PHOTOS – courtesy of Ralph Cohen

Enjoyed looking through these as I’ve been waiting for my plane to show up here in Denver. I’ll get these posted to the photo page as well!

Photos Courtesy of Mr. Ralph Alan Cohen

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NOTES – Focus Group Meeting 2 on STA Strategic Plan: Education

Focus Group Meeting 2 on STA Strategic Plan: Education

Chair: Rebecca Ennals
Saturday, March 3, 2012 10:00am-11:10am

2016

• Virtual Festival vs. a physical festival
• Technology in 2016 is going to be different. As long as we are thinking about a collaborative initiative.
• FLASH MOB of the balcony scene (Folger Theater)
  • Not just one day but the entire year (Balcony on feb. 14)
  • Guinness book of world records (Balcony Scene)

Would it be interesting to have an Ian Mckellan as Romeo?

Around the world. Using iconic days in Shakespeare’s life

Online celebration that culminates in a big event

The artistic committee is pushing for in person

39 times zones/ 39 plays (reading online)

Make it as interactive as possible. (Shakespeare in the round, creates interdependency)

BARDATHON Alaska shakes

• Lines, scenes all virtual
• Allows for community involvement

Time zones is like passing the Olympic torch (globe)

• You can have stations.
• Virtual map of what’s going on where

Virtually Connected, Globally Focused

“ALL THE WORLDS A STAGE” possible title

We are invited to nominate a working committee:

• Kristen Clippard
• Mike (FOLGER SHAKES)

THE BOARD MATTERS:

• Composition and engagement with education and training?
• SF Shakespeare just eliminated the education board committee
• Who does have an education committee?
  • Colorado Shakes does
  • Stratford does

They have not been the most helpful. Create more work and they don’t actively advocate to the larger board.

We look at the skill sets of board members before they place them in a committee. When new board members come on board. How they can engage with the organization. Otherwise I find they don’t read the education report. Find a hook and then they will invest. If they don’t come to an education activity then they shouldn’t be on the board. (The Globe)

San Francisco Shakespeare

• Almost entirely an educational program
• Board members have joined because of children’s involvement within the program. Finding which parents are willing to invest as a board member
  • Everybody is busy, but you need to create peer pressure within the board.
  • Once they see what you are doing they become invested and are invested.
  • Make it peer to peer

Seattle Shakespeare

• Exists because of board member involvement whose children went through the programs
• Make it a part of the ritual in joining the board

 

Youth advisory board

• Must have gone through the education programs
• The students are active. They get a full board member vote
• They are the vocal part of the whole youth board
• Really strict age bracket

Education is very program generated. So many times board members have many ideas, but little desire to execute it themselves.

Make sure the bright shiny objects (new ideas) align with the mission statements

The final decision rest with a staff member

Look at parents of children in camps! Look at someone who is active already

• Get someone politically involved in the local group
• Someone who shares the theaters values

San Francisco Shakespeare

You think you are asking, but you are being too subtle. (JUST SAY: will you go drink coffee with so-and-so?)

• You build a board through communities. Have them get you engrafted into the community. Use the board or they will begin to use you.

Harper: board techniques

• In the board training it is about getting the board active. They must name 3 organizations they will go to. What people/ organizations the board wanted to hit without looking like the hard sell. Give them advocacy tools and expectations.
• Create clear expectations
• Don’t be worried about issuing too many email blasts. If they don’t want to read it, they won’t. If they unsubscribe then you can see that.

Vocabulary training for the board members. Be careful to train the board. Make sure they understand the words internally within the company. Staff appreciation.

If you have an opening night its like your birthday. It should be a well-crafted celebration.

What we do during board orientation: Give a one-page fact sheet. So they understand the relations/ key terms in all the programs.

• Sponsors and board members can lead you to mentors
• “WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTTE”
  • Instead of asking for a job, ask for advice.

INCLUSIVITY

• Economically/ gender/ relationally
• Folger: We have a problem with public schools coming to our training
  • Any urban area advice?
• Richmond: 90% black. Only two of the government schools attended.
  • Get the superintendent involved in the schools. Giving curtain speeches. (NEVADA CITY)
• San Francisco Shakespeare
  • Community is diverse, the staff is not.
  • Does anyone have a diverse board?
    • No one
    • That is an issue within the STA organization
    • NPR inner city basketball coach
    • Richmond even if I have another teaching artist, racial diversity still doesn’t happen.
    • The Guthrie set up interaction with a local football team. Having workshops with the football players.
    • Tackling Shakespeare (Globe) looking at art v. sport and the cross-pollination of both ideas. Teamwork, ensemble, competition, etc.
    • We are working in authentic environments, performance based. We are sharing common denominators.
      • Authentic environments with honest engagements.
      • Let makes healthy, active human beings (both sports and theater)

If I am going to expect my audience to be diverse the cast and staff must reflect that!

Former military people are another group to recruit. That is where our last touring ethnic performers came out of.

Adopt a school for one year.

NOTES – Shakespeare Virtually Everywhere: Social Media and the Artistic Mission

Shakespeare Virtually Everywhere: Social Media and the Artistic Mission

Moderator: Rob Barr – Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival
Panelists: Jim Helsinger – Orlando Shakespeare Theater;
Lisa Tromovitch – Livermore Shakespeare Festival;
Lue Douthit – Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Friday, March 2, 2012, 2:50pm-4:00pm

Materials Mentioned: Tech Soup source for free and low-cost software for non-profits: http://home.techsoup.org/pages/default.aspx;
Report from the Irvine Foundation on trends in the arts to Participatory Arts: http://www.irvine.org/publications/publications-by-topic/arts/getting-in-on-the-act-report;
PDF from the Irvine Foundation “Getting In On the Act: How arts groups are creating opportunities for active participation”

Rob Barr (Bard on the Beach)

• On using Skype: Trying to have design and pre-production meetings it is helpful. It’s not perfect, but eliminates a couple of flights.
• GOTO MEETING (offers a one month free trial).

