One of the plusses about working for a university is that your position is more generally secure than comparable ones in other arts organizations. On the other hand, I have quite a few people working for me on a regular basis who aren't in a funded position looking to their job for some degree of support.
In some cases, it is worse being part of a state funded institution because no one thinks you need donations. Because you are competing for government funding, it is rather difficult to cultivate one person from whom you can make an ask since there are legislators, governors and levels of college administrators who all get a say in how much you end up getting.
In my case, it is even worse. Today I had to make a pitch before faculty and staff as to why the priorities in my strategic plan action items deserve funding. They in turn get to vote on whether my suggestions get to be college priorities.
My problems are twofold:
1- There were only two people I counted at the assembly who weren't pitching their own action plans. Thus I was talking to people who were going to vote for their own priorities. There wasn't anyone in the room that there was any chance of convincing.
2- There were people there pitching to fund life altering programs like getting enough staffing to enable the rural poor to attend college. Even though I was looking to do rather worthy things, the least of which was to get the office clerk reclassified so that she is paid properly for the responsibilities she has been handling for 15 years, I couldn't help but think my requests were frivolous.
Recalling that I had read something similar in Artsjournal.com's "Is There a Better Case for the Arts" discussion, I hopped over there. It was pretty much the exact same story, an arts person went before a city council to ask for funding immediately after a group trying to reduce infant mortality rates.
Theatre Communication Group's Executive Director, Ben Cameron, address this:
...pitting the arts against other causes IS a trap. For a healthy society, it should be a both/and and not an either/or. Many of the past questionnaires ask us to prioritize how we spend money--e.g. which is more important between infant mortality and the arts--rather than asking us to describe those characteristics that comprise a healthy society. If we could look at the latter, there would be room and a necessity of a creative approach to policy--one that seeks to promote a more holistic sense of national health in which the arts MUST be counted--rather than the traps of competing causes.
Going back and reading that won't make me any more likely to be funded, but for me it provides a view of the world to advocate and work toward shaping.
Ever on the look out for harbingers of change that may some day translate into problems or solutions for me, I have been following articles about the demise of Rock radio stations of late. A recent article in the NY Times has chronicled how the new rock format has disappeared from the largest radio markets in the country these last few months. At this point, NYC and Philly (and people are keeping on eye on LA) don't have a new/alternative rock station because the Arbitron ratings were dropping and the station owners decided to change formats.
Now having lived in the NYC and Philly areas, I wasn't an avid listener to either station. (I feel compelled at this juncture to make a shout out to listener supported WXPN in Philly) It is what has happened since that has aroused my interest.
When I said that NYC and Philly didn't have new/alternative rock stations, I was sort of misstating the situation. It is more truthful to say they both don't have terrestrial stations with that format.
The old crew from Y100 in Philly is now broadcasting over the internet from their bedrooms essentially at Y100Rocks.com They are scrambling to get funding to keep their shows streaming. Despite being out of work DJs with no physical radio station, they have attracted some fairly significant names to play a concert so they can make money and stay on the air. (I don't believe they are a non-profit so it isn't a fundraiser per se.)
In NYC, Viacom/Infinity took a different tack and moved their alternative rock programming to the internet at KRock2. I think KRock was a little smarter because they get to keep a segment of their listenership which they can now advertise to visually instead of just aurally because you have to go to their webpage to listen in.
The other reason is because I am thinking that internet/satellite radio is going to be the next phase of music delivery. iTunes provides you with the ability to buy music you already listen to, but the new stuff is gonna come from someone programming a mix.
FM may not even get the chance to become AM and have to find a format like talk radio to fill the airwaves because no one will be using AM/FM radio wave receivers anymore. This isn't a matter of deciding you can afford to lose some of your customers to a competitor. This driving people to another delivery mode where there is no chance of them hitting the scan button and deciding to listen to your station again.
I can see has bits of this story makes it a metaphor for the arts in some respects and I will probably explore them in future entries.
There is another tale of possible unintentional self-sabotage in this story. Two of Y100s morning DJs left the station and were under a 6 month non-compete clause. However, a court just handed down a preliminary ruling that since the station changed formats the DJs can work in the market before the 6 months has elapsed because Radio One doesn't own a competing Rock format station in Philly anymore.
A year ago I wrote about how my one sister lives within 10 miles of some of the best theatre and arts venues in NJ, but has a perception that anything not on Broadway isn't worth seeing (including Broadway tours.)
I have come up against a similar feeling at my current theatre. A graduate of the college is the artistic director of a dance company. He grew up on this side of the island and got his start in modern dance because of the school. He has decided he wants to give something back to the school and our side of the island by doing his shows in my space.
He is getting intense pressure from his board about this decision. His shows haven't been doing well in our theatre and I feel sort of bad about it. His shows do much better at the big Broadway touring house in town. He barely fills a third of the 1400 seats in that theatre and they charge him much more for renting the place. However, he does attract enough of a crowd to pay his bill and go home with money in his pocket.
When he does a similar show in my 600 seat theatre--which would appear much fuller if he attracted the same crowd--he hardly attracts anyone.
