, and we’d like it even more if you sent this message to all your friends or write your thoughts about the show in your Notes…but that’s up to you!)

Thanks for being a fan of Northlight. See you at the Theatre!

*-Subject to availability. Some restrictions apply. We suggest calling ahead to check ticket availability - 847/673-6300. Reservations will not be taken.

The Playgoer: Will Theatre Outlive The Newspaper?

2009-03-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

Interesting point here at The Playgoer blog. Perhaps we should all give up on trying to catch up and instead focus on how to get ahead of the game when it comes to the future of information dissemination.

The Playgoer: Will Theatre Outlive The Newspaper?

To Kill a Mockingbird - Hartford Stage

2009-03-13T01:12:00.005-04:00

"Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father is passing."

From the moment Charles Turner as Rev. Sykes said the words on stage tonight, tears were in my eyes and more often than not rolling down my cheeks.

Tonight I saw beautiful, relevant theater. Theater that told a story. Theater that reminded me in desperate times, desperate people can do horrible things. Many innocent people can be hurt along the way, and people who are affected by the actions of those desperate people - the survivors - will never be the same.

To see this story played out less than two months after the historical inauguration of the first African American president was a sign of how far we have come. To see this story played out in horrible economic times when people are becoming so desperate and angry; in a period of social peril where people are looking for who to blame and someone to take their anger out on; and in a time when people are still fighting for equality and respect in the eyes society and in the eyes of the court - that is a reminder of how far we have to go.

A good story told well is mighty powerful.

Tonight, for the first time in a long time, I watched a show alone - despite the sold out house, from that moment in the second act when that line was uttered it was just me and those actors on the stage.

Ironically with all the talk of adaptions in the last post, when the line was said the same exact moment in the movie of To Kill a Mockingbird popped into my head and my mind laid the image over the stage like a transparency. As Mathew Modine crossed the stage, he and Gregory Peck melded in my mind and I was brought back to the play and stage in front of me. And the power of great theatre reached into my heart and touched my soul.

Thank you to everyone involved in the production. I can not think of a better way to honor Horton Foote than with the dedication of this fine show to him.

I urge you to go see this wonderful show. That is if there are any tickets left - go to Hartford Stage.

The "masses" and why they aren't coming to shows?

2009-03-12T13:56:00.006-04:00

First a quick thanks to the Clyde Fitch Report and Leonard Jacobs for the shout out on his site.

But back to the blogosphere debates....

Then there are the cross-over debates that folks from non-profit and for-profit theatre are having. These are issues that have more or less plagued theatre for a long time:

Should we just give the "masses" what they want and make some money or do great art and hope the masses notice?
Are the so called "masses" pop culture obsessed, short-attention-span idiots or are we under-estimating them - in other words - do we know what the masses want?
Those darn critics have too much power.
How the hell do we get people to come see shows?

Okay - Ken Davenport (super smart guy I met at off-Broadway Brain-stormers Committee that two years ago) has been getting a ton of flack via twitter, facebook and his blog Producers Perspective regarding screen to stage adaptions. This is just a specific point to number 1 above.

The answer to number 1 is simple - DO GOOD WORK and in most cases the "masses" notice. There are great original musicals (Avenue Q, In the Heights, Spelling Bee, and those are only the recent ones) and there are great musicals that come from other sources whether they be books (Wicked, Les Miz); artists body of work (Mamma Mia); plays (Spring Awakening) or films (Hairspray). The same can be said for straight plays - there are several great plays based on books and other sources - too many to list (but I am seeing To Kill a Mockingbird tonight at Hartford Stage)! And guess what for every successful original work there are a bunch that are not successful or need work and the same goes for adaptions. It is not about where the work comes from but how good it is. Although the examples above are from Broadway, this applies to off-Broadway and regional theater too.

It is also vital to match the space, location, and community to the work not an individual's ego. Not all art is meant to be seen by everyone. We have all seen a good show die in a space that was too big or worse a show so great it eclipses the space it is in but can't get into bigger real estate (Wit, anyone? Yes, I still think it should have gone to Broadway). Take Signature Theatre Company for example - they have produced some of the most innovative work (Bill Irwin season) and best revivals (Fifth of July, Seven Guitars, Trip to Bountiful). None of these moved on the larger venues, but they are remembered, discussed and landmark productions. Certainly some shows make more sense in urban locations or in a community with a specific population. Any theater person can tick off a long list of ego-based projects that ended up on Broadway when they had no business being done there or were done in a community that the show didn't relate to at all because someone's ego needed to be fed by doing the show - and the majority of these shows were failures because they didn't connect with the space, location or community.