Skype: Invest in large speakers. Allows for a sense of presence and being involved.

Googleplus hangouts: Allows for talking with actors and making an adjustment. Beware of generational gap.

How is social media going to change our art? It hasn’t really come up at all. Technology is still serving the art, but more on the creative side. The fastest way you can age a production is put a computer on stage.

LUE:
One of the biggest ships (Oregon Shakespeare) is the least tech savvy.
How have we been using interactive technology to make the art?

• Skype is being used
• As a dramaturge from the minute the script is announced to the point of rehearsals. Scripts need to be shaped in a timely manner.

Using tech. within the art form itself. It cannot just be in the lighting department now. It needs to be embraced. How do we bring that up to the “big boys table?
Interacting during shows: twittering response during intermission. It can be built into the art form.

Where I sit: The ipad has revolutionized my life. We read plays on ipad. (Allows editing, sharing, etc.) Allows an artistic director to take notes and pass off. Eliminates middleman.

• How to share scripts in live time:
  • Keeping everyone on the same page. It is a nightmare sharing from computer to computer.

FINAL DRAFT (screenwriter program)
Medea/ Macbeth/ Cinderella all three plays at the same time.

• The script is in three columns. There is no formatting for that. We invented it. Sharing content and changes.

Change of the art form as a part of communication system in live event:

• Working with sign interpretation
• Closed Captioning and the amount of effort

It would be an unbelievable thing to gang up on actor’s equity or SAG to encourage them to share the art with the world.

How is social media going to change our art? It hasn’t really come up at all. Technology is still serving the art, but more on the creative side. The fastest way you can age a production is put a computer on stage.

Tina Packer (Shakespeare & Co) The spiritual part of what we do does not take root. How do we balance the sacred and the profane? We are asking people to go deeper than “I am here.” We need to attend to the sacred part of it. Since when did sacredness not involve drinking wine, having sex. It doesn’t involve the shallow part of your brain and entertaining it.”

Not marketing, but the artistic initiative.

• Social Media seemed restrictive. Interactive Technologies opened up the discussion.

Lisa:

Two worlds: Artistic Director and professor at UOP

“Getting into the Act” from James Irvin Foundation. NEA website

Younger audiences are looking at interacting with the art form and being participatory. Even co-creating with the audience.

THEATRE BAY AREA: cohort learning initiative. Conference calls centering on teaching one another. A bureaucracy rather than mission and vision statements.

How can you get alignment within your organization?

• Participatory, Alignment and Hamlet:
• Baby steps with conversation of social media.
  • Hamlet and audience through social media using wordpress
  • Offer the audience a glass of wine for people who add the Shakespeare Theatre as a friend on Facebook.
  • Experiment with tech. without excluding low-tech users
  • Integrate social media with artistic agenda
  • Allow it to align with core values of the theater

We looked at using SKYPE. Skype uses your computer as screenboard and can be unprotected. Facetime is more secure.

Jim Helsinger:

GOOGLE DOCS:

• STA was created on GoogleDoc.
• Live document available for PENN Shakes
• Helpful for things that are not front door products

How are we marketing with content with using social media?

• It’s difficult to separate marketing and content.
• The creation of a show across the Internet

Google Calendar

• Allow you to book rooms
• Everyone in staff can share live.
• Open Source Shakespeare
  • It will give all scenes/ characters/ lines/ queue scripts/ what are the roles I can combine
• William on Web ?? For rehearsal or cutting standpoint
• Internet Shakespeare Editions
• “Doodle” or “Schedule Once” For Scheduling
• Dropbox – A repository for all information to be shared and there is no lag time.
• Youtube auditions
  Next day posting and its up
  Do the actor a favor and tell them to make it “unlisted”
• Content and marketing begin to mix as rehearsals begin
  • We tend to do 3-5 videos in the life of a show
    • Director chat.
    • 2 interesting topics
    • Preview of show
    • Careful with email blasts (twice a month is a good amount)
    • USE facebook and twitter. No money is spent.
  • FLIP CAMERAS extremely user friendly

In rehearsal

• Now we all have laptops. (Checking rhetoric. Live research in rehearsal hall)

Where is the line in the sand?

• No laptops, ipads in active rehearsals. For table work we allow laptops.

Content: We send thank-you for every ticket purchased. Allows for survey. Gets feedback from ticket buyer immediately.

• Suveymonkey.
• Theater Manager. Most of it is automated.

TechSoup.com

• Will give you 100 copies of Microsoft Office for dirt-cheap
• Even for adobe alone it’s a great price.

Are you putting your content on media screens? (i.e. FATHOM EVENTS)

NOTES – Breakouts by Budget Size: $500K – $2 Million

Breakouts by Budget Size: $500K – $2 Million

Moderator: Jay Skelton – Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 2:50am-4:00pm

Resources Mentioned: Jerry Huntsinger, Mal Warrick, authors of books.

Session Summary: A number of mid-size theatres discuss problems with their limited budgets and the solutions to the offsetting problems. Risk-taking is necessary.

Notes:

Current Budget Problems:
-Notre Dame-Being presented with a budget that was not orginnally in the lineup.
-Actor’s Shakespeare(Boston)-Itinerant program, performed in discovered spaces, but they need heat and bathrooms for audience comfort, so they are performing in established spaces, 1.2 million budget; Have to build a theatre everytime they do a show; looking for homebase; Mission: How you inhabit a space to make it a character in the play. 199 seat contract. Looking for permanent rehearsal space
-San Francisco Shakes: What makes this relevant to this community? How far to go outside of San Francisco? Transitory problems: vans breaking down.
-Both Actor’s Shakes and San Fran Shakes LOVE communities, don’t want permanent homes.
-Notre Dame: Subtracted money for materials
-Raising Salaries within a Year: You are here “conditionally”, relationships rather than stipulations.

