 Welcome to Creative Careers! Thank you so much for watching today. We have some really great panelists and we're going to talk about arts administration, how to manage your career. Joining us today is Susie Medeck, the managing director of Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, California. We also have Ted Russell from the Irvine Foundation and Sarah Williams of the Associate Managing Director and the Managing Director of the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep. I'm going to ask some questions and then we're going to open it up to questions on the internet and we're so happy you all could join us. So this is just a general question for everyone. What's your current role at your organization and what are some of your responsibilities? How about we start with Sarah? Okay I'll kick it off. So I am the Associate Managing Director at Berkeley Repertory Theater. I also manage the Ground Floor program which is Berkeley Rep Center for the Creation and Development of New Work. My job encompasses many different things but what's really great about it is that I work with our managing director Susie Medeck right here and also with our general management team. I do various things. I work on commissioning new artists. I work on contracts and agreements for our directors and our playwrights who we have working here in the season and I manage the Ground Floor program like I mentioned before which is really exciting because that just means working with a lot of new artists, workshops and different readings and also our summer residency lab. Cool. How about you Ted? Yes, Ted Russell. I'm the Senior Program Officer for the Arts, the James Irvine Foundation, headquartered in San Francisco, California and on the surface it looks like my job is all about making grants to arts organizations but what I really do is create arts opportunity for the people in California. That's awesome. Right and we do that via making grants to arts organizations including Berkeley Rep where we funded the Ground Floor which has led to some incredible work in place and has obvious impact and really though then to actually do the work it's all about three stages of grant making. One is prospecting, finding the right candidates and whether that's by invitation or whether it's seeking out a potential grantee that would do a certain thing and then there's this very bureaucratic process of making the grants and that's where being a program officer feels more like being an actual loan officer or something because we're making recommendations but there's a lot of paperwork involved and then lastly once the grants are made the checks go out and then we monitor the work over the duration of the grant and whether that's two years, three years, whatever link there's interaction with the grantees who are generally fabulous people. He has to come to our shows sometimes. And that is by far the best part of the job once the grants are made. So I'm Susie Madock I'm the managing director at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and in that capacity I am hired by the board of directors to partner with our artistic director Tony Taconi. We've been working together for 26 years and in that time my responsibility I suppose the job has really changed a lot over the years but I'm ultimately responsible for the well-being of the organization. Tony ostensibly is responsible for picking the plays and the artists and charting an artistic course for the institution. What we've realized is we both have to be concerned about what we're all involved with and so I'm ostensibly responsible for our financial well-being, for our HR, human resources, for fundraising, for marketing, board relations, facilities, but we have to be in it together so we're both involved with everything. I would say in addition to all of that the other thing that is a particular aspect of this job that is not true in all places in the country and not in all arts organizations but I have a function as sort of our external affairs person where I am very involved in the community on behalf of the theater. That's really, really fantastic. To kind of switch gears but stay in the same lane, what are some of the challenges of each one of your positions, things you face daily or overall for the arts organizations, what are things that you find challenging? Well, I'll answer. So I am relatively new to this position. I started here in June and I would say one of the overall challenges of this job is that I'm learning something new every day. I recently graduated from a graduate program so this is my foray back into the working world of theater as a real working adult again and so every day is there's a new issue or challenge or a different way of having to think about a problem that we're currently grappling with and so I feel like I'm constantly wrestling with finding creative solutions to things. Oh, so I have to say the interesting thing about my job is that it's new every single day for 26 years and every day I'm grappling with problems that weren't yesterday's problem. Yes, it's so true. It's the nature of the beast. One of the cool things about working in theater management and administration is that you're and I think theater in general is that every day is new and you're always trying to you're always being challenged. It's never kind of a boring day-to-day everything is the same kind of job. So that's a great thing and also can sometimes make your head hurt at night. All things aren't really at the same type of pace at a foundation. We don't have new crews coming in, new directors, actors, etc continuously changing. Things are a little more stable and yet the pace is relentless. So one of my greatest challenges really is just managing the workload and balancing things, especially because it's such a people business. So at the same time, I'm processing workloads trying to stay up on all the latest research. I'm simultaneously trying to really manage relationships, get out there, see shows, see art exhibitions and really be patient and as tactful as possible when getting involved in all these activities. I'd say the other part of it really is the tough part is