If you can’t make it to the live Tony Awards in New York City – head on up to Hartford, CT

May 16, 2009 • One Comment

I love when a theater company creates a multi-level campaign to celebrate a success.  But, I find what is happening at Hartford Stage to be an absolute joy and a unique spin because it is actually more a celebration of the company’s talented Artistic Director’s work and partnership with one of the greatest story-tellers ever to write for the theater.

Horton Foote’s Dividing the Estate is about to start performances on May 28.  A bit of back-story, the show has been an interesting example of collaboration at many nonprofit theaters.  The play was actually written in the 80s but Horton made some significant revisions for its New York premiere at Primary Stages (great company) directed by long-time Foote collaborator and Hartford Stage’s Artistic Director, Michael Wilson, went to Broadway with a producing team led by the incomparable Lincoln Center Theater, and now it heads to Hartford Stage.  In other words, it isn’t quite Hartford Stage’s show yet.

Michael and the late Horton Foote have worked closely for the last several years on several projects, Dividing the Estate, a heart-wrenching revision of To Kill a Mockingbird that is rumored to be Broadway bound for the 2010 season, and the upcoming 9 play Orphans Home Cycle, that Hartford Stage commissioned to be revised as a three production event, will be produced in Hartford early this fall and then will move straight to New York’s Signature Theatre Company.

Hartford Stage has celebrated many of it’s production in wonderful ways.  For example, Hartford Stage participated in the National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Program for Mockingbird. This included among other events a wonderful evening during which Wilson interviewed Foote about the writing of the Oscar-winning film script.

But now the celebration has shifted full force to the Tony-nominated Dividing the Estate – a show that has yet to even begin performances.  The company is basically helping run an outright campaign for the show by offering tickets to Tony voters who might not have made it to the far too short run of the show in New York.  Keep in mind this is a Tony Award that two other theaters would win.  And the most brilliant part – the company is hosting a Tony Awards Party at the theater for the company’s donors and audiences.  That’s right, a party for a show that the company is not even part of the producing team of.  Not only does it sound like a fun event for those who love Hartford Stage, but it gives the majority of the Dividing the Estate cast a way to be celebrated stars that evening – since the cast will be in residence in Hartford for performances.  And this cast deserves it.  A cast that is such a wonderful ensemble that they helped revive the long discussed idea of having a “best ensemble” Tony category (great article in New York Magazine about this).

The fundraiser in me says, “great job, what a way to center an event on a show and raise some money at an reasonable price point!”

The marketer in me says, “great cross-promotion and what a way to insert ownership over a show!”

The theater practitioner in me says, “Wow, what a great example of how we should all support our artistic leaders and the artists who work with us.  Celebrate the work an artistic director (or any artistic staff) does no matter if the work was done at the institution they run or at other theaters.  Make sure a show that should have had a longer run does.  Celebrate the relationships with artists that make our institutions thrive.  And most importantly, involve our audiences in the celebration because without an audience it is just a rehearsal!”

Rocco & the NEA – wait who is going to run Jujamcyn?

May 13, 2009 • No Comments

Of course the blogosphere is filled with talk about Rocco Landesman being appointed head of the NEA!  I think the over all feeling is – interesting choice that will shake things up a bit (in a good way).  I do feel that Rocco gets non-profits and it is good to have a theater person in there.  I am feeling very positive.

But I am curious – no one seems to be asking so I will, who is going to run Jujamcyn’s five Broadway theaters?  And what about the long -rumored possible sale?

I know that taking the NEA job isn’t a decision that one of the great businessmen (and gentlemen) of Broadway made lightly or without a plan.

Internally you have three contenders – Paul Libin, Jack Viertel, and Jordon Roth.  But are there any dark horse candidates out there – maybe “resident director” Des McAnuff who has a strong history of commercial and non-profit or an out of left field choice the wonderful Roger Berlind (no idea if he is interested just have a ton of respect for him)?  Thoughts, guesses, wishes on any others?

Or will we soon hear the theaters have been sold.  If I remember correctly a few months ago Michael Riedel’s column (NY POST) placed the current value around 30 million and rumored that Steven Roth (of Vornado Reality, Jordon’s father, and producer Daryl Roth’s husband) was a possible buyer.  He also noted that the market value was far below what the desired selling price from a few years ago.  And now is the time to buy real estate…

I express concern for several reasons.  (1) I more or less like what Jujamcyn produces.  In my book they have had many more hits than misses.  (2) I expect a bit of surprise from Rocco – just seems likely.  (3) We have lost a lot of the elder statesman of Broadway recently and the business have evolved – is it time for the next generation of leadership to take over one of the big three? This could be an interesting moment if we see a significant generational shift and it would likely have a rippling effect.  After all when Landesman took the lead at the company in 1987 he the voice of a new generation – one of Broadway’s Young Turks producers – I think that was the nickname for Landesman, Harold Prince and a few others.