The problem is, people think that if a show was any good, it would be at the theatre in town. This isn't something I am just assuming--I overheard people reinforce this idea with comments. The most extremely example was when Ladysmith Black Mambazo performed here and sold the house out. Two people arrived late because they went to the theatre in town.
If that wasn't bad enough--they had called my theatre, ordered the tickets and had them with my theatre's name emblazoned across them in hand when they arrived! Despite this, the prejudice over powered them and they ended up trying to use the tickets to see Carol Channing.
I can appreciate this artistic director's dilemmia. I tried to give him an out and pointed that it is tough enough trying to do art these days without purposely placing impediments to making money in your way. (I mean on top of the fact non-profits are not supposed to be covering all their expenses with earned income.)
My concern isn't really about losing the income from renting to him. I rarely have an open weekend to rent. We are just beginning a partnership to develop a work for a world premiere in Fall 2006. I am excited by his vision and really want my theatre to be associated with the work.
With all the related educational programs being developed in conjunction with a museum and local arboretum, I don't think we will have any problem creating enough buzz between now and the opening to overcome the perception that we present substandard work. We should have very nice attendance.
I was listening to NPR today (it is somewhat depressing for me to think that at my age, I consider commercial radio to be crap and am tuning to NPR, the old people's station.) and caught an All Things Considered piece on "Big Picture Schools." While the story isn't specifically arts management connected, it is related to something arts people know about--passion.
As you might imagine, the schools, the flagship of which is in Providence, R.I., are alternative high schools where the class size ratio is 15:1. The surpring thing is though that they are wildly successful running only on the same public funding that every other school gets and running admissions on a lottery system. The criticism of most alternative schools is that they are tuition based and that they can pick and choose to admit the best and brightest insuring high test scores.
The Met School in Providence has 65% of its students qualifying for free/reduced lunch. They may be best and brightest, but it isn't immediately apparent. One student interviewed admitted she initially acted out and hid under desks because she didn't know how to cope with the transition from "regular school."
Students are allowed to follow their passions and do internships two days a week with different organizations whose work they believe they are interested in. The teachers work with the students and internship sites to answer that age old protest--"I am never going to have to use this in the real world" by emphasizing the applications of math, science, etc.
Every 9 weeks the students have to participate in a portfoilo review of materials that relate to what they have learned and their internship experience. The evaluation is gradeless. The teachers provide lengthy written feedback on a number of elements, including the student's development.
The results are impressive. 100% are accepted to college, 85% choose to go, 75% graduate a post secondary program.(The national rate is 6% chance of graduating college if you come from low income setting regardless of race.) Their placement on standardized tests improves every year. They have an extremely low rate of absence, a high rate of parental involvement and the second lowest percentage of students reporting that someone tried to sell them drugs in school in the state.
The thing that really stuck with me was a comment co-founder Dennis Littky made in one of the audio extras NPR provided on their website. He talked about the fact that even in the good schools, the kids who do well may just have learned how to play the game. How to generate the product that will get them a good grade. In many cases, they are more excited about the afterschool activities than what they are doing during the school day.
Littky posits that if you asked the students who did well if they were passionate about learning, they would probably say no for the most part except for a few subjects they might have been particularly interested in.
I can relate to all this to a great degree. I can point to papers I wrote in high school and college that I knew would fit the criteria for getting a good grade and nothing more. There were classes where I got a C on the first test and then all As because I figured out what type of facts were important to study.
On the other hand, if there was ever an open ended option for a paper or an essay to take what I learned and say what happened next or write in the style of time, etc, I always took that option. It was chancier than giving 3 examples of irony, but much more exciting, even in a timed testing environment.
I still have the paper I wrote almost 20 years ago in a freshman seminar where I extended Homer's Odyssey. "The grammatical errors are legion" the professor wrote. But he was very impressed with my ability to passably mimic Homer's translated writing style. The second most memorable B I have ever gotten. I haven't looked at the paper in years, and I still remember the comments and the grade.
My most memorable B was on a paper where, inspired by Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I argued against grades and for extensive commentary on papers. The professor took me at my word and didn't grade the paper but invited me to her office to discuss the paper further. She had to give me a grade and said she would be bound totally by whatever grade I assigned it after reflecting on her comments. I gave myself the B.
It is this sort of fair treatment that set me up for disappointment. I minored in education and was certified to teach in NY. I left for grad school soon after but ended up teaching in college. Most of my classes were great, but the Theatre Appreciation class with 400 students that thought it an easy A killed me a bit inside. (You think my theatre horror stories are bad. Don't get me started on teaching.) Not only the talking and disrespect during class, but the calls from parents because their kids were failing a course they weren't showing up for! Argghhh!
If schools like this one keep popping up and also produce students adept in subject areas standardized tests don't examine like social sciences, it might renew my idealism about what teaching and learning can be.
Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, has a new book out called The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent . In it he apparently argues that the current socio-political climate in the US is going to start to alienate the creative class and they will move to other countries.