50,000-100,000 what would you do with it?

Staff
Technology
Production Budget
Growth/Development
Investing in people
American Shakespeare Tavern-Insurance, social security, medicare, unemployment claims

Is production investment an easier sell than adding a development department?

-Labor expenses: Big crews, two weeks, lots of money

Is the investment in something invisible, how do you convince them it moves the art forward?

-Certain expense cuts equal revenue cuts, some don’t.

Is there a difference because of position; i.e. founding member vs. non-founding

-Accuracy with cost structure, if you miss little things, it narrows the margin for error. A long time to repair credibility.
-CREDIBILITY allows you to proceed.
– Recession has raised the game of keeping track of every single dime.
-As a founder, your commitment is known, someone brought in later is a “fixer”, different levels of accountability.
-Slack/Thumb pressure as a founding member.
-Growing companies face pressure.
-Boomers are more easily spooked by the Powers That Be than Gen Xers. Concern with waning subscription sales. Young audiences don’t like the contract. Gen Xers are now becoming board members.
-Growth: Recruit from places that have growth.
-Risks: Artistic, financial, environmental, this budget group has more exposure, things break, contracts, advance ticket sales.
-Being asked to raise money beforehand: How do you do it if you have nothing to show for it?
-Most companies that have closed parrallel the waning middle class.
DIVIDE between “roaming” comapanies and the Big Boys. When times get tough: You get smaller or get bigger. This group is stuck in the middle.
-Staying where you are: stay under 2million dollars. Cost get out of control, if you stay you have to cut departments or people. “Embracing limitations”. Cutting set budgets. Costumes, props, lighting, sound, bringing it back into focus on voice and text.

-Actor’s Shakes: plan to raise 600,000 funds; raise actors’ salaries, above minimum, more than the other middle tier theatres in town, allows flexibility to dip into cash reserve. Building toward something, capital investment. This is in addition to regular fundraising.It’s a one time deal. Next one time deal is still under a cloak. Ask them for money once, and just once.
One-time ask: When is the good time to use it?
-The ask that gets you up to the next level, rather than always being on edge. 450,000 of the 600,000 is raised. The specialness of the ask is part of the attraction. An anniversary.
-People are ok with being surprised with what the money is, rather than a specific purpose.
Anecdote: Four page letter gets more response than a one page letter. When a big check bounced at American Shake Tavern, huge “Pheonix Fund” campaign, WE NEED MONEY NOW, raised 40,000 dollars in less than five days.
OPPORTUNITIES ARISE FROM THESE SITUATIONS: Tapping the nerve of the community.

-What’s going in your companies, particularly?
Baltimore: Marketing/Business/multi-tasker employee has a personal crisis, and she split. Replace with several part time people or just get a full-time person?
PART TIME IS A JOKE.
More important to find who wants to work with you, and what are their skills, instead of the other way around, create the position around them.
Who is equity policy:
Shakes Tavern: SPT 5, if actor does two shows they move up to SPT 7
Shakes Walla Walla: SPT 8
Notre Dame: Guest artist contract, it’s looser, you can ask actors to teach without paying for it.
Orlando Shakes: If you pay actor more than minimum, you ask them to teach classes.
Baltimore: No set contract.
Right to work states: Minimum of three equity actors, if you don’t have them, offer the Equity contract
Notre Dame: Spend more money to match the level of a new, bigger space.

VIDEO – “Shakespeare on the Brink”

“Shakespeare on the Brink”

Moderator: Patrick Flick – Orlando Shakespeare Theater
Panelists: Nan Barnett – Formerly of Florida Stage;
Lauren Morris – Georgia Shakespeare;
Paige Newmark – Shakespeare WA, Western Australia
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 11:30am-12:40pm

NOTES – “Shakespeare on the Brink”

“Shakespeare on the Brink”

Moderator: Patrick Flick – Orlando Shakespeare Theater
Panelists: Nan Barnett – Formerly of Florida Stage;
Lauren Morris – Georgia Shakespeare;
Paige Newmark – Shakespeare WA, Western Australia
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 11:30am-12:40pm

Notes:Lauren Morris (Georgia Shakespeare)Announced save Georgia Shakespeare Sept. 10, 2011. The first wave of the campaign that raised 300k. First Step, deciding to try and save the company. Second, the process of how you go about that. Thirdly, we have all these new donors… how do you still cultivate these new donors? Pivotal period of nurturing those who helped, while turning around the organization.

What were the signs?

Where is the line of living from hand to mouth to no more? This time I had stayed up all-night and thought through every contingency. I thought this is it. It is time to move forward. Hadn’t quite made fundraising and subscription goals were missed. One large donor walked away with a years notice. Facebook and online donations made this possible. We used a lot of videos and tried to make it as personal as possible. We are a non-profit we are a public service. We need to do a good job communicating why we are important.

Three years ago the company chose to go without a managing director. You don’t hit a goal, so you cut more, produce less and continue the cycle. It’s in the mandate to hire a development director.

Nan (Florida Stage)

The Theatre Club of the Palm Beaches originally. Mission was to do new work. We moved to try and be in the center of the community. We wanted to be a part of the growth of the palm beaches. We were a LORT B, almost C. With over 7,000 subscribers. The audience wasn’t happy. They didn’t want to drive the 7miles on the interstate. Subscriber base dropped to 4,000. Bad programming. Cash flow became an issue. No debt. At the end of season one of the move we had a board meeting on Wednesday. In one week we were closed. An executive board meeting the board voted to shut down the theater. After 24years with the organization, there is a lot more to my sad tale of woe, but that’s enough for now.

Palm Beach County was decimated by the Madoff scandal. It allowed the rest of the community to step back from individual giving. We were putting vendors off and asking some employees to wait in cashing any checks. There was a huge loss of faith and there was no one in the room in a position to stop it. It’s a string of missed goals. When times got tough they ran.

It is board leadership. You need to CRAFT who is in the room.