As for number 2 - those so called "masses" who are supposedly pop culture obsessed, short-attention-span idiots? It doesn't matter if we are underestimating them or not, because the fact is there are massive shifts happening in how people live their lives; what experiences they search for and how they access those experiences, and THE THEATER IS BEHIND. We are quickly losing our relevancy and it is not the audiences' fault. We are quick to blame TV, movies, the Internet, anything but ourselves. Theatre must get with the times. We have to do what we do best - live on the edge, take on the difficult stuff, take the audiences there for the experience, find new ways for the audience to reach the experience, inspire the audience to think or take action, and WE HAVE TO MAKE IT RELEVANT. (see most of last summer's posts about nonprofit theatre).

Lots of theatres are making wonderful steps in this direction and producing great work (August Osage County, David Cromer's Our Town). Many theatres are creating partnership programs that explore the issues or ideas of a piece, and providing an in depth openness about the production process, etc. Theatres are finally building websites that have actual content and make it easy to buy a ticket! We need to double, triple those efforts.

Number 3, Oh the critics - are they too powerful? Considering the critics are being overtaken by bloggers and newspapers are being shuttered, I think we will soon be nostalgic for the time when the critics were so powerful and got the word out about shows. Sure, the critics often have the power to kill a show, but let's be really honest once and for all (and I am sure people will get mad at this but here goes) - aren't the critics right some/most of the time? I know they cost a lot of commercial/nonprofit producers to close shows prematurely or lose money, but frankly they have saved me a lot time that would have been spent sitting through mediocre or (sorry) bad shows. I would actually argue they are losing their power and the audiences are suffering for it. The fact that the wonderfully reviewed, amazing production of Horton Foote's Dividing the Estate closed after such a short run on Broadway is proof of the loss of power of the critics.

But the real question that everyone in the industry should be focusing on is number 4 - How the hell do we get people to come see shows? All of the above - great theater that is relevant - is a good start, but unfortunately it isn't enough. We have to make great theatre and find the answer to this question. We are entering the second generation of students who do not have the arts in the schools (despite valiant efforts by many organizations). Ticket prices make it difficult for people to afford attending a show. There is a lot of competition for peoples attention. We have a lot of work to do.

http://www.theproducersperspective.com/my_weblog/2009/03/in-defense-of-the-screen-to-stage-adaptation.html

Funding Models/Saving Theatres

2009-03-11T19:02:00.002-04:00

Back to the blog debates:

Before we dive in everyone should bookmark, subscribe via RSS feed or visit regularly Leonard Jacobs's blog http://clydefitch.blogspot.com/

Honestly, no one is covering theater more than he is. And although sometime I disagree with his posts (although rarely) he is provoking some of the best thinking among theater bloggers. He also has the best list of blogs for theater on his site and provides a weekly summary of other blogs. Seriously anyone interested in theater should be following his posts. I imagine Frank Rizzo's new blog http://blogs.courant.com/curtain/ will grow into a similar resource. Not surprising as both Leonard and Frank are true journalists who have followed the field for a while.

At the end of the posts I will put a bunch of links in to blogs that are talking about these issues (many will be to Clyde Fitch Report).

In nonprofit theatre the debates seem to be centering for the most part around two arguments:

The funding model for theatre has to be changed, but how - more earned revenue, more contributed revenue, or more government support?
Do all the theatres in trouble really deserved to be saved (two overriding arguments are emerging - (a) there is just too many theatres or (b) is the fact that a particular theatre's "art" really wasn't that relevant, engaging or well-executed why it is in trouble in the first place, and if should it be saved?

My thoughts on funding models: First, most theatres will tell you they have an income problem and not an expense problem. I will take each and everyone one of them at their word. I have been crunching numbers for theaters since I was 16 years old - and have never been in or seen a theatre that is over-funded or that isn't cost cutting 24/7, 365 days a year.

Certainly there is an discussion to be had about the way the expenditures work towards meeting their mission but that is really for part two of this post - whether theatres should be saved.

I will go out on a limb here and probably anger a lot of friends, but I am among those that think NEA funding is not the answer to saving theatre in this country. The NEA is more like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. I certainly don't object to government funding (and think there should be plenty of it and will always advocate for increases), but the real answer to sustainability for the theater isn't going to be found through government funds. It just isn't.