I say apparently because I haven't read the book, but rather an interview with Florida on the Salon website. I am not sure I totally agree with him, but it might be because I read his entire argument a year ago in an article he did for the Washington Monthly. I have the same reservations I had in an entry a year ago.
While I would love to get a job in Wellington and am not such a model of American consumerism that I couldn't get along just fine without whatever we got that they don't, I just don't see myself moving to New Zealand any time soon. (Of course, I never really saw myself moving to Hawaii either.) Nor do I see too many of the best and brightest I know doing so either.
My feelings were echoed last month by Karrie Jacobs in a Metropolis Magazine article, Why I Don't Love Richard Florida. Like me, Ms. Jacobs doesn't actually dislike Richard Florida, just the cult that has sprung up around him. She observes that the group he calls the creative class is the same cohort that was called yuppies in the 80s. Young successful cool people are going to want to live in cool neighborhoods no matter what the era.
Florida doesn't tell anyone anything new by telling them these are the folks you want to attract. Actually, since he touts tolerance of ethnic and sexual differences as necessarily elements of successful creative communities, he is helping the social and economic mobility of a wider range of people than just rebranding yuppies (who you must admit were mostly caucasian).
I also don't fault him for writing a book that collects easily observable trends and proposes the shaping of policy based on them. One of the things I have noticed in the last 10-15 years is that things that seem to obvious to mention aren't necessarily so. People who give voice to these observations tend to get labeled geniuses. It's happened to me much to my incredulous bemusement. I was just too embarassed to exploit the opportunity.
And who can fault him for letting people give him money to give speeches on the subject. I think what Ms. Jacobs and I have both been aiming at is not to let one person's vision fill your entire horizon.
I had a topic for today, but decided to take a different tack. I thought I would have a little reader participation.
If you have ever had a performance before a live audience (or even had patrons come to an art gallery or museum) you have some horror story that you just know you want to share to commiserate with other arts folks who can empathize with you.
Here is your chance, send me your tales (or just add them to the entry by clicking the comments link below) and I will feature them here.
To get things started, I will offer up a couple of my own.
I was running the light board for a production of Vaclav Havel's Faust play, Temptation. The theatre had a flexible seating configuration so the set of the play was on two levels- the stage and then on the floor in front of the proscenium. The director asked that we remove the guard rails along the front of the seating risers so there would be nothing between the first row and the action but a few feet.
In the middle of the show, a gentleman gets up from the front row, walks on to the playing area, touches one of the actors on the shoulder and says "Excuse me, son." Thinking that there might be a medical emergency, I prepare to bring the lights up and the stage manager starts to alert the backstage crew that they may have to call an ambulance.
The guy turns to the audience and says "I was once an alcoholic and had back problems until I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savoir and I suggest you do the same," and then walks quickly out of the theatre while everyone sits there stunned for a moment. (Turns out he did that sort of thing all over town and not because Faust and the Devil were on stage.)
The actors were thrown off and couldn't remember the lines. Because the actors were on the floor 20 feet out in front of the proscenium, there was no way for the stage crew to feed them lines prompted by the stage manager's frantic hissing over the communications system.
For some reason, the department chair pro-temp's girlfriend ended up feeding them the correct line from the audience and the show went on.
I have a bunch of these, but here is one more of my favorites.
We were doing a concert at a former workplace with a female vocalist of some renown. A woman and her boyfriend came in the lobby and even from 15 feet away, I could immediately smell the alcohol. The audiences for our shows were really well behaved so all I did was keep an eye on them. The woman was holding a painting that she wanted to give the performer. This is probably what caused me to miss whatever bottle of alcohol they had secreted upon themselves because they weren't any more sober at the end of the show.
Artists usually come down to the lobby to see their fans shortly after a performance. However, since Sony had offices nearby, representatives of the performer's label came to meet her and she stayed in her dressing room.
The drunken woman had approached the stage handed the painting up to the performer at the end of the show. However, she wanted a picture of the singer with herself and the painting. She hadn't really been annoying so a half-hour after the show ended, I sent the security guy home because there were only about 6-10 fans lingering and I figured I could keep an eye on things.
Boy, was I wrong.
About five minutes later, the drunken couple tries to sneak around the stage door. I send them back the front of the theatre. The rest of the evening is spent with her edging toward the stage door while I am distracted and me glaring/chasing her back.
Finally, I warn the road manager that there might be a stalking situation arising. He pooh-poohs me saying that the singer's music touches people in such a way that they feel they have an intimate personal connection with her. I don't chase them away as I had planned.
The drunken couple finally loudly declares that they have waited long enough and walk away down the sidewalk. I suspiciously watch them until they get around the corner. Then I take care of a few things and go back outside to breath in the lovely fresh autumn night air.
It is at this point I hear the drunken shuffling through the leaves made by the couple trying to sneak around the far side of the theatre. I head around to the backstage by the faster route and get there just in time to see the woman jump out from behind a car and scream BOO! at the drummer.
It is at this point the road manager begins to reconsider his pooh-poohing. However, the beneficent performer chose that moment to descend and agree to a photo while I gave a smoldering glare at the couple. Other well-behaved fans came out of the lobby to shower praise on the performance and all ended well.
