I vaguely remember hearing about this program some time ago, but thanks to NYFA's Current news letter, I have been reminded about the artist reality show, ArtStar. NYFA features an article by one of the contestants of the show which never got picked up by any network. So unless you had the Voom satellite service, you probably never saw it.
The article implies the episodes might be web and podcast so I figured I would promote it a little in the hopes of generating some inertia in that direction. From what I have read, there have been a number of blogs who have covered the show. But if you are like me, you haven't read those blogs so I figure I am helping reach a larger audience. Despite some criticism about the show, I would imagine it would still be interesting to watch and perhaps use as inspiration for bigger and better programs in the some vein.
What makes the show worthy of being view rather than the multitude of other reality shows out there? Well for one thing, the show apparently takes the novel approach of not generating conflict and tossing people off each week. Although the original intent was apparently to identify a single artist who would have a solo show, Zachary Drucker writes in the Current article that the entire group was granted a show.
A review of the show I found on Slate felt that the lack of competition and in many instances, lack of clear goals for each task, tended to make the show muddled and a little boring. A Wikipedia entry on the show mentions that some feel the show "should have been billed instead (and produced) as an art documentary."
I guess the show doesn't exactly qualify as a reality show anyway since the artists don't have to compete tooth and nail with each other as they do in real life. But to my mind, the whole project is a worthy one, whether it was ever filmed or not, because it provided artists with an opportunity to work collaboratively and receive critiques from established artists without the anxieties the real world entails.
Been busy, busy, busy these last couple weeks but I wanted to do a quick entry on something I came across in the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
According to a recent study by the federal agency, Corporation for National and Community Service, the post 9/11 world has seen an increase in volunteerism. If your organization needs volunteers and hasn't made a wide appeal lately, it might be a good environment in which to do so.
The bad news in the study is that people are less trusting of donation appeals than they were before September 2001. It's not clear from the story if this perception colors how people see arts organizations. Since the article specifically mentions a Red Cross scandal and points to friction of the use of money for human service causes, the negative view may fall predominantly upon that sector.
The situation that can be more clearly identified as a problem for arts fundraising is that so many more chartiable causes exist now than did before. Not only are there now appeals for the families of people killed on 9/11, but also for those dispossessed by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina and the Southeast Asian tsunamis. Charities are trying to do much more to help specific groups these days and are even trying to start programs to proactively prevent disasters and attacks from occuring again.
As I have mentioned in other entries, it is always a little difficult for arts organizations to make a case for funding when the choice is between them and succour for the suffering. Cathartic experiences have been a cornerstone of the arts since the Greeks so should be funded alongside the aid and relief programs.
I had a woman come take a tour of our backstage in the last month or so who runs a theatre in the New Orleans area. She has taken a big hit funding wise but is running her season as best she can because people keep calling and saying they don't care what the show is about as long as it is funny. Her place is just as important to the rebuilding of people's spirits as any other funded restoration that is occuring in her region.
Two years ago I did an entry on the fact not all tickets at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park where the Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival are free as was widely believed. There had always been preferential seating available for some amount, but the article I cited in that entry mentioned that the Public was going to more widely publicize the pay program in an effort to balance the books.
My initial assumption was that this would bump the first patron who wasn't paying back quite a few rows. Last week Robert Morse made a comment on that entry (scroll to the bottom) correcting my assumption. It turns out that the theatre has their crowd control pretty well organized and alternate paid and unpaid patrons in the even and odd rows.
The biggest benefit for paying for your tickets is that you don't have to wait in line. This can be quite a boon since according to the Public Theater's website, people apparently get online at 10 am to pick up tickets starting at 1 pm for an 8 pm show. They have line monitors present who enforce the no cutting, no holding spaces, no scalping rules and generally keep things organized. Recognizing an opportunity, apparently there are some local restaurants that will deliver to the line since the theater staff will provide you with that information.
My thanks to Robert Morse for correcting the information I originally had. Upon revisiting my original search, I found clarifying information that hadn't been available before.
Last week Andrew Taylor put out a call for a part-time administrator for the Association of Arts Administration Educators. The comments which followed the entry debated if it were better to require someone to have significant experience in the arts or to hire a skilled administrator from another discipline with a more passing familiarity with arts administration.
The arguments on both sides being compelling, I can't really decide on a general rule of thumb about whose resumes should be ranked more favorably by a search committee. I am, however, more and more convinced that having a clear sense of what will be constructive in advancing the organizational interests.