All one has to do is look at the current $50M in the Federal Stimulus package which will barely dent covering other cuts organizations will be enduring from state and local agencies and requires that organizations be funded by the NEA in prior years. Why isn't the $50M going directly 100% to retaining jobs in the arts - wasn't that the point of the Stimulus bill. I imagine every organization funded by the NEA could use some support in maintaining staff.

And unfortunately the process of apply for any kind of government funding is inherently biased towards older and larger organizations. I worked for an arts council for 3 years; I sat in the panels; and it is simply the truth that there is a bias. (Although as a side note, I will commend the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs under Kate Levin's leadership - as the most forward thinking reformer trying to create equity).

What is the right funding model?

This isn't any new discussion, unfortunately too many organizations (and more importantly their boards) are still striving toward the 60:40 earned to contributed rule that became a health barometer for performing arts long ago and simply is not an accurate measure of success or sustainability and hasn't been for years. (history lesson via wikipedia: Baumol and Cultural Economics and Baumol's Cost Disease ).

The only answer I can come up with in this current climate is that each and every organization needs to throw out all generalities and industry standards and be as creative as possible to figure out what is right for its own mission and health. Let's look at some examples:

One I know well is NYC's Signature Theatre Company's GREAT THEATRE! GREAT PRICE! Campaign. Through corporate, foundation, and individual support they found a way to have $15 tickets for two seasons and $20 for four seasons for every regular performance. Through vision and pure will James Houghton and Signature pulled this off (I know - I was there for it). It was never envisioned as a discount ticket program. It is and always has been a subsidy program.

Most people are surprised that the idea grew from a frustration we faced regarding the value of a ticket to small off-Broadway shows - where papering agencies did more business than most theatre's box offices. All those free tickets were being given away and no one was coming to the performances because we had taken the value out of the ticket.

It also grew out of mission. Signature's unique study of a playwright's body of work over a set period of time requires a committed, devoted, and repeat audience - what subscribers used to be - was essential to the Signature experience. Because the choice of playwrights was diverse, a certain trust in the company had to be established with a variety of audiences - young, old, different ethnic groups, etc. The ticketing initiative addressed all of the mission issues in a simple way, as simple and beautiful as the mission itself. Of course the initiative didn't solve all of Signatures funding issues (I am not there but feel pretty confident guessing this - I know Jim has huge ambitions and a strong vision that will always be out front of the company's abilities - just as it darn well should be). It most certainly has created a unique funding model and I really believe Jim Houghton will come up with a way to make it keep on working in Signature's favor! I also think as Signature moves into its new home Jim will be able to keep the organization's mission locked firmly at the center of everything the company does.

Another unique group with a unique model that works for them is the LARK. The Lark develops new work, and we all know that the audience understanding and hunger for new work is a bit less than we would like. But here the Lark has figured out how to be completely driven by a contributed income model.

Then there is Steppenwolf who years ago used real estate as a new alternative revenue stream.

Of course there are dozens of theaters using co-production or enhancement models as a driving force to change their income models.

I guess what I am saying is that we are going to have to rely on our wits, vision, and missions to solve funding problems and not rely on the government. Of course we won't let them off the hook, especially when it comes to Arts Education, capital initiatives, legislative issues regarding non-profit status, and special projects. I will be the first person in line to argue for increases, I just have more faith in the creativity of the field than any politician - even the most arts friendly.

This leads to the much more difficult conversation: should we be trying to save every theatre out there? Unfortunately the answer is NO.

I firmly believe that some organizations simply run their course and reach a point where their mission has been "achieved" or they are no longer the organization who should try to achieve it - and in this situation there is no shame is drawing the organization to a close - this applies to every nonprofit.

Sad to say. but most of the theaters that are in significant trouble aren't in that spot because they have achieved their missions.

What we have is the same problem facing many industries:

too many institutions
too many that are off-mission or doing a mediocre job of fulfilling their mission
too many that are not serving their communities because they are serving the ego of staff or board members
too many clinging to the past and therefore can't move forward
too many living beyond their means
too many trying to meet expectations they shouldn't be or don't need to be

I know everything I have just said is going to anger a lot of people, but the current economic melt-down makes it necessary to really look for the organizations who have strong missions that they are fulfilling, the organizations who are doing the best work, the organizations who are contributing most to the field and we are going to have to save those. We are in the middle of the creation of a new reality and no one knows for sure what it will look like or mean on the other side..

Those who meet the above will certainly have problems, but they will likely be able to work with their communities and supporters to save themselves. This isn't going to be about the age or size of the organization or about the will, desire, or money of one or two people to keep something going. The situation demands more than that. It must be about mission, how an organization serves its community, how an organization works with other organizations (arts and others) and what an organization decides to focus on.

