Leadership in the Performing Arts

Preface

Research Methodology

What does it mean to be a performing arts leader? Leadership in the Performing Arts addresses and analyzes this question by presenting the wisdom and expertise of eleven leaders with experience managing nonprofit performing arts institutions in the United States.¹ The eleven men and women interviewed for this book are employed by a variety of nonprofit organizations, including theater, dance, and opera companies, an arts service organization, a theatrical union, presenting organizations, and a corporate foundation with leadership grant-making priorities. Each leader was asked to participate in a two-to four-hour taped in-depth interview, based on a sixty-question questionnaire I devised. In researching the types of leadership questions I would ask, I consulted the works of many scholars and practitioners who specialize in leadership and organizational culture. They are listed in the bibliography of this book.

The leadership interviews were conducted by my graduate students, alumni, professional colleagues, and by me, both inside and outside of the classroom. They were part of a Brooklyn College MFA performing arts management fifteen-week graduate class on leadership in the performing arts, held in New York City.

Each weekly class was devoted to interviewing a specific leader on a range of topics, including: career path and professional growth, institutional vision, leadership styles and the importance of interpersonal skills, setting organizational priorities, decision-making and communication processes, creating change and innovation, and the challenges faced in leading an institution. My research findings are based on the data gathered from these interviews. In the subsequent sections, the leaders and their institutional missions are introduced; this section will be followed by a chapter summary.

The Leaders and Their Institutions

Kathy Brown

Executive Director

New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet Mission Statement

George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein formed New York City Ballet with the goal of producing and performing a new ballet repertory that would reimagine the principles of classical dance. Under the artistic leadership of Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins, the Company remains dedicated to their vision as it pursues two primary objectives:

1. To preserve the ballets, dance aesthetic, and standards of excellence created and established by its founders.

2. To develop new work that draws on the creative talents of contemporary choreographers and composers, and speaks to the time in which it is made.

This mission is accompanied by a commitment to expand the Company’s audience and make ballet accessible to the widest possible public through touring, education programs, the creative use of media, and other outreach efforts.²

Peter Gelb

General Manager

The Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera Mission Statement

The Metropolitan Opera is a vibrant home for the most creative and talented artists working in opera, including singers, conductors, composers, orchestra musicians, stage directors, designers, visual artists, choreographers, and dancers. Nearly 800,000 people attend more than 200 performances in the opera house during the season, and millions more experience the Met through new media distribution initiatives and state-of-the-art technology. Under the leadership of General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine, the Met engages the world’s greatest singers for productions staged by the most imaginative directors working in theater and opera. The company also sustains a series of initiatives to broaden its audience both locally and internationally; these efforts range from transmitting operas live in high definition to movie theaters worldwide, to screening its Opening Night performance live on giant screens in Lincoln Center Plaza and Times Square, and hosting free Open Rehearsals for the general public.³

Heather Hitchens

President

American Theatre Wing

American Theatre Wing Mission Statement

By creating the Tony Awards®, being the home of the OBIE Awards®, developing educational programs, and by distributing thousands of dollars of grants and awards each year, the American Theatre Wing is dedicated to preserving the past, celebrating the present, and fostering the future of American theatre nationwide.⁴

Karen Brooks Hopkins

President and Chief Executive Officer

Brooklyn Academy of Music⁵

Brooklyn Academy of Music Mission Statement

Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM’s) mission is to be the home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. America’s oldest performing arts institution, it is recognized internationally for innovative dance, music, and theater programming—including its renowned Next Wave Festival. BAM also features an acclaimed repertory film program, literary and visual art events, and extensive educational programs.⁶

Timothy J. McClimon

President

American Express Foundation

American Express Foundation Mission Statement

At American Express, we believe that serving our communities is not only integral to running a business successfully, it is part of our individual responsibilities as citizens of the world. The mission of our program is to bring to life the American Express value of good corporate citizenship by supporting communities in ways that enhance the company’s reputation with employees, customers, business partners, and other stakeholders. We do this by supporting visionary nonprofit organizations that are:

• Preserving and sustaining unique historic places for the future

• Developing new leaders for tomorrow

• Encouraging community service where our employees and customers live and work.⁷