the judgment calls because unfortunately we end up saying no a lot more often than we say yes. I probably have about 19 no's to every yes we make and it's never easy to deliver that bad news. It kind of makes up for it on those happy days where you get to make a grant and call someone and say that great idea you have is something we can fund other times. They're great ideas and having the judgment to decide for the foundation and based on what we're doing, which things we should fund that fit our strategy and help us meet our goals for serving California. That's actually in some ways the very toughest part of the job because you know you're saying no and yet you're really trying to focus on a strategy and fit what you should say yes for. You know, if I could just sort of follow up on something that I think both of these guys have said is that I think that that there are there are fields in which management is considered sort of the number cruncher function of their organizations and that what they want from you is to just keep the trains running on time and I think that within arts organizations and actually I think it's true of a lot of foundations as well. I think they're it's incumbent on you as a manager as an administrator as a leader to be thinking creatively with the kind of with with your kind of brain that I think that that that people tend to go oh you're an administrator or you're an artist and I and I don't see it that way. I think that that that the thing that is a challenge for an administrator or for any kind of arts leader is to be thinking creatively all the time about the thing that you're good at and and because the problems are different all the time. You can't wake up today and go well I solved that problem yesterday. I now know how to solve it. I can solve it again today and tomorrow. Today's problems are going to be different than yesterday's were you're you have to constantly and vigilantly be thinking about how are you going to how are you going to create an environment in which the artistic priorities of the organization are honored and supported and where you're creating the the the pool of resources that are going to make them be able to be successful and often that's not just a nice linear direction from point A to point B. There's lots of circuitous routes to get there. So you were talking about the challenges and the circuitous routes to get there. What are some of the best parts of things that make you happy when your job? Like what do you really love doing in your job? I do love making those grant calls. That's really fun. I love getting them. We've had some fun actually being like a little unperson and non-location and other great calls and obviously that's one of the most exciting things you can do is to actually provide the resources and make the connections. But I also love the creative part in terms of OK, how do we work on a strategy that's going to result in art that's in one case, an innovation fund and how do we help large institutions innovate? Well, a group like Berkeley Rep is really good at that and they actually have a national advantage in terms of the people here in the creativity of thinking, but other very large institutions move like large ships. So how do you design something that helps them be innovative, give them the supports to work in different ways? Similarly, when you're trying to help smaller organizations grow and institutionalize and what they love is being mobile and nimble and doing so many different things and you're helping them add the databases, the human resource systems, etc. And some of it sounds good on paper. You're just in your management class, it's like, oh, well, just do it like this. And yet the reality is it's all human behavior. It's all about doing things differently and changing. So coming from the foundation side and trying to design a strategy, it's like, how do we design this? So then the people then have the reactions and get to where the organization needs to be. Hopefully, the organization grows changes in different ways. And yet, you're always thinking about the people and designing for that. So it's a creative challenge. I want to know what you what your what pleasure you're getting out of it. Oh, you know, I, I love theater and I love the fact that I've found a way for my skills, what I can do well to help make theater happen. So like a lot of people, I got into this by just being in a drama class when I was in third grade. And then after that, I was acting in plays and and doing theater in high school. And I realized I didn't have the heart to be an actor, per se, but I loved this business so much that I wanted to find a way where I could still be really helpful and useful. And arts administration and producing and and being an arts leader, that's a way that I found my skills to be really useful. So I get a lot of pleasure, kind of like what you were saying, Ted, about thinking about organizational culture. And how do you make this business which this artistic, wonderful endeavor, which also happens to be a business actually successful, because it doesn't always seem like that's going to align necessarily. But it really can happen. And also just the chance to see people's words on stage. I mean, bringing to life the diversity of the world in which we live on our stages is really cool. And I get very excited to be a part of that. So that's a really beautiful answer. Thank you. I heard in several different ways, each of you kind of talk a little bit about capacity for organizations. How do you broach capacity with mission statements? How how do they intersect? How are they used to influence the path of the organization? What to talk to us a little bit about mission statements? I'd actually answer your question, not first by talking about mission statement, but by saying that that, you know, one of one of the things that we as as managers have to deal with a lot is physical reality, that there are there are aspirations, there are ambitions. And then there's physical reality. And and it's not to say that we're the king and queens of physical reality. But I do think that our task is to establish is to make sure that