And who decides whether a theater is saved is going to be the most difficult part. Hopefully artists, staffs, boards, and donors will ask organizations the really hard questions before they commit to who to save - the entire field will depend upon it.

http://clydefitch.blogspot.com/2009/03/ian-david-moss-backlash-to-future.html

http://www.artsjournal.com/jazzbeyondjazz/2009/03/recent_nea_grants-getters_win.html

http://www.gaspjournal.com/2009/03/arts-funding-and-social-criticism-in-2009.html

http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2009/03/deliberately-unsustainable-business.html

http://createquity.blogspot.com/2009/02/backlash-begins.html

http://clydefitch.blogspot.com/2009/03/should-some-theaters-die.html

http://www.artsjournal.com/lies/2009/03/tragic-magic.html

Blogosphere - where great thinking is happening

2009-03-06T11:58:00.000-05:00

In addition to all of the most major newspapers arts sections, traditional industry periodicals, web-sites, etc., I have been reading a lot of blogs lately - a lot.

I am trying to really understand what is happening across the country in theatre, the arts, and non-profits and how difficult the environment is. Whenever, I am trying to sort out idea or major themes for myself, reading others thoughts certainly helps. For now I am just going to focus on theatre.

I should as a side note mention how amazing it is that SO many people are out there posting and how intelligent many of them are - whether I agree with them or not. There certainly seem to be enough folks focused on the issues at hand so maybe we can make a difference for future generations.

In nonprofit theatre the debates seem to be centering for the most part around two arguments:

The funding model for theatre has to be changed, but how - more earned revenue, more contributed revenue, or more government support?
Do all the theatres in trouble really deserved to be saved (two overriding arguments are emerging - (a) there just too many theatres or (b) is the fact that a particular theatre's "art" really wasn't that relevant, engaging or well-executed why it is in trouble in the first place, and if should it be saved?

Then there are the cross-over debates that folks from non-profit and for-profit theatre are having. These are issues that have more or less plagued theatre for a long time:

Should we just give the "masses" what they want and make some money or do great art and hope the masses notice?
Are the so called "masses" pop culture obsessed, short-attention-span idiots or are we under-estimating them - in other words - do we know what the masses want?
Those darn critics have too much power.
How the hell do we get people to come see shows?

So over the next few posts I am going to throw out my thoughts on these and point out some the blogger who have had some really interesting (and maybe even controversial) thoughts on it.

Horton Foote, storyteller

2009-03-05T19:20:00.001-05:00

I have been so blessed in my life to work with so many amazing actors, directors, and playwrights. I live in awe of most of them. But truthfully, there was one I respected above all others, the incomparable Horton Foote.

This had nothing to do with me spending a large portion of my life in Texas. Horton's work spoke to me in a unique way that other movies, plays, and stories never could. I can't explain why Harrison, Texas seemed so much like everyplace I had lived and loved. His characters leapt from the stage or screen into my heart and seemed to take a part of my soul away with them. Those characters, especially the women - no one wrote Southern women as well as Horton, were so real, so true. I love them all no matter what their flaws.

I have worked in the theatre since I was 16 years old and without question, I have read and re-read more of Horton's work than any other playwright. He is the only playwright whose work I read like it was any other book or story. I read his work because I loved it not because I was working on it.

All the descriptions of him as a brilliant, kind, generous gentleman are true. I could listen to him speak endlessly. I am grateful that earlier this year I went to Hartford Stage Company to hear the theatre's artistic director, Michael Wilson interview Horton about the writing of the movie of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as part of the NEA's Big Read programming. Michael told the story of being a young theatre artist who met Horton while he was still in school in North Carolina and Horton inspired him to keep working. After the discussion Michael and I talked about what young artist in the audience that night would be inspired to pursue a life in the theatre after hearing Horton speak. After briefly chatting with Horton that night at Hartford Stage, I drove back to Westport with Brian honored and amazed that we knew one of the greatest American writers. It was the last time we saw him, and I will cherish that night forever. Horton inspired so many people and was loved by so many.

I will never forget the event we held at Signature Theatre Company for his 90th Birthday. His smile lit up the room as so many who knew and had worked with him made toasts in his honor, Robert Duvall, James Earl Jones, John Guare, Matthew Broderick, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the one and only Harper Lee. It is still one of the most magical nights I have ever experienced.