But the story doesn't end there!
A year or so after, I just happen to be the one who picks up the phone. The drunken woman has lost the photo and wants us to give her the performer's address so she can get another one taken of the two of them with her painiting.
Good Lord!
So again---lemme share your favorite stories from the trenches.
There is a really great speech that Neill Archer Roan made to the American Symphony Orchestra League about dealing with controversey.
The point of contention was a decision by the Oregon Bach Festival to perform Bach's St. John's Passion in a season themed "War, Reconciliation and Peace." A local paper asked “How can reconcilation and peace be represented by a musical work whose text has been an incitement to genocide?”
The problem, according to Neill, was that Passion Plays were performed in Nazi Germany to incite anger against Jews and even before that, the worst pogroms always coincided with Easter. (The time during which the plays were historically performed.)
Even worse, the local temple was vandalized by skinheads who shot up the place with guns and spray painted hate filled slogans not nine months before the performance of the piece.
To compound things, the temple's rabbi was on the Bach Festival's audience development steering committee. In addition to the Passion piece, they had wanted to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II by exploring the works of Jewish artists who had been interred in concentration camps. The rabbi's guidance about how to handle it with sensitivity was fairly key.
As people learned more about the controversey surrounding the Bach piece, the rabbi and Neill had long conversations about it. The rabbi eventually removed his involvement with the festival because of their resolution to perform it.
What Neill says next really caught my attention because I think it something every arts person embroiled in controversy needs to remember (emphasis is mine):
Any person or organization whose artistic work engages in raising issues which engross our minds, hearts, and polity must expect—even bless—the exercise of conscience, even when that exercise takes the form of withholding support, fierce and active opposition, or even condemnation. As artistic organizations, we may own the work, but we do not own the issues. We may hold the match, but nobody holds a conflagration. We should not be surprised that someone we view as principled enough to be invited to serve on a Board or Steering Committee might also be principled enough to withhold the imprimatur of their good name in affairs that they cannot, in good conscience, support.
What the Festival decided to do though was engage the community in a discussion/debate about the work, "about the dynamics and origins of bigotry, even when that bigotry seemed to spring from the dominant culture’s holiest of stories."
"By opening up the matter to the community at large and inviting their reflection on the matter, a situation that could have seriously damaged our organization wound up strengthening it. During these times, when people are becoming increasingly disenchanted with institutions, there is no better lesson from my experience that I can offer you today than to trust your public if you want them to trust" you
Much to Neill's surprise, the local Christian clergy were very open about admitting the anti-Semitic history of their faith and lent immeasureable support to the discussion effort. This support was sorely needed because everyone, including Festival donors, long time patrons and board members were angry, frustrated and confused by the controversey. It was only through continued discussion that people finally began to understand the entire situation. In Neill's mind, short efficient statements are too abrupt and alienating to be effective solutions in a controversy.
The churches got on board and condemned anti-Semitism from the pulpit the Sunday before the piece was performed and again the night before at a Reconciliation.
The night of the performance a rabbi and his wife handed out flyers asking people to stand and turn their backs on offensive passages. People stayed away and donors withdrew their support.
Says Neill:
Personally, I felt buoyed. In a society where the arts are often thought of as the “toy department of life,” at least on that evening we were no longer on the periphery of community life. We performed the St. John Passion, but in a new context. A deep and principled discussion of meaning, history, and accountability had occurred. We had not only talked about reconciliation, but lived its possibilities.
I am sure the experience was nerve wracking at the time and not something one would wish on oneself ever. I think it is a mark of a good artist though to not only recognize when one is in the presence of great art, but to also acknowledge that it has provided an opportunity for growth and transformation. (Granted, those of us who have gone through puberty can attest that growth and transformation is more exciting in the abstract than in reality.)
When we speak about the value of the arts and how they need support, we usually group all the arts together. Doing so is good since the Ben Franklin quote that “We must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately,” can certainly apply in regard to the government funding each might receive if they don't.
In some respect though, this practice does blur the fact that each branch does things in its own way and the answers for one are not viable for another. But perhaps some are...
I was reading a recent Adaptistration entry about job satisfaction in orchestras. There is a link to an article at the bottom of the entry that was really eye opening for me in terms of the perceptions musicians have about their relationship with the conductor, the rules governing their lives and their place in the orchestra ensemble.
Coming from a theatre background, there were things that were familiar to me such as union defined limits on rehearsal times. Other things like the deference shown to the conductor and the timid manner in which comments and questions were couched was amazing to me.
Certainly there are domineering directors in the theatre who try to keep actors cowed. But that is an individual working on a particular production at a specific theatre rather than the systematic situation Robert and Seymour Levine describe.
This brought to mind conversations I had with a friend in ballet administration. To my mind, ballet dancers have it worst since they have no union protection at all. (Not that I am a big union person. I have had mixed encounters with them. But with a union there is at least a standard of treatment a non-union person can point to.) According to my friend, in addition to weak protections against being overworked, getting the rights to choreography can be a humiliating experience. (And if it is different, please correct me if I am wrong. It seems rather bizarre to me. Perhaps this is only true for a small segment of regional ballet companies with which my friend is associated.)
