Last week there was a story on NPR about charity gift cards. Essentially, they allow you to buy a gift card as you normally would but then the recipient can go online and choose to which charity they would like to donate.
Charity Navigator, which is mentioned in the story, has a link to the Network for Good card. The other organization mentioned, 'Tis Best, has their own card that they offer.
Of the two, Network for Good has the most arts and culture organizations, though they tend to be individual organizations while 'Tis Best offers the opportunity to donate to larger service organizations like Artspace, Chamber Music America, Dance/USA, Mr. Holland's Opus, and the Assoc. of Performing Arts Presenters.
It is too late to get involved for this holiday season, but is just the right time to explore how to do so for next year!
Knowing that my customer service skills can be lacking, I try to keep my eyes open for practices that answer customer needs well. One of the cardinal rules for relations with anyone, be it your boss, relatives, friends or patrons is to try to anticipate the needs of the other person.
Last week I came across an instance of what to do and wanted to share it with the readers. It is a small act, but it can make a big difference.
I have been emailing back and forth among two other alumni members of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters Emerging Leadership Institute about some activities we want new and alumni members to participate in as part of our attempt to enhance the value of attending the institute.
One person emailed the rest of us a draft letter addressed to the new and returning ELI members alerting them to conference sessions and social events where concerns members had would be addressed. The format was pretty simple with a listing of the event and the time. It looked fine and I replied to that effect mentioning that I would have to research one session a little more because the title made it look interesting.
The next email I received had a revision of the previous letter. This time each session listed had a full description of what the session was all about. What had impressed me was that she took a cue from my comment that I intended to research a session that sounded interesting to provide me the information herself. Obviously, she didn't do it for me alone. If I was curious, others would be as well.
Actually, since I am praising her rather than criticizing, I don't mind mentioning her by name- Laura Kendall, Assistant Director of Community Engagement and Learning at the Lied Center in Lincoln, NE. There, now maybe she will get a raise.
You would naturally expect someone with a title like hers to make that connection and act on it, but it is a rarer quality than you would think. It is easy to enter a mindset that the community you are engaging and educating is only your own and that you only need to do so within the context of programs planned in conjunction with performances.
And maybe she doesn't pick up on the unspoken messages all the time either. However, I emailed her back last week praising her for recognizing that additional information would make a better letter. She said I made her day so I will bet she will be more conscious of these cues in the future regardless of how well she noticed them before.
Anticipating and answering needs people didn't really know they had is what will help set an experience at an arts organization apart from other experiences. People are able to gain the information they want more and more easily these days. Global positioning directional units were one of the hottest selling items this Christmas season. But information sources like GPS units only provide what you ask for and not only is the information sometimes incorrect, it also lacks wisdom and discernment to advise well.
But this is only one example of good practices arts organizations should be embracing. Keeping alert for everyday occurrence that can adapted and applied to become your standard procedures is the real point of this entry. Often it isn't that you come across a new practice as you encounter something that makes you question if you are doing it well enough.
I was going to leave this topic to Drew McManus over at Adaptistration because his knowledge about management and musician relations in orchestras is far greater than mine. He also knows people in the Honolulu Symphony and has a better sense of what is going on.
However, one of the people Drew knows made a direct appeal that I comment and I agreed to do so. This past week, the Honolulu Symphony announced that it would not be able meet payroll for the rest of the year. The story was covered on television and in the Honolulu Advertiser. The musicians have been playing on knowing they wouldn't be paid right before Christmas.
Orchestra musicians are apparently an optimistic breed. If you have been reading Adaptistration recently, you know that musicians in places like Tampa and Jacksonville, FL have been willing to show a lot of good faith and perform during labor disputes.
If you read the comments on the Advertiser article, you will see that the response of the local community is mixed. Some people blame the Governor for not releasing promised funds, some cite very poor policy decisions and mismanagement occurred prior to the arrival of the current executive and music directors.
The article and television report note that attendance was low because the symphony was bumped from their home and had their audience eroded by the 12 week Lion King tour. I can attest that my theatre and about 6 others on the island saw a significant drop in our audience prior to and during The Lion King run. Fortunately, my payroll isn't as large as the symphony's so my losses weren't as great.
You wouldn't think a Broadway tour would impact other arts activity so greatly. However, with the high cost of living, there is little disposable income. Yet you can't blame people for taking the perhaps once in a lifetime opportunity to see the show. But people were explicitly stating in August that they wouldn't be resubscribing or buying single tickets to local performances because they would be seeing The Lion King in November. Even though the tour just closed and moved on, with people spending for Christmas now, many of us are wondering how long it might take before attendance rebounds.
One phrase I haven't heard anyone utter publicly yet and I hope I won't is "Honolulu has to decide whether they want a symphony." There are three reasons I am against saying something like this.