Laura Penn

Executive Director

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society Mission Statement

SDC is the theatrical union that unites, empowers, and protects professional stage directors and choreographers throughout the United States. Our mission is to foster a national community of professional stage directors and choreographers by protecting the rights, health, and livelihoods of all our members, to facilitate the exchange of ideas, information, and opportunities, while educating the current and future generations about the roles of directors and choreographers and providing effective administration, negotiations, and contractual support.⁸

Arlene Shuler

President and Chief Executive Officer

New York City Center

New York City Center Mission Statement

To be New York City’s leading center for dance and musical theater. Dedicated to making the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience, City Center seeks to create a welcoming environment and engage audiences with inspiring programming that reflects the eclecticism, energy, and spirit of New York City.⁹

Paul Tetreault

Director

Ford’s Theatre

Ford’s Theatre Mission Statement

Ford’s Theatre celebrates the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln and explores the American experience through theatre and education. A working theatre, historical monument, world-class museum, and learning center, Ford’s Theatre is the premier destination in Washington, D.C., to explore and celebrate Lincoln’s ideals and leadership principles: courage, integrity, tolerance, equality, and creative expression.¹⁰

Nancy Umanoff

Executive Director

Mark Morris Dance Group

Mark Morris Dance Group Mission Statement

MMDG’s mission is to develop, promote, and sustain dance, music, and opera productions by Mark Morris, and serve as a cultural resource to engage and enrich the community.¹¹

Patrick Willingham

Executive Director

The Public Theater

The Public Theater Mission Statement

As the nation’s foremost theatrical producer of Shakespeare and new work, The Public Theater is dedicated to developing an American theater that is accessible and relevant to all people. We fulfill this mission through productions of challenging new plays, musicals, and innovative re-imaginings of the classics that achieve the highest standards of artistic excellence.¹²

Harold Wolpert

Managing Director

Roundabout Theatre Company

Roundabout Theatre Company Mission Statement

We are committed to producing the highest quality theatre with the finest artists, sharing stories that endure, and providing accessibility to all audiences. A not-for-profit company, we fulfill our mission each season through the production of classic plays and musicals; development and production of new works by established and emerging writers; educational initiatives that enrich the lives of children and adults; and a subscription model and audience outreach programs that cultivate and engage all audiences.¹³

Chapter Summaries

Leadership in the Performing Arts contains ten chapters. Within each chapter, successful leaders provide many real-world examples of business practices that may be generally applied by practitioners in our field and throughout the nonprofit sector. The following section provides a summary of each chapter.

In a book about leadership in the performing arts, it is important to first define the term leadership and to make the distinction between leadership and management processes. In chapter 1, Becoming a Leader, leaders discuss these differences, along with the ways in which they learned to lead and the traits necessary for successful leadership.

In chapter 2, Leadership Cultures and Core Values, leaders speak about their organizational cultures and the values that are central to all organizational members.

In chapter 3, The Leader’s Vision, performing arts leaders from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Ford’s Theatre, New York City Center, the Metropolitan Opera, the American Theatre Wing, and the Mark Morris Dance Group discuss their institutional visions and how they execute them. In addition, leaders and their followers talk about the ways in which leaders foster organizational commitment and why followers choose to support them.

In chapter 4, The Leader’s Style and Interpersonal Skills, leaders characterize their leadership style, as well as the role of interpersonal communication and personal engagement in sustaining great leadership. In addition, they speak about the importance of utilizing face-to-face communication and listening skills in building trust and creating bonds among key team members and stakeholders.

Chapter 5, Strategic Leadership Priorities: Planning and People, focuses on the leader’s ability to strategically set priorities, hire and retain the best people, and lead the board of directors.

Chapter 6, Leading the Decision-Making Process, explores the important elements that go into making a decision, as well as the ways in which leaders make decisions. They also discuss how they prioritize their time and delegate responsibilities. Finally, leaders reveal some of the hardest decisions they have ever made and the lessons learned from making them.

Chapter 7, Leading Transparent Communication, discusses the ways in which the leader chooses to communicate decisions. In addition, leaders speak about the role transparent communication plays in the communication process, the degree to which communication channels are created for employees and other stakeholders, and the ways in which they integrate the stakeholder feedback. Finally, leaders discuss their strategies for managing disagreements or conflicts between stakeholders.