Unlike music and theatre where securing performance rights is based on fairly objective criteria, ballet is apparently very subjective. The rights are often in the hands of a person (often a ballerina who danced the principal role) who reviews the skill of the ballet company applying for the rights by attending a performance or via a video recording. From what I have been told, there tends to be a lot of criticism of the female dancers' technique and body weight (especially if they show any sign of having a bust). The male dancers are generally spared as much scrutiny.
I had attended a black tie affair for my friend's ballet company and was told that the petite, absolutely gorgeous dancer who had charmed me that night might have to leave the company because her "weight" was judged unseemly. (I think the chair I was sitting on probably outweighed the woman.)
I mention these elements to illustrate some fundemental differences in the assumptions three branches of the performing arts have about how things should be done. I could certainly go on for a week analyzing the flaws in the way live theatres do business. In some respect, I wonder if it might be better if different branches didn't get to know each other better. It is probably easier for an orchestra official to advocate for more arts funding if he isn't thinking about the barbaric theatres who might only employ actors for six weeks before sending them back to waiting on tables while his musicians are guaranteed an income all year round.
On the other hand, even though their disciplines are grouped together as "the arts." Managers in each area rarely talk to each other on substantive topics. Who knows if there are efficient solutions to common problems if no one really shares that information. One of the most common expectation of attendees of the National Performing Arts Convention held last June in Pittsburgh was that they were attending a forum for an exchange of ideas with people from other disciplines. This according to the surveys administered by the IDOC project. But according to the final IDOC report (found at the above link) and The Artful Manager's own observations of his attendance, people gravitated toward their own kind.
Granted, the IDOC effort found that some of the scheduling was not conducive to mingling. I don't know when the next National Performing Arts Convention will be held, but perhaps an effort will be made to replicate the efforts of every junior high school dance committee and force the boys and girls together in the center of the room. (Leave some room for the Holy Spirit though as the nuns used to say.)
Since the general public is hanging us all together under "The Arts". It would probably be good to take up residence together under that roof and talk a little. Perhaps we can see the way to better relationships with our actors/musicians/dancers.
I had a meeting today with all the other theatre managers in the University of Hawaii system about emergency procedures. It was very informative in many respects.
I discovered I was in better shape than I thought because the Director of Administrative Services had requested I make up emergency procedures about 9 months ago. Other theatres didn't have as strong a plan as I did and didn't make fire exit announcements at the beginning of each show. (It isn't a law in Hawaii as it is in places like NY. Some people make announcements directing people to the restrooms and were a little embarassed to realize they didn't think about fire exits.)
On the other hand some of the other theatres had stronger usher training programs than I currently do so there was a lot everyone could learn from the session.
While the organization that accredits community colleges doesn't accredit entire systems, one thing they noted in their last report was that there is no top down guidance from the university on important policy areas. While they didn't specifically mention safety, the meeting we had today was an attempt to standardize minimum general plans each theatre in the system should have. (Evacuation plan specifying who makes announcement, from where is it made, how often to test emergency lights, etc.)
It was very interesting to learn that the different campuses have vastly different emergency response personnel. The security people on the main campus have portable defibrilators in the golf carts (of course, they are a residental campus too), the guys at my campus are state employees with para-military ranks like police officers. The security folks on the other side of the island and a neighboring island are contracted from an outside security company and rotate through so often, they don't inspire much confidence.
There was also a huge difference in the process people had to go through to get first aid kits. Some had to buy them outright from their own accounts, others got in trouble if they bought them on their own.
There was debate over whether to have emergency announcements played on a recording or done by a person on stage. The recorded announcement allows you to attend to the actual emergency. However having a person on stage 1-is a visual signal that an announcement is going to be made whereas a recorded announcement might get lost in the chatter of speculations about why the show stopped and 2- is more comforting and assuring than an announcement. (After all a certain suspicion might arise that you have already left the building after pushing play on the CD player if you aren't on stage.)
One of the biggest lessons that came out of the session was that any emergency plan should specify exactly who is the top person in charge. While key people might supervise large segements of an emergency plan, there should be one overall person who makes final decisions. And everyone in the building should know who that person is.
An attendee at the conference told the story about a promoter who was standing backstage before the show. The police came in and asked who was in charge. He said he was. The police informed him about a possible situation and told him he had to make a decision. Instead of speaking with the event manager for the facility which he was presenting the show in, he went out on stage and made a very alarming announcement to the audience. The house crew having been well trained, immediately acted to open evacuation routes so that the audience did not injure themselves in the abrupt departure.
Had the facilities management been informed at all, they would have been able to better assess if the situation was an actual threat to the audience or if they would have been safer staying in their seats.
A couple interesting stats and facts to present in closing.