Whatever happens, I am counting on Rocco to shake up the NEA and Broadway.

Follow-up to this post.

Why don’t we treat ourselves better?

May 2, 2009 • No Comments

The other night I ran into a great friend who I hadn’t seen in a while.  We caught up briefly.  I was delighted to hear that she had reached out beyond theater to radio.  But what struck a chord was when she mentioned how working outside of theatre, made her realize how tired she was from a life lived constantly in tech rehearsals.  This made me think about how unhealthy our business can be.

Let’s start with the concept of tech.  AEA standards and what producers can afford comes in packages of 10/12 hour days.   Now let’s be honest on any given tech day very few people involved in the production work 10 out of 12 hours.  Crew, designers, stage managers, etc. are always called before the actors and stay after for production meetings.  Even the actors working under union rules usually work longer than the 10 hours, whether they are running lines, reviewing their blocking, etc, most actors during the tech period through opening are focused on the show they are doing more or less from the time they wake up until they go to bed.  The theory is that the higher the contract tier, the more ten out of twelve days you can do.  For example a Broadway show often does 10/12s from tech to press nights.  Off-Broadway shows may do a week of 10/12s and then rehearse up to 5 hours more each day.  It is exhausting.  And in most cases, designers live in this process the majority of their lives.  Even when a show is up and running there are understudy rehearsals, publicity events, put-ins, etc.  The point is there is a heck of a lot of work outside of rehearsals and performances that most people don’t really think of they just live it. 

The staffs of nonprofits, don’t escape the rigorous schedules.  In addition to regular office hours, many leaders and staff members attend tech, have early morning committee meetings and evening board meetings, must participate in a variety of social events, should see shows at other theatres, and must be at the curtain of a show most nights. 

In addition to the exhausting schedule, theatre folks spend the majority of their lives in building that are either so cold in the summer that you need a sweater or so hot in the winter that you can feel your throat dry the minute you walk in the door.  Many theatres are in older building that don’t have the best air circulation.  In tech or in nonprofit offices you can spend hours sitting in the same place, in the same position.  Or you can spend all day running from meeting to meeting, rehearsal hall to audition space, etc. always in transition in and out of the elements back indoors.

An exhausting schedule, cabin fever, lack of fresh oxygen are just the beginning.  For some reason, theater greenrooms, rehearsal halls and offices are usually filled junk food, snacks, endless supplies of caffeine, and tons of fast food or takeout.  Between short meal breaks, long rehearsal hours and too many cocktail parties and events, keeping a healthy eating schedule is more or less out of the question.

As a group we are not eating well, can barely keep our eyes open and our minds focused, and spend less time outdoors than vampires.  Then many theater folks are smokers.  Musicals can wreck havoc on the body without proper training.  Raked stages tear bodies apart (let’s just admit it – you try walking on a rake in high heels, I have had to do it too many times and I’m just short not an actor).  Haze fills their lungs – sorry it aggravates allergies and asthma.    And after a day filled with all of the above, who doesn’t want a drink.

Of course I have described the worst of it all.  There are plenty of folks who make frequent appearances at their gyms or yoga classes.  Many even train for advanced body conditioning.  There a lots who have unbelievable discipline in what they eat and treat their bodies like temples (at least reformed temples if not orthodox ones).  But as with many careers this takes a lot of hard work.  Yet when theatres are built (and goodness knows we have built or renovated a whole lot of them recently for good or for bad), staff and artist amenities are the first things cut.  What would happen if every theatre created a small gym and mediation room on site?  What would happen if changed the rules and schedules so people could get a little more sleep and a bit more fresh air?  What if we planned the entire tech process for each production rather than by industry standards?  I challenge that rather than making the process take longer it may actually make us work more efficiently and with much greater focus.  Who says you have to do 10/12s?  What if we said that production meetings couldn’t go into the wee hours of the night and finance committees weren’t allowed to demand 9am or worse 8am meetings?   What if we made all of our nonprofit staffs stop eating lunch at their desks?  Sure it would be a big change, but actually it would be pretty easy to test.  Of course there would still be people who don’t take of themselves, but maybe if we found a better balance more folks would take care of themselves, just a bit better and not have to take a break from working in theater to do so.