Chapter 8, Leading Accountability and Measuring Success, explores the ways in which leaders hold themselves and their employees accountable. It also examines how performing arts leaders measure the success of their organizational efforts.

Chapter 9, Leading Change, investigates the ways in which performing arts leaders are creating high-impact organizations through transforming the culture, managing crises, and preparing for leadership transition and succession.

And finally, chapter 10, What It Means to Be a Performing Arts Leader, presents a conclusion, focusing on the key findings of my research, as well as implications for further research and practical recommendations for successful leadership in the performing arts.

Notes

1 Since the leaders were interviewed as part of a Brooklyn College class on performing arts leadership based in New York City, they were selected from the East Coast region of the United States.

2 New York City Ballet. www.nycballet.com.

3 The Metropolitan Opera. www.metopera.org.

4 American Theatre Wing. http://americantheatrewing.org.

5 At the time of this writing, Karen Brooks Hopkins was the President and CEO of BAM.

6 Brooklyn Academy of Music. www.bam.org.

7 American Express Foundation. http://about.americanexpress.com/csr.

8 Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. www.sdcweb.org.

9 New York City Center. www.nycitycenter.org.

10 Ford’s Theatre. www.fordstheatre.org.

11 Mark Morris Dance Group. http://markmorrisdancegroup.org.

12 The Public Theater. www.publictheater.org.

13 Roundabout Theatre Company. http://roundabouttheatre.org.

CHAPTER ONE

Becoming a Leader

Introduction

How does one become a successful performing arts leader? How do performing arts leaders learn to lead, and what traits are necessary in becoming a leader? This chapter explores the ways in which leaders learn to lead and what it takes to establish and sustain successful leadership in performing arts organizations. In becoming a leader, it’s important to first recognize the difference between leadership and management.

Leadership Versus Management: What Is the Difference?

Kathy Brown, executive director of the New York City Ballet, contends essentially the difference [between leadership and management] lies between the executive who is heading the organization, looking at the big picture, versus the team executing the tasks.¹ Brown elaborates, I think about the analogy of a crew in a boat: While the majority are pulling the oars, there is one captain looking ahead and making a strategic decision, ‘Okay, there’s a big ship right in front of us and we have to aim farther east to avoid being caught in the wake.’ Someone has to be looking ahead and guiding the direction of the boat.² In Kathy Brown’s example, the captain is leading by setting the overall course and the crew develops its tactics and executes them based on that direction.³ Fred Kofman, author of Conscious Business, substantiates this point: Leadership is the process by which a person sets a purpose for other persons and motivates them to pursue it with effectiveness and full commitment.⁴

A leader must have a vision for setting and achieving future goals and must assemble and manage the right team to move the organization forward. Timothy J. McClimon, president of the American Express Foundation, agrees, noting, Leadership involves getting the right senior team together, working with that team, developing that team, and promoting that team.⁵ He maintains, I think these are the most important things by far because nothing happens without your people. You’ve got to spend a lot of time with them, nurturing them, developing them, and hearing them out.⁶

McClimon makes the distinction between leadership and management: Leaders really have to focus on the future not just on the present; they have to focus on the people not just the systems; they have to not just imitate what others are doing but differentiate and originate. So there’s a big difference, but one can be a leader and a manager at the same time. I think of myself as both a good leader and a good manager, because I do both. A good manager focuses on institutional and organizational necessities, while a good leader understands what it means to move an organization forward.⁷

Leadership and Management: The Need to Do Both

Leaders must also be good managers. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter stresses that great leaders also have managerial inclinations: They are practical as well as visionary. They care about efficiency. These abilities grow with experience. Evidence of managerial experience would be a good prerequisite for leadership.⁸ Paul Tetreault, director of the Ford’s Theatre, also speaks about the relationship between management and leadership and the need to do both: As the leader of Ford’s Theatre, there are days when I finish work feeling like I’ve gotten so much accomplished. I’ve probably had a very management oriented day—I’ve performed tasks. And then there are days when I believe I haven’t accomplished anything and those are days when I probably had a big leadership day. As a leader, it’s important for me to visit other floors in the building and check in with people and ask, ‘How are things going in marketing?’ and ‘What are you all dealing with?’ Leadership is about setting an atmosphere—setting an example, helping to create an environment—in which everyone else can get their tasks done.⁹

In the following case studies, leaders from the American Theatre Wing and the Roundabout Theatre Company discuss the relationship between leadership and management, as well as speak about creating the environment where their vision for leadership will be managed and executed.

