A Shattered Skylight

If you have been connected in anyway to social media in the last 12 hours or so, you will have heard the news that the Skylight has fired its current Artistic Director, Bill Thiesen. Less reported ranting is that the current Company Manager, Diana Alioto has also been let go. I don't think I've seen a Facebook mention of the further staff cuts of Jason, a key box office employee, or Ralph, the night janitor, but they've been let go, too.

The reason, of course, is money. That is the answer that has been given. And it is a plausible answer. I don't believe there is an arts group in the nation that is legitimately embracing the term "thriving" in these days of national economic trumoil.

This plausible answer doesn't sit well with me or others, however. I won't get into the merits of inspiring artistic vision, or legendary leadership of the Skylight by any artistic director, company manager, box office manager, or janitor. The fact of the matter is, the Board of the Skylight has supported some recommendations (or come up with these on their own, a possibility, too) that have in effect now turned Bill Thiesen into the slain Jesus Christ. Yes, I am suggesting that he has been nailed to the cross, hung out to dry, and a community already maligned has thrown their efforts into rallying around this now messianic figure to say, "Hey, there's gotta be a better way than offing this really nice guy."

If you ask any of your pals that work in corporate America about the Skylight's downsizing, they might shurg their shoulders, look at their new severance offer from a mass round of layoffs, and say, "Welcome to the real world." There's no doubt that killing off some members of the top management and realigning your organization is a way of the world across the employment spectrum right now. But your same coporate America friends might also mention that there are some other options.

Morale and staff confidence at The Skylight has been severely damaged, as has been made evident by Jamie Johns, the pianist and often times conductor of Skylight productions, who is the de facto leader to make the Board of the Skylight reconsider their decision and reinstate Bill Thiesen. A question must be asked of the Skylight staff at this time, of course, and that is, how far are you willing to go to turn the ship.

A $200,000 fix in a $3,300,000 budget isn't just a one year thing. That's a call for some long term measures to be taken. I think that inspired leadership, one that embraces the idea that the Skylight staff is a "family" (an idea that is talked about much right now, and one I would add is true with all the requisite trappings of dysfunction that any family has), would gather that corps of workers and say that tough times call for tough decisions across the company.

These tough decisions might include across the board salary cuts to already modest wages. These might include changing full year production contracts into seasonal contracts (including the Artistic Director, Production Shop heads, and Stage Management staff). Programming cuts like the Skylight's cabaret series, some education and touring programming, and artist training programs might also be on the chopping block.

I would also like to point out as a past leader of a former resident company at The Broadway Theater Center that the elimination of a key box office position is one that really makes me scratch my head. The resident companies at the Broadway Theatre Center (Milwaukee Chamber Theatre and Renaissance Theaterworks) rely on The Skylight Box Office for their ticket services. I know first hand that one of the most important aspects of running a theater company is good, efficient box office service. I've been told that the Skylight's Marketing Director will now assume the duties of the box office employee that has been let go. If I was a leader of one of the resident companies, I would make sure that my box office service was not going to change before I wrote any more rent checks made out to The Skylight.

The reality is that you can't get blood from a stone. The news of what has just happened is not the beginning of the story, it is the end in a way. Cuts have been happening at the Skylight for months in a response to how to make the budgetary future more reasonable. Bill Thiesen himself was planning on directing most of the shows in the Skylight's 50th Anniversary Season to save costs on hiring outside directors. Cuts have been a way of life at Skylight all throughout this past season. Those were fatty cuts. And then came the muscle cuts. Now, we're clearly at the bone cutting stage.

Working a budget for a nonproft arts group is not pretty thing sometimes. But working a budget with a "family", including them in your plights can be an arts administration epiphany. I've seen staffs rally around a challenge, create new and better ways to save costs, and dig down and do more work for less money simply because they believe in the work of an institution.

I mention that there are other options, not only as an observer, but as a 20 year veteran of arts administration. But as that same 20 year veteran of arts adminstration I know that it's really too late. It does seem that Eric Dillner, The Managing Director of The Skylight since the beginning of this season, has convinced the Board that this current iteration of a management model is the way to make things work. Either that or the Board has given him the mandate to make this change. What is clear, is that there was not a strong Board belief that the Artistic Director, Company Manager, Box Office Manager and Night Janitor should be kept on. If there was support for those positions on a Board level, then someone would have spoken up. Clearly, that ain't happening.

Eliminating an Artistic Director position along with Company Manager, Box Office Manager and Night Janitor smells of a plan for huge restructuring to come. If I was a current Skylight employee, I'd be brushing off my resume. It feels like the upper management at The Skylight is looking to take the company in a different direction, one that might be profitable, but one that might ignore the vision of the company that legends like Clair Richardson, Colin Cabot, Joan Lounsberry and others worked so diligently to foster for generations of opera and musical theatre fans in Milwaukee.

I don't support any of the decisions being made by the Board and Managing Director of The Skylight right now because I believe in a different kind of Skylight, one that is scrappy, breaks some rules, and dangles the hope of really thrilling stuff happening before your eyes. I also freely admit that I can't say with a great amount of conviction that I've seen those qualities exhibited in full force at the company in the past several years, but I always sensed that the flickering flame was lurking somewhere inside the building. I think it might have just been extinguished.