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The Higher Education Theatre Pedigree
How Hiring Graduates of Theatre Arts Administration
Programs
Can Raise Your Business IQ
Corinne Gabrielson Deckard fell in love with theatre in
high school, but she didn’t necessarily want to endure the ups and downs
of performing for a living. “As I went to college and discovered more
about the business, working in marketing or administration seemed to be the
right thing for me,” she said. Directly after earning her B.A. in theatre,
Deckard attended the University of Alabama M.A. program in theatre management
and administration. “I felt that with just an undergraduate education,
there was only so far I could go, and that in order to really get into the
field I needed the extra education.” Her undergraduate program was well
rounded, but at the time it had not even one course in performing arts management.
As part of the graduate program, Deckard interned for 15 months with the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival, which is a member of the League of Resident Theatres
(LORT), and attended an annual LORT meeting, where she met marketing directors
and managing directors from theatres all around the country. One of those
was Linda DiGabriele, managing director at the Asolo Repertory Theatre in
Sarasota, Fla., who happened to be looking for an assistant managing director.
It didn’t hurt that DiGabriele knew the managing director of the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival. Deckard got the job. “It was about meeting the
right people and being in the right place at the right time,” Deckard
said.
As theatres have begun seeking the next generation of managers and administrators,
graduate programs in the field have grown in number. Hiring a graduate with
an M.A., M.F.A., or M.B.A. in arts or theatre administration will net you
an employee who comes complete with at least some real-world experience, including
working with senior-level professionals both in the classroom and in the industry
through internships. They are also likely to have forged some personal contacts
in the theatre world. But, like any new hire, they will have to learn the
ropes of your theatre’s operations and culture.
It’s not just academic
In addition to theory and class work, most graduate programs give students
real-world experience, often full time for several months. Third-year students
in the graduate program at Wayne State act as director of marketing, director
of development and customer relations, and managing director for the Wayne
State University Theatres. Students in the Illinois State University M.B.A.
in Arts Management Program perform marketing and community relations for the
Illinois Shakespeare Festival. “In many aspects they are the face of
the Shakespeare festival,” said John Poole, Director of the School of
Theatre. Students at Brooklyn College who earn a M.F.A. in theatre with a
concentration in performing arts management work at three different professional
internships. Then they complete a full-time work experience in the industry
and write a thesis about it. “They learn the skill sets from professionals
in the classroom then apply them in professional internships,” said Tobie
Stein, professor and head of the graduate performing arts management concentration.
“They have a network of people they already know in the field so they
come in having a sense of who the players are and how to do the job,”
Stein said.
Though Deckard entered a graduate program fresh out of college, many students
have the additional experience of working full-time for a few years before
entering grad school. After stage-managing for several years, David Rowell
went for his M.F.A. because he wanted to move to the administrative side of
the business and to teach eventually. “I felt the degree would offer
me the best options and insight into the whole picture—production management,
fundraising and producing, and would allow me to decide where I wanted to
focus,” said Rowell, now director of Florida State University’s
M.F.A. program in theatre management.
Where graduates work
Small or mid-sized theatres are those most likely to recruit directly from
graduate programs, and students fresh out of graduate school are most competitive
for positions in middle management. “I’m getting more and more inquiries
from small to mid-sized regional theatres,” Rowell said. “They want
someone with the ability to come in as an intermediate person, with experience,
and be able to jump in and be an active part of the organization.” DiGabriele
agreed; because major regional theatres like the Asolo require that senior
level managers have many years of experience, students coming out of a graduate
program would be considered for assistant manager positions, she said.
In addition to theatres, performing arts and producing organizations look
for people with advanced degrees. Stein has placed graduates at the Metropolitan
Opera Guild, New Dramatists, and the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation. Rowell
said that the demand from presenting organizations is great enough that he
has begun incorporating information about the presenting side of the business
into the curriculum at Florida State. For instance he has brought in speakers
such as Robert Friedman, President and CEO of Rudebecker Hall in Clearwater,
Florida.
A few graduates go directly to upper-level positions at smaller theatres.