First, it makes it sound like a punishment. I don't think you want to imply that people are going to be punished for not attending your performances. Or worse yet, punished for going to see The Lion King.
Second, saying that is an open invitation for people to opine that they don't really think their lives will be impacted by not having a symphony. As bad as it will be for someone to stand up and say, "If this is what I get for going to see The Lion King, I can live with it," having someone say "Eh, what do I care. It's not important," is even worse.
Third, the statement implies that the people of Honolulu can decide to save the symphony when in reality it will be a handful of people in city and state government, foundations, banks and other corporations who will determine the fate of the organization. Some individuals will certainly lobby these institutions to support the symphony, but my sense is that there won't be large grassroots popular support.
In a sense, it is appropriate for these entities to be the ones to make the decision rather than making it an issue of popular support. These entities understand that having a vital arts scene is what will attract people to the city and state to live and do business. The symphony, for better or for worse, is the biggest and most visible performing arts group in the state and thus serves as the cornerstone of artistic value.
Now ideally, everyone in the city if not the state should recognize the value of the symphony to its overall appeal. That will be the symphony's job if it gets past this crisis. In the past year the symphony has been making efforts in this direction by doing concerts in different parts of the island rather than just sticking to Honolulu proper.
They even came out and performed in my venue last Spring so I am hoping they will find success. Because, well, they haven't paid their bill yet.
Apropos of yesterday's entry, a commenter, who some call Tim, brings this great article about the dangers of dwindling imagination to my attention.
It is fairly well sourced and talks about the subject far better than I can. In fact, it even addresses my concern that maybe I was channeling my grandfather by referencing "back in my day." Even if you are in the arts, you might be creating an environment that doesn't challenge your kids/nephews/students to be creative. It is worth a read for that reason alone.
More and more frequently we read about how the next phase of the economy will be the Creative economy. It is in major magazines, the subject of conferences, and the topic of study for state and regional arts organizations.
But I am wondering if the U.S. as a society is adequately preparing the next generation to take part in this economy. I am not referring to the disappearance of arts from schools or the fact that fewer people are reading. These things are important, to be sure. I am beginning to wonder if children today are even being challenged to use their basic imagination.
As a commute to work and run errands, I often see televisions playing DVDs in cars and SUVs. I hate to lapse into a round of "in my day", but I wonder if these kids are going to want for not being challenged to entertain themselves on trips around town, much less on long vacation trips. When I was younger, my mother would actually hide our toys about 6 weeks before a long trip and then give me back to us so that they would be new to us and keep us occupied during the trip. (I must have inherited my frugality and cleverness from her.)
Although it tests parents' patience, there is something to be said for having to develop the self-control not to antagonize your sisters. And there is something to be said for having to invent strange games to keep yourself occupied during the trip. My sisters came up with some rules about holding your breath while passing a cemetery and lifting your feet when crossing train tracks. My father would then pretend to pass out from lack of oxygen while driving by large cemeteries and rolling to a stop on train tracks because his feet were no longer on the accelerator.
Now I will admit that not everyone is as blessed with my ability to read in moving vehicles. I will also never suggest that the television sets on airplanes be removed. I like the distraction of those itty-bitty screens just fine.
DVDs and video games are starting to tout themselves as educational and they might be. But are the games sharpening and improving creativity? Maybe, but I think it is too soon and too tough to tell.
One thing I do know is that boredom, like necessity is the mother of invention. Certainly, much of what I produced while a bored child was destructive as much as it was constructive but there is little gained and learned in the absence of taking that risk. I had acres and acres of fields and forests upon which to wreak havoc without the distraction of color television much less cable to distract me.
Many kids today may not have the physical space to explore and experiment that me and my friends did. But I also suspect and fear that some of the limits they face are barriers of imagination that they haven't learned to surmount.
Observant folks and readers of the Adaptistration blog will have noted that I have joined with Drew McManus and his Merry Band over at InsidetheArts.com. Unlike the existing blogs associated with Inside the Arts which are hosted under Drew's Typepad account, I am still solely in control of what appears here.
So don't blame Drew for any strangeness found on Butts in the Seats like the Tag Cloud on the left which won't turn into a weighted cloud no matter how many code changes I have made in Movable Type. Unfortunately, Drew can't help because he just clicks a few boxes in Typepad and what he wants to happen magically appears. Movable Type is made by the same company but requires changes by hand. Something I am usually quite adept at. I am thinking I should have switched to TypePad when I upgraded my software.
Anyhow, I am happy to have joined up on Inside the Arts. I have been corresponding with Drew for a few years now and even contributed to his Take A Friend to the Orchestra project a couple times. I am very excited by the way he thinks and his vision for Inside the Arts.