CASE STUDY

American Theatre Wing: Creating and Distributing Cutting-Edge Programming

Heather Hitchens, president of the American Theatre Wing, expresses the difference between leadership and management: Leadership is setting the direction and the vision; management controls and directs people and resources. That’s the main difference. They bump up against each other all the time. As the president of the American Theatre Wing, I realize that our audience and potential audience are consuming their media in different ways. Now that there are many multi-platforms for communication, how is the [American Theatre] Wing going to approach this challenge? As the leader, I must set the direction: The American Theatre Wing must develop a premium content video channel that showcases our relationships with professionals working in the theater and try and make a partnership with Hulu or Netflix to distribute the content. My program director is responsible for taking that direction forward.¹⁰

Working in the Theatre: Re-envisioning the Content and Format

Heather Hitchens continues, "Let me speak about how my leadership direction and my program director’s management of the process complement each other. We had previously done a cable television show about professional people called Working in the Theatre. We wanted to change the format of the show and ‘show, rather than tell.’ So that led us to finding a documentary filmmaker to produce the show. We hired her and she shot about ten shows for us. We produced a program on swings, standbys, and understudies onstage. We created another program on reimagining Shakespeare where the filmmaker spent the whole day with the Pig Iron Theatre Company and the Bedlam Theatre Company, shooting their artistic processes. We have created content with artistic and educational value.

Now, we asked the question, ‘How do we make these programs more relevant?’ Our next step was to hire people who are experts in the media world who would tell us about all the different ways we could approach it. After listening to them, my program director and I decided what we thought and the direction we would take. For example, we decided that the content we produce will be a premium content channel on our website, and that the programs will generally be anywhere from fifteen minutes to forty-five minutes in length. We’re also cutting short clips from this content and our archival content and we’re placing them on social media to engage people in conversation. One of our clips features actress Angela Lansbury and says: ‘It’s Angela Lansbury’s birthday; here’s a clip of Angela [on Facebook] talking about one of her performances. If you want to see the full episode, here’s the link.’ Also, we have an immense archive of television programs, so we asked the question, ‘What do we do with the archive?’ The archive was on our website and wasn’t very searchable or user friendly and was weighing down the design of the site, so we moved the archive to YouTube.¹¹

Leadership Imperative: Engage Experts

In sum, asserts Hitchens, we had these television media programs but they were not cutting edge. So we asked, ‘How do we make them cutting edge?’ The first step was, ‘How do we film something that’s relevant?’ Then we hired the documentary filmmaker to repurpose our content for all types of media. Then we asked, ‘How does our website become a media hub for our content?’ We conducted a managerial leadership process of engaging experts, engaging ourselves, making a series of decisions, and never feeling like we’ve arrived because the media landscape is ever changing. And now we’re in the process of figuring out who will be our producing distribution partner (e.g. Hulu, Netflix).¹²

Asking the right questions enables a leader to change past practices and innovate. Innovation and vision are at the heart of leadership. At the Roundabout Theatre Company, Managing Director Harold Wolpert talks about the difference between the management task of creating an ad for a single performance and the broader leadership vision of creating an online presence consistent with the art onstage.

CASE STUDY

The Roundabout Theatre Company: The Power of Impressions

Harold Wolpert states, "I meet biweekly with our marketing and press team and our outside interactive marketing ad agency. I challenge my team: ‘What’s the landscape? Creating a presence for the Roundabout is more than placing an ad for one of our productions. How can Roundabout’s online impression be a little bit more creative? Here are examples of other performing arts companies that are getting attention. We want to be doing something online that is consistent with and representative of the high quality of the art onstage. So let’s push the envelope, let’s be really creative, and let’s