Arts Administration, Articles 1 & 2

 

[The January 2019 issue of American Theatre (36.1) ran a Special Section dubbed “Approaches To Theatre Training: Arts Administration.”  As the title states, AT, published monthly by the Theatre Communications Group, looks at the professions of arts administration and arts management—particularly in the field of theater management—and, as Editor-in-Chief Rob Weinert-Kendt puts it, “what a managing or development director actually does all day.”  

[I’m posting this collection on Rick On Theater as an entry in my ad hoc series on theater and arts professions and occupations about which few people outside show business—and not many within it—know very much.  The two articles below—one of which is Weinert-Kendt’s editorial note for the series—were posted on the AT website, americantheatre.org, on 2 January 2019.  (Allison Considine’s article, part of the Special Section, was published only online and doesn’t appear in the print magazine.)] 

“MANAGEABLE EXPECTATIONS”
Editor’s Note
by Rob Weinert-Kendt 

What drives the folks who keep theatres running, and how do they learn their trade? Funny you should ask.

It is said that we all hate lawyers until we need one. Most folks in the arts don’t hate arts administrators, by any means, but I’ve definitely heard my share of puzzled conversations among artists about what a managing or development director actually does all day. The implication—sometimes not just implied but impolitically stated—seems to be that the money spent recruiting and sustaining good managers would be better spent just giving money directly to artists.

Of course, I’ve heard some of these same puzzled folks have what they seem to think is a separate conversation about the need for stronger institutional support for artists, from marketing to prep/rehearsal time to human-resources staff to handle backstage conflicts or misconduct. Who do they think is supposed to handle those matters, exactly? This cognitive dissonance reminds me a bit of the way some of my fellow Americans pair a reflexive distaste for “Big Government bureaucracy” with a sense of grievance about long waits at the post office and long hold times on the phone to state agencies.

In case my feelings aren’t clear here, I count myself in awe of the hardy souls who do the thankless jobs of balancing budgets, liaising with boards, and keeping stage doors open. For all the bravery and sacrifice of the playwrights, actors, and designers who put their work and their bodies onstage, I’ve met plenty of theatre administrators whose fierce dedication matches and in some cases even surpasses that of the artists whose work they make materially possible, and whose aptitude for their work can be understood as a talent just as surely as can be a composer’s gift for melody or a writer’s ear for dialogue.

Also like artists, administrators shape and hone their talents over years of experience, trial and error, and in many cases formal training. In this special issue we look appreciatively not only at the work of administrators but also at the way they prepare for it and pass their wisdom along to others. In a time of uncertainty rooted not so much in a shaky economy as in existential dread of environmental collapse and social regression, we need artists to help us make sense of the world, to shine a light on the just and unjust, as much or more than ever. And to do that essential work, we need smart, forward-looking people to make sure those lights stay on.

[Rob Weinert-Kendt is editor-in-chief of American Theatre.  He was the founding editor-in-chief of Back Stage West and writes about theater for the New York Times, Time Out New York, and the Los Angeles Times.  He studied film at the University of Southern California and is a composer member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop.

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 “WHY WAIT? THE RISE OF UNDERGRAD ARTS ADMIN PROGRAMS”
by Allison Considine 

Many theatre aspirants will end up needing admin skills anyway, so colleges are stepping up with B.A.s and other options. 

I graduated with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and English. Now, four years out of undergraduate school, my Facebook feed fills with proclamations that my fellow performance peers have seen the light: They’re going to graduate school for arts administration. They’re drawn to producing and marketing and development, to making the magic happen behind the scenes. (And let’s be real, they’re also drawn to competitive salaries and benefits.) But what if this career pathway could be achieved without venturing further into debt?

A 2017 study conducted by the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) shows that folks who study the arts, both fine arts or performance, ultimately end up in administration or management roles. Now a few dozen universities across the U.S. are hoping to help students to see the light sooner by offering degrees in arts administration at the undergraduate level.

“There’s a moral obligation to provide access to those skills as part of arts education,” says Diane Scott, associate professor in arts management and chair of the fine and performing arts department at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. The program, much like other arts admin undergraduate programs, is fairly young—it was established 11 years ago.

“Arts management is bringing an idea into action,” explains Lisa Donovan, another professor of arts management at Massachusetts College. The school requires students in any of its conservatory programs to take an arts administration course freshman year, in which the students learn how to write grants, apply for funding, and self-produce work.

Over the past few years, Donovan has noticed a “paradigm shift” among students. “It’s about realizing how these skills dovetail,” she says. “You’re not selling out, you’re actually making your work deeper and stronger.”

Conservatory students at Pittsburgh’s Point Park University, mainly in the dance program, are also hopping on the arts administration train. Many realize that the career of a dancer is inevitably short, so they’re capping their long days at the studio in the classroom, working toward a business degree in the school’s Sports, Arts, and Entertainment Management (SAEM) program with hopes to one day open their own dance studios. At Purchase College in Harrison, N.Y., arts administration classes are offered at night, and a minor has been created to cater to dancers looking to supplement their training with transferable admin skills.

“We love when we have conservatory students in our classroom, because they are so disciplined,” says Steve Tanzilli, co-founder and chair of the SAEM program. “They work so hard because of their schedule and I think the quality of the classroom is risen because of their capabilities and work ethic.”

And that’s just it: Who better to steer the marketing campaigns, win over the hearts of donors, or run a studio than those who truly understand the arts?

“Theatre folks make really great arts managers,” says Massachusetts College’s Scott. “They don’t realize the level of organizational training they’re getting by working in theatre. You have to be able to work with lots of different people, it’s time-bound, there are money issues, there are a sorts of coordination issues. They have a ton of the skills they need, they just need to learn how to apply them.”

Even the students set on pursuing a performing arts career for the long haul benefit from learning how to apply admin skills. The SAEM program at Point Park University offers required courses for the theatre conservatory students. They learn about personal finance, intellectual property, disability insurance, and a whole host of other useful skills to prepare them for post-graduate life in expensive cities. Purchase offers a course in independent producing, and even how to craft press releases.

Not all arts administrators are reformed artists, of course. Many in these undergrad admin programs come with high school theatre backgrounds; others didn’t make the cut for the conservatory. At the University of Kentucky, home of the oldest arts administration program in the country, many students are entering the school with declared arts administration majors. The number of required credits for theatre majors is now dropped so that students can double major in arts administration—which they all do—bringing the total number of majors into the 200s.

“We had our largest incoming freshman class this year, with 34 declared arts administration students,” says Rachel Shane, the department chair and associate professor of arts administration. “Which sounds small, but what high school student knows about arts administration?”

Clearly high school counselors, drama teachers, and art teachers are onto something. 

At Point Park University, some students come with dreams of managing of [sic] a major sports team. The SAEM program offers a taste of both sports and media, with classes like collective bargaining in sports and courses on the Screen Actors Guild. Tanzilli notes that some of the students with football aspirations are now company managers for Broadway shows, while other theatre-focused incomers are now working as stage managers for ice hockey teams.

[nb: The Screen Actors Guild, the union of performers in the film industry, no longer exists per se.  It merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012 to become SAG-AFTRA.]

“We’ve always believed that how you sell a ticket to Hamilton is very similar in how you sell a ticket to a baseball game or a rock concert,” says Tanzilli. “It’s about understanding your target market and what is the most efficient way to reach them.”

It’s about having the freedom to explore all the different avenues, between both the commercial and nonprofit sectors, across all different arts (or sports) disciplines. Internships, work hours, and co-op programs help students get the necessary hands-on experience.

At Massachusetts College, a group of theatre majors paired with arts administration students last year to produce and market a student-penned play about gun violence. The show went up at the prestigious Mass MOCA [Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams, Mass.].

Point Park’s new $62-million building includes a “learning laboratory” for the students. The SAEM students will learn about facility management and work to market and promote the building’s programming, and IT students will build apps and online ticketing platforms. Experiences like this will help more students follow in the footsteps of one alumni [sic] who now manages New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

Dawn Gibson-Brehon, arts management professor at Purchase, points to the students’ culminating research paper that serves as a jumping off point into the industry. “How can this research assignment help you segue from a student to the real world?” she asks. One student’s paper turned into a fully prepped business plan for opening a studio.

So what’s the verdict on going onto a graduate degree? “Hardly any of our students do,” says University of Kentucky’s Shane. “They’re so well prepared to have job placement.”

Among the cohort of U.K. graduates last year is a national tour producer and a company management apprentice at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

“There is some disagreement about what is the terminal graduate degree in the field,” says Jerome Socolof, assistant professor in arts management at Massachusetts College. “You could go and earn an M.A., MFA, or, at a handful of schools, a Ph.D.—all of them cover a fair amount of ground and all have reasonable to claim [sic] to be a terminal graduate degree. But we are focused on making sure that we give our students a functional skill set so that they can have a great career just based off their undergraduate education.”

The college, nestled in the Berkshires, can lead to jobs at nearby Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Group, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival, among other institutions.

Point Park’s Tanzilli says, “If you’re going to teach at a business school, an MFA is good but a MBA provides a little more insulation.”

But an elephant in the room remains.

“I’m very concerned with the cost of education these days, and I have children,” says Purchase’s Gibson-Brehon. She holds an M.A. from Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but doesn’t think a master’s degree is the right path for everyone. “I want students to be able to leave school and be able to sustain themselves, and I don’t know how they can do that when they’re saddled with so much debt.”