what the physical resources are that we've identified are deployed in a way that's consistent with our mission statement. And even more than that, I'd say that are deployed in a way that's consistent with the values of the organization. Because the values are the thing that actually is sustaining. And the mission actually sometimes changes. And I think that if you're really clear about what your values are, then everything else falls into place. So was that sort of like, capacity and ambition, where they both kind of meet with those values? Well, I guess what I'm saying is I think there's moments when you have we're in the we artists make choices, administrators make choices, that the nature of what theater good theater is, is that people have made a lot of choices. It's what I love about tech rehearsals is sort of watching people make choice after choice after choice on stage. It's a thing that's it's such a great reminder that it's all about choice making. And and I think that as I think that that maybe the interesting one of the interesting things about what we do is figuring out how to help other people make the choices that are going to be good choices based on the resources that they have. And sometimes that does mean it doesn't mean that you can't take risk. It doesn't mean that you don't take leaps of faith. But but developing an informed sense of what is a wise what what is a reasonable risk versus what is an irresponsible risk is part of what sort of maturing as a manager, I think is about. Yes, Susie. I think so much of what you said is so right. I think a way that mission statements and core values can be really useful is that there's so many different solutions to problems or to issues. And there's so many creative ways to go about solving something. And there are a lot of really good and great ideas out there. But having your core values, having a mission statement to fall back on as a guide as a way to take out the good ideas to separate the good ideas from the really great ideas. That's how I find mission statements and core values as a as a tool as a way to be useful. And in that sense, building capacity and and finding ways to stay aligned by having something to fall back on is kind of a tool or a guide. That is so it. And I respond in part from my experience working at four different arts organizations along my path on the arts management side, as well as having a perspective at a foundation and encountering mission statements and spending a lot of time thinking about organizational capacity in order to achieve different goals, actually pursue projects. And so what I've seen along the way is the great thing about a mission is it can really help align people in all aspects of this. And we call them stakeholders in the arts and management world. But really, it's the staff, it's the volunteers, it's the board members, it's community members that you're talking to about resources and partnering with and having a clear mission statement that people actually agreed upon helps you stay in alignment. So you're actually moving the same direction because people all come into the activity into the enterprise for different reasons. And so you have to keep aligning those because a Berkeley rep actually has a different mission than the theater next door. Literally, there's a theater next door here, the Aurora Theater, right? And you can think of it generally as all being theater and let's make the best theater possible. But it's aspects of the mission and this is why it's so important to refresh them, change them, make sure the key stakeholders are involved in that process because you really want to be aligned. And then at some point it is helping you make some of these tradeoffs. And I think the hardest part and I still think of myself as an arts manager because I think it's such an important profession. Part of the hardest part is when to say no, when to say yes. And what my arts management guru and mentor taught me was that's the important thing is like knowing how much risk you can afford at any given moment, what you want to take the risk for and the mission should be part of that equation along, of course, with the bottom line in finances and the human capacity, but the mission should help you decide how much risk to take. You know, would it be helpful? Would you like me to give a real example? Yeah, I was actually about to follow that up with how risk capacity, missions going along, what's a tough decision you had to make in regard to something like that? Well, let me let me try to let me try it in a in a different way because I was realizing we're talking platitudes and we all we all think they're great platitudes, but that it might actually be helpful to to to take something in particular. I was thinking about when I first came here, I came from a theater that had about a million and a half dollar budget and at the time our budget here was about three and a half million dollars, we're now at about 16 million. But I can remember leaving that that small company and thinking, oh my god, it's going to be such a relief to have more money. And I came for the interviews here and what every member of the staff wanted to talk about was how they were being asked to do too much with too little money. And I thought it was just like there's more zeros. The same the problems are exactly the same. And for me, there was this sort of lesson in that there's no such thing as having enough money. You never have enough money. You're always in a position of having to prioritize. And so when I came here, I was thinking, God, this is so great. There's so much more money. And and and what I was being told was that the technical staff was so frustrated because there was just not enough money to be doing the things that they wanted to do. And the the board couldn't understand why they were frustrated by it. When having looked at the national surveys, we were spending just as much money as everybody else did. And I looked at what we were trying to accomplish. And I looked at the place that we were doing and as an outsider and without baggage, I was able to say, you know, it seems to me that you're trying to do the