I have also corresponded with Sticks and Drones contributor Ron Spigelman who has had his students at Drury University read Butts in the Seats as part of the class he teaches. How can I not want to be associated with someone with such obvious wisdom and taste?
And Ron's partner in crime, Bill Eddins has had people complain that he wiggles his bum too much while conducting. How could I not want to be associated with a person who brings so much energy and enthusiasm to orchestra music.
As for the Arts Addict, Jason Heath-- he drive a fire breathing Saturn. I am pretty sure a guy that tough can take me so I am not going to say anything that might offend.
Anyhow, I look forward to my association with these folks and those slated to join. I anticipate there will be some cross blog conversations because there are things I am curious about regarding the artistic and educational circles these guys travel in. I figure many of our readers probably are too.
So stay tuned and see what develops!
Since things are quieting down around the theatre this week (we only have a pre-school Christmas show, college winter graduation, Nutcracker brush up rehearsal and performances). I have been trying to dispose of obsolete equipment from around the office and such.
One of the things it is difficult to do around a theatre is get rid of stuff. The technical director here is notorious for holding on to things. In one respect this is good because so much is recycled, we don't need to purchase new materials all the time. Saving money is good.
On the other hand, there are items we have had for 25 years and haven't used and probably will never use again. We have tried to get rid of them but he insists we keep them against a theoretical use we may have in the future. This is preventing us from freeing up some much needed storage space and actually endangering other objects given that many of the old pieces are termite infested. We are able to toss some things out while he is on vacation (parting is less painful out of sight) or when they crumble under his touch due to the aforementioned termites.
Given that he is the one that has to work around the lack of storage, the situation is really more a bother for him than for me. I merely look around the shop and sigh about all the room we would have if shelves and the area under the pit were cleaned out.
In some respects, I am as bad as he only on a much smaller scale. We got brand new shiny ticket printers this summer but I just packed away the old one "just in case" even though it won't work well at all with our new ticketing software. If the new printer had a problem, it would be a better use of our time to hand write all our tickets rather than attempt to configure the software to the old printer.
I am sure these type of practices are a metaphor for theatre as an industry as a whole. Resistance to tossing out barely functional equipment for fear we may one day need it probably equates to holding on to old practices and programming for fear that adopting new ones might leave us with less of an audience than we are already drawing.
In fact, I am pretty sure a feng shui practitioner would say that cluttering our space with old, unused objects is anchoring us to the past and hindering the progress we could be making in our lives. Since there are some items that we use often like our platforms, those feng shui practitioners and people on those anti-clutter home improvement shows wouldn't necessarily counsel us to toss them.
Repainting a platform to make it look better on stage is one thing, but dressing up old audience development and programming strategies is another. The platform has some functional life left to it. There is often less hope to be found in old marketing practices.
The fear of discarding something with even marginal use when you have an untried replacement--or no replacement at all, can be paralyzing. I fully acknowledged to my assistant theatre manager that I would probably toss the old ticket printer this summer but I couldn't bring myself to part with it just right now.
In years past I have written about how the members of my block blocking consortium leverage our purchasing power by proposing a tour to performers and their agents. Given the difficulty of finding workable time slots among 3-6 different organizations across the state, we often earn our discounts.
One thing I hadn't found was a good example of producing organizations who cooperated to cut costs. Among presenters like my consortium, the questions that come up are mainly date and cost related--when are the artists available, are there openings on members' calendars, can we afford the terms the performers seek.
Among producing organizations, there are so many more questions many potentially related to the artistic differences among the organizations- who does the casting, who designs costumes, lights, sets. Will the artistic quality and value reflect what patrons have come to expect of their local theatre. Will the other theatres have input into any of these elements? How much of the sets travel and how much is built by each organization? Given differences in stage sizes, what set pieces may be cut and still maintain the vision of the directors and designers?
How is it going to be paid for? If the theatres each normally operate under different Equity pay rates, will the actors be paid differently in each theatre?
Presenters face some of these questions on occasion, but to very limited degree compared to groups that are co-producing.
A blog entry on the McCarter Theatre website sheds some light on some of these questions. They are co-producing Argonautika with Berkeley Rep and Shakespeare Theatre Company. The show was rehearsed and first opened in San Francisco though the show was cast from auditions at all three locations. All three organizations are sharing all rehearsal costs (including the brush ups when the show moves) and presumably a portion of many of the other costs.
I liked McCarter Producing Associate, Adam Immerwahr's reasons for partnering with other organizations.
1) it allows what would otherwise be a local production to have a much broader impact;2) it allows an artist to continue to develop their work over time (allowing them another chance to make adjustments with each production);
3) it can be a cost-saving measure, allowing each of the theaters to share common costs (like the set, costumes, rehearsal time and casting expenses);
4) it is a way for multiple theaters to each share their expertise (new play development, mounting musicals, building big sets, etc.).