Staffing is paramount. Certainly board structure is important.

Paige Newmark  (Australian Shakes/ Shakes South Africa)

I was running Shakespeare SA. Took over Shakespeare in the Park West Australia. Shakespeare festival was meant to be rooted in Shakespeare. Five point way of cross-fertilization of the Bard. It was an interesting project. In our one season we went through 4 general managers, three left… one went mad. The 1.2 had been spent plus 1.6 had been spent.

I have learned I need to be more cynical. I’m relatively good natured and trusting. Sadly it means I have to change the person I am. I don’t like that. If I am to avoid that type of failure I need to make a change.

Any questions I had should have been put on paper straight away. I shouldered a personal responsibility because I didn’t want it to go under. Paper offers the legal binding rather than the gentleman’s agreement.

We can’t be secretive and closed about our problems. Encourage one another with what is going wrong with our companies.

Questions from audience:

What was the money spent on?

• Paige: We were doing a full opera and didn’t realize the costs, had already hired singers, full orchestra, finding the space in Tasmania was difficult so we had to develop a space. My vision was quite large, but there were ways to manage it. I never saw the bud

What has changed in your operation?

• Lauren: Talking about now: Green lighting Process – buzzword. All of these talks about new models, it really means doing the old model well. Transparent to the board, good constructive communication between board and staff. We restructured the staff, restructuring programs for more profitability. Green lighting comes down to creating a dashboard of financial metrics so that can easily communicate with/to financial managers to have a standardized way of communications. We have balance sheets, etc, but those can be murky. And it’s a month later so you may not be getting the full picture. Trying to create straightforward ways to talk about it.

How do you rebuild trust and staff within the community?

• Lauren: Community not as hard. Understanding in the world about where we live—theatres are going under. People seem to get that. Letter from the board conveyed what we were going to do differently. Pages and pages if the community wanted it. Staff is a totally different question. I have not ben there for that fatigue that led up to this point. Trying to create a culture where we can focus on the future: Michael Kaiser’s FOCUS ON THE FUTURE. He emphasizes – don’t be a hater. I didn’t come in and restructure the staff. That happened on its own. And it’s a good thing. People aren’t leaving in bitterness, they are ready to move on. In some ways its about building a new structure with the people who are willing, and if you’re not. Thank you for your service.

Do you feel that if you had trip wires in place, and how would you see those manifested?

• Nan: I put those in place. But there were still people on the board who had no idea what was happening. That’s not acceptable. They were getting those reports, but still couldn’t believe the money had gone away. Directives were given to the board but it didn’t happen. I thoroughly believe in those trip wires, but I also believe that if you’re not surrounded by people for whom those bear importance and have impact, then that’s a bigger problem. We had more money committed than had even been committed before, it was just so short sighted, yet at the same time, anyone could saw ‘we didn’t know.” We knew. We knew going into it. There was a lot of head in the sand sort of things. I would love to know why or how that cold have been fixed.

What’s going well?

• Paige – Took over Shakespeare in the Park, failing enterprise, rebranded, moved from one play to three. We’re going ahead while the companies around us are dropping. That’s a positive spin on where we’re at in a failing
• Nan – I have a beautiful garden. Getting to go around the country to have these conversations. Thrilled to not be working 80 hours a week. Learning a set of skills I didn’t know I had. I can serve the new play field at a different level. I’m enjoying figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. The world’s my oyster. I’d be more than happy to talk with any of you if this information can be helpful
• Lauren – we’re fully re-energized. Board grew by about 10 members. Incredible co-chairs and exec committee. We’re rebranding. Reimagining Shakes in the park, our gala. I’ve never run so fast in my life but it feels good. I think it’s going to work. It’s a very hopeful time.

NOTES – Breakouts by Budget Size: Over $2 Million

Breakouts by Budget Size: Over $2 Million

Moderator: R. Scott Philips – Utah Shakespeare Festival
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 2:50am-4:00pm

Session Summary: We’ve all faced some economic hardship but are optimistic about the future and diligent in our commitment to sustainability and fiscal responsibility.

We need to change the relationship we have with audience members in order to create permanent patrons out of younger audience members.

Notes:

• What are the ramifications of your organizational and executive leadership structure?

• What are your artistic and budgetary struggles and triumphs? Share your best practices with fundraising and major donor cultivation/relationship management.

• How are you engaging with your audience beyond the performances on your stage?

Phillips: How do you struggle with artistic challenges and artistic ramifications of productions?

PSF: We have little reserve saved up. We have meetings months early. E.g., Sweeney Todd went through three designs to get within budget

APT: It’s an ongoing struggle throughout the winter with designs.

PSF (Mulcahy): We went through multiple designs of Hamlet . The budgets are real and we have to deal with that.

APT: Our rule – If you don’t stay on budget, then no one can stay on budget.

Bard on the Beach – You can be as creative as you want, but you must be creative within those bounds.

PSF: If somebody comes up with something that is just so good that is propelling your mission forward, then we can find what extra donations we need.

Stratford : How do you the plays? The aesthetic of bare and simple vs. audiences who want to see a lot of effects, “ smoke and mirrors, ” etc. How do you balance that?

Philips: When something special comes in, and you have already established a budget, and you find a donor, but you are no longer able to put enough into contributed income, what do you do

APT: The over and above has to come from our contributed income goals.

Shakes & Co.: If it ’ s over a certain amount, then I get a finance committee to get on it. Then we get bossy.

APT: If you have a $25,000 windfall on unemployment, that doesn’t give us mandate to spend it in a different line in our budget. It goes to our budget review group at that point.

Philips: Where are we in climbing out of the recession?

Shakes & Co.: MA wasn ’ t as devastated as the rest of the country. Both us and American Rep have special circumstances. Both are doing amazing artistic work and on task with sustainability, but wrestling with how you maintain net income. Shakes & Co. is climbing out of debt. American Rep is putting in more disciplined business practices.