Next Thursday I will be heading the Hartford to see the highly acclaimed production of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD that Horton helped craft featuring the wonderful Hallie Foote, Devon Abner and many other of the "regulars" who worked on Horton's work (especially with director Michael Wilson who has done such wonders with so many of Horton's plays). I will of course head back a few weeks later to see DIVIDING THE ESTATE for the third time - a show for which Horton and Hallie should win the TONY AWARD. And, I have been anticipating the ORPHANS CYCLE productions in Hartford and at Signature Theatre Company since the moment I heard they would happen. I will reread his work regularly starting with his two part memoir BEGINNINGS: A MEMOIR and FAREWELL: A MEMOIR OF A TEXAS CHILDHOOD. So in many ways, Horton will be present over the next year. I am grateful Horton's beautiful words will be in my life forever.

I look forward to watching Hallie continue her journey as the master interpreter of his work. I will be there years and years from now for the opening night for her turn as Carrie Watts in THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL - I only hope I am working on the production in some way. On that night Horton will be smiling down on the stage - just as he did from the audience most performance nights for his plays - I imagine him watching - the smile, a Hershey bar and a Coke - enjoying a night in the theatre. We are all so blessed that Horton Foote walked this earth and wrote about it.

Time to Restructure?

2009-03-02T22:37:00.001-05:00

I have been thinking a lot about restructuring. Not surprising since it seems to be happening everywhere.

On the personal side, Brian and I, like almost everyone I know, are restructuring our finances. Things we once thought essential - are just not important anymore. We have been talking a lot with our families about consolidating. For example, my mother and sister have homes about a mile apart. My mother more or less lives with my sister, seems logical to completely consolidate resources. Perhaps we go so far as to consolidate three households into one and a half. We are searching for other ways to consolidate with both of our families. Distance makes this somewhat difficult. It is also difficult to fight the feeling that we somehow failed, did something wrong, or are being punished. I think many of us feel s certain amount of guilt or shame about the effect the current economy has had on our personal lives.

However it made me think about something that has always been nagging at the back of my mind. Why can't nonprofits "consolidate" more often especially when it comes to infrastructure?

In 2001, my friend Roy Gabay (one of the great commercial theatre general managers) and I discussed me joining his team. The idea was that I would create a new branch of business - outside general management services for nonprofits. At the time we focused only on general management and could not find a solution to what we perceived was a tremendous competition between small off-broadway companies (for donors, ticket-buyers, human resources, and scripts). We felt the competitive nature would prevent the organizations from sharing a key position such as a general manager.

I have rehashing that idea in my mind for a while now. I don't think the real issue was the competition, but that pride and ego were a large part of the equation, as were perceptions of what defined success and on the practical side - the fact that we were narrowing the services to General Management. And even though a general manager oversees budgets, marketing etc - each theatre still would need a significant number of staff members.

What if several theatres share one institutional infrastructure and only the only position that varies (if indeed it did and most likely wouldn't have to) was that of Artistic Director? Or if theatres regularly shared spaces? Or came together for more than co-productions, advocacy or the occasional marketing project - but for fundraising, true artist development and outright survival.

Let's take a few examples of how it might work before we rip it apart with reasons why it wouldn't.

Take Arizona Theatre Company. They have two spaces one in Phoenix and one in Tucson. But they have one core infrastructure. Would this consolidation work with other theater in other states? If they were about the same size and were diverse enough geographically or in mission - it could create some amazing opportunities.

First and foremost, it would allow for better staff compensation and perhaps raise the bar on staff qualifications. Rather than having two or three understaffed Marketing and Development departments - the combined resources would allow for the creation of a unified, complete workforce. And frankly would attract a more talented staff. In the last week three theatres have trended in the opposite direction - cutting leadership staff and just spreading the work around. Isn't a shared qualified staff at least worth exploring?

It would be significantly better for the environment. In general, theatre is a tremendously wasteful art form. Although we have made great strides in recent years, we still throw thousands of dollars of lumber, steel, and goodness knows what else into landfills nationwide.

It certainly could strengthen the bonds between geographic or cultural communities. And the networks and impact of the organizations involved.

And perhaps most importantly (saved the best for last), it could mean a lot more money for productions and education programs.

Sure there are a lot of thing that would have to be sorted out - but isn't is a possible solution for some that is better than closing the doors forever.

And frankly, we are already half way there with all of the "co-pros" currently on the boards.

I am not suggesting this as something everyone could make work, but I can think of a lot of combinations that might make sense and create a tremendous amount of new opportunities.