I especially appreciated the final point about shared expertise. I have been talking about cooperative efforts for a long time and while cost-savings is certainly going to be important in increasingly difficult financial times, I have always felt sharing knowledge and effort was going to prove crucial to the survival of many arts organizations because so little occurs among arts entities to begin with.
Via Arts Addict blog comes the news that champion of the subscription ticket, Danny Newman has died.
Newman was essentially the force that promoted the idea of getting people to commit to an entire season of shows, becoming a "the saintly season subscriber" as opposed to "the slothful, fickle single-ticket buyer." Embracing that idea helped many art organizations succeed.
Unfortunately, the day of the subscriber has waned and many arts organizations are now subject to the whims of the fickle single ticket buyer.
Back in the early 90s when I was in grad school, we were seeing the writing on the wall. In one of my classes, we were assigned to compare and contrast Newman's Subscribe Now! with another text promoting a different theory of audience development. We essentially derided many of Newman's suggestions as dated and having no value in the last years of the 20th century.
One of the ideas we scoffed at was his suggestion of holding subscription parties, an event similiar to Tupperware and candle parties where individuals invited friends over and encouraged them to subscribe. Damned if not two years later a theatre I was working at that had lost the confidence of the community didn't use this very tactic to regain support. Even though subscribing was a much more deeply ingrained practice in that community than in most, the experience taught me to be a little more humble and cautious about dismissing ideas.
Even though the subscription has had diminishing value over the course of my career, I have to admire the drive and audacity of Newman in championing the concept and helping so many organizations find success through it.
Drew McManus at Adaptistration links to an article on The Partial Observer today on a familiar topic which author Holly Mulcahy terms, "The Talk." You know, the one that goes "When a young man or woman grows up and falls in love with the arts, their thoughts turn to making a career of it. They impulsively jump into a passionate embrace with family, friends and faculty whispering sweet words of encouragement in their ears. They throw themselves into their art without reservation and without thought of cultivating alternative skills. But an arts career is a lot of responsibility and takes commitment and not the subject of a mere fling or dalliance. Even so, those who invest a lot of time and effort don't always succeed."
Mulcahy observes that most young artists aren't given this warning during their studies even if they are too optimistic about their talent to believe they might fail.
I have seen some evidence that students are receiving warnings about job prospects from their professors and teacher more frequently of late. Tom Loughlin who teaches theatre at the State University of NY-Fredonia recently posted a survey of graduates of his program on his blog, A Poor Player. While the survey was not completely scientific and only applies to the graduates of the SUNY-Fredonia program, the 80 responses he received show enough of a trend to be sobering.
When asked how much of their income over the past year was derived from working on a entertainment related project, 30.6% said zero percent and 30.6% said one hundred percent. The rest fell in between. Although all told, 54% of the respondents made between 0% and 25% of their income so the results skewed fairly low. Working in the industry is a veritable all or nothing prospect. Half the respondents graduated between 1990 and 2000 so they have had some time to work on establishing themselves.
The following is excerpted from the conclusions of his survey. (DTD=Dept. of Theatre and Dance)
Technicians and administrators have the highest probability of earning any money in the business. Because the probabilities which follow combine the data for all types of entertainment/arts employment, it can be safely assumed that all the probabilities following are lower for performers.......• There is about a 33% probability, or about a 1 in 3 chance, that a DTD graduate will make as much as 50% of their income from the business in any one year. All other income will come from “day jobs.”
• There is a 31% probability, or slightly less than 1 in 3 chance, that a DTD graduate will earn no money at all in the entertainment business in any one year (and thus drop out), and a 47% probability (roughly 50-50 chance) that a DTD graduate will make no money at all in live theatre after graduation in any one
year......• There is no direct correlation between membership in a union and earning significant income among DTD graduates. 2 out of 3 DTD graduates will not be successful in joining a union, and given the reality of multiple memberships those odds may be slightly higher.
• The probability of earning a salary which exceeds $50K in any one year in the arts/entertainment field for a DTD graduate is slightly better than 1 in 3, or 36.5%. [N.B. I suspect this statistic might be better stated as applying to only those graduates who are working in the field.]
In conclusion, the statistics seem to bear out the reality that full-time undergraduate students who major in theatre are, in all probability, preparing themselves for, at best, a part-time career. They will have to face the reality that, most likely, in any one given year they will make two-thirds of their income from a source outside the arts/entertainment field... They should enter the field with an intelligent combination of aspirations and practical planning, and with an understanding that all their hard work and preparation will be for a part-time career.
As always, your experience and mileage may vary according to your degree, experience and network of contacts. Actually, these statistics should motivate people to develop an extensive network of contacts. Having a wide network of people who think highly of your work becomes increasingly important the tougher it is to find meaningful paid work.