Globe: I can ’ t really contribute.

Shakes NJ: We ’ re digging out. We had attendance issues, but last season was terrific. Our highest sale ever was … Mockingbird last summer. To be a viable moneymaker, we ’ re working on adjusting the outdoor space. We lost 14 performances for weather.

PSF: We ’ re in good shape. 2 of our best years in the last 3 yrs. We have showed the board a chart without a particular board member ’ s donation, and their jaws dropped. We have since stabilized the bottom line for us. The university has put 1M into our endowment. The President is putting that money into us because he is retiring in about 5 years.

APT: Our latest strategic mandate was let ’ s take a breath — a great choice. We had record attendance and record giving last year. This season seems a little tougher, but we ’ re good, very good.

Orlando Shakes: We ’ re good. We lost a lot of corporate support in 2008, including our golf tournament, which brought in $60,000. We’ve downsized casts significantly. I want my big show back. We ’ re in the black, though. There is progress.

Shakes & Co.: We’ve also gone down to smaller cast sizes. It ’ s tough. We’ve all had to adapt. We ’ re working to change the model.

STA Member: Contributed income has held steady. Corporate giving is near non-existent. Looking to broaden our donor base.

Oregon Shakes: We faced a big crisis with a beam breaking. Insurance is helping. Reserves, reserves, reserves. Without them I wouldn’t be sitting here. Social media is great as faster word of mouth. We lost a lot of momentum. We have a very exciting artistic season, and financially. $32M is not sustainable. Chasing after grants will drive programming. As a membership organization, we ’ ll have to head into a contributed gift donation.

Bard on the Beach: We had a significant deficit this year for the first time in our history. Thankfully we had an accumulated surplus in our reserves. A big problem is board panic. It ’ s hard to do much about it. We replaced our mainstage tent. We increased 520 to 740 for seating. It was more than we budgeted. Our numbers were sluggish. It ’ s hard to put a finger on it. Our new space was opened with a poorly reviewed show, so we never had that word of mouth. We don ’ t know what to fix because we only have one year of date. Changing pricing structures. Increasing weekend afternoon while keeping evening prices the same. It will take a few years to see where we ’ re at because so much changed in one year.

Stratford: Steady decrease in attendance over the last few years. Managed to avoid a deficit, but only just. A government program that helped that was just terminated. We started doing last-minute discount. Backfired with patrons waiting and not buying in advance. The average ticket price is a bit higher, so we ’ re surviving, but the number of audience members is worrying. Our artistic director doesn’t believe in pulling back the work on the stage. We can ’ t tell with any assurance in terms of programming what kind of choice is going to have what kind of effect. Some well-reviewed stuff is drawing no crowds and audiences are fickle.

Brazil: Very common to plan idea and keep with it. After 2010, our strategy now is getting sponsors to contribute to community-benefitting programming. Cirque du soleil got $5M from Brazilian sponsors. Our board and strategy is okay.

ASC: In 2008, we laid off 40% of our staff. We didn’t see ticket sales drop. Now sales are increasing, we ’ re hiring people back. It ’ s amazing what happens when you have a marketing director and a great development director. Education is sticking to mission. Cast numbers have decreased and we ’ ve lost almost all guest director spots. Looking at increasing numbers in both. We have a very positive but realistic managing director now. Our morale is beyond rainbow-colored. Our staff is so delighted to be there. We ’ re doing great.

Utah Shakes: 2010 and 2011 were very strong for us. Overall attendance, ticket sales, and contributed income are doing very well. We have a lot of surplus and we have thus a very ambitious budget. Nevada patrons stopped coming with the housing crisis for a while.

Phil ips: What are you seeing happening with programming? What are audience members expecting? Have the expectations changed? What are we doing about it?

Stratford: How do you tell what they want? We thought once we started doing Andre Lloyd Weber, our audiences would start to complain, but the sales have gone through the roof. Shakespeare represents about 30% of our playbill. We do 2 mainstage Shakespeares. They ’ re likely going to be in our smaller space. We’ve only got 3 Shakes plays in our 60 ^th season. In our 50 ^th we did 7.

Philips: Do we change things based on economics or audiences?

Orlando Shakes: Both. I ’ m trying to reach into more obscure plays and that is hard to do in this economy. A new possible trend we found last year was that we thought Pride & Prejudice would do fairly well but it did phenomenally. Audiences used to say “I saw 1 of the Shakespeare’s  in the rep,” and then not come to the other one, but they came to both P&P and Midsummer,  so we are pairing a Shakes with a non-Shakes and then moving the more obscure Shakes into a smaller space. We are partially a destination theater, but most of our audience is local.

APT: We tripled our audiences in the ‘ 90s. People don ’ t want to see Much Ado … for a third time. There have been a number of surprise hits. We ’ re looking at bringing other classics and Shakes plays that haven ’ t been done in 8-10 years.

Stratford: We’ve deliberately gone after our younger audiences. We ’ ve been quite successful in getting them to come once and not coming back.

Oregon: There ’ s 74M baby boomers and there ’ s 70M Gen X. The production Is not the end, it ’ s a means to an end. They want to be involved. It ’ s about making a severe invitation. To me, it ’ s about how to make it less sacred. I get it. However, popular culture is not a bad thing. Let ’ s take away some rules and meet in the middle. Compromise is not a dirty word. What were audiences doing 400 years ago?

Bard on the Beach: We moved from general admission to reserved seating. The long lines were a huge problem. Here ’ s the thing. There is a culture in that line-up. Getting there early and having a two-hour conversation was special. How do we create a sincere, new opportunity for connection and dialogue that makes a new experience? I will not take away popcorn. People will come back if they can be there in jeans and a t-shirt and eat popcorn and see phenomenal theatre.

APT: We do the same thing with our space. We make them walk through the woods and up a hill to get there and they love it as a sanctuary.

