The United Performing Arts Fund (UPAF) made it's 2009 fundraising goal with an announced final total of $9,001,052. That is something we should all applaud given the sad shape of the economy. So bravo UPAF!
Highlights of the presentation included some tap dancing from Danceworks, some fiddling from Latino Arts String Ensemble (which also walked away with a $5,000 scholarship), one of those "God I feel bad for that poor sucker, but he's doing a hell of a job" presentations by Next Act's David Cecsarini in his Vince Lombardi persona talking about the similarities between football and the arts, and a heartfelt speech by Emily Vitrano who you've either seen as the fill in traffic girl on the morning WTMJ 4 newscast (where her brother Vince is a co-anchor) or onstage in town at Next Act Theatre or at Milwaukee Rep where she was recently in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
Emily talked about her first time being an actor as an intern at the Rep and the shuddering excitement she felt about all that. And, at the end of the speech, she cried.
Now I don't generally go in for that kind of thing. I'm more of a "it's better to make your audience cry, than to cry yourself" kind of person. But when that kid teared up, something just gripped me and I had to stiffle a few sobs so that Dave Fantle (one of the guy's behind The Bronze Fonz who was sitting next to me and who I believe to be a pretty great guy despite his taste in all things metal) didn't find my head resting on his shoulder soaking his suit jacket.
Why the tears? The celebration of our wonderful arts community I was experiencing at The Stiemke Theater in honor of UPAF's well deserved accolades yesterday was simply too much for me to bear because of the underlying feeling I've been picking up in the gathering storm of local controversies in our well-touted, seemingly openly communicative, setting-a-higher-standard arts community that it's all a bit of a sham.
When I say that it is all a bit of a sham, I'm not talking about the art. The art is generally top notch. I may not like all the programming choices I see happening around town, but I'm not going to argue with the execution. I'm even lacking the cynicism necessary to believe that management changes at any arts group will predict a decline in artistic quality. I think our arts community weathers storms well.
What I think is a sham is the public face that hides the private feelings of discontent. The celebration of great support and cheerleading for the arts hides the fact that there are a number of influential arts leaders in our community who have some forceful opinions about the state of the arts in our community, the practices of any number of arts producing organizations that have a negative or positive effect on our community at large, and the actual numbers of arts producing groups that we should think of as we think of the cultural inventory of our city.
At the UPAF ceremony yesterday, someone was awarded a plaque for service to the arts in Milwaukee. This same individual once sat across a table from me and very honestly said, "Don't you think there are too many arts groups in this city?"
I was surrounded by colleagues who I had spoken to in recent days regarding my fairly vocal expression of "this is bad" regarding the doings at The Skylight who agreed with all my assessments face to face. When pressed by me to level their feelings in a more public forum they all demure saying, "Oh, no, I couldn't take a stand on that. You understand."
I actually don't understand anymore.
By and large my moral center has always guided me to the place that says, "If you see an injustice, say an injustice." I find it hard to reconcile the fact that there are several local arts leaders who have expressed opinions of disgust to me on anything from the the debate over arts criticism in our community to the rabid discussion over not supporting a civic awards celebration of our theatre community to the really poor handling of a management restructure that is bruising the stakeholders in the Skylight's current storm.
I sat with one of the smartest arts administrators I know yesterday, and told him I was having a crisis of confidence about my life's work in arts administration. I was starting to feel like the only leader of a local arts institution (I rarely write about it, but I'm the Managing Director of The Sunset Playhouse) who will say, "This is just wrong," when something is clearly wrong. This wise and successful friend pragmatically talked about reasons that he and others wouldn't go on record when it comes to controversies within our community. Lack of information, fear of retribution in the funding community, protecting the interests of an individual institution were some of the very reasonable and very political answers this smart colleague gave me.
But at the end of the day, I don't think that's enough. When you take the public forum as a leader of the arts in our community to cherry pick the good things that happen in the arts and cite individual examples from institution to institution (as we all do), I don't fully understand why respected arts leaders in our community can't also say, "I see something that is just wrong, and I think there's a better way to handle this for the community."
If not the arts leaders in our community to say, "Okay, so and so has a problem, I think it's wrong, now let's all think about how to make this better," then who? If I were seriously making bad decisions on an institutional level as an arts leader, I know I would be ultimately happier if a colleague called me on my rug publicly than to talk around my back. But that's just the kind of guy I am.