If you are reading this post via Facebook Notes, please click-thru to Off Stage Right and be counted (and keep reading other posts).

A smart e-blast…

April 24, 2009 • No Comments

Maybe I am late to the party, but I was very impressed with the message I got on facebook from a couple of friends. 

Give the gift of great theater – go to www.reasonstobepretty.com/share and send a customized e-blast to your friends. It’s that simple.

I was struck by not only the simplicity of this but the pure genius of getting instant word of mouth from a trusted source.  This is the third example I have found/discussed that asks an audience member to participate directly in the marketing of a show.  Long Wharf Theatre puts postcards in their lobby and asks audience members to address them and return them to the box office to be mailed – a “wish you were here” campaign and I have been having several conversations about encouraging audience members to tweet about shows during intermission or after a show. 

Of course the one problem with the e-blast campaign is that it is not immediate.  I have two friends performing in the show, worked at the theatre it was originally produced at, know most of the production team and producing team, and I LOVED the show off-Broadway, yet, I still haven’t made my own e-blast up.  Now I could tell you that I am seeing the show May 2, and I was waiting until then to send it out, but it would be a bit of a lie.  Frankly, I have been touting the show left and right on facebook and twitter – to the point that many friends thought I was working on it.  Unfortunately even though I see the box office grosses each week, so I know that I should have sent the blast the minute I got the message, the message itself didn’t imply any urgency to me. 

This is the issue with all three ideas.  If you are going to ask the customer to work for on your behalf, you need to make them feel needed.  Some how you have to get them to know that if they loved the show, they HAVE to tell everyone they know or the show won’t be around for them to see or their friends will miss out on something.  In the case of the Reasons e-blast you are asking them to take the time to type up to fifty emails.  That is a lot of work and time commitment (at least suggest they copy paste them too).  I have to wonder if it would have been a good idea to have hire a few people to stand outside the theatre at the end of the show with postcards with the link on them – with a message that implied “save this show.” 

For the postcards, what if they were handed out with the programs and the pre-show announcement asked people to turn them into the box office (and said where they could pick up more in the lobby). 

Certainly we can also think of ways to ask audiences to tweet their thoughts on the show through encouragement in announcements – I noticed at least one or two nonprofits must be using computers in their lobbies to send out tweets of audience responses on their institution’s twitter account. 

After all if I got an email, postcard or tweet from someone whose opinion I trusted, I would check out the show.  It certainly seems worth the cost of a bit of manpower to make it happen.

I have to go now – I have an e-blast to send out through www.reasonstobepretty.com/share.  In case I don’t paste your email in.  TRUST ME GO AND SEE THIS SHOW.  Don’t wait, buy your tickets now.

 

Why is entertainment a bad word?

August 3, 2008 • No Comments
Yes, I know many artists and theatre folks find the word entertaining a “bad” word. Some how entertainment has come to refer to work that has no value or is fluff. If it is entertaining it isn’t art.
However I believe it is a very subjective word and unfortunatly as it often is individuals want to believe their individual interpretations are universal. Entertainment has gotten a bad rep.
Last year I was at lunch with a group of gentlemen from our local Y’s Men group and this was basically the topic of discussion. I had given an overview of some of the Playhouse’s plans for expanding programming in the building and on the internet, and after the presentation, a member of the group told me that he had been VERY bothered that I had not used the word entertainment when discussing our shows. I told him that I purposely avoided the word since I found it to be so subjective.
At lunch I asked each of the gentlemen what they found entertaining. It was not surprising to me that the answers ranged (and I am paraphrasing) from I want to laugh to I want to taken to another place to I like to be made to think to I love to have a good cry.
We have to admit as practioners and audience members that being ENTERTAINED isn’t the same thing for each person and it IS NOT a bad thing for someone to leave the theatre feeling as if they have been entertained. There is no reason that art can’t be entertaining.

What do the artists of theatre do for us?

July 23, 2008 • No Comments

Theatre Artists do us a tremendous favor.  


They bare their souls in telling a story inspiring us to speak or be safe in silence.  

They create a world on stage where they often titter on the brink of destruction or utter happiness. We can experience being on the edge through them, but we don’t have to actually do it to understand it and learn from it. 

They state the unthinkable.  They do the unforgivable.  They act in weakness.  They are trapped in fear and do nothing.

They state what must be said.  They act heroically.  They take risks. 

They make us laugh. They make us cry.  Sometimes they make us do both at the same time.

They teach us about our neighbors, people of distants lands, people from the past, and people from the future.