Orlando Shakes: I’m tempted to follow the Tweet Seats idea. You don’t want tweeters next to the person who hates it, but maybe a section in the back where that’s okay might be useful.

NOTES – Breakouts by Budget Size: Under $150k

Breakouts by Budget Size: Under $150k

Moderator: Kathryn McGill – Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 2:50am-4:00pm

• Take advantage of theatre community in your town/other local theatres
• Collection of community theatres with a shared award ceremony: actors love it. The real value to the smaller theatres is that they get to discuss budget with other theatres.
• To start a small equity contract, go on the website. But generally you want to pay everybody at least a subsistence wage. “Guest artist” is a better way in for a start up.
• There is a limit of hours you can rehearse equity actors
• Check universities for stage managers. Maybe work out an independent study so they can get credit.
• Talk with larger venues to create a partnership or collaboration for stage management
• For costuming and properties, look to textile guilds (check renaissance festivals)
• To fundraise, get a very good actor to ask for suggested donations (“Don’t give $1, give a ten, or whatever you thought the show was worth”)
• Add a “do you want to volunteer if you are not cast” check box on the audition form
• Start a kickstarter or facebook causes campaign
• 24-hour non-for-profit giving day in some communities
• Get a paypal donations button on your website
• Have expectations from your board. Make sure they are willing to help.
• Institute an unpaid internship program to gain staff
• InternetShakespeare.uvic.ca and playshakespeare.org
• Fundraising: Pay someone commission to higher sponsors and advertisers for the playbill
• Facebook adds
• Sell t-shirts (women’s and men’s sizes), perhaps with poster art on the back, and an accessible quote on the front. Also, special edition/limited edition t-shirt
• Event fundraisers
• President’s Volunteer Service Award (presidentialserviceawards.gov)
• Silent auctions
• Make friends with local and state tourism board
• “Square” – a credit card device that hooks up to your mac, iPhone, android, etc.

NOTES – Breakouts by Budget Size: $150k – $499k

Breakouts by Budget Size: $150k – $499k

Moderator: Clark Nicholson – Harrisburg Shakespeare Company
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 2:50am-4:00pm

Resources Mentioned: websites: http://Theatrebayarea.org/; Creativeclass.com; http://www.artsaction.com/ (arts action resource)

Session Summary: A group discussion of successes and challenges facing Shakespeare theaters that are in the same budget size. What are the ramifications of your organizational and executive leadership structure? What are your artistic and budgetary struggles and triumphs?

Notes:

How do you tell your board having an 8 thousand dollar cushion doesn’t do it?
Music gets endowments. Shakespeare in the title helps.
The goal may be to stay at this level and building a 100k dollar cash reserve.
Keep the reserve in the project budget to help make day to day decisions.
Where do we find the money for an endowment.
Can’t push endowments when you have to make payroll.
Should this budget size have an endowment?
Building a skyscraper on a raft.
We have always been in the black but the city hasn’t and that’s the storm that’s coming.

Harrisburg did 27 shows last year on this budget.
Start the company with a much larger base.
As a community institution we can’t be just getting by.
A big problem is Branding. Non specific focus on programming. Indoor non shakespeare and outdoor shakespeare. Owns 2 DBA’s

2 separate entities. Children’s theatre, Shakespeare theatre. Combined into one board.

Is it the goal to be in the next budget size up? How do you do that?

Next level up means more staff positions instead of production Quality.
What is the earned vs. contributed income balance?
Balance vs. Fiscal growth.
Earned percentage.- 68%-70%-63%- 3 companies below 50%
65% is industry standard.
Corporate sponsors want something in return.

Oversees- under the stars in italy.
Approx 200k financial needs a year
1/3 private sponsor 1/3 from public sector 1/3 tickets
we must strive to be independent of sponsors and and given income
Competition between the theaters has gone down. Forming a theatre alliance helps keep all of us alive.
become a member of the chamber of commerce.

If you have ever been in the red, How do you keep yourself from going down the spiral of cutting even more and more? One idea is intervention from the Board.

An option is much like penn shakespeare or OST to get assistants from a university or Educational institution.

Make sure that everyone that works for us understands the situation we are in all the time.

Do we like to stay small enough to do this. ^

When can I stop doing 80 hour weeks.
Sustainability.

Theatrebayarea.org How do we say what we do as artists is valuable to a community
what is the intrinsic value of the arts. We change this many lives. A study on human impact in our communities.

Questionnaire for audience member.

How many are on boards been on boards and how many are founders?

Would you want to step off?

Stepping off may destroy the organization.

Creative class
arts action resource.

When building boards are member reluctant because they used to be members of other boards of other theatre organizations?
Take every no as a not yet.

One thing we should understand is the geography to help us get into the next room. Changing geography if it doesn’t work. What radius can I get to that I can bring people with me audience board members.

Arts organizations are good leaders for the board.
Go to the lunch with the director of United way in your area.

NOTES – “The Board Matters”

“The Board Matters”

Moderator: Toby Leavitt – San Francisco Shakespeare Festival
Panelists: Board Members Rob Chansler & Pam Sogge – San Francisco Shakespeare Festival;
Jim Helsinger and Board Chairman Rita Lowndes – Orlando Shakespeare Theater;
Ralph Cohen and Board member Steven Urkowitz – American Shakespeare Center
Saturday, March 3, 2012, 11:30am-12:40pm
Resources Mentioned: websites:  www.boardsource.org; http://thevolunteercenter.net/?The_Board_Match
Resources Used: (will attach handouts)

Notes:

This was something that we wanted to have a chance to talk about together and we thought that we would do it with three teams from different originations and allow everyone to share experiences. (Introduction of the moderator and panelists.)

Toby: How does board recruiting work, from the sublime to the ridiculous? What tools? Outcomes?