1-The chances of someone becoming injured in an emergency evacuation is actually rather high. Be sure you correctly assess a threat to the audience and have a very comforting presentation for them if you are going to ask them to stay put. This is especially true in the case of a power outage. Unless there is an electrical fire that caused it, it is better to keep the audience in place and then evacuate them in a very controlled manner if it becomes clear power will not be restored.
2- The National Fire Safety Protection Association guidelines for evacuations is 1 person per every 250 guests. So if you have a 750 seat theatre, if you need to have at least 3 ushers helping people leave. (Though check with your municipality, some places have adopted other fire codes that may be different.)
Great! I was going to try to get away with not doing a post today, but now Drew McManus has gone and linked back to my website as a result of a discussion we have been having about a recent post of his. Now you know, there is all this pressure to come up with something pithy so that the new visitors he is sending my way will stay and read a bit.
Okay how about--"Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life."
I can't take credit for that, it is the warped genius of writer Terry Pratchett.
Drew's ideas are intriguing though. I don't know if it is viable in practice, but it is something that bears considering. In these changing times, I think any intelligent proposal begs looking in to. Before people label his suggestion as preposterous and not in touch with the reality of how things are done, I actually saw a hint of something similiar in the last two weeks.
In a recent entry I mentioned getting a call from a woman working for a potential competitor.
What I didn't mention was that this woman was working from her home office as a consultant working up a business plan for the organization. Now granted, if the organization had a building constructed, she might have been working out of there as a full time employee. The fact that the organizing group had picked a person with a home business rather than one with a snazzy office in town might be a harbinger of things to come...or may be not. Perhaps the overriding motivation was that she was cheaper than the guys in town and the organizing group didn't have a lot of money to spare.
But that is Drew's exact point.
So we will see how things play out over the next few years. Given that just yesterday The ArtfulManager suggested that the 501 (c) (3) route may be the wrong business classification "tool" for the goals of organizations, I wouldn't be surprised if the next 25-30 years brought a transitional period where the way arts entities are organizes morphs and perhaps diversifies.
There is an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that just seems like a no-win situation for the arts in Cuyahoga County Ohio. They are proposing using a tax from cigarettes to fund the arts.
Doesn't seem like a position you would want to be in. If people stop smoking, there goes your funding. At the same time do you want to be encouraging people to smoke so you can keep your funding?
When try to raise money by having fun runs and selling candy bars, you can be pretty confident about telling people that it is for a good cause. You really don't want to be telling people to smoke because it is for a good cause. Even worse, you don't want your chain smoking Aunt Evelyn smirking at your disapproving look when she lights up and saying that you should be happy, because she is single handedly underwriting your season.
Probably the only thing worse would be if Nevada started to fund the arts with taxes paid by legal sex workers. Can you imagine an arts manager coming home to find his/her spouse has been involved on one side or the other of that?
"Well you were working so hard and so many hours at the theatre. I figured if you got a little more funding, you would be able to hire some help and be home more often. I was only doing it out of love for you honey."
Okay, maybe that is a little extreme. Though an amusing image if you picture it in a cartoon rather than actually affecting real life people.
The good news from the Plain Dealer article though is that using tourism taxes like restaurant and hotel tax proceeds is already being considered.
Back in January I praised how easy it was to complete a grant follow up. Lord knows I would love for them all to be that easy.
However, I have seen some value lately in the long, drawn out, detailed grant proposals. I am writing up a grant for the National Endowment for the Arts' Challenge America fast track grant program. I have created a partnership with another arts organization to create a multi-disciplinary (though heavily dance) piece to premiere in the Fall 2006 based on the Hawaiian Naupaka myth.
The grant isn't due until June, but there is a great deal of work to do and then a great deal of photocopying to do of that work so I am laboring away at it. (And incidentally, working on the NEA grant reminded me that I have a final grant report due for another proposal in May. In searching for the CD with the form on it, I realized I may have thrown it away and was able to ask to have another CD sent to me.)
It is 18 months until the performance and while we have discussed the show a number of times, there are some aspects of our partnership we haven't clarified. I say this because in the course of writing the grant, a few questions have arisen that I couldn't answer. There are also a few paragraphs that I want to run by the other guy to make sure we are of the same mind in some instances (or if he has ideas about rewording to make things sound better!)
I am going to meet with him on Friday to discuss these things. In my mind, the grant is sort of like a pre-Canaan session where engaged couples are asked to think about all sorts of matters such as kids, finances, where to spend holidays, etc--essentially clairfying the details of what their relationship is going to be.
These are all topics we would have gotten around to discussing, but some of them might not have come up--or at least not talked about in specific enough terms--until we were faced with a situation where the other guy assumed the other was taking care of the arrangements and neither does.
The NEA of course wants to make sure you have thought about these things before they hand you the taxpayers' money. (The per captia amount of which won't get you a Coke). If you really want to know what these topics are, take a look at the 29 page grant application (half of which are instructions)
There will be plenty of things my partner in this endeavor and I will have to discuss and make mistaken assumptions about that the grant doesn't cover. In some sense, it is helpful to have the process of this grant there to start the conversation. (In another sense, of course, the process is a pain in the butt. But you probably already knew that.)