A month or so back I mentioned that the Honolulu Symphony got a new board chair, Curtis Lee. When I was listening to an interview with Mr. Lee, he mentioned how in his business customer service was the most important element. Since up until a week or so before taking the board chair post Mr. Lee headed a company owning the most car dealerships in the state, I cynically thought that this sentiment probably only applied up until they sold the car. For some brands, they have the monopoly and the next nearest dealer is 2,500 miles away.
Last night I had the misfortune of parking my car in the path of a man who is apparently offended by drive side view mirrors because he walked along smashing them. (My friends and I were lucky. There is another guy out there with homocidal thoughts toward tires and has been walking along the street slashing them.)
So this morning I drove down to the dealership to see if I could get my mirror replaced. I have to say I was a little shocked by the level of service. There was a man out in the driveway 20 minutes before the repair shop opened processing arrivals and directing them to open lanes. In the lanes I was greeted by another person who further processed and advised me about my repair very quickly. I got out of my car and someone moved it to another queue as I entered the lounge.
The lounge was HUGE. Coffee, danish and copies of the newspaper were situated at three locations. Comfortable seats were set in front of a flat screen television. There were also 6-8 cubicles with phones at which a person could work on a laptop computer and free WiFi service.
Two gentlemen entered the room and announced that one courtesy shuttle was heading west and the other east and began taking destinations and phone information for pick ups in the afternoon. It turned out there were more people needing rides than the shuttles would fit so they grabbed additional people from the office and keys to other vans. Destination was about 1/4 past their service area but they drove me anyway. (It was interesting that they chose Sam's Club rather than the college I work at as the furtherest point.)
Unfortunately, the part needed for my car was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, the part actually needed is about $300 cheaper than anticipated. When I disembarked from the return shuttle I was handed a form with an appointment for repair already arranged and my poor car and I were off.
Now granted, one of people in the shuttle followed a remark about how wonderful the whole experience had been with the observation that our bills would let us know just how grateful we had been for the good treatment. The implication of his tone was that the extra $50 would be more palatable having received efficient and attentive service.
Mr. Lee may not know too much about symphonies. Dealer cash back incentive programs aren't viable for classical music.(Unless Toyota is going to pay people to attend concerts.) But it will bode well for the Honolulu Symphony if he brings lessons learned in the car business to their organization. (And, of course, if the symphony takes them to heart.) A good experience can make the $60 paid for seats more palatable.
I have already started to formulate plans for small steps we can take to make our events more welcoming based on the experience I had today. Good lessons are where you find them.
Recently I have come across a situation which really underscores why it is so important to be sensitive about how the way you talk about your art is perceived by people who are not familiar with it.
For the first time in a long time, a couple sections of the Acting I courses are really under enrolled. One theory attributes it to the extremely low unemployment in the state. In an attempt to attract more students to the classes, the drama department put signs up all over the campus, some of them saying "Give Your Brain a Break, Take Acting."
Now I understand the point of the posters. The class has you getting up and moving around. One of the key steps to acting well is not to over analyze or allow your ego to edit what you do. On the other hand, preparation involves a lot of hard work. There are so many intangibles involved, studying harder doesn't necessarily improve you.
What the students see on the poster is--easy class. I know this is already the case thanks to an online professor rating site which had comments about the course being too hard for fine arts elective.
I am glad that the course does have rigor. I have stated my concern though that while the students who do enroll will be disabused of the notion that the class is easy, the students who don't enroll but see the flyers will have a false impression about acting.
Of course, a lot of people have an incomplete idea about the arts anyway. Acting, you just get up and pretend something, right? Yell when you are saying something important. Dance you just do like you see on MTV, right? Doing old style painting is tough. Can't do a Michaelangelo. Jackson Pollack's style is simple though!
Part of the problem is, if you are good at your art, you make it look effortless. Other part of the problem is that familiarity breeds contempt, as it were. Used to be circuses could sell themselves on the thrill of high wire and trapeze acts alone. These days it takes no less skill and discipline than it did to swing around 70 feet off the ground, but people are blase and want something more.
Most times when I talk about learning to speak to the uninitiated about ones art, I refer to language that might alienate. I suppose being too simplistic and lowering expectations is just as bad in the course of arts advocacy.
Appropos to yesterday's entry I came across this article in Arts Presenter's Inside Arts Magazine today. (minor registration of email address required)
Steven Tepper discusses the Creative Campus trend which includes the type of activities my campus has been involved with in the past and was trying to encourage more faculty to become involved with in the future. (While I mentioned that none of the faculty approached me yesterday, I should note that I had already gotten the ball rolling with faculty on 3-4 projects last spring and over the summer.)
