Jumper

Diane Ragsdale on what the arts do and why

On artistic leadership and aesthetic values in a changed cultural context: A new keynote address

Last week I had the privilege, pleasure, and honor to give the keynote address at the Canadian Arts Summit–an annual gathering of the board chairs, executive leaders, and artistic leaders of Canada’s major cultural institutions. It was a terrific conference all around. Here is a link to a transcript of my keynote address. The talk was also live streamed and, as I understand it, a video will eventually be available for download.

Following a preamble (which highlights some of the key themes that I’ve been circling around for the past decade), the talk is divided into three parts:

Part 1: Can we talk about our aesthetic values? 

Do aesthetics get discussed at your own arts organization? If so, who is involved in the discussion?

  • The artistic staff?
  • All senior managers?
  • Board members?
  • Box office staff and front of house?
  • The janitorial staff?

Generally my experience has been that it is actually quite difficult for arts leaders, staffs, boards, and other internal and external stakeholders to talk about aesthetics, honestly, in this changed cultural context; but I think we must.

Part 2: Can we talk about how a season comes together? (Hat tip to David Dower at ArtsEmerson …)

How does a season, or a collection, come together? What’s the relationship between the economics, ethics, and aesthetics of our organizations? What’s the mutual dependence between judgments of artistic excellence; the non-negotiable principles that uphold organizations’ core values; and the willingness for particular bodies to pay? What holds everything together? Dare we ask?

Part 3: What does responsible artistic leadership look like? What’s the work in 2018?

The subsidized arts not only can—but must—play a vital, humanizing role in any society but to play that role, in these times, we must regenerate individual arts organizations. What does that work look like? (I share a few ideas.)

Many thanks for reading and sharing any thoughts!

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On playwrights attempting to be in the driver’s seat: my experience at Dominique Morisseau’s “Pipeline”

I’ve recently starting working as an assistant professor and program director for a new MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship (MA AME) at The New School. If you don’t know it, The New School is a progressive university based in New York City. Social justice is a core value of the institution and it ranks quite high on various dimensions of diversity. The MA AME is distinguished from other MA in arts management or administration programs in that it is intended for practicing performing artists only. When they apply, students are evaluated based on their artistic portfolios as much as their social goals or propensity for entrepreneurship; and while in the program students are required to maintain their artistic practice (and receive credit for this).

One of the things we tend to say about the program is that it is aimed at putting artists in the driver’s seat, so to speak, of their careers, the projects they develop, and the enterprises they found. I have been thinking about this programmatic aim in light of a recent experience seeing the play Pipeline at Lincoln Center Theater and last week’s announcement of its author, playwright Dominique Morisseau, as recipient of one of the Ford Foundation Fellowships for Social Change in the Arts.

While it is Ms. Morisseau’s powerful scripts that have, no doubt, earned her a spot on this prestigious list, I am equally interested in another area in which I see her as an agent of social change: Morisseau has made it her business to call out the cultural and racial biases embedded in taken-for-granted notions of what constitutes appropriate behavior at the theater.

To wit, in December 2015 Morisseau penned a candid, courageous, and unabashed article for American Theatre magazine called “Why I almost slapped a fellow theatre patron, and what that says about our theatres.” In it, she recounts a troubling experience at a theater performance–one in which she is confronted with a series of race-based microaggressions. Perhaps as a result of experiences like these, Morisseau created a program insert called Rules of Engagement for Lincoln Center Theater’s recent production of her play, Pipeline.

I attended Pipeline in the late summer. The play revolves around a young black man, who is facing challenges at the (almost entirely white) private boarding school that he attends, whose parents are divorced, and whose mom teaches in an inner city high school in New York City. As critic Jeremy Gerard noted in his review, the play’s title:

… refers to two different kinds of institutionalized segregation. In the first, “gifted and talented” students are culled from the public-school crowd and given accelerated classroom experiences. The second refers to the schools-to-prison syndrome that plagues poor, mostly inner-city, and mostly African-American families.

It’s perhaps worth mentioning at this point in the story that I had purchased discounted tickets for the show, as a member of Theatre Development Fund, for myself and a friend.

I didn’t actually notice Morisseau’s Rules of Engagement insert as I arrived at the theater just before curtain. What I did notice as I sat down was that my friend and I were the only two white people in the entire house right section, which was filled with black adults (young and old). And vice versa, after settling into our seats, we glanced around the room and saw a three-quarters sea of predominately white people. I gathered from the Q&A that among those seated in my section were some high school or college students attending with their teacher or professor. Whether the result of an ill-conceived seating policy (or the lack of any policy at all), the failure to integrate the recipients of “outreach” or “discount” tickets with the rest of the audience struck me as an embarrassing and serious gaffe–particularly given the themes of the play.

The show started and the students in our section appeared to be quite engaged: they were leaning forward, laughing, occasionally vocalizing, or snapping. At the end of the program there was a Q&A and all of the actors came out to participate. A majority of questions came from a small group of students seated in my section of the theater. At one point a student asked (and I’m paraphrasing):

So, is there a subtext to this play? Or is it essentially about “the pipeline”? I mean, is there another subtext besides the pipeline you are all playing as actors? I ask because I’m studying acting now and we’re talking a lot about subtext.

I thought it was great question given the socio-political nature of the piece. There was a long silence and then a black actor*** responded  (and I’m paraphrasing from memory):

I am going to put that question aside for a moment. I want to say something else because backstage we were all talking about this. It was incredibly challenging for us tonight because of all the snapping that you all were doing. I don’t know if you noticed the scene in which I looked at all of you like (and here the actor looked at the students with a raised eyebrow), but it was really distracting. And one person would start snapping and then someone somewhere else would start snapping. The playwright has given us her Rules of Engagement. You need to understand that we could hear you and that your behavior was incredibly distracting. And I’m here to tell you, there is no snapping in the theater! That does not happen.

I sat there a bit in shock. Remember, I had not opened my program. I had not seen the Rules of Engagement insert.

My first thought was: “Wait! This play opened with an actor speaking to the audience as though they were the students in her classroom. The fourth wall was broken by the production itself; and now the students are being chastised for, essentially, going with the convention???” I then became perturbed at the cultural implications. I turned to my friend and whispered heatedly, “How is snapping in the middle of a scene any different than people clapping when a star walks on stage?”

I had no idea what “rules of engagement” the actor was referencing; but in the context of the finger-wagging I began to think they must have been some sort of “rules of etiquette” that had been passed out to all the school groups. I felt sad for the American theater as it had just reprimanded one of the more engaged audiences I had witnessed in a long time. I left the Q&A shortly thereafter.

I got home and found Morisseau’s Rules of Engagement in my program. Reading this list one is immediately struck by the generous (and perhaps conflicted) spirit and aims of the piece.

On the one hand, the piece is clearly intended to invite (or protect the possibility of) more engaged participation by audience members. And on the other hand, Morisseau is also clearly trying to safeguard the actors from being obstructed by unruly behavior. Testifying is allowed but not so much that it is thwarting to the actors. As such, I immediately wondered whether or not she would agree with what had happened at the Q&A? Whether she would be more sympathetic with the actors, or the students?