same thing that everybody else is doing financially. But actually you're you want your productions to be much bigger. You want your productions to to to give artists more of what they're looking for. You want to be able to say yes to artists more often than then then say no. And that's going to cost more money. So your budget may now look like every other theater's budget. And if we're going to get out of this log jam, maybe we have to redistribute more money into the physical production. Because every director, every designer who you're hiring wants a bigger palette. And that was a really uncomfortable initial conversation. But it was a way of trying to make our budget align with the aesthetic that was being charted by that artistic director at that time. And so we had to there were things we had to not do. Don't even ask me what they were any longer because I can't remember them. But I know that we made choices not to do them. That totally I think answers the question in a way that frames it. Very specifically. We talked about when we talk about money. So money of arts organizations. We need it. It's hard. It's hard to get it. It's lacking. What are some of the other problems you think arts organizations are facing right now that managers and administrators are facing besides money. Those tough things. Since I'm primarily dealing with the money question. But then underneath that you get underneath the hood and try to find out what people are trying to do and what they're struggling with. And I feel like at a high level organizations are really now starting to look at diversity and their change in communities. And they're thinking bigger picture about relevancy. And luckily there are institutions that are deeply tied to their communities like a Berkeley rep. But then I think tactically organizations are thinking geez we're doing all this work. And for some of them it feels like it's an extra step to then connect to the community. So what I'm seeing people do is try to figure out where does that sit. Do we have a community engagement person. And do they connect with all these partners and how does that work. But wait if that person's here for a couple years and then they go away do we lose all those relationships. Oh we need more people on our board who think that way about the community. And then it's a longer step of well how do the people we know on the board bring in other people who are more inclined to do that are connected with different parts of the community. And that's a challenge because now they're doing something new. And then in some cases the idea is well if we want to engage the community that should be distributed more across the staff. And whether there's a department or more people are taking up that charge and going out in the community doing some of the things like Susie does that other people may do an outreach maybe you have more people and staff take the time add to their jobs and go out and do it. So this is the kind of thing I see people struggling with that you can see from the higher level of how does an institution connect with the community. But then internally it's really like how does that change someone's job. What does it get added to and what if anything might come off the plate. I think those are all real issues Ted there's no question about it. I think they're connected to another and and equally maybe for me even more troubling issue that's dangling out there just in the last two three days I read and some what was the source I read that in 21 or 26 states there is an initiative underfoot to reduce scholarships and reduce funding for kids who go into the humanities in public and universities and to try to increase the incentive for kids to participate young people to to go into engineering and into the sciences and the devaluation of the humanities the devaluation of liberal arts the devaluation of the role of of of not just arts and culture but creativity that is not tied to commercialism is is something that I feel is the huge existential threat to the arts in this country. It filters down into interesting ways it filters down into declining funding from foundations from corporations and even from some individuals it places increased dependence on on individual donors so and and and reduces sort of the democratization of philanthropy because more and more philanthropic dollars come from fewer and fewer people for the arts which which is not a good thing for so many years we had so much so much individual money coming from so many more places and and it places an increasing burden on us for building a case for something that we didn't use to have a build a case for and so now and I don't say that to discourage you because I actually I firmly believe that there will continue and always be a a a value placed on culture and in this country but but it's but it's an environment that is requiring that we be savvier that we be that we be much more articulate about about the arguments that we're making that's terrifying I'm sorry this is a really I've always believed that my theater and drama background and education has prepared me for life in a way that my colleagues who have gone into business or who have gone to the sciences just are not prepared actually and that because I have this background in communicating and working with people and thinking creatively I could actually do anything that I wanted and I choose to do theater because I love it but that's a kind of terrifying and sobering moment thanks Susie but I will add just in a real thank you Susie. Another issue that I've been thinking about is I think how we communicate and how we tell stories is changing and so I think an issue of my generation of theater makers that we're going to be facing is how we've structured our organizations or how we bring theater to the people is going to have to be different because people want to receive it in a different way so what does that mean does that mean that we change kind of the traditional theatrical outing that maybe what you're seeing on stage is that there are different technological elements involved I just think that we're at a moment in time now where we're going to