Rita: Well, I think that probably most of our organizations have noticed that a great number of our board members seem to come from law firms and banks that like to have their people engaged. But we really also need people who are not currently working an enormous professional schedule, like Debbie Tuey and Pat Strausburg who are in the position to donate an enormous amount of time which is as important as corporate sponsorships. I’ve been co-chairing for many years and we look at where the whole are, such as ages of board members and professional involvement and geographical areas.

Ralph: We evolved from a company with a board of family and friends for years but when we need money that went away. We put together a board with capacity to help and they wanted the theatre for a certain reason (reasons to do with love o their community more than for reasons of Shakespeare). When we changed our name part of what we were trying to do was to enlarge our footprint geographically so we could reach outside of Virginia. But what works the best is to find people that love us and know what we do to serve on the board. For example, Steve taught in NY and could expand us geographically, then we found out he was as rich as Cresus which really cinched it for us. But the main thing is to get people exited and into the theater and let them see what is happening. For those of you that have small boards, get as many people in as you can.

Rob: So I was recruited from a non-traditional path, with company gifts to people they wanted to be associated with. They were looking for a vice president but ended up with an engineering nerd. This addresses the question of the day on how to get diversity. I imagine everybody here has at least one computer scientist on the board!

Pam: A number of things were put into place to make the board effective. They were looking for more board members, each of which was expected to bring in a certain amount of funding. They put together a process through which they found some new things. One thing that exists in San Francisco is the “board match.” It’s held in a conference center and is kind of like a little fair and everyone has booths. It’s kind of like speed dating. You don’t have to go on a real date with the company. I saw San Francisco Shakes there and knew I wanted to be on their board so I approached them. I was a parent of somebody who had been involved in the camps. You do want people on the board who do understand and support your mission. The camp parents for us are a good resource for that. Recently we have actually had a fair number of camp parents who we see and we’ve sent the board to camps to meet the parents also. What I look for in the board, personally, is that when I talk to people, I want to make sure that the members we bring on are people who are going to pay attention. Are they going to really pay attention to the budget or just phone in the meetings? Another thing to look at is, “do you have some activators?” People who will get their fellow board members to do things. The pressure doesn’t always have to come from your organization; it can come from the board.

Jim: I want to add that the members come to a show. We do Shakespeare, new plays, and children’s theatres. We have some board members who aren’t there for the Shakespeare, but for the children’s theatre or camps. We can reach and recruit from all of those angles. Sometimes we have a company in town that tis very interested in being with us but then you have to get the right board member form the company. For example, Darden Restaurants gives very liberally to the arts, but we have to find and select the board member that is most interested in that organization.

Rita: It is very important not only to have that corporate support but also to have a personal passion. Sometimes people come directly to us because they are engaged. They do know who we are and love what we do. But sometimes it is a higher up person in the organization who just wants to put a person on the board, and then we have to explain who we are and what we’re doing. Questions or comments?

Mallorca: How do you get a board form the get go?

Rita: When we started, we had no building, and we were every single year renting costume and rehearsal space, etc. We had 1.5 staff members. Obviously we’ve come a long way in 23 years but in a way it’s very appealing to some people to be in on the very ground floor in order to actually be part of creating something that didn’t exist before.

Toby: I have a chart that is available that talks about the founding, governing, and institutional board that does help put the framework out there. (Chart will be made available.) I would say, if you have no programming yet, to figure out how to make your mission relevant to the community, and you will realize your mission as it is appropriate to the community and you invite people in who are passionate about that mission.

Ralph: We have a new very active board member, and while we have very little representation in the valley, she is from the valley, and she came on because her daughter loved being in our camp. This camp ends with performances at the blackfriars after three weeks, and she asked to speak to all the parents at the performance. She was just shameless in the way that you want a board member to be shameless, so I can’t emphasize the importance of those camps. We also have a blackfriars conference every two years, and Steve is a scholar available to us.

Steve: Seeing the potential of a wonderful place is really encouraging for someone to want to come onto a board. The trouble is distinguishing one board member from another. The trouble is that you have one particular pig and one particular poke. But having a rubric is a wonderful scheme.

Rob: I think organizations need to let people know that board service is the kind of thing that people can do. Lawyers and bankers know that it is part of their career. People in my organization (engineering) don’t really know that.

Lisa: From the artistic committee, it takes time from artistic leadership to recruit and develop board members. It would take a good orientation plan. And in order to increase inclusion, what we are finding, is that if we are dealing with primarily Caucasian audiences, that we are recreating that in the board, even if our goal is to maybe be more diversity focused. It was suggested that sometimes we have to look outside the theatrical world and our own board members, and to other artistic organizations.

Philip: I had a slight variation on the right person from the company approaching us. I had lawyer a couple of years ago that wanted to come on the board and said his law firm would support us. But then he got in an accident, and the law firm didn’t care.

Toby: If we recruit people carefully and well, then the orientation is at least a quarter done before their service starts (for us). If diversity along any axis is important, have this conversation before somebody joins. I didn’t necessarily realize that someone identifies as a specific category until I had this grant thing where I had to ask. But are there formal trainings? How does the orientation process work?

Jim: We have a packet, and we also spend an orientation day going through everything. We also have a board retreat. An issue that we had was being really clear on giving expectations from the beginning. What was happening was that people who represented organizations were saying “please don’t ask me five times during the season for things, ask me once so I can go to my first and ask.” That’s why we have this board commitment form.

Rita: You have to think about how you use those meetings and what experience people are having at those meetings. Maybe you manage to have one every month for about an hour. You have a group of people that are very busy. How do you engage them and how do you benefit from their experience? You don’t want every meeting to turn into “well we have to replace the lighting in the fountain and we have no budget and we need donations.” The form reminds people of what is required, and other opportunities for giving.

Toby: We’re on the whole “how does a board member become oriented/engaged/trained.