This etiquette issue can be a hot-button topic for those who work or regularly attend live performance. In 2016 I moderated a rather feisty debate at the International Society for the Performing Arts on the question: Is there a correct behavior in a live performing arts venue? The debate was exploring whether, in the face of dramatic cultural, technological and demographic changes, the general rules of etiquette and other behaviors that are taken for granted at live performing arts venues also needed to change? Or whether there was still value in maintaining audience-performer conventions, most notably the expectation of reverent silence? At the heart of the debate was the growing recognition that historically white institutions have made it a policy to “open their doors to everyone” but have quite often been unwilling to allow the etiquette at the theater to evolve in light of the changing demographics of their communities (and therefore audiences).

As I continued mulling on the Pipeline experience I began to see another side. The actor was not incorrect. By-and-large, let’s face it, snapping is (still) not condoned by the institutionalized American theater. And if the actor wanted these students to be welcomed in historically white theaters in the future this finger wagging may have been an attempt to do them a favor by setting them straight.

I showed the program insert to a friend and relayed my experience. In response he asked, “I wonder how and when this insert emerged in the production process?”

It is a great question.

I interpret Morisseau’s Rules of Engagement as an attempt by an artist to be in the driver’s seat. By giving explicit permission for audiences to engage in certain culturally specific behaviors, Morisseau poked and prodded at longstanding, taken-for-granted norms about what is and isn’t appropriate at Lincoln Center, or other regional theaters generally run by and generally serving a white, educated, upper middle class crowd. In an interview for TheaterMania, Morisseau is described as taking “a breath when describing the pamphlet” and then saying:

My shows that have been programmed at theaters across the country have predominantly white audiences in their subscriber base. I have seen the sprinkle of audience members of color who have a conflict of engagement with those white audiences. Or maybe, those white audiences have a conflict of engagement with those audiences of color. There are moments I’ve noticed, repeatedly, where the people of color think they are guests in the space. They hush as though they’ve broken the rule of the space, instead of engaging with my work the way I think my work demands, which is with a little bit of an audible response. … What I’ve asked for is space for the community to respond to my work.

There is another recent, and quite high profile, example of a playwright seeking to influence how audiences can respond to his work–but with a financial penalty rather than an insert. This past summer playwright David Mamet (Oleanna, Speed-the-Plow, Glengarry Glen Ross, and many others) had the theater world up in arms because, as this Guardian article states, “the licence to stage a Mamet play now includes a clause that prevents producers from staging official debates within two hours of a performance. Any violation risks the loss of the licence and a fine of $25,000 for every post-show talk.”

While some interpreted this as short-sighted, diva behavior I found myself wondering if this didn’t arise from Mamet (who has made a public conversion from liberalism to conservatism) seeing his plays interpreted through a predominately liberal institutional lens at post-show talkbacks? Theaters are up-in-arms because they feel they should have a right to foster public discussion. Mamet evidently wants audience members to have the chance to make up their own minds about the work. It would be great to see an actual debate between some writers and some theater producers on this issue. Anecdotally, it seems that many playwrights abhor the post-show talk-back trend but are disinclined to say so publicly.

Returning to Pipeline, I would love to know how other performances went and how various audiences, Morisseau, the actors, and the theater felt about the insert and its effects. Ultimately, while I sympathize with the actors who evidently felt distracted by the snapping the night I saw the play, I remain troubled by the fact that these students were called out publicly for their behavior at the Q&A. That they were chastised even while holding a slip of paper in their hands–from the playwright–whose subtext, spirit and intent, seemed to be: “It’s OK. Snap. Say Amen. Be in the moment with this play rather than sitting and worrying about whether you are doing the right thing or the wrong thing in this theater filled with white, upper middle class people. You belong here.”

*** The word “actor” is used to refer to female or male performers.

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Change in the arts sector. Can we speed it up or must we wait it out?

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EvolveFish

 

Devon Smith has written a smart, provocative post on a debate she engaged in at the recent Americans for the Arts Conference in Nashville. It’s called We Should Allow Failing Arts Organizations to Die and it has lit up the arts blogosphere, Twitter, and Facebook the past few days. So much so that she has added a second post responding to the internet comments. This topic is close to my heart. In 2009 I was on a panel at the Grantmakers in the Arts Conference alled Graceful Exits,What Can Funders Do When It’s Time to Pull the Plug. In 2011 I was interviewing Rocco when he made his now infamous supply and demand comment. And over the past few years I’ve written four Jumper posts on the subject.***

While one could argue that I’ve had more than my say on the topic, Devon’s terrific post, along with a recent academic article recommended by one of my PhD advisors, has inspired me out of an extended hiatus from Jumper (during which I’ve been working on my dissertation). I thought I would reflect on the following issues related to ossified organizations that fail to change or die: (1) why organizations arise in the first place; (2) why inertia sets in; and (3) how organizational change happens.

The academic article that I’m referencing is called Structural Inertia and Organizational Change and it is by Mike T. Hannan and John Freeman (who work in a realm of the social sciences known as organizational ecology).

Why organizations arise in the first place:

One of the many provocative points that Devon makes is that a lot of what counts as culture, captures our interest and imagination, and gives meaning to our lives does not, necessarily require an arts organization to be created or delivered. She writes:

I don’t have the stats to support this, but for every hour of “traditional” nonprofit arts that a consumer experiences this year, they’ll spend 20 or 30 times times that experiencing “nontraditional” arts and culture. Those experiences that reveal or question our humanity. That enable us to see the world and each other in a new light. Those experiences that delight our mind and our senses. That teach us about other cultures and expand our capacity for imagination. Because for me, those “nontraditional” experiences include going to a folk music concert, funding a poetry book on Kickstarter, appreciating the aesthetic design of an especially beautiful video game, the art of a pulling a great shot of espresso, and the craft of a great pair of raw denim jeans. All things that I’ve done these past 3 days in Nashville. And none of those experience required an arts organization to support them.

Many of them did, however, require organizations (video game companies, coffee houses, fashion houses and manufacturers, etc.). This raises a couple interesting questions. Why do organizations arise, generally? And why do we see a sector made up of arts organizations more so than a sector made up of artist collectives that are not permanently structured into organizational form?

If I asked a room of arts conference attendees this question they would probably answer that you can only get grants if you are formed as an organization and this may, indeed, be a significant part of the story. At the heart of it, organizations are means by which a collective of individuals can pursue common goals and also aggregate resources. While economists tend to explain the emergence of organizations in terms of efficiency organizational ecologists looks at it differently. They argue that organizations are favored over loose collectives because they are reliable (i.e., they can reproduce a given product at a certain level of quality) and they are accountable (i.e., they are able to rationalize their decisions and account for their actions to customers, investors, governments, et cetera).

The nonprofit organizational form, in particular, was not heavily utilized in the US until the mid-twentieth century when it became authorized (the IRS began to approve its use among arts organizations), legitimate (donors and others had begun to recognize arts organizations as having a valid educational or charitable social purpose, worthy of contributions), and materially beneficial (there were actually sources of funding that opened up that made the nonprofit form preferable to the LLC or other forms).