be seeing a kind of shift and what it means to go to the theater and I think that's pretty exciting and a shift in how we make theater people are doing things very differently people are collaborating with people from all different backgrounds in all different areas and I think that's really exciting but it just means how we do it how we fund it what we're doing is all going to look really different and so that's exciting and what stories we're telling and what stories we're telling is it's really exciting. Yeah we're sort of talking about a paradigm shift actually and with the engage community engagement the diversity and then education all things we each one of you hit on separately it sounds like the entire landscape has to change or has to adapt to keep up. Yeah. Thinking about some of those things but when you think about the you know the theater has been has been part of how humans interact since the beginning of time and certainly for the last twenty five hundred years even when there's been a more formal theatrical structure than pure storytelling around a campfire the form has changed it's changed over and over and over again and if there's one thing that I think we can say about this field it's that is that it's been nothing if not adaptive. Agreed. We always find a way to tell our stories. This is where the creative tension is right now I think we're in some of the juiciest part of the conversation because now you have institutions that have grown especially the larger regional theaters over decades and the audiences have aged the theaters have matured. But now you have this creative tension between wait a second literally some of our best donors are in their sixties seventies eighties and literally you start wondering well can people still attend can they still come and you have this tension between what's really now the crux of the organization the main donors the people that in some ways you need to please as your audience the most and yet you have young people in your community can you reach them are you gonna tell the stories that they want to hear at the same time as you keep this older audience and yet just appealed to the younger folks and they don't have the capacity necessarily to give and then you look at some of the generational change where you have a generation where so many people didn't really get arts education and I hear conversation after conversation say we should be able to reach these tech people we should be able to reach Silicon Valley all these people in San Francisco now but some of them don't have that fundamental love or interest in the arts because it may not have been stoked for them while they were in school and if they are in the arts they may be looking for something new in theater they may be someone who's involved in data or user interface design and they're looking for creativity. So ultimately theater arts administrators people making the art have to creatively think about their audiences and then hopefully with the peer creativity of what stories do we want to tell how do we want to tell them what range of things can we offer how do we then balance the people we want to reach with the money we need to get from them or other people to sustain all this and to have it grow so that's you're really at the crux of a lot of the issues there. Yeah. Balance and sustainability it's really really big. I was going to say one of some of my favorite conversations with with audience members are the people who call and they go how could you have done that play how could you have done that and and and I've said on any number of occasions I bet you're one of those people who is at one time or another said to us you'd like to see more young people in the theater and I say if you want to see young people in the theater then you have to be willing to see work that they're interested in and at the same time we all have to hope that they will also be willing to see the work that you're interested in but ultimately we're going to all be healthier if we are a multi-generational experience and that means a lot of generosity on both sides but I love you as soon as you say that to me go oh you're right oh you're right but somebody has to call them on it you know and it goes both ways goes both ways. So I'm going to pivot just a little bit but still stay in that lane because Ted you brought up engagement and diversity and we talked a little bit about theater education and looking at this panel we're this is you all are super diverse and that diversity thing you mentioned that hot word a little while ago thinking about the next generation of theater makers and or this current generation of theater makers and diversity and inclusion efforts especially in arts administration looking at small and large organizations what are some of those things that we can do as administrators to diversify the current workforce. I'm in community engagement and education and most of the kids that I see right now they all want to be actors what can we do to show them or what's out there right now to help them access that. I know that I try to talk about what I do all the time to all sorts of people because I know that when I was thinking about my future when I was about to graduate from college I didn't even really realize that arts administration was something that I could do or that I could make a career out of and so that was a wonderful realization for me when I realized that and I think had I known that earlier perhaps I would have done something different or taken maybe a little bit of a different path to to bolster you know the experiences that I had in order to kind of make my way down this career path that I chose so I know like something like this when I'm asked to speak on a panel or anytime that I can talk to students who are interested in theater I try to talk about what I do just as a way to put it out there because if you don't know that this exists then how will we be able to reach a variety of different people. So that's one thing I like to do and another thing that I think is important in the conversations about equity and diversity and inclusion is a willingness especially for organizations that exist already that are looking to become to be more diverse and you know every area every part of their organization is to be willing to accept that it's not going to be an easy path and that it's going to create disruption and I think accepting that will allow it will allow you to create different policies to have different procedures to be very intentional about what you're trying to do if you if you make that decision that this isn't just going to be smooth sailing this isn't just programming a different type of show this means that we're going to program a different type of show and we're going to reach out to this type of audience and we're going to have these policies and procedures for hiring and it's going to be weird and uncomfortable maybe for our staff but we're ready to go there and I think intention is a really important part of that conversation. I'm so fascinated by the question because the key thing here to me is if you look at the younger generation in the United States and California it's more diverse it's going to be more diverse all the arts theater going to be more diverse and yet you have this issue about how welcome are people what type of opportunities do they get and we look at arts administration there was recently a study in New York City looking at the composition of the arts administrators of the non-profits versus the community and the disparity is kind of mind blowing but there are people who understand that we have to foster the next generation it's about mentoring it's about making opportunities making sure diverse people at least have the opportunity to pursue those things so that's one key step but on the other side the doors aren't always opened up for you wide open let's face it these are competitive fields people want to be in the arts it's the dream that people have held for most of their lives for all their lives for decades and then the gates get narrower and narrower so my advice no matter how open the doors are or not is just to work work work and if you're creating the art make as much as you can if you're on the administrative side also with whatever role you have as a staffer try to volunteer some try to pick up experience reach out to older people and look for mentorship and the key to mentorship is being able to ask smart questions you can't just go up to the really smart person you work with or who you admire and just look at them glowingly and say I love your work because people are looking for a dialogue but I also find that over my career on both sides of it when you reach out to people and you have an affinity and on my end now connecting with more people who are interested in the work whether as a funder in arts administration in general when you see people who are eager and smart and have great questions of course you want to answer some of those questions so I think it's incumbent on the diverse generation coming up no matter how much the doors are open or not and hopefully there are mentors out there just to pursue your career as strong as you can because that's the key to making it happen. I have a couple of thoughts please first of all I you know when I went into this field there weren't there weren't many women in top leadership positions and I think the reason that I ended up making the choice to make this my career was because there was one woman and I could see that she was doing it and knowing that someone had done it made it possible for me to imagine that I could do it to and I think that's true for any anybody coming up you have to be able to see somebody else like you in that position to be able to imagine that you could be sitting in that seat too and so we need to get more people into these seats so that somebody who is 14 or 16 or 18 or 20 can imagine that they could be sitting in that seat too and to that end I think that there's a couple of things I could well actually there's one other point I'd like to make which is that we still see among the people who we are recruiting for either our fellowships or for jobs that there is a real fear on the part of many parents that this is not a good career choice for their children and if their kid is a first generation or second generation college educated kid there's a lot of parental pressure to go into something other than the arts and so we have a task I think ahead of us to make sure that parents understand that these are actually good jobs these are stable jobs these are jobs in which your child can have a very fulfilling professional life and that's a challenge that as a field I think we haven't figured out how to communicate because we've seen people drop out and switch ambitions because there was so much parental pressure family pressure to do something else so that's just another point having said that there are actually a few things that anybody who's watching this panel I hope would be aware of first of all the commercial theater producers in New York the league of producing theaters have actually started a fellowship program that's about 10 weeks long which is geared toward people who traditionally have not chosen administrative positions before the league of resident theaters which is the 75 largest theaters in the country are actually in the process of trying to put together a fellowship program that would be that would be feeding future arts management leaders into their theaters in addition to that there are a number of theaters around the country and Lord the league of resident theaters LORT actually has a website with a list of all of their theaters and many of them have fellowship programs and the point or internships fellowships the point of those programs is to put somebody who hasn't had experience in a professional environment into their organization so somebody can actually experience what it feels like to be working in a professional company and can develop the portfolio the resume references the sponsor the mentor who is going to help them make a great career and so people should know about those resources talking about career paths and everyone's path is different as we start to kind of wrap up things what are some things you would encourage a person to pