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Theatre as an Antidote to Isolation

November 29, 2011 By 1 Comment
"Honeycomb" by nene9 from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

"Honeycomb" by nene9 from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.I'm transcribing some interviews we have conducted with patrons (some of which I've written about previously) about the impact of artistic experiences on them, and I was so affected by one that I'm going to just post an excerpt of it here and let it speak for itself.  Well, speak for itself except to say that the interviewee is a man by the name of Sean McKenna who lives in Oakland, and who attends about 35 shows a year with … [Read more...]

11/29/11 10:33 PM | filed under: Audience Development, Main |

The Uberti Effect, or The Making of Me(aning)

November 17, 2011 By 1 Comment
Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Illustration by Maurice Sendak.

Max from Where the Wild Things Are. Illustration by Maurice Sendak.At this year's National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, which took place this past weekend, I was hit by the Uberti Effect and it took me a while to figure out what it had done to me. Oliver Uberti was one of the plenary speakers. He is a visual artist and design editor for National Geographic magazine, and he is also gorgeous. On top of that, he is what Meredith Grey would probably term a little … [Read more...]

11/17/11 8:44 PM | filed under: Audience Development, Main |

On (in)Appropriate Cultural Appropriation

October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Nakotah Larance in Totem, photo by Greg Horn.

Nakotah Larance in Totem, photo by Greg Horn.In the late 1800's, William Cody, more popularly known as Buffalo Bill, toured the United States and Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a production that featured sharpshooters, re-enactments of Indian attacks (it was said to have ended with a presentation of Custer's Last Stand) and, later (when the title was appended to include "and Congress of Rough Riders of the World"), feats of derring-do from people from the Middle East, Mongolia, Central … [Read more...]

10/31/11 10:26 AM | filed under: Advocacy, Language, Main |

Directing the Impact Echo

October 25, 2011 By 1 Comment
"CCC" by Dylan Boroczi from Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.

"CCC" by Dylan Boroczi from Flickr, used under Creative Commons license.Yesterday, I attended the all-day Beyond Dynamic Adaptability conference put on by the Wallace Foundation as the culminating event of their involvement in the Bay Area.  There were lots of presenters, but across all of them there seemed to be this theme that we as arts professionals needed to be focusing not only on the work created, but on what researchers Alan Brown and Rebecca Ratzkin of WolfBrown called the “impact … [Read more...]

10/25/11 9:44 AM | filed under: Advocacy, Audience Development, Main |

The Evaluation Problem

October 3, 2011 By 3 Comments
sur-la-table-cooking-tools-12-stainless-steel-twoprong-fork

Diane Ragsdale and Devon Smith have written tandem arguments about the difference and relative laxness of arts incubators over technology incubators. I won’t go into all that they’ve said, as you should be reading their blogs anyway, but in sum it comes down to an argument that arts incubators, rather than adopting the put up or shut up attitude of tech incubators, whose average support time is 33 months and at the end of which they let you fly or fall on your own, instead adopt a system … [Read more...]

10/3/11 3:19 PM | filed under: Language, Main |

This Is Your Brain On Art (sizzle sizzle)

September 12, 2011 By 4 Comments
Photo: "O is for Occipital Lobe" by Eric on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

Photo: "O is for Occipital Lobe" by Eric on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.Kristin Shumaker is a closet neuroscientist masquerading as a lowly, hardworking production manager at Dell’Arte, a theatre and school in Blue Lake, California.  She spends most of her time now coordinating the busy production schedule of the Dell’Arte organization, but in a past life she studied biology, and she has remained fascinated with the physiological effects of theatre.  She wants to know what … [Read more...]

09/12/11 11:03 AM | filed under: Advocacy, Main, Research |

The best art teaches us how we should behave

August 29, 2011 By 2 Comments
"Dancing With Mom" by Nagu Tron from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

"Dancing With Mom" by Nagu Tron from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.On Thursday of last week I finally caught up on all my blog reading, including Chad Bauman’s recent post on reconnecting with the art he was marketing by actually getting in and seeing a show.  I can relate to that feeling of drain, of forgetting the value of what we are doing (and what we’re doing it for) sometimes.  Especially with a new baby at home, and commuting 75 minutes each way to work each day, I … [Read more...]

08/29/11 8:53 AM | filed under: Advocacy, Audience Development, Language, Main |

CCI’s Next Gen Leaders Study: Are we all just climbing whiners?

August 16, 2011 By 8 Comments
Poster from All About Eve (1950)

I was at the Americans for the Arts conference in San Diego this year, however briefly, I was able to sit in on the wrap up session, in which a woman whose name and title I didn’t catch gamely trooped around the room cajoling participants into discussing their best takeaways from the conference sessions.  People were reticent, exhausted, as they always are at the end of the conference, and it was generally speaking a thankless job for the moderator—but she did draw out a couple of … [Read more...]

08/16/11 9:48 AM | filed under: Main, Research |

Stirring the Pot – how do you support playwrights without having a million dollars?

July 19, 2011 By 3 Comments

I was sitting in on a meeting a few days ago trying to brainstorm how to better support and create functional infrastructure around new play development, and it got me thinking.  #newplay and Outrageous Fortune have cracked open a national conversation that is now being carried forward by the people at 2amtheatre and Howlround and others, and yet I often hear angst from both producers and writers that generally take the shape of an exasperated person, eyes rolled up and to the right, hands … [Read more...]

07/19/11 8:45 AM | filed under: Advocacy, Main |

In Whose Hands Does Meaning Live?

July 6, 2011 By 4 Comments
Photo: "DSC07227" by Phillip Torrone from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

Where does the meaning of a piece of work live?  When does its particular resonance take shape?  When a playwright puts words down on paper and submits them to be produced, is there something already inherent in those words that form the shape of the meaning?  Or is the true shape of that meaning created by a director, whose particular eye and concept elevate the words from the page to the proscenium? This is not, it turns out, just an esoteric conversation.  As we move into an age … [Read more...]

07/6/11 2:21 AM | filed under: Audience Development, Language, Main, Research |
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