Why inertia sets in:

In the article mentioned above, Hannan and Freeman make the case that structural inertia (meaning a failure to change, or change fast enough, in response to changes in the environment) is an outcome of a system that tends to select organizations (over unincorporated collectives) and certain kinds of organizations (those perceived as reliable and accountable) over others.

In the arts sector, with the emergence of grants from government agencies and funders came the emergence of eligibility requirements: the presence of managerial staff, minimum number of years in existence, minimum number of weeks of programming per year, track record of producing good works as demonstrated by positive reviews, a minimum level of annual operating budget, stable operations (lack of turnover), a persuasive mission statement, clear organizational goals, and a long-range plan. These are basically signs of reliability and accountability.

And it stands to reason that within a given field it is often the oldest organizations that are perceived to be most reliable and accountable. So funding tends to gravitate toward them–funding which enables them in many cases to build buildings or hire staff, which further contribute to their structural inertia.

Not only does structural inertia increase with age and size but transformation is a gamble for organizations as it may jeopardize their perceived reliability and accountability. Big change seems to have paid off pretty well for Diane Paulus at American Repertory Theatre, but not so well at New York City Opera, where attempts to reinvent in the final years (when the organization was already in a weakened state financially) resulted in a loss of confidence among stakeholders.

For this reason, large, old under-performing organizations often resist transformation. This is the idea at the heart of the book, Permanently Failing Organizations, in which the authors essentially ask why low-performing organizations persist. They answer that it’s largely due to the fact that those who rely upon the organization for a livelihood and also have the power to make decisions (i.e., managers) keep organizations alive (so they can continue to earn a living) but fail to make necessary changes that might lead to higher performance because doing so is a gamble that could result in outright failure.

Other internal factors that contribute to structural intertia are sunk costs; political alliances; and the tendency for precedents (things that worked once) to become norms (the way things are done around here).

There’s much more I could write as it’s a complex subject but these are the key points that seem relevant for the current conversation.

How organizational change happens:

So if inertia is a consequence of these external and internal factors, and seems almost inevitable, how does change happen?

I’m oversimplifying things, but there are basically three major points of view on this: individual organizations can make conscious decisions to adapt to their environments (rational adaptation); individual organizations do change but often such change is random, rather than in rational response to goals or the external environment (random transformation); and that change tends to happen at the population level, rather than at the individual organization level. Meaning, change happens with the death of some organizations and their replacement by those with different traits (more suitable or favored in the current environment).

The last perspective is that of population ecology and the one advanced by Hannan and Freeman.

While these are divergent points of view on organizational change it is also fair to say that all three types of change can be observed. Those who advance the idea of population ecology, for instance, also recognize that there are types of organizations, and points in the life cycles of organizations, when organizations can and do change individually. A population ecology perspective would also suggest, however, that this type of change can be challenging and risky (as noted above).

So if I put this all together and reflect on Devon’s post, here’s the picture:

  • Generally speaking, organizations are favored over those entities that are not organized.
  • Selection systems also tend to favor organizations that are older as they are perceived to be both more reliable and accountable.
  • Structural inertia is a consequence of both this selection process (which favors older organizations) but other internal factors.
  • While it is possible for arts organizations to change, generally speaking change (particularly in attributes of an organization that are deeply tied to identity) is likely to be resisted. Why? Because of the expectations of funders, donors, and audiences for reliability and accountability, because of investments in large concrete venues, because managers and musicians want to keep their jobs, because board members want to protect their investments and social standing, and because the general lack of risk capital in the sector makes it less likely that any change that is attempted will be successful (and more likely that the organization will fail).
  • Thus, it is perhaps more likely that change in the arts sector will happen at the population level, with the death of old forms and the birth of new ones.

Can we facilitate or speed up the death of old forms?

The short answer, from what I’ve read, is that permanently failing organizations are hard to kill. Having said that, I do wonder whether there are changes that could be made at the field level that might influence the pace of evolution in the sector.

Here are a few ideas:

(1)    Shift grants away from large organizations to midsized and smaller ones: If you are an avid reader of the annual Grantmakers in the Arts funding reports you will have noticed a couple stagnant trends the past ten years: the “average” arts grant is (and has been for some time now) around $25,000 per year and the majority of contributed income tends to flow to the largest organizations in the sector. When I was still at Mellon I began to wonder whether the arts sector would look different today if (over the past 30 years) arts organizations with budgets over a certain threshold (say $10 million for argument’s sake) had not been eligible for grants from government agencies or foundations.

The rationale for such a norm in the arts sector is that if an arts organization has been able to grow its annual operating budget to $10 million (perhaps larger in some disciplines) it has most likely done so either through increased earned revenues or individual contributions. This leads me to a normative proposition: organizations that have the capacity and stature to attract financially and socially elite board members, large individual contributions, corporate sponsors, or large levels of earned income should cease to be the recipients of grants from government agencies and private foundations. Instead, such funding should be channeled to organizations that do not yet have the stature or size to garner such support from their communities or whose mission prohibits earning large revenues.

If such a threshold (as I’m proposing) were normalized then donors would not interpret the loss of NEA and foundation grants, for instance, as a demerit or loss of legitimacy (which is often the rationale for maintaining tiny NEA grants to big organizations); they would see such as loss as a natural consequence of growth. Funds redistributed to smaller organizations could help to encourage the scaling of artistic innovations and the development of new forms of organization (which often fail to gain traction because they are unable to capture significant grants). And in the long run, perhaps such a rule would also act as a counterweight to the general incentive toward growth that is embedded in the system. How many organizations might cap their growth at the $5-$10 million level if such a norm were to be enacted?

(2)    Taxing the assets of the big and redistributing in the form of income to the small: I’ve just started Pikkety’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century and so am thinking quite a bit about assets versus income, the problem of inequality, and (related to this post) how a small number of organizations in the arts sector accumulate signicant assets while the rest of the sector is living in relative poverty. In the nonprofit arts sector, in many states, 501c3 organizations are freed from the burdens of both property tax and income tax. What if a property tax on arts facilities were instituted, paid to the local authority, and then redistributed in the form of grants to organizations that do not own buildings but do pay rents. As a side benefit such a shift might provide a nice disincentive for continued facility expansion in an already overbuilt arts sector.

(3)    Term limits in most organizations: What if the following positions were all limited to 7 years: artistic leaders (once the organizational founder has left), managing/executive leaders (once the organizational founder has left), board members, foundation program officers, and government agency program directors? The benefits of term limits are not only the opportunity for a fresh perspective in the organization but also an opportunity for “gates” in the system to open to those not favored under previous regimes. Funders and artistic directors amass considerable power (whether by design or not) and term limits are a way of dealing with that inevitability. This is a sensitive proposition (particularly given that not many people working in arts organizations have pensions); but if we are resistant to it I think it is important to put on the table the reasons why, beyond job security (which is valid, but may not be a sufficient reason for avoiding term limits).

***

So after thinking through these options, and possible reactions to them, it occurred to me that there is another option.

We could wait out the change that is coming.

Population ecology theory tells us not only that change often happens at the population level (rather than at the individual organizational level) but also that it often takes a long time.

So here’s an alternative vision.

There will continue to be the occasional deaths (and I suspect they will increase over the next 15-20 years) and new organizations will continue to be born. And some of those new organizations will have different traits–traits potentially more suitable for the 21st century. There is and will continue to be turnover at foundations and government agencies. There will also be an inter-generational transfer of wealth. New people—with new perspectives and views on the world–will be hired to run organizations, or will serve as grants managers and board members, or will have significant personal resources to invest in the sector. Some (maybe many) will see the merits in new organizations that are cropping up and will choose to redirect money to them. Dynamic leaders running these younger arts organizations will garner attention and legitimacy and either their organizations will grow in stature and size, or they will be hired to bring their values, ideas, principles, and new modes of operating to larger organizations already in existence.

It wouldn’t be entirely smooth and it wouldn’t be fast. There would be failures, tragic deaths, and some zombies would go on stalking the landscape. But change would happen.

So am I suggesting we just wait it out?

While I tend to be in favor of making structural changes to influence both the direction and the pace of change (I’d love to see all three of the ideas above explored and debated) I also recognize how difficult such changes (and those Devon suggests) would be in reality.

Waiting it out may be the only realistic option.

Does this depress me?

Not really–in large part because I have tremendous faith in the younger leaders that I see coming up through the ranks of larger institutions, or leading their own enterprises, or stepping into influential policy and funding positions. Last week I gave a talk on Civic Leadership for the fellows of the renowned Clore Leadership Programme in the UK. I was utterly impressed by the work these fellows are doing, by their deep thinking, and by their energy and courage. I see that young leaders have (in spades) the motivation and desire, networks, and capacity to potentially lead the changes that are needed. Smart boards and organizations are already investing in these young leaders (and young, in my mind, ranges from 25-45) and implementing their ideas.

In the meantime, I think that Devon has given us such great food for thought.

We are all accountable for the shape of our sector. 

Whenever a permanently failing organization is allowed to continue cranking out mediocre programming while capturing precious sector resources it should trouble us. I imagine that many of us recognize these organizations in our midst. Some of us shrug our shoulders and some of us blog about them in the abstract. But perhaps these are cowardly moves. It’s easy to criticize in the abstract and it’s easy to shrug off truly discouraging developments in organizations as inevitable. I’ve been guilty of both.

Calling out the zombies (in the blogosphere, in any event) seems mean and destructive and I’m not sure it would lead to any positive developments.

Perhaps a better route is to ignore them entirely, trust that they will die or change eventually, and (as Devon suggests) turn our attention and channel our resources to the those that are knocking our socks off. I think if foundations, government agencies, corporate sponsors, high profile artists and arts leaders, traditional arts media, bloggers, and influential board members led the way, and shifted their attention and resources, they would have tremendous influence on others.

And such a shift doesn’t have to happen en mass.

One person at a time will work, too.

*** Previous Jumper posts related to this topic: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are we a sector defined by our permanently failing organizations?

A few weeks back I wrote a post responding to a session at the Theatre Communications Group conference in which an esteemed leader of a resident theater (Michael Maso) called “bullshit” on some criticisms being lobbed at large theater institutions. I am incredibly grateful to all who took the time to read or respond to the post. The comments, including a link to Mr. Maso’s response, are well worth reading if you have not done so. I want to pick up on some of the ideas raised by Maso and others in a future post, but today I want to draw attention to comments posted by Corey Fischer at the recently closed Traveling Jewish Theater. In talking about the struggles the organization faced in trying to maintain its commitment to its mission and goals, Corey writes:

The sad part is that in the years leading up to our decision to finally close down, it seemed as if we were being punished for our commitment to be a home for artists. Some foundations and consultants implied and sometimes said straight out that to attempt to have artists at the center of the company and pay them a living wage was frivolous, unrealistic and irresponsible. Perhaps. But as economic conditions forced us to change that basic aspect of our identity, it became harder and harder for us to accomplish our mission of creating and presenting original work. When we recognized that the only way to even have a chance of surviving was to become one more theater producing plays that could just as easily be done by a host of other companies, we saw no reason to continue.

When I read Corey’s posts I was reminded of the 1989 book “Permanently Failing Organizations” by Marshall W. Meyer and Lynne G. Zucker, which I recently read on someone’s recommendation. The authors define permanently failing organizations as those that persist even though they are no longer achieving their goals. While economists and others have long theorized that higher performing organizations persist and those that are not high performing are driven out of business, Meyer & Zucker found that persistence and performance can become decoupled and companies that are no longer achieving their performance goals (e.g., profits to owners/shareholders in the case of for-profits; and artistic and social mission goals in the case of not-for-profits) can continue to exist for quite a long time.

Without going too deeply into the theory in this post, the researchers postulate that organizations reach a so-called ‘permanently failing’ state when those who are ‘dependent’ on the institution (primarily but not exclusively, managers who depend on the institution for a paycheck and who, therefore, often value maintenance of the organization over other performance goals) begin to amass power, which they then use to keep the organization alive, but in a low performance state. Why do these managers fail to pursue strategies that might lead to higher performance (e.g., higher profits or higher quality)? Because such strategies often entail taking risks that might lead to “outright failure”–something those running permanently failing organizations want to avoid at all costs.

It strikes me that in nonprofit arts organizations–in which there are no owners (or shareholders) in the legal sense, in which permanence is often a goal of the institution, in which mission and goals are notoriously difficult to define and measure, and in which it is actually quite difficult for up-and-coming innovators to access the resources and power necessary to give the most established institutions a run for their money–it would be particularly easy for organizations to drift towards a permanently failing state (or to become ‘nonprofit arts zombies’, to use the phrase coined by Brian Newman in his chapter in the book 20 under 40).

Interestingly, Traveling Jewish Theater clearly felt it had the option (and encouragement by funders and others, even) to pursue persistence at the expense of its mission and goals by becoming “just another theater company doing work any other theater company could do.” However, TJT chose the road less travled in the nonprofit arts sector. Laudably, TJT felt it was “more important to accomplish the mission, than to survive” (a phrase used by Woolly Mammoth board member, Pete Miller, at the Scarcity to Abundance conference at Arena Stage in January 2011).

In the nonprofit sector we have come to associate age and size with performance; and yet we have also become a sector in which there is an almost constant call for innovation and new models. Perhaps the two are not unrelated? Perhaps we perceive the arts sector itself as being in the doldrums not because there are no innovators in our midst (there are plenty), but because we have, for too long, held up our permanently failing organizations as leaders and, by doing so, have permitted them to define our sector’s goals and its performance.

On artists making a living and artistic directors that could make a difference but don’t

Ethan Lipton

Saturday night I went to Joe’s Pub to see playwright-lounge lizard Ethan Lipton & His Orchestra perform  his new work, No Place To Go, about a playwright-lounge lizard that must decide whether to relocate or stay in the ‘the city’ when the company that has provided him with a steady ‘day-job’ (part-time no-benefits employment) for a decade decides to relocate to Mars.  It’s funny, satirical, and poignant. As you might have inferred, the piece is inspired by events in Lipton’s life.

Some of my friends who are actors, playwrights, composers, or directors are able to make something close to a living alternating between paying gigs and unemployment (if you can call having a gross income just above poverty level and no health insurance ‘making a living’); but many of them have (like Lipton) been able to pursue their careers as artists only by working day jobs (many of which have become harder to obtain or hold onto during the rather brutal current economic climate).

There was a time when one of the first principles of resident theaters in this country was that they would hire a company of actors and then cast them in multiple productions throughout the season in a combination of large and small roles. I recently re-read a speech given by W. McNeil Lowry at the Ford Foundation in which he mentions that Ford started investing in theaters in the 1960’s in part to improve circumstances for actors. While ‘acting ensembles’ still exist they are mostly in the form of ‘artist-driven collectives’ that produce shows but operate with a bare bones administrative budget. There are exceptions, but by-and-large, and for a variety of reasons, resident theaters lost their resident acting companies decades ago.

Over the same period of time, however, the administrative staffs of these same theaters became quite substantial to the point where  NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman has recently questioned whether we need “three administrators for every artist” in America. I’m not familiar with the research that underpins that question/statistic, but it certainly seems that artists with salaries are generally artists that have become arts administrators.

The past year or two I’ve begun to hear artistic directors express dismay at the fact that we give administrators salaries but we hire actors, directors, designers, and writers on a ‘contract’ basis. Unfortunately, these conversations never seem to go anywhere. I don’t hear anyone going so far as to suggest that theaters try to ‘get the acting company back together again’ or even that theaters should be paying higher wages to artists to compensate for the fact that they no longer provide stable employment.  They all seem to shrug their shoulders and shake their heads as if to say, “I wish I could do something about this”. It’s like they’ve forgotten that they are the leaders of these organizations and responsible for setting the priorities and values.

I’m no artistic director, but I can think of a few things larger theaters in the US might do for actors short of reconstituting their acting companies and their repertory models:

  • What if theaters maintained a minimum ratio between ‘wages or fees paid to artists’ and the total operating budget?
  • What if investments in the buildings, administrative budgets, and salaries of full-time staff of theaters were matched with a relative increase in artistic budgets and, specifically, wages or fees paid to artists?
  • What if LORT A theaters paid wages to artists comparable to a Broadway production contract?
  • What if, in consideration of the fact that an actor must begin working on a role before rehearsal begins and often needs time to find employment after a show ends, actors were paid a minimum of 12 weeks of salary at any LORT theater (even though they were working at the theater for only 8 of those weeks)?
  • What if theaters opting to do a play with 5 or fewer characters doubled the weekly wages of the actors?

I know …these ideas are preposterous.

I remember hearing Michael Halberstam at Writers’ Theater in Chicago speak at a TCG conference (at a brilliant session with Mike Daisey discussing his insightful and rather incendiary work How Theater Failed America) and learning that Writers’ Theater had long ago made a commitment to invest in actors (and local ones at that) and pay wages comparable to the wages paid by larger theaters. It sounded so right when I heard it, and it was clear that in this room filled with artistic and managing directors from around the country that Michael Halberstam was considered a radical for doing this.

Why is it an outlandish idea to pay as much as you can to the artists and to keep administrative or other production costs as low as possible in order to do so?

And why do we accept this strange idea that doing a play with more than 5 characters is going to bankrupt a theater with a $5- or $10- or $15 million operating budget?

Pffff.

Ethan Lipton is clearly a talented artist. As much as I’d like to hope that he will suddenly be able to make his living fulltime as an artist in this country, realistically I know that I should probably hope that he gets another part-time day job that will let him continue working as an artist.

This makes me sad. I bet it makes many artistic directors sad, as well. But we need to do more than shake our heads when we discuss that arts administrators can make a living wage in this country and that even really talented actors (and musicians and dancers) too often cannot.

We want to tell ourselves that it is not possible to do more for artists but this is simply not true.

At large institutions across this country, of course more can be done.

I welcome other outlandish suggestions …

 

What are we incubating and to what end?

A couple weeks back Thomas Cott published an issue of “You’ve Cott Mail” centered loosely on the theme of innovation and business incubators in the arts world, in which he linked to a post by one of my favorite bloggers/researchers/thinkers, Devon Smith. Devon contrasted the concept of ‘incubator’ in the tech world and the arts world. After reading her post I was curious to read up on technology and business incubators and ask myself what, exactly, arts incubators are incubating and to what end?

Devon makes the point that in the tech world it is ‘demo or die’ and that, in contrast, many arts incubators tend to be about process without the expectation of a deliverable on a certain time frame. Devon characterizes it as ‘we’re here to support you in however much you get accomplished for however long you are here’. Beyond the expectation to ‘demo or die’, however, there’s something else I learned in my reading: business incubators, philosophically and practically speaking, perceive themselves to be incubating the entire enterprise. At the end of 33 months (the average amount of time spent in a business incubator) it is expected that the startup can leave the nest with a viable business model and product and fly on its own.

How do these business incubators develop the whole enterprise? Devon talks about this in her post, as well, but I found a couple things particularly interesting. First, while they don’t necessarily provide venture capital, business incubators often serve as brokers and introduce entrepreneurs to venture capitalists, other successful entrepreneurs, or people that have knowledge and skills needed by the startup. Second, a successful tech incubator will provide access to high-end technology, as well as high-level marketing support, comprehensive adminstrative support, and hands-on business planning.

After reading about business incubators it struck me that it seems important to distinguish the purpose of an ‘incubator’ from (1) a one-to-three week ‘workshop’ or ‘residency’, which is meant to give an artist time to further develop a particular project and (2) ‘access to affordable office space, basic equipment, and business classes’ — which seem to be common types of support offered to artists and arts companies. These are not without value; but I would suggest that (particularly when provided by separate hosts) they do not an incubator make, if ‘incubation’ suggests a range of support and services aimed at making a venture viable and launching it into the world with a greater chance at success.

Devon suggests that art incubators seem to be reluctant to hold the groups they are incuabting accountable for success beyond a ‘good process’ and hypothesizes that perhaps arts incubators are ‘too nice, too forgiving’. I wonder whether the laissez faire nature of many arts incubators is a symptom of two things. (1) The rejection for the past 100 plus years of the notion that great art works can be born of a ‘shared vision’ between patron/investor and artist. (2) The widespread belief in the ‘fine arts world’ that ‘being truly artistic, excellent and innovative’ and ‘keeping an eye to the market with the goal of eventually selling the work to a mainstream audience’ are mutually exclusive endeavors.

Yes, it’s important to distinguish between the processes that best support the making or preservation of culture and those that best support its exploitation. But distinguishing between these two processes does not suggest that the two cannot coexist or that we should necessarily reject the latter as a goal if we care about the former.

What is the goal of a successful arts incubator? What should it be? Is it wrong to think that it should be not only about improving the quality of the work but also about discovering avenues by which to exploit it (i.e. derive full value from it) in the marketplace?

 

 

 

 

Works-in-process in an everyone-is-a-critic-now world.

If inviting general audiences into the artistic process now means potentially inviting them to share their feedback with the world does this change how we think about presenting works-in-development for public audiences?

Perhaps I have a skewed perception, but it strikes me that over the past couple decades (at least in the US) arts organizations have increasingly presented half- or nearly-baked works to the public and (in many cases) charged them money for the privilege of seeing this work. For a variety of reasons, we have invited patrons into the process and have sold them on the idea that (1) this will increase their knowledge and understanding of an artform or (2) their presence and feedback will be valuable to the creators.

It is perhaps worth questioning whether we are sincere when we say these things and under what conditions these statements are true.

A related phenomenon: sometimes we haven’t invited patrons into the process as much as thrust it upon them. Sometimes works ‘in development’ are not advertised as such; they are rather deceptively called ‘previews’ or ‘world premieres’. By this I mean (for example) preview periods which producers or artists use to make significant changes to a piece, or works that are essentially being developed in performance at one or more venues on their way to New York (though being sold to audiences as if they were finished).

Recently there has been a good deal of chatter and discussion about the impact of amateur critics or passionate patrons (and recently a professional critic or two) blogging or tweeting reviews or comments on works ‘in development’ or shows ‘in preview’. In general it seems these have been seen by artists and producers as breaches of trust. But given the growing power and influence of consumers, and given that we have welcomed them in and charged them money and promoted the importance of their presence and opinions, is it any wonder that they now want (or feel entitled or even encouraged) to blog about their experiences?

While some may wish that we could enter into ‘contracts’ with patrons and require them to respect the artistic process and hold their tongues, this strikes me as impractical, unenforceable, and potentially destructive to relationships with patrons. Here are some other options, posed as (quite sincere) questions:

  • Do we need to do away with works-in process for the general public and simply present work that is finished and ready for review?
  • If we do works-in-process, do we need to be much more honest and explicit with audiences about our reasons for doing them and what we consider their role to be (or not to be)? (We might start by figuring this out for ourselves.)
  • Is it possible that if a work-in-process gets a dig by a patron or amateur critic that readers are astute enough to know that the piece is still being rehearsed and will wait to form their opinions on whether or not to attend?
  • Is it possible that if a blogger writes a piece dismissing a work in its development he or she may return and write again about the evolution of the piece and that this story might be more interesting than simply hearing about the finished product?
  • Is it possible that any conversation about a work (negative or positive) is better than no conversation at all and will likely make people more inclined to see the piece?
  • Is it possible that among the opinions expressed by passionate patrons and amateur critics about works-in-process that we might actually find some valuable insights?

One final question regarding works-in-process that are disguised as ‘previews’ and ‘world premieres’: putting aside for the present moment the (perhaps quite legitimate) reasons why such things occur, we might ask ourselves whether a public performance that is being used to make major changes to an artistic work should be called something else.

Dress Rehearsal, perhaps?

 

The lesson in my new tree for arts policy makers

About my tree:

Last month my husband and I hired a small family-owned landscaping business to help us renovate the small gardens in the front and back of our house. They planted three new trees, two of which are young (thin) but already quite tall. They planted the trees with support poles on either side to ensure they grow straight (see pic). As I have never had a garden I asked how many weeks the poles would need to stay. The answer: three years.

About the production houses in the Netherlands:

For years the Netherlands has had a unique system of support for promising performance artists and theater makers who have finished their training: dedicated production houses. As I understand it, these houses are often affiliated with larger theaters, drawing on resources they can provide, but are funded by the government and operate independently. They provide multiyear production support for artists after university (e.g. cash resources so artists can invest time in the research and development of their works and pay other artists, tech support, dramaturgy, promotion, etc.). During these post-grad residencies the emphasis is on strengthening the artist’s work.

I was with a gathering of artistic directors and performing arts curators last week at which we met several artists, including two that had come through this system and who spoke of the importance of the production houses in helping them become better artists and develop successful careers. We asked how long the support lasted. Their initial residencies were three years.

About the funding cuts in the Netherlands:

Among the many orchestras, dance companies, and other arts organizations that are going to be defunded in 2013, the Ministry of Culture has determined to shut down all 23 production houses in the Netherlands. This strikes me as a particularly unenlightened decision. For one, these production houses are relatively inexpensive to operate (they are a big bang for a small investment); second, the production houses play a critical role in the arts ecosystem here; third, they seem to help the Netherlands attract and retain truly talented theater/performance artists.

I am unsettled by what appears to be a strategy in the Netherlands of maintaining investments to the most high profile fine arts organizations while leaving many smaller organizations, artist companies, and intermediary organizations to fend for themselves. The rhetoric that is being perpetuated in the case of the production houses is that they will be taken under the wing of bigger institutions or become more entrepreneurial and find other sources of support. Given the short timeframe (the cuts go into effect in 2013) both scenarios seem highly unrealistic.

In any event, it seems that not many in the arts sector are buying the rhetoric. Quite a number of the artistic directors and artists our group met with spoke of planning to leave the Netherlands by 2013. Of course, as someone said to me a few days ago, this could be considered a positive outcome from the standpoint of the government.

Pfffffff. Cue the flashback reel of the US in the 80s and 90s.

The Netherlands is not alone in wanting to encourage private sector support for the arts. But there are smart ways and not-so-smart ways of doing this.

About ArtSupport Australia:

Several years ago now (after changing the tax laws to make it easier and more beneficial for individuals to set up small trusts and foundations), the Australia Arts Council started an arm’s length organization, run by visionary Louise Walsh, whose role is to broker relationships between small and midsized arts organizations and small private family foundations and trusts. ArtSupport Australia (ASA) meets with donors, talks to them about the importance of supporting the arts, and identifies organizations that might fit with their values; it mentors arts organizations to help them develop realistic funding strategies and prepare effective proposals; and it makes matches between the two. It’s a brilliant system and has had tremendous positive impact over the years.

While Kickstarter and other crowdfunding models seem to be working for some types of individual artists and projects and larger institutions have the capacity to buy fundraising expertise and (as a result of being high profile) tend to be attractive major private donors and foundations, a mechanism for connecting smaller family foundations with smaller and midsized arts organizations and ensembles/companies seems like a missing cog in many arts funding systems (including in the US). Even community foundations and donor advised funds aren’t really set up to fulfill this particular role.

When ArtSupport Australia was founded it received three years of support from the government. Even before the end of the initial funding period it was clear that it was working and the government has funded it consistently ever since. There’s an important tangential point here:  a big part of what makes ASA work (which, not unlike the production houses, is a lean organization that provides big bang for the buck) is that the Australia Arts Council is committed to funding it. It would change ASA (and compromise its mission) if it suddenly had to raise all of its operating expenses by skimming off a percentage of every gift or competing against the organizations it exists to support by competing directly for support from private donors.

Over the past year I’ve been asked rather frequently for my thoughts on how to encourage private support for the arts in the Netherlands, in light of the pending cuts. I’ve directed people to an an essay I wrote about some of the issues we face with the US system and I’ve said the same thing to everyone: the ArtSupport Australia model is brilliant and I think it would work very well in the Netherlands. I could easily imagine such a system, for instance, helping to broker relationships between a number of enlightened families, individuals and small firms and the production houses here.

***

As I’ve written before, cutting off the sprinklers to the grass and small shrubs while continuing to water the old, tall trees is not the path to a vibrant arts and culture sector. Too often, arts policy makers develop policies that demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about such things as: the interdependencies between large organizations and small ones, and the commercial arts sector and the subsidized sector; what makes a city attractive to artists; how good artists become great artists; what motivates donors to give; how difficult it is for some very worthy organizations to be competitive in the funding process; and the time and personal connections that it takes for donors and arts organizations to form relationships that are beneficial and that will be sustained through good economic times and bad ones.