University leaders are also beginning to recognize that fostering a lively creative campus is essential to attract and retain the best students and to prepare those students to thrive in an economy increasingly reliant on intellectual property and creative content. Moreover, there is evidence that students are looking for more “creative experiences,” opportunities to explore their own expressive capacities...."...Today’s students are no longer content to experience education and culture in a top-down, passive way. Instead, growing up with a “do-it-yourself” ethos, students want to create their own culture, whether through blogs, writing and recording songs, amateur films, podcasts and other forms of art, entertainment and media."
There is actually some money out there in support of these efforts. Arts Presenters with the Doris Duke Foundation is going to be funding a handful of programs with an eye to using the results as a template for other campuses across the country to emulate. My school actually applied for one of the grants. We had already started down the road to expanding past efforts so I was quite pleased to see there was some money in support of these types of things.
As Tepper (and Richard Florida in his books) points out, the creativity does not necessarily equal fine arts.
"It is also entrepreneurship and innovation in science, business and media. Within the arts, it includes the activity of architects, campus radio stations, multi-media designers and filmmakers. A lively artistic scene is critical to creative work in these other domains. But we must pay attention to how the arts connect to other areas of campus and to the broader conditions for stimulating creativity across the curriculum in multiple domains."
I daresay, there is nothing to say that these efforts can only occur on campuses with fine art programs. Similar programs with local arts organizations, while more difficult to achieve than with on campus departments, can only serve to strengthen the perceived value of both entities in the community.
I took advantage of the college convocation scheduled in the theatre today to address the professors and suggest ways in which performances in the theatre might be used as anchors for classroom instruction and other activities. My unit is not organized under any academic division so I don't get a lot of group interaction with faculty. But there they were all gathered in my lair. What more could I ask for?
Last year I worked with two literature professors on a series of events connected to the 400th anniversary of the performance of MacBeth. We presented MacHomer, a really fun show where one man channels the voices and personalities of the Simpsons performing the Shakespeare play. Then we followed with screenings of Orson Welles' MacBeth and Akira Kurasawa's Throne of Blood. Finally, we had an evening where student presented projects in the courtyard and students and faculty performed scenes from MacBeth and music from Elizabethean times.
I made suggestions of similar connections with shows this season. Some of the performances have clear associations with botany, astronomy, literature, language arts, music, cultural heritage so it was fairly easy to suggest. I reinforced the point that instruction topic and the performance don't necessarily have to coincide but that the faculty could use it as an anchor for discussion throughout the semester.
Alas, no one approached me with any ideas for connections during the breaks. I did get to do some additional evangelizing about some other arts organizations during those periods though. I promised to send some additional information out with pictures to the campus faculty email list so they haven't escaped me yet!!!
One of the other things I specifically mentioned (and do so again here so you can go out and make the same point) was that theatres are essentially big illustrations of practical applications of physics. We deal in properities of light, additive and subtractive color, focal lengths of lenses, calculation of wattage on circuits, rigging of pulleys and counterweights.
If ever a student asked, what will I ever need this for. It is easy enough to point out that even if you never have amibitions to work in theatre, film/tv and dance clubs where theatrical equipment is used, there is always careers such as commercial electricians, engineers, construction et. al. where the skills learned in physics and performance tech classes can be employed.
WAAAAYYY Back in the beginning of this blog I posted about co-opting some tools used by religions to promote the arts. I am even more convinced now because many churches certainly are borrowing from the performing arts.
On Sundays we rent the theatre to a church that is far more like entertainment than what I attended in my youth. They typically have three services unless we have matinee. They have a sound system they bring in that is three times the size of the house system and tend to make us concerned for the children in the audience when they crank it up.
Once a month, they hold a special service that is so technically involved, two of my people have to act as stage manager and light board operator. Occasionally dancers join the usual group of musicians on stage.
Yesterday I had to cover front of house for the services because none of the other employees at the theatre could. The first two services of the day are mostly families, but the third service in the evening is exclusively teens and twenty-somethings. One thing I noticed that jibes with observations at performing arts events is that the younger people like to socialize a lot more than their elders.
After the first two services, everyone was gone in a half hour and that includes breaking down the coffee set up, the nursery rooms and tables allocated to literature that wouldn't be used during the evening service. After the evening service there were about 150-200 people spread throughout the theatre, lobby and courtyard an hour and a half after the service finished.
Because the stage and sound equipment has to be broken down, there was no reason for me to chase anyone out. None of these people were the ones breaking things down though. There were about 30-40 other people doing that. And when the breakdown crew finished, they corralled everyone who was hanging around about of the building of their own accord.
I have spent the day trying to figure out how to tap into that energy. All these young people hanging out chatting for that long without any source of refreshment but a water fountain. Hardly any of them were talking about religious topics. And they had 30-40 people of the same age voluntarily and efficiently stowing equipment.
While the motivating factors that got the young people there in the first place differ from those that will attract them to arts events, the desired result is one that has eluded the arts world. These young people gathered because of reason they were enthusiastic about and they stayed to chat about myriad other things with people who shared their interest.
It can be pointed out, truly enough, that these people are only continuing to express enthusiasm engendered in them as children by their parents. Parents, schools, society no longer places value on the arts as they once did.
Also, while there is a certain immortality available in the arts, how can it compete with the promise of everlasting life, eh?
At the same time, many who were brought up without steady religious encouragement become converts or born again if they have strayed.
Makes me wonder if the arts folks aren't evangelizing enough. Sure, we can't offer divine forgiveness and eternal life to those down on their luck folks who look to such things to renew their spirits. But renewal of spirit can be found in sublime beauty, too. Instruction in the interpretation and comprehension of art is no harder to master than are the same skills in relation to holy texts.
Perhaps it is lack of will or understanding of that the tools we ply so easily in our craft are well suited for evangelism of art. Is it more difficult to invite people to a First Friday artwalk than it is to a Bible study? Does the rituals of preparing to perform require so much less discipline than readying oneself for a Sabbath meal? Do Chick tracts make a more convincing argument than a pamphlet most artists could put together?
I have mentioned in the past, as have other writers and bloggers, that the atmosphere and language at an arts event is not welcoming to the novice attendee. If there is anything to be borrowed from some of these churches it is the welcoming attitude and the language of compassion and acceptance.
Obviously, I am not trying to supplant religion in any way. After all, some of the best art is religious in nature. The type of connection people feel for their religion can't be directly translated to the arts. It can't be denied though that there is a visceral appeal to both, however different it may be.
Ads and press releases can only do so much to draw people in. After that it is often the direct connection you make to with another person simply and effectively sharing your enthusiasm that causes people to be favorable inclined toward a cause.
Speak well of the arts to someone everyday and share your tips on what is effective with another arts person.
I was a little nervous that there might be some competition for my status as the only (to my knowledge) theatre manager who actively blogs. I was over looking at Artsmanager.org, a service of the Kennedy Center which offers itself as a resource for arts managers.
What made me nervous was the "Lessons from the Field" section where Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser talks about the organizations he worked for or that his consultant business helped out. The case studies he presents are interesting reads.
Unfortunately, (because I would actually be happier if more managers blogged) it doesn't appear like much on the website has been updated since March. It looks like they started out strongly enough in January adding some good content but then had their attention diverted to other things.
I have found more complete information and resource links elsewhere, but I will say I like their Q&A section where people can submit questions to be answered. The questions posed are unlike those answered pretty much anywhere else I have come across. For example-"What payroll taxes apply to board members who are paid for their services?" "Is it wise to write a letter to the editor in response to bad press?" and "What kind of listserv should I use?"
I think if they made the Q&A section the core purpose of the site it would be a great resource for arts organizations on its own. Not only would they be addressing questions whose answers aren't easily found in one place, in the course of researching answers, they can identify more resources for that section of the site.
So, operating under the assumption that the Q&A section hasn't been updated due to lack of questions, (and hoping that it isn't lack of personnel), I encourage people to pose some questions. (bottom of page)
In the course of allowing people to rent our facility, my staff and I come across groups who have varying concepts of what successfully producing their event will entail. We have meetings with all our renters a month or so out from their event to assess their needs and often make suggestions even before the meeting about having a stage manager and production designer.
We very specifically qualify what we mean by these terms. More often than not, even people who claim to have produced events for nigh on two decades don't seem to understand how important organization is to the success of their event. Today at a staff meeting we were discussing a recent event where a guy was introduced to us as the production stage manager at the advance meeting, asked the questions a person in that position would ask, showed up on the load-in day and provided some direction as to how items should be assembled.
The day of the event he came in to prepare things---then left to do his regular Saturday night gig somewhere else and another gentleman we had never met before was suddenly running things. Though honestly, I think he just thought he was advising people of what would happen next. People were making what he said should occur take place when they thought it looked dramatic.
I tell this story not to belittle the folks who rent from me but to illustrate how valuable it can be to teach people the skillsets related to live events. I had suggested to my technical director that we look into occasionally offering seminars in live event planning. He opined that those we would most like to throttle would probably not avail themselves of the opportunity because they thought they knew it all already. I pointed out that if some likely candidates took our classes, we would at least be in the position of suggesting qualified people for our renters to hire.
The larger picture I wanted to touch upon was that there is a group of folks out there who would appreciate the opportunity to learn how to produce events well. It might behoove an arts organization with the resources to show additional value to the community by periodically conducting classes and seminars.
I have talked about theatres providing inservice opportunities to high school teachers who have been appointed drama advisor but don't know the first thing about putting on a production. Since so many schools have eliminated drama programs, it is almost a moral imperiative for arts organizations to ensure the programs that remain get all the support they can handle.
In addition to teachers, other folks who might be interested are those organizing street fairs, festivals, beauty pageants, churches and dance schools with annual recitals. Even smaller performing arts organizations that subsist on volunteer help might be interested. Their lighting designer might a commerical electrician by day and got the job because he is least likely to trip the breakers but has little idea how to avoid making everyone look sallow.
Sure there are plenty of books out there they can pick up that cover the theory well. It can't replace the expertise of those who design lights, organize and order the execution of cues, construct inexpensive illusions and know how to get everyone and everything (from audiences, to sets to performers) moving to where they need to be quickly and accurately.
In some cases, as the instructor can learn something new yourself. We just taught some fundementals to a guy who knew nothing about lighting design. Essentially, we gave him a series of looks that could be achieved with the house plot we set up. He then spent two night writing up nearly 600 cues which we programmed into our lighting board. Since he was doing all the music playback from his computer, he set up flags in the audio design software he was using to alert him to call warnings and executes for those light cues. Prior to this, the group would employ the less accurate method of calling cues based on the progress of the digital counter on the CD player.
We had never even thought of using sound design software in this manner. Now we are suggesting that other groups do the same with their audio design software. In some ways, technology is making it easier for novices to organize their own events but it has yet to substitute for experience.
So next time you hear someone say they are putting together a real simple show with 20 people, perhaps take them aside, ask them to tell you more and intone some good advice in the voice of experience.
I don't know that there are many people who read this blog that don't read Artful Manager, but just in case there are, I want to point you at his entry today. The Hennenius Group post he quotes is worth reading and seriously considering. (I don't know how the heck I missed it.)
What Anthony Radich has to say is sure to be controversial. It seems counterintutive that a guy running an organization "dedicated to the creative advancement and preservation of the arts" would be suggesting the dissolution of arts organizations. In fact, if he were an elected politican, I'm sure there would already be television and print ads out there blaring that Anthony Radich wants to close your arts centers and we oughta chuck him out in November.
I don't know what it says about arts folks (other than that they don't read Barry's blog) that two weeks after it was posted that there hasn't been any real grumbling about Radich's proposal to "euthanize nonprofit arts organizations".
But that is the subject of another entry.
I've never made a secret of my belief that not all arts organizations have a right to exist and expect funding. I am against the "Field of Dreams" mentality. I have frequently felt more organizations should merge their resources and efforts. But I certainly recognize the dearth of organizations as well as evinced by my recent perplexion (is that a word?) at the lack of local professional arts organizations.
Contradictory, sure. But by some definitions, the ability to hold two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time is a sign of enlightenment.
But that too is subject for another entry ;)
One section of what Radich said put me in mind of an entry I did two years ago. Quoth Radich:
Let’s pull some of the nonprofit arts programming off the arts-production line and free up funding and talent for reallocation to stronger efforts--especially to new efforts tilted toward engaging the public. Let’s return to the concept of offering seed money for organizations that, over a period of years, need to attract enough of an audience and develop enough of a stable financial base to survive and not structure them to live eternally on the dole. Let’s find a way to extinguish those very large groups that are out of audience-building momentum and running on inertia. Instead of locking arts funders into a cycle of limited choices, let’s free up some venture capital for new arts efforts that share the arts in new ways with the public.
As I said, this whole argument reminded me of an entry I did on an Independent Sector proposal to change non-profit funding to a more focussed model. The proposal they make runs a little counter to Radich's since he talks about getting organizations off the dole and the IS proposal essentially encourages foundations to deepen their commitment to support specific organizations. Radich also talks about funders having too few choices, but the IS document as well as the additional sources I cite in that entry seem to indicate funders have too shallow an investment in too many places.
Overall though the two are similar in suggesting offering comprehensive seed money to organizations to help them get off the ground. Both also use language that places funders in the position of venture captialists investing in the promotion of their agenda in return for rock solid accountability.
I wonder if some of the problems Radich sees with organizations being weak and played out might have its origin in the funding method encouraging people to stretch their resources in too many different directions until they aren't viable any more.
Since Andrew Taylor posted Radich's proposal, (and the Independent Sector one two years ago), I think I shall go over to his blog and ask him.