If you play the promotion game touting all that's great in a public forum, I think you should be responsible also for participating in the community dialogue on what can be improved. We're capping our growth and ultimate richness as an arts community if we don't embrace the capacity for arts leaders to speak honestly about challenges they have, and how their expertise allows them to sometimes offer a less than flattering assessment of another institutions management practice. The ultimate goal has always been for us to be a cohesive, supportive community. Calling a spade a spade when you see it should be a quality that is more prevalent for the leaders of our own arts community or we will only be marginally good at what we do and will ultimately deserve the reputation that many outside our city have as a little burg not really to be taken seriously on a national arts scene.
I think we're better than that. I also think we're worse than that. And on both these points I will strive to be as honest as I can. I ask for my fellow arts leaders (that means institutions heads, donors, and artists) do do the same.
8 smart alecky remarks:
I've been reading all throughout this whole Skylight debacle and it wasn't until this post that I felt I finally had an analogy that might make sense to some people.
Reading this I am thinking about family and the effects a parent has on that family. My mom and dad taught me a lot growing up: good and bad, right and wrong, make lemons out of lemonade, turn the other cheek, etc. Now, that said, I did some stupid stuff as a kid (I think we all do). If mom and dad had only praised me for the good things I did and never punished me for the bad, do you think I would have ever learned not to do the bad? If they would have simply turned a blind eye to my untoward behavior, would I have learned to keep being a pain in the ass kid? YES. See, my parents speaking out against my wrongdoings and punishing me when I was growing up taught me that those actions were not okay. Thus, I grew up into a well behaved (for the most part) young lady with morals and values.
The Milwaukee theatre community leaders need to become those tough love parents to the rebellious kid that is the Skylight management. If they don't, those leaders will grow up to be that guy driving his souped up sports car down the highway at 100mph, drinking and thinking he's doing no wrong. Until there is a huge accident from his wreckless behavior. Then, where will his parents be??? Step up, people. It's time to set a good example.
Mr. Schmartsy tends to be schmarter than I am about a lot of things, but following my own advice below, I'm not sure I agree 100%. For all the rabble-rousing I've been doing, I'm not sure calling out a colleague publicly is the best strategy. That said, I would hope that if nothing else, there is a strong enough community here that behind closed doors the tough questions are getting asked. I've always felt that a "yes man" never did me any favors and healthy dissent and discussion are the best route to an intelligent solution. My best friends and best supporters don't pump me up by blowing smoke up my heinie saying "you look great", they say "dude, your fly is open and there's toilet paper on your shoe".
God I miss the days when Joel Kopische was on the stage of the Skylight! Thanks Jonathan, Valerie and Joel for your thoughts.
Good luck Jonathan. I think we're up against a combination of a corporate yesman buck passing culture, and a take-everything-personal artist mentality. Each by themselves is hard to penetrate, both together? Yikes!
God, I want to be Jonathan West when I grow up! (Okay, if I grown up!)Whether I agree with you or disagree with you, you take class to a whole other plain!
Jonathan, thank you for your thoughtful commentary. While I agree with your comments about more vocal and visible leadership around issues affecting the strength of this region's arts and culture sector (and I deliberate all of the time what the role of the Alliance is/should be), in the case of the specific management of an organization, none of us on the outside (or even most on the inside) really know all of the facts and issues facing an organization's leadership. Those that have a vested fiduciary and policy oversight interest - donors and board members - should be expressing their thoughts directly to the organization and assisting in making sure it is serving its stakeholders and the general public well. And, setting the stage for appropriate stewardship moving forward. Many of these comments do not need to be, and should not be, public. What needs to be public is, having admitted you didn't get it right, how you are going to move forward in better stewardship to your most significant stakeholders. We really have no idea what board, staff or community leadership might be saying privately. I will tell you that the Alliance did communicate very early on to the Skylight what it thought was a helpful observation. Now, it is up to them to decide what kind of company and what kind of stewardship it is going to have moving forward. What's that saying - something like, it's not that you fell down or made a mistake but it's how you get up that tells you the character of a person. The same is true for organizations.
Christine, as a point of intellectual curiousity, i disagree. This is the information age, and if arts organizations want to get the support they seem to want to get, they need to share their information.
Surprises and opacity like this (or MKE Shakes, or others) create more uncertainty in the minds of potential supporters than open conflict would.
When big orgs act this way it creates a credibility gap for all sponsorship-based arts organizations in Milwaukee. Which, from my perspective might not be such a bad thing.
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