“Our most competitive graduates are starting their careers as managing
directors and executive directors,” said Anthony Rhine, head of the M.F.A.
program in theatre management at Wayne State University. A 2007 graduate of
that program, Sarah Meyer, found a position as managing director of Pig Iron
Theatre, a small experimental ensemble company in Philadelphia. Meyer connected
with Pig Iron through their job listing in ArtsSearch, a print and online
job directory published by Theatre Communications Group. Meyer had performed
for a few years but had not worked in the administrative side before graduate
school. “The training I got from my M.F.A. program was broad, and it
was a leadership-based program,” Meyer said. “That helped me walk
into a managing director position.”
Larger theatres still want seasoned professionals. At the Seattle Children’s
Theatre, known as one of the top children’s theatres in the U.S., having
a graduate degree isn’t a drawback, but it isn’t a priority for
any position, said Shelley Saunders, interim managing director. “We tend
to put a focus on experience at other theatres. We don’t see ourselves
as an entry level theatre,” Saunders said. The Alliance Theatre in Atlanta,
one of the largest regional theatres in the southeast, has not hired anyone
into an administrative position directly from graduate school, said Tom Pechar,
managing director. But they do take interns, including their current management
intern, a student in the M.F.A. program in Performing Arts Management at the
North Carolina School of the Arts.
Alphabet soup
Whether potential employees have an M.A., M.F.A., or M.B.A, they will probably
have similar skills, as the degrees overlap somewhat. In general, M.A. and
M.F.A. programs are more broadly focused, teaching marketing as well as production
management, while M.B.A. programs focus on accounting, fiscal management,
and other business courses, Rowell said. The differences between a theatre
management degree and an arts administration degree can be fuzzy. But a theatre
management graduate may be more suited for a general management position,
while someone with an arts administration degree may make a good marketing
director, Poole noted. “Arts administration does focus more on fundraising,
grant writing, public policy at the state and federal level, and looking at
the economic forces that influence survival of nonprofits in the American
culture today, whereas theatre management focuses less on the selling of the
product and more on the management of it,” Poole said.
Theatres that recruit directly from graduate schools can expect personal attention.
Because most graduate programs are small, admitting anywhere from three to
11 students per year, the program directors know each student’s strengths
and weaknesses and can help match theatres with employees. “I have a
very strong connection to the cultural community of New York City. They call
me when they want to hire people or when they need interns,” said Brooklyn
College’s Stein, who just finished editing “Performing Arts Management:
A Handbook of Professional Practices,” a book that includes 150 contributors,
including some of her former students (Allworth Press, 2008).
Some theatres groom graduate-student interns for full-time positions. The
Alabama Shakespeare Festival has hired many graduates of the M.F.A. program
at the University of Alabama, all of whom perform a 15-month internship at
the festival. “Because interns sit in on all the board meetings and are
privy to negotiations, they have more knowledge and information than an average
employee in the building,” said Alicia Johnson-Reed, director of marketing
and communications at the festival. The assistant director of marketing, advertising
and budget manager, and the telemarketing and accessibility coordinator at
the festival are all graduates of the University of Alabama program. Johnson-Reed
herself graduated from the program, took a position at the festival as audience
development coordinator, then moved up to her current position.
By contrast, Asolo Repertory may notify a contact at the major M.F.A. and
M.A. programs when recruiting employees, but more likely will recruit through
the usual channels, such as ArtSearch, or, for positions in development, marketing,
or education, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, DiGabriele said. And, as in hiring
any employee, personal connections can play a role. “Theatre is such
a small business, and theatre administration is even smaller,” Deckard
said. DeGabriele agreed. “It really depends on opportunity. There are
a limited number of leadership roles, and if that’s what the person is
shooting for, then chance is going to play a big part in it,” she said.
Once you’ve got an employee with a fresh graduate degree, any hands-on
experience they have will be a plus, but you’ll still need to teach the
culture and practices of your organization. “It’s still a matter
of just teaching them the ropes,” DeGabriele said. For instance, the
fine points of contracts that various unions use and how to work with boards
and committees are usually learned on the job. “I see it as a ladder
of 10 rungs,” DeGabriele said. “If someone gets a graduate degree,
they may hop up to rung four or five instead of having to go through those.”
Want to chat up your alma mater? Join the discussion in the DramaBiz Magazine
online forum at www.dramabiz.com/forum.