I have had a report sitting on the desktop of my computer for a few weeks now and have just gotten a chance to read it. It is a report done by The Grantmaker Forum On Community & National Service (now Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement) called The Cost of a Volunteer
The paper was a result of the days after President George W. Bush called for citizens to devote 4,000 hours to volunteer service. There was a concern that the current infrastructure of most nonprofits couldn't support the deluge of so many well-meaning individuals. The Grantmaker Forum made an effort by way of survey to discern what the hidden costs of free labor might be.
Two common approaches to determining the value of volunteer work are calculating the opportunity cost for the volunteer (the gains the volunteer could make if using that time for employment or recreation) and figuring the cost of replacing the volunteer with paid staff.The value-added equation is almost always established as a no-cost concept; that is, that volunteers
simply and strictly augment the capacity of professional staff. This calculation avoids two critical questions: What resources are needed to sponsor volunteers? And where do those resources come from?
The literature review section of the survey results is rather interesting and illustrates the difficulty connected with quantifying the cost-benefit ratio of volunteerism. One study found "a return of between $2.05 and $21.24 for every $1.57 expended." Another said it costs $300 per volunteer and another came in at about $1,000. I suspect some of the difference springs from the type of volunteer programs they studied and the the extent of staff oversight necessary. (Big Brothers/Big Sisters has to do background checks and scrutinize the relationships of adults and kids whereas a theatre might just spend an hour or so training volunteers.)
Another reason why it is hard to quantify the costs for volunteering. It isn't just the salary to pay the volunteer coordinator and the cost of the materials, phone bill, etc that needs to be calculated. It is also the time the other staff members (doctors and nurses in a hospital, for example) spend supervising the volunteers that needs to be included.
One very interesting observation that the study makes is that half of the participants in the survey were unwilling or unable to accept more volunteers at the time. "This finding fundamentally
challenges the assumption that the only requirement to engage more citizens in volunteer
service is an effective call to serve."
The study also points out that behind every great volunteer, there is a great professional staff. They mention that without the support of a well organized staff, volunteer intensive programs like tutoring and food banks would be hard pressed to succeed. Volunteering doesn't just happen, it takes dedication and organization.
When I was organizing an outdoor arts and music festival I needed 500 volunteers for that one day. I had a long to do list, but the daily notes marked on my calendar were the number of volunteers I needed to have recruited by that day to reach my goal of 500 by festival day. If I was falling behind, I would come back to work and make calls to people who had volunteered in the past and hadn't signed up yet. (A good database is also key to good volunteer recruitment!)
Because volunteer managers don't want to waste people's time by not having the staff to provide supervision/direction needed for tasks, they are in the unenviable position of having to turn people away even if there is a huge task to be addressed.
The other problem is that organizations have a surfeit of volunteers at some times (nights and weekends) but few at other key periods of time such as summer vacation periods. Other organizations have fairly involved volunteer training programs and can't easily accept additional people in the middle of a training cycle.
Another observation the report makes is that changing expectations are requiring a shift in the care and feeding of volunteers
The classic volunteer of forty years ago was a housewife who had enough time available that she was able to commit to a regular schedule for her volunteering—four-to-six hours per week. With this time commitment and regular schedule, she could be relied upon to shoulder significant organizational responsibilities. The 21st century volunteer is more likely to be employed, have professional skills to share, have a limited amount of time available, and have greater need for immediate gratification. The 21st century volunteer seeks “short-term assignments with a high level of personal reward.” Today’s volunteers want to see change happen quickly as a result of their contributions and are less likely to commit over a long period of time on a consistent basis.One volunteer program leader explained that 21st century volunteers require a kind of job
sharing approach to their volunteer service. “We do more short-term projects that are more
interesting. People want instant gratification from their volunteer experience.” The classic
volunteer asks, “What can I do for you?” The 21st century volunteer says, “What can you do
for me?”
In some cases, people are looking to volunteer to add to their skills in order to make themselves more marketable. They aren't content with simple jobs like filing papers, but would rather perform a task that engages their skills.
I have been talking to my assistant about sprucing up the theatre website over the summer in preparation for next year. In my quest to make the website a welcoming point of contact, I would like to add some fun fact type links to each of the events. The point would be to add some interesting fact about the band, their instruments, place the came from, how the musical form developed, etc. Perhaps the tidbits will help people make decisions about attending shows with names and terms they don't recognize.
While I said I didn't want to have look like a website for kids, I did comment that many of the presentation techniques and design elements those websites used were similar to what I was thinking about.
I didn't visit those websites myself of course having lots of important and serious work to do. I did have to walk behind my assistant many times today though and just happened to see some interesting things over her shoulder.
Many of the websites she visited had some fun online activites for kids like the Chicago Children's Museum (love the build a bug!)and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. (some really excellent educational pieces)
Others had activities families could do together at home like the Lincoln Children Museum.
WXPN radio's Kid's Corner is sort of fun and inviting too
Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis didn't have Flash driven activities, but they do have a scavenger hunt contest that encourages kids to explore the entire webpage and offers a free ticket to a show as a reward with the chance to win in a drawing for additional prizes.
