Next Steps: The New Kid on CTG’s White Paper

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.” – Peter Drucker

In December 2011, I received a copy of Center Theatre Group’s white paper on professional training programs for emerging theatre artists.

Here are possible reasons why they mailed me the report:

• I serve on the National Emerging Leaders Council and have been a core member of Emerging Arts Leaders/LA since 2005; 
• I am an alumnus of the Los Angeles County Arts Internship Program, have been a supervisor through the program six times and a Learning Community Hub leader twice; 
• I still act as volunteer staff for the organization where I interned in 2004, Circle X Theatre Co., a small theatre company similar to many profiled in the white paper as potential intern placement organizations; 
• I am an alumnus of Claremont Graduate University’s Arts Management program, whose students and faculty participated in the research process. 

It was like someone sent me a research paper about my life. Paging through the report, I saw familiar faces and quotations from friends. More importantly, I saw my career path reflected in the data and recommendations.

Four months later, I joined Center Theatre Group as the Educational Programs Manager, focused on the training, support and development of emerging, young artists and arts professionals. It is a distinct honor to build on the work done by Patricia and Leslie to provide professional training programs for Los Angeles’ next generation of theatre leaders.

Substantive, hands-on experience within a theatre company—large or small— provides theatre management students with a chance to take their knowledge from “page to stage.”

Working for a theatre company while pursuing my Masters allowed me to take what I learned on Monday and apply it to the real world on Tuesday… and then ask why it didn’t work on Wednesday.

Peter Drucker would be proud: CTG has already begun the “hard work” of implementing aspects of the white paper. This spring, two students from local arts management programs became the organization’s pilot class of Graduate Scholars.

In the program evaluation they created for CTG, Jessie Randall from CSU Long Beach’s Theatre Management program and Julia Baumgartener from CGU’s Arts Management program corroborated many of the ideas presented in the white paper:  

Nearly all the hypotheses presented are extremely accurate representations of the professional and curricular needs of graduate students in arts/theatre management […] The ideal internship would establish mutual benefit for the organization and the interns, so it is valuable to examine the two groups’ diverse needs – where they align and where they diverge.

Jessie and Julia’s recommendations included implementing a competitive application process, focusing on project-based learning opportunities, and integrating graduate scholars within their departments (literally and metaphorically, as a shortage of desk space often leaves our interns in odd locations). We’re taking their suggestions and looking ahead to future classes of Graduate Scholars.

Center Theatre Group will continue to use the data gathered through the MetLife/TCG Ah-Ha! Program to shape our professional training programs.

Thank you for the chance to think, to learn, and to grow. Now we’re rolling up our sleeves. Let the hard work begin!

Camille Schenkkan is the Educational Programs Manager at Center Theatre Group.  Email her at cschenkkan@CenterTheatreGroup.org. 

For more information about Center Theatre Group's Ah-Ha! research into what theatres can do to bridge school and work, please click here.

Ask and You Shall Receive

We made huge strides recently in our research for this grant by actually talking with students! We gathered 12 students from our partner universities and advisors and talked with them about what their ideal internship structure would be in an organization. All the students were extremely enthusiastic and contributed so many great ideas!

Here are a few of the highlights:
Compensation
• Students need to be paid for their work, especially at a graduate level.

Types of Projects/Tasks
• Students want project based work that serves the needs and increases the capacity of the organization.
• They would like to be supported with their tasks within a safe space to make mistakes.

Mentorship Opportunities
• It is very important to the students that their mentors are prepped through training emphasizing how to work with interns for the benefit of both the organization and the intern.
• Students would like ideally to have a comprehensive view of the organization, working in various departments first, then honing in on one specific area of focus.

Expectations and End Results
• What Students Want the Most:
-Access to the “players” in theatre companies and arts organizations.
-Understanding the politics and cultures of how different organizations work and decisions are made.
-Opportunities to mix and mingling with professionals
-Getting to know other interns—the people they’ll be working with in the future.
• Real Work Experience:
-Understanding use of real budgets, planning processes, and scheduling
-Being exposed to resources, product, and capital that really exist and mean something.
-Being placed in an environment where there are professional systems and protocols.
-Building a network.
-Making connections to larger community and national theatre trends.

A big special thanks to the following students for their insight and participation-your contribution to this research has been invaluable:
Hunter Bird, Lisa Dring, Mira Greene, Marisa Johnston, Jaeeun Joon, Chelsea Larkin, Yanda Li, Alex Lydon, Elena Muslar, Rachel Saltzman, Laura Swanson, Michael Vanderbilt, Erika Varela, and Ashley Walden

On a side note: Theatre Communications Group (TCG) had their annual conference here in Los Angeles and I was able to finally meet Mohammad Shatara, TCG’s Artistic Programs Associate who has been helping with everything to do with this grant so thanks Mo!

Here is a picture of him with Leslie and me celebrating TCG’s 50th Birthday out at the Music Center Plaza. Cheers to TCG for helping us to do this great research!


-Patricia

Are You Ready?

Discussion with Project Advisor Terry Wolverton, Faculty Supervisor for Claremont Arts Management Graduate Program


One of our project advisors on this journey is Claremont Graduate School here in California. Claremont has a Masters of Arts in Arts Management, which “blends the best of the renowned Drucker School of Management and the School of Arts and Humanities to balance business courses with advanced cultural studies. Cultural institutions in the profit and nonprofit sector are seeking capable managers with an understanding of the arts and business to head museums, theatre and dance companies, cultural centers, music and arts education organizations, and to advocate for the future of the arts.”

During the last year in the program, students must complete a capstone project—An Arts Management Consulting Practicum and Final Report. It is approximately a 100 hours semester-long project culminating in a formal consulting report. The required deliverables are status reports during the semester, a final written report plus a final presentation to the organization attended by the faculty supervisor of the student’s consulting project.

The Arts Management department will assist in partnering students with a local art or cultural nonprofit organization. Students are partnered according to their professional backgrounds and interests if possible.

Sample consulting projects can be found here.

When I was listening to Terry speak about the culminating experience for Claremont arts management graduate students I could not help but hearken back to my theatre management graduate days which were not so long ago. I had to ask the question: would I have been ready for this experience at the end of my program? It was a real eye opening question because I would have, honestly, had to say no. I still needed a critical internship experience bridging school to real world theatre work in order to apply all of my school lessons to everyday occurrences. What do you all think? Are you ready? In what ways are graduate level students ready for a consultant project in various arts organizations? What do they still have to learn? Or considering the caliber and experience of the Claremont Arts Management students does it really depend on the student?

Next Steps: More insights from our other project advisors!

Patricia Garza
Center Theatre Group
Department Manager
Education and Community Partnerships
pgarza@CenterTheatreGroup.org