Jugglers wanted

St. Paul theater critic Dominic Papatola writes an open memo to the Ordway Center for the Arts regarding their search for a new president (after David Galligan’s resignation a few weeks back). Papatola’s concerns about the job could well be said for any performing arts center with both a presenting wing and resident performing organizations:

You know the Ordway has finished as many of its fiscal years in the red as in the black. You know relationships with your major tenants — the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Minnesota Opera — have been filled with contention and resentments. You know no one has ever been able to successfully juggle the building’s multiple roles as landlord, presenter and producer.

So Papatola suggests the Ordway board search for an out-of-towner with no institutional memory, a hard-baller who can show the resident companies who is boss, a strategist who can clarify the purpose and function of the institution, and a gladhander that can work the community. Salary commensurate with experience (about $250K to $270K, based on past tax reports and Galligan’s current compensation).

But Papatola seems to miss the larger point that, no matter who takes the job, they’ll be hired and reviewed by the very same board, and supervise most of the same staff in the same infrastructure and the same organizational culture. The right president can certainly be an agent for changing all of the above, but he or she is only an agent.

It will take more than a few tweaks in a job description or search process to make the insane juggling act of a major performing arts center ”successful,” by whatever definition of that word you choose.