I was really surprised that other children's theatres like those of Seattle, Birmingham and Charlotte didn't have webpages that were more exciting to kids. The same with the Boston Children's Museum. While their kids' activities are educational, they are a little serious and not really geared to get 'em coming back for more. Even more surprising was the Please Touch Museum which had a bright graphic, but was otherwise kinda sterile.
Sure, parents are the ones who have to do the driving and make the decision to go to these places. But kids start surfing the web around 8-10 years old and there is a good chance they might type children and their town name in to Google. Having an exciting webpage that makes them nag their parents can help get people in the door.
My favorite web page hands down then is ---Children's Museum of Pittsburgh. Right from the beginning it has a fun chicken you can make dance around. The sublinks "For Kids" "For Parents" "For Educators" and my favorite title- "For Museum Geeks" have been specifically designed to be appealing for those groups.
The kid's link has lots of funny images and loud goofy noises and links that lead you to all sorts of fun stuff. The parent's link is a bit more sedate, but clearly communicates that this is a place that will be fun for your kids and of course has many more links than the kid's section to answer all those questions adults have.
The educator's link is actually a chalk rendering of the museum with gold stars for links. Maybe not as exciting as the previous sections, but certainly has an appropriate motif. The museum geek section is the most sedate, but has all sorts of trivia along with facts and figures. Still, pretty dang interesting and informative.
I am still rather cranky about my technology problems mentioned in yesterday's entry. So I leave you with some light, entertaining thoughts and images.
The first is this article and picture of notes streaming both figuratively and literally like water.
Second, a quote from Yo-Yo Ma in Time magazine. When asked what section of the orchestra was most likely to contain the most egomaniacs, he chose to diplomatically opine on the most fun sections. According to the cellist it is the percussion, lower brass and bass players. I seem to recall that Drew McManus over at Adaptistration played the tuba. I wonder if he would concur.
Actually, to continue on this fun with music theme--check out the San Francisco Symphony Kids page. Even if you are only a kid at heart, it makes learning about music a lot of fun.
There is a fairly famous economic law out there--some guy has it named after him even, that says that technological advances will make the production of materials more efficient and less expensive. I have been searching for over an hour to find the exact wording and name of the law even though it only has a passing relationship to this entry and I CAN'T FIND IT!! So anyone who know, please tell me.
(Took me two years, but I found the answer-Baumol's Cost Disease)
Anyhow, this mysterious law has often been invoked when it comes to explaining why doing live performance is so expensive. While other sectors become more efficient, live performances are produced much as they were after the Restoration of the Charles II. We pay the increasing cost of using outdated, inefficient methods. Set construction hasn't started to employ any new revolutionary materials, costumes are still made by hand, performers still need about the same amount of rehearsal time before the product is finished.
Sure nail guns, power saws and sewing machines have made things faster. However, except for recent advances in moving lights which allow you to use fewer instruments to create the same effect (though they cost more than the old ones) live performance is lagging behind in the efficiency department. (Actual the digitization of sound has really been a boon. Not only can it be stored easy, but laptop computers can replace 20 foot long sound boards)
I mention all this to give a respectful nod to the old inefficient methods. The past week has not been good technologically for me. Our computerized ticketing system stopped printing tickets and no one has been able to revived it. Loading the software on a new computer and borrowing a printer from another theatre hasn't solved the problem either. It doesn't help that the ticketing software company has gone out of business. So for show this week and the one coming up in a month, we will have to have printed hard tickets.
The brakes went out on the cargo van we intended for lugguage transport duty while I was on the way to the airport. Fortunately no one was hurt (and fortunately they didn't go out while my assistant was following my new car!) Granted this is more a matter of technology getting old than being new but it added to my frustration.
For the last few weeks we have been having trouble with our dimmer racks (they control theatre lights). The lighting system is about 2 years old so it is as state of the art as any equipment with a computer in it can be. Being computerized, it is very flexible and able to give feedback about operations.
Including about things that aren't happening.
These "smart" dimmers have decided they are overheating and turn themselves off. However, the air in the dimmer room is 72 F and the insides have been vacuumed so often to remove any offending dust, the equipment vendor has commended us on how clean the racks are.
The reason they go out is a mystery so we often wire around that quadrant for shows so they don't go out in the middle of a performance. The whole episode has made the technical director nostaglic for the old Strand dimmers which would chug along ignoring anything short of a direct hit by artillery.
The worst part is, attempts to tell the computers in the dimmers they aren't "smart" and can't decide if they are overheating hasn't been successful. They still think they can and will shut down. (Even worse, they are so smart, the error code they give with the overheating isn't in any of the troubleshooting manuals.)
I am sure many people have similar stories about their encounters with technology where the "improvement" gives you more worries than the trouble it is supposed to be alleviating. For example, in newer cars, if you don't close your gas cap tightly enough, the "check engine" light comes on--and won't go out for 48 hours after you tighten it. Makes you wonder why there isn't a "tighten your gas cap" light and a reset switch for it.