They make us lean forward in our seats, holding our breathe, waiting for the next word, moment or action.  They make us feel alive.  

And all we have to do is show up.

Measuring Impact???

July 21, 2008 • 3 Comments

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle – Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact

How do you define the impact of theatre? It seems easy to quantify the work of other non-profits. But what about the arts?

In nonprofits we a talk a lot about assessment and measurement. “You need to do an assessment of your thinking before you invest!”

In business you need to be ahead of the curve. You need to manage situations – be in a constant state of awareness, assess how things affect your organization, and have the ability to act (create change). You are in a constant state of assessment. But can you assess a situation without some form of quantitative analysis.

I can hear everyone screaming – well Jodi, just count the number of people in the audience and you will know how you are doing, but I just don’t think that is actual analysis of whether or not we are fulfilling our mission. Seating capacity has its place, but it comes in later.

So how would you do an auditable analysis of the Playhouse’s attempts to fulfill its mission? What data do we need to tell our story? And how do we get it? How do we add evaluation to the planning of programs?

You can evaluate the process or you can evaluate the impact.

So how do you audit the results?

First and foremost, we can measure outcomes through the audience’s future participation in more Playhouse events. The number of events an individual attends reflects a deeper experience and more engagement. If an individual participates in play club, talk-backs it reflects a deeper experience and more engagement. If they bring their children to the playhouse for education programs it reflects a deeper experience and more engagement. If they donate money or time to the theatre they are having a deeper experience and are more engaged. And yes, if they are deeper engaged they will bring friends of like minds and seating capacity will increase.

Next, we can measure if we are adding to the theatrical canon by the on-going life of plays and musicals we develop and premiere.

We can watch the progress of our education programs participants. We can see if they apply the skills learned in theatre programs to other areas of learning and life.

But if we just count seating capacity without the assessment of audience experience and engagement aren’t we are measuring the effectiveness of marketing and public relations not the effect of the programming.

So, how do you evaluate in the impact. We need to identify what we need to learn about results to assess impact. We need to know the intended impact and search for the unintended impact. We have to talk with people before and after they attend performances or education programs. We have to discipline ourselves to track audience and participants for several years.

In practical terms to plan for such assessment, our staff (the entire staff from interns to, well, the Artistic Director and I) need to know WHY we are producing a particular play or why we are offering a particular education program. The staff needs to decide what we want the experience to be for each “client” from first contact to follow-up contact. The entire staff needs to participate fully in all aspects of programming and be able to talk about the programming if intimate detail and with great knowledge. If the entire staff is not fully versed in the programming – the audience never will be.

So with our crazy busy schedules what should we do? It is pretty obvious. The staff should talk about what we do with each other. We should talk about the community we live in on the local, national, and global level. If we have to schedule these discussions until we learn to do it organically we better start scheduling!

Market Research

July 16, 2008 • No Comments

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle – Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact


So, let me step away from the Harvard classes…

Back at the Playhouse, we are talking about embarking on a market research study. Let me frame this with the fact that I believe that some people are predisposed to like certain art forms. Just like there are born readers, natural lovers of music, and those with an innate love of visual arts, I think there are people who are drawn to the theatre.

So after we carefully think through what we want to learn and the methods of collecting date, where do we start? It makes sense that we talk to the people who are coming to the Playhouse about their experience with the Playhouse. But who else do we talk to?

Conventional wisdom says we also talk to the people who are not coming to the Playhouse. But what type of person who is not coming? If I am right that some people are drawn to theatre and the other simply are not, the first group of “non-attenders” we should talk to are the people in our area who went at least once to another theatre in Connecticut or New York but not to the Playhouse in the last 3 years. We know from tons of data research that there is only a small cross-over between art-forms, but it might be interesting to talk to people who attend other performing arts disciplines in the area but not the Playhouse (but you may have to convince me).

But what about people who just don’t go to the theatre, any theatre? Let’s assume they tried it at some point in their life. Some school trip or friend got them into the theatre. Let’s assume they saw a GREAT show that was relevant to the things happening in their life. But they just didn’t like the act of going to the theatre. Can you really convert someone into liking theatre? I don’t think so. I would go so far as to say that what form of arts speak to you is genetically determined. So do we just forget about those folks. Can’t we just be happy if they agree that we are doing some good in the community but they don’t have to ever come see a show? It will give us more time to get the folks who are predisposed to attending through the doors.

But there is a lot of talk about getting new audiences. Getting more people to come and experience theatre. I would argue it is our mission to create opportunities for children to see theatre. And give folks their first theatre experience (that way they will probably figure out it they are theatre folks or not). But if I am right up above than that means there is a finite group of people who we can get into shows and our goal should be to get a larger share of that group.