My young tree needs supports if it is going to become a healthy, large tree. Young artists need developmental support if they are going to become great artists. Countries without a culture of asking and giving need a support system if effective long term relationships are going to be built between private donors and the arts sector, particularly if there is a hope that more than just the large, historically leading organizations will be supported by private donors. Policy makers need to be smarter about how the arts ecosystem works so that they know where to provide support structures and for how long.

Australia got it right. I’ll be interested to see what the Netherlands does in the coming months and years.

How to avoid a strip-mall future for the arts sector: Lessons from the boutique label, Pi

This past week I came across a New York Times article featured on ArtsJournal examining the remarkable success of the indie Jazz label, Pi. The article demonstrates that Pi is bucking trends in the music industry. It is managing to not just keep its head above water at a time when many music labels are struggling, but it is having tremendous impact despite being a relatively small Jazz label focused on the leading edge of its artform.

Here are a few keys to Pi’s success (which I gleaned from the article):

(1)   Unlike many labels that flood the market with product (often as a hedge against the uncertainty of not knowing which will succeed or not), Pi releases a handful of albums per year and is highly selective in choosing which artists to get behind. Virtually everything it releases meets with critical acclaim. Because it has earned a reputation for consistently putting out great albums and has a very clear niche, it has a devoted (and growing) fan base.

(2)   Given its limited release schedule, and the limited revenue potential of each of its releases (these are not mainstream artists), Pi keeps its overhead low. Its owners are pragmatic and disciplined. By staying small they have been able to maintain artistic integrity.

(3)   Pi has a long courtship with an artist before it makes a commitment. Once in, however, Pi invests deeply in the development of its artists and ensures that each receives sufficient resources, attention, and support from the label. This is a critical factor in the label’s remarkable track record and reputation.

Pi’s strategies are serving both its artists and its customers.

Given an overabundance of product and seats to fill on any given night in many communities (relative to current ‘demand’) and (sorry to say) the not-quite-ready-for-primetime-quality of much the so-called ‘professional’ work that is produced and presented in the US, it’s worth considering the lessons of Pi (which are not new, of course).

It seems that more than a few overleveraged and underperforming professional nonprofit arts organizations need to both better differentiate themselves and hold themselves to higher artistic standards; to right-size their institutions and reduce fixed costs given the amount of income they can reasonably expect for the forseeable future; and to provide more time, attention, and resources to artists and to the development, production, and thoughtful promotion of artistic works.

I’d much rather live in a community with a sustainable number of boutique arts organizations than one with a deluxe mall featuring four high-end department-stores (the ‘flagship’ orchestra, theater, opera, and ballet companies) that suck up the majority of the resources and a bunch of strip malls made up of undercapitalized retail chains and mom-and-pop shops that either saw their best days in 1985 and haven’t been able to make improvements since, or were formed in recent years and (while perhaps promising) are struggling for attention, customers and capital.

I seriously fear that the strip mall nonprofit arts sector is our future. There are arts boutiques out there, but in many cities they are few and far between and seem endangered.

How and why so many arts organizations in the US have grown to unsustainable levels in recent decades is a topic that requires more reflection than I can give in a blog post. However, I will say this: it often seems that capacity building in the arts sector is (1) aimed primarily at securing the administrative futures of arts organizations and (2) resulting in an erosion of quality and distinction in artistic processes and experiences, today. I by no means wish to suggest that the answer to an overbuilt sector is to starve it into a more sustainable state; but it is reasonable to think that we need to seriously rethink how existing resources are distributed (within and among institutions).

We tend to think of a ‘sustainable state’ for the arts and culture sector as being one in which existing arts organizations have achieved equilibrium and can crank along in perpetuity. This is wrongheaded: even if we could achieve a state in which all existing organizations could secure adequate resources to keep running year-after-year, the lack of creative destruction in the sector would eventually lead to its stultification (oh wait, we may be there now). This is one of the consequences of letting some institutions get ‘too big to fail’ (and too big is relative to the size of city you are in and the other arts organizations in your market): the majority of arts sector resources get sucked into the incumbents and rather than creative destruction (reinvention of those firms or their replacement by younger, more innovative ones) we end up with plain old destruction (losing the boutiques and watching the big organizations calcify).

Pi may or may not last for another 50 years (much less beyond the lives of its owners/founders). But while it exists it is having positive cultural and social impact. That’s more than we can say about many professional nonprofit arts organizations in the US.

Generic strip-mall image by Mark Winfrey, licensed at Shutterstock.com.

 

The crucial gap once filled by Florida Stage

Last week, it was announced in the Miami Herald that Florida Stage would be filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and closing its doors for good. I am haunted by the thought that the American Theater has just lost an organization without fully grasping the critical role that it played. It appears that the move to a new space was a key factor in financial troubles that eventually left the company with a $1.5 million debt (significant for a theater of its size). This closing has left me feeling sad and disappointed in the trajectory of the American Theater.

Do funders and others understand what is at risk if we cannot sustain the midsized theaters in the US that often take great risks and do great work (think Woolly Mammoth) and often at a fraction of the overhead expense incurred by much larger theaters? As has been noted in the press, Florida Stage was one of the midsized gems in the regional theater in the US. It had a national reputation for producing new work and was a founding and leading member of the National New Play Network (a consortium of midsized theaters that work together to co-commission and produce new plays). However, it seems that this award-winning theater was not sufficiently valued by national and regional funders, donors, and audiences to sustain a $4.1 (or even $3 million) budget. Are we headed for a future in which no theater in the US can commit to a ‘season of new works’ as Florida Stage did for years?

As regards the challenges faced as a result of the move to the new space–well, I wish I could say that this was a surprising result. Unfortunately, over the past few decades we have seen way too many examples of successful theaters (and other arts organizations) seeking, or being encouraged, to trade-up to niftier digs and then falling into financial turmoil as a result. We all know this story: the first couple years generally go OK as there is often great enthusiasm for the new space and people like to put their names on buildings; 3-5 years later organizations are often panicked when they realize that that ticket sales are coming in lower than projected, the electric bill is higher than projected, and the donors that were so enthused to put their names on a brick or a wall are not quite as enthused to provide additional operating funds to support the mission and pay the running costs. Behind the eight ball, these organizations do not generally close; instead, they often ‘evolve’ their missions to suit their new buildings (i.e., begin taking fewer artistic risks).

The case of Florida Stage appears to be somewhat extreme: it seems that audiences in its new venue were significantly lower than they had been in the year prior to the move. Because they closed so quickly, we’ll never know if they might have been able to sustain a larger budget and still maintain a longstanding commitment to new works.

Last week, I penned a post for Arts Queensland’s blog: Are arts groups creating too much of a good thing, or not enough? Can we answer the question? (It’s essentially on the supply demand issue and evaluation.) In it, I wrote:

Rather than using evaluations to help funders assess and rank organizations based on one public value criterion (e.g. excellence) rather than another (e.g. innovation), perhaps they should be used to help organizations and funders alike better comprehend the arts ecosystem (how it works, where it’s healthy, and where it’s ill) and their role in it; to understand where they are playing an important role; to understand where they may be duplicating efforts or missions with other organizations; and to understand where gaps in the system exist that need to be addressed.

Not all, but certainly many small and midsized theaters are highly valued by playwrights, actors, designers, directors, and others because they will work with artists before they have established themselves (or ’emerged’ as we sometimes say) and, thereby, help to advace their careers (at which point the larger regional theaters will often pick them up). In other words, many small and midsized theaters appear to be doing critical ‘artist and repertoire development’.

It’s a sad reality that, generally speaking, it’s difficult for even the best midsized theaters to compete against the regional behemoths (with their much larger development departments) to secure high profile board members, high net worth donors, and significant grants (the exception, perhaps, being capital funds to build new buildings). Like salt to the wound, not only are midsized theaters often overlooked by donors and funders, but they often end up reading about much larger theaters being awarded grants that will enable them to commission, develop, or produce one or two new works, or put on a festival of new plays, amidst a season of otherwise safe, if not downright commercial, fare.

I’m not sure why Florida Stage could not attract larger audiences in its new space and there is, no doubt, more to the story than I could glean from the papers. Candidly, I wish the board might have been willing to form a strategic alliance with another organization, or move out of the Kravis Center and relocate back to Manalapan, before closing the doors of the theater ‘for good’. Or, at the very least, I wish that the financial troubles had been made public long before the theater reached the point of no return–allowing for the possibility of a consortium of funders and donors to come together and help the organization dig out of its debt and develop a new business plan.

Perhaps these (and other) options were considered but were not feasible? If so, I’m sorry that Florida Stage was left with no option except to close.

While $1.5 million is a significant amount of money to raise, I hope and trust that in making the decision to close the board members of  Florida Stage weighed its debt not simply against the annual operating budget of the theater and the pockets of those board members potentially saddled with the financial burden, but against the critical role and great value provided by Florida Stage in the local, regional, and national artistic landscape. Years from now, I’m betting that artists and funders will be talking with regret about the ‘crucial gap’ that was once filled by Florida Stage and has yet to be replaced by another theater.

Gold cubes image by F. ENOT, licensed at Shutterstock.com.

Who has access to ‘culture’? Who gets to define it?

Last week, I wrote a response to a blog by Judith Dobrzynski in which she asked, “Are we, as a country, defining the arts down?”  I essentially challenged her question. Responses to my blog varied, with one person calling my views ‘nonsense’. A few days ago, I happened to read a provocative new pamphlet by Counterpoint, the British Council’s think tank, called “Culture and Class,” which goes straight to the crux of last week’s conversation. Author John Holden describes a culture war being waged on two fronts:  the first concerns who has access to ‘culture’ (as traditionally defined) and the second concerns who gets to decide what ‘culture’ is, in the first place.

The director of Counterpoint writes in the preface to the pamphlet:  “… at a time when we know that the gap between rich and poor is at its widest, worldwide, and likely to widen as the economic recession deepens, we are entirely failing to address the direct role played by culture in perpetuating these distinctions.” Using the UK as a case study, Holden argues for a more democratic definition of culture as the first step towards a more egalitarian society.  

To achieve a more democratic culture, he asserts that two things need to happen in parallel: a shift from cultural exclusion to cultural inclusion and a shift from culture defined by a narrow elite to culture created by everyone. He then describes three different groups that affect the ability of people to participate in culture, as follows:

  • The cultural snobs are a small but still influential group, typified not only by their allegiance to certain art forms and periods, but by their insistence that only the already educated should enjoy them.
  • The neo-mandarins are ‘cultivated’ and are cultural enthusiasts who wish to share their enthusiasms with others. They believe it is patronizing to assume that anyone is incapable of understanding and enjoying culture and are keen to educate them in ‘high’ culture.
  • The new cosmopolitans respect, enjoy, and are knowledgeable about Shakespeare, Berlioz, and Fra Bartolommeo and the rest [but also] find cultural quality (meaning emotive power, intellectual stimulation, inventiveness and skill) in popular music, folk art, product design, Youtube uploads – and even in new media and film. The fact that some of these are readily embraced by masses of people and are ‘popular culture’ does not bother them. 

I was glad to see all three of these perspectives (and others) represented in the volley of comments to last week’s blog.  The conversation about how ‘culture’ (or ‘art’) is defined and who gets to define these terms is an important one; and “Culture and Class” is a stimulating text on the topic.

Somebody better call the art police.

AJ Blogger Judith Dobrzynski recently asked, “Are we, as a country, defining the arts down?” She questioned the quality of small-town festivals, the inclusion of “gastronomic arts” in arts education, and the merits of an exhibit at the Albright-Knox Gallery featuring photographs and videos of the local hockey team, the Sabres. I would respond to her question by first asking, Is it fair to categorically (and sight unseen) cite these activities as evidence of the lowering of artistic standards?

Just as you can find bad art in Manhattan, you can find great art in places like Fishcreek (WI). There’s a book by John Villani, 100 Best Small Art Towns in America, which highlights communities with terrific festivals, vibrant artist communities, or museums with impressive permanent collections.

And gastronomy? The study of the relationship between culture and food strikes me as a worthy pursuit for students and one that should not be assumed to crowd out appreciation for the “fine arts”. I also wonder whether its presence in schools reflects the reach of Slow Food — whose strategies for changing the relationship between people and food have been, in my opinion, more effective than those of the arts sector to “develop audiences.” (A topic for another day.)

Finally, while the 40th anniversary Sabres exhibition probably could be categorized as a “blockbuster”, is the reason the collection is assumed to be of low artistic quality because it has broad appeal, or because it was created as a celebration, or because we assume that photographs of hockey players and their coaches could never be artistic? 

I saw an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum called BAM! BAM! BAM! Catching the Next Wave for 20 Years, which was, essentially, a highlights reel celebrating a festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Did anyone question its merits? Of course, I watched the video while lying on a mattress inside a specially designed structure. Perhaps that’s what made it qualify as “art”?

Dobrzynski borrowed her question from a phrase, “defining deviancy down” in an article by the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which questioned whether increased crime was the result of the normalizing of deviant behavior. Beyond questioning her examples of “defining art down,” I guess I’m puzzled by the “threat” implied in Dobrzynski’s question; I’m not sure I understand who or what is harmed, exactly, by broadening the definition of art. 

I agree with Bill Ivey, who has challenged the perpetuation of a Western European artistic hierarchy in the US (in his book Arts, Inc.); or as I have taken to adapting his idea and saying—if we want to reach new audiences we may need to stop hammering so hard on the idea that Bach is intrinsically better than Björk, who is intrinsically better than my brother, who plays in a pro-am banjo club in St. Louis. Greatness can be found in the nonprofit, commercial, or amateur art realms. (And, of course, so can mediocrity.) Does it take anything away from Bach if I also consider both Björk and my brother’s banjo playing to be artistic?

PS – Sincere thanks to all who weighed in on my posts on dynamic pricing and economic impact studies and helped to generate some really interesting debates. If you haven’t checked out the comments posted by others, I encourage you to do so as they are well worth reading. 

Screaming woman image licensed from Shutterstock.com and modifed by DER.

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