The 2017 SNAAP study shows that students who graduated in the last five years reported twice the rate of major impact from student debt on both their career and educational decisions than students in the past. Moreover, these same alumni also reported lower satisfaction with their experience in school and less connection with the institution post graduation. Undergrad degrees aren’t low-cost options either, but by mitigating the need for an additional higher degree they may reduce graduates’ overall debt levels.

Just as the undergraduate programs are growing in interest, curriculums are morphing to serve a changing field. Each of the schools I spoke to noted the Association for Arts Administration for Educators, a service organization that provides curricular standards and hosts conferences for sharing best practices for arts admin training. There are classes on crowdfunding, electronic-communications, mobile-optimized tools for gathering data, creating digital press kits, and more to teach tech skills. Massachusetts College now offers an arts administration focus in arts education and community engagement, and an advanced applied theatrical marketing class, per the students’ request.

“With this whole new crop of people coming to our institution, and other institutions, we are really framing the field and having a significant impact on how these organizations operate,” says Scott of Massachusetts College. “It’s important for the future for there to be a solid base of people going into the field that have this information and can professionalize it.”

After talking to the movers and shakers behind these programs, my spiel to college-bound students looking to pursue the arts will be different going forward. My crusade to inspire folks to get a B.A. will now be twofold: Use the opportunity to double major to get a degree in arts administration. You can now have your cake and eat it too.

[Allison Considine is the senior editor of American Theatre. She studied literature and cultural studies and theatre arts at Pace University.]

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With regard to the student-written play produced by Massachusetts College, mentioned above: the following report ran on iBerkshires.com on 29 November 2016  (https://www.iberkshires.com/story/53451/Common-Folk-Host-Play-Examining-Gun-Violence-.html).

Common Folk Host Play Examining Gun Violence

by Jack Guerino

 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Common Folk will host the play “Venable 8: Three Lessons on Gun Violence” followed by a conversation in hopes to disarm the difficult discussion about gun violence in schools.

 

The local artist’s collective production of the three-act play this week examines gun violence in the classroom, why it occurs and how it can be prevented.

 

“This is really an attempt to dig a little bit deeper and have a healthy and safe conversation around a very unsafe topic but also involve art,” Common Folk Creative Director Jessica Sweeney said.

 

Sweeney said the first act, “A Child’s Game,” written by Benjamin M. Baylon, is a dream-like sequence during which Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza is confronted by one of the children he killed.

 

She said the second act, “Class Act, Version 379,” by Holly J. Jensen, explores how homophobia can play into gun violence.

‘

The final act, “Trofimov, a Student,” by William Orem, is about a student who after receiving a bad grade attempts to intimidate his teacher with a gun.

 

Sweeney said each act is followed by a conversation so the audience can comfortably talk about gun violence with the cast, crew and each other.

 

She said the conversations are not designed to be pro-gun or anti-gun.

 

“It is really about creating a safe environment to have these discussions because it is a scary conversation,” She said. “We just want to have a conversation about the reality of guns in our lives, our community and the world and to be more comfortable talking about it.”

 

Each show will take place in a different location, which will affect the conversation after each scene.

 

“Each show will really be unique and the different environments will offer different opportunities that will affect the conversation,” she said.

 

Sweeney said the Thursday, Dec. 1, show will be at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art at 7 p.m. and is already sold out.

 

The Friday, Dec. 2, show will be in the North Adams Armory and the Saturday, Dec. 3, show will be at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in Venable 4. There will be showings on these dates at 7 and 9 p.m.

 

The performances on Sunday, Dec. 4, will be at the Roots Teen Center on Eagle Street at 2 and 4 p.m.

 

All shows are free but seats can be reserved by sending via venableeight2016@gmail.com.  [nb: The show is closed.]

 

Sweeney said there is a live gunshot from a blank in the performance and because of the subject matter, children under the age of 12 will not be allowed in and those under the age of 16 are urged to come with an adult.

 

She added that the shows will have small audiences of no more than 30 seated at desks in a classroom-type setting.

 

“It is intense and we want to be able to support people in the room when we have this conversation,” she said.

 

Sweeney said the play format also helps evoke emotion without actually putting anyone in danger.

 

“I have seen how theater can so help someone better understand the world around them,” she said. “It is one thing to have a conversation but to feel the impact without the risk of being in an unsafe situation and to be able to react to that emotion I think is very important.” 

[“Arts Administration” comprises six articles, to which I have added one more from the same issue that wasn’t formally part of the series, so there will be six posts in all.  I’ll be posting the next five articles in the series on Rick On Theater at three-day intervals, so please return Saturday, 5 December, for the continuation of this discussion of arts administration.]