Get A (Full) Job
I’m really happy for Gwydion here. He’s found a situation that works for him as an artist, and I wouldn’t wish him anything differently. But as he points out so well, not every artist has the luxury of...
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OSF: 2011 Opening Weekend
The language instructor (Judith Delgado) considers the beauty of Esperanto in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's The Language Archive. Photo: David Cooper. On the Sunday morning of opening weekend...
View ArticleTheatre Econ 101
or The Woman Behind the Desk is Not Your Enemy The other day, a tweet came across my screen linking to this post about theatre economy. The thrust of the post is that we need to help playwrights be...
View ArticleReviews and Pull Quotes: Telling The Truth and Courting The Indifferent
“THE CRITICS AGREE!” Urban legend or not, this was the marquee tagline someone told me about years ago, something a theater company posted after their show received unanimously bad reviews. I like the...
View ArticleNew Ways to Commission New Plays
I’ve been thinking lately about why, how, and by whom new plays are commissioned. I’ve been fortunate enough to have earned a few commissions myself, and it won’t surprise anyone to learn that in all...
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Kick It
I get a lot of questions about Kickstarter and funding commissions through this tool, and have chimed in on a number of Twitter conversations about its effectiveness. Kickstarter is a threshold giving...
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A Little Conspiracy
The theatre niche of the social media stream operates much like any other Animal Farm and in this particular backwater Animal Farm I am a donkey who has lived a long time. Hang around long enough and...
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What You’ve Never Had
The non-profit model is living on borrowed time. The current model is dying. Even still, I think we spend more time trying to figure out how to fund a show than actually making the show. Read: The way...
View ArticleDevised Theatre: Transitioning to Production
Previously in this column: The members of Bright Alchemy Theatre, a very young devised theatre company based in Washington, DC, have spent the last nine months working on its new project which began...
View ArticleGross
They come, with startling regularity, on Monday and Tuesday each week. “The Grosses.” The Broadway League aggregates and releases the gross sales and attendance for every Broadway show on Monday...
View ArticleBelarus Free Theatre: NOW
Early in 2011 the national and international theatrical community rallied together behind the Belarus Free Theatre as they struggled to find a way to not only continue their powerful work in the...
View ArticleWhen Did Alec Baldwin Become My Spokesman?
I saw a comment on Twitter this morning which reminded me that Alec Baldwin will be delivering the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture on Arts and Public Policy at the Kennedy Center in April. This is not...
View ArticleTruths and Dares
A Series of Questions and Thoughts about Some Real Issues We and Theater Journalists Could Ponder as to Why Theaters Aren’t More Daring Most of the regional theaters I’ve worked at or freelanced for...
View ArticlePunching Above Your Weight Class
Here in DC, it’s season roll-out time. The major theatres are sending out press releases listing the plays they’ll be tackling in their 2012-13 season, making each seem like a precious gem that...
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Cash Mobs: Countering the Discount Culture of Theatre
photo by Tadson Bussey, used under a Creative Commons license Full Disclosure: I worked at Actors Theatre of Louisville for over 7 years. I am currently a board member with Le Petomane Theater...
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#stealthisidea: Vending Machine Dances, Musicals in the Wild and Blues at the...
One of my favorite things about summer in an arts organization is that you get a couple of precious weeks where, in between the planning and the subscription mailings, there’s a little fallow time...
View ArticleWatch This: Simple Gifts
Asking and giving. Three videos and a question. First, Peter Sagal on letting people access the joy of giving. Next, Amanda Palmer on the art of asking. And finally, Adam Thurman on the gift of giving....
View ArticleLayers and Layers of Nonsense: When Crowdfunding Cannot Get to the Crowd
Editor’s Note: While recording a podcast interview about this post, approximately two hours after the post went live, Amazon Payments finally came through with their approval. Now, two days later,...
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The Guy from New York
This past weekend on NPR’s Weekend Edition, Scott Simon talked with David Marcus, a senior contributor to The Federalist and the artistic director of a theater company in New York City, about defunding...
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Giving Thought
Another Giving Tuesday, another day spent deleting emails unread and maybe unsubscribing from the places that send more than two in a day. And I work in the arts. But every year, it’s the same thing....
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