Pam: I think it’s important to note that we represent two very different kinds of boards. Our members have never really served before. I think it’s important that in the first year you’ve got some enthusiasm. They’re on that board for a reason and you want to harness that energy. Give them things to do. Every time you bring in new people it’s a chance to activate your board a little more. The other thing that is tangentially related from the education committee is, don’t be afraid to ask things from your board. When Toby asks things she is so tactful that I don’t understand she wants something. But don’t be afraid!

Rob: The organization needs to educate their board members on what the job is. A lot of the board members, this is maybe the first time or the only time in their career where they will do something like this and they need to be told what to do. Should I go backstage and congratulate the performers? Yes it he answer but I didn’t know if that was just annoying.

Ralph: It’s taken me 25 years to realize that you really have to be able to ask. You can’t be shy. If you ask someone to be your board you’ve found someone who believes in you or they wouldn’t say yes. Thanks to our new managing director, we have people say what they’re going to give. But we wasted ten years being shy about that. The fact of the matter is that you know your board only has a certain amount of time and you get reticent about saying, “let me have your weekend.” Board meeting have shrunk to a PowerPoint, and I think that’s wrong.

Steve: The “up front” (in asking) is crucial. Also, the possibilities of informal conversations outside of committee meetings are crucial. Those meetings feel scripted. It is important to be able to sit down and talk and gossip with the artistic staff and administrators. It’s that informal conversation that opens things up.

X: We’ve realized over the past few years that the more personal engagement has made a difference. We want them to know our work and artists. It’s not our theatre; it’s their theatre. They don’t want to come to a meeting anymore than they do. When it is engaging like that is very positive.

Rita: I can’t tell you how important it is for board meetings to be pleasurable. This is the most fun board I’ve ever been on! In December we don’t have a board meeting; we have a board party. We invite member spouses and our major donors and key staff members to that party, and we look forward to it every year. Have fun!

Toby: And I have the list from board source of the 10 responsibilities of a board member, but I think we all have some experience of how we treat our staff, audience, volunteers and donors. In a way, board members are all of those things. For me when the light bulb went off was if I was doing something for another constituency and not for my board, I had to ask myself why not?

Shake & Co: It’s easy to become good friends with the staff, and then tension arises when staff starts to ask board members for money or influence. If your board members don’t know, perhaps it’s important to tell them that that is executive management’s responsibility.

Rebecca Ennals, SF Shakes: We were so lucky to have Steve and Pam in our meeting, who brought up that there should be one sheet in each program that should be learned by every board member, and there should be time to practice that one-minute pitch. Sometimes board members don’t understand our jargon, and how to give that pitch on our language. And Patrick brought p the point that if the board is not attending the education program then they should not be on your board.

Patrick Spottiswoode: In the time that’s past with us, the orientation was to get the pack, meet the manager, and go to a performance. But they never really engaged with the mission. So our organization started adopting board members out of frustration, to show them what we’re about. Now it’s part of the orientation. The board members spend time in each department and really get under the skin of people involved.

Jim: I’m curious, who is doing multiple bored training sessions? Is that a trend that’s happening?

Patrick: Part of that orientation process is to ensure that the board understands all of those areas.

Steve: And although by no means am I thinking that board members should get into the day to day operations, but as the people who are ultimately responsible in a fiduciary way, the more access as a board member, I need to know more than just what shows up on a balance sheet. I need to know who the people in the offices are, what they looks like, what their responsibilities are.

Rita: At each meeting we try to feature a different staff member.

Toby: All of our staff is welcome at every board meeting. We do an artistic or educational exercise in which members are on their feet engaging at every meeting. Our training events blend with recruiting events. We say you have to have seen at least two programs before you can be on the board.

Rita: Do you find that there are plenty of people in the community interested or is it a struggle to find you need?

Toby: I think both at the same time. What the board match event did for us is to make choosing member an annual process. We are always looking for board members. Now we have 12 and it could go comfortably down to 6 or up to 18 before we had to restructure. We tried an open house a couple of times and sometimes it worked. But I don’t think it’s appropriate for a board member to join until they’ve seen the offices because nothing else shows them the extraordinary magic you can do. And there is nothing like a broken chair to communicate need in the theatre. So, I want to hear about the board/staff relationship.

Jim + Rita: Yes.

Rita: How many theatres have both managing and artistic directions?

Patrick: And education directions.

Rita: Well, yes. Our situation is a little unique because while Jim is the artistic director, he is also a full-time professor at UCF. So, while the dean does an evaluation, we also review with him annually, and then we provide a written assessment to the dean to be part of that file.

Toby: Does the board evaluate itself?

Rita: Not lately, but there was a time when we put together a form asking for individual self-evaluation. Those are the kinds of conversations that you really need to have one on one with people.

Rob: Evaluating the executive and board itself are things that we have reconsidered just this weekend. We try to reevaluate the measures of success for our board. Will we try to recruit a couple new members? One of the new initiatives for the last couple of years was to compel the members to have a personal meeting with the chairman of the board.

Pam: I’m a big proponent of having people sign up for personal goals. That’s why they’re there; that’s their obligation.

Lisa: Legally, Jim, is your work as the theatre company a course release?

Jim: It’s part of my load. I am an employee of the university.

Toby: So, I just wanted to close with one thing from the past year that has been rewarding for the board members.

Steve: Being able to go up to the best actors that I’ve seen anywhere in a long time and hug them and say that as a member of the board I am so thrilled with what you’re doing.

Rob: the theatre too seduces me. I’m disadvantaged because my talent is computer science, and so this is a way in which I participate in the theatre for all the same reasons that everybody here does.

Pam: One is related to my daughter and her involvement, but also I had this idea to do matching for the free Shakes part, and I think I got a substantial contribution from each board member.

Rita: It’s just wonderful to be part o this kind of a family and to see this terrific board rally round in such a strong way. I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Asia because I won it at a Theatre live auction. It’s endless the way this theatre affects my life.

Toby: Well, I think you are all passionate and I think it’s really moving to see.

DOCUMENTS:

Commitment form 11-12

OSTBoardSelectionCriteria FINAL