But for any other kind of new adult audiences, I wonder where these we could find them – Mars?

I bet Eric, Beth, Jenn, Marica, and Laura S. can’t wait for me to get back and schedule our first meeting about this!

As promised…Value Chain for the Playhouse

• No Comments

As promised...Value Chain for the Playhouse

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle – Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact

Mission and Strategic Triangle – Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission

July 15, 2008 • One Comment

In July 2008 I particpated in the Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprises Executive Education program Strategic Perspectives for Nonprofit Managers (SPNM). It was one of the best and most transforming weeks of my life.

Here are all of the links and topics for posts from SPNM:
Overview
Inspiration
Capacity
Leadership
Scale
Strategic Service Vision
Mission and Strategic Triangle – Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Value Chain
Market Research
Measuring Impact

Third class today revolved around theory of change (causal result of if I do A I will get B).

GREAT article about tools for cooperation. Long discussion about culture shift requiring more than tools – you need agreement! Nothing new here but really interesting framework that broke out the tools. The document is locked so I can’t copy it into this entry. (I promise to post and discuss when I get back).

The final session today (well yesterday now that it is 12:25) was all about mission! Surprise! Imagine that. The real surprise it that a t a nonprofit strategy program we waited until day two to thoroughly dissect the importance of mission and what are the components of a good mission.

We looked at sample missions from some of the program participants. Of course since Harvard is so savvy, they went to the organizations websites to find the mission versus asking the participant’s to provide it. This lead to several vision statements being pulled, organizational descriptions being pulled, or other narratives. Tricky how they slid in a lesson about clarity on communications espiecally your website! You Harvard folks!

Breaking down what should be in a mission with 82 nonprofit peers makes for some interesting discussion. All of the missions answered the question “what the organization does?” Some of the missions answered “who the organziation is?” Some answered “What the organization will achieve – how the organizaiton will transform its community (values and vision are of course inclusive in this)?” We were back to auditable and aspirational – go back to earlier post (I promise I will put links in when I am back and not so tired).

So began the debate – should missions be auditable? Do you include aspirational goals in the mission? What is the place of that value chain (see next post about value chain and the playhouse) we talked about yesterday (I know links). What is the difference between a mission statement and vision statement – do you need both. If mission talks about value and social impact of organization, does vision than talk about the relationship between the results of what you do and how it changes the world?

Of course at this point I think – wow we need to rewrite our mission statement, immediately followed by wow am I too critical of our mission statement.

Why do we have mission statements in the first place? Well we have to have a purpose right? We know it isn’t to fill shareholders pockets or any individuals pockets with profits. We have to have an identity right? A uniqueness? A reason our community needs us? We have to use our resources and capabilities to fill some social need, don’t we. Isn’t is our job to search for the highest value for our organizational assets (this one was Professor Moore’s). I guess that’s why we have mission statement. We need something to guide us in our decisions and work.

But let’s go with Professor Moore…If a leader’s job is to find the highest value use of the organizational assests, what does that mean…

The Strategic Triangle!

Legitamacy and Support / Organization / Mission

The value chain connects organization and mission.

Balanced off of Needs, Task Enviroment, Clients, Donors, and a collective agreement about value reinforced by donor “approval of the collective value!”

Strategic%2BTriangle Mission and Strategic Triangle Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission
Okay so we still don’t have agreement from 82 people about what goes in a mission statement!

So how about this criteria – suggested from class:
1. Mission mobilizes legitmacy and support from a third party (donors)
2. Mission is a direct statement of organizational value (value chain)
3. Mission gives guidence, focus, direction, and measurement to operations

If we go with that it is an auditable mission. But there was a call that it should also make a promise. (absolute vs. relevence)

So back to my thoughts on our mission…

…to transform lives through the power of theatre. Our aim is to enlighten, enrich and engage a diverse community of theatre lovers, artists and students by presenting excellent professional theatre and offering a welcoming experience that perpetuates the long tradition of the “red barn.”

How does it stack up against the above criteria? If that is the right criteria? Well that is certainly something to explore with others when I get back?

Note to self – seriously in the blog not from class – I think our shared vision statement get to some of this…Must check. Thank goodness it is hanging above the desk in my office icon smile Mission and Strategic Triangle Legitamacy & Support / Organization / Mission On the bulleton board next to this theatre OGSM (Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measurement).

Okay it’s 1:00Am I better go to sleep if I want to gain any knowledge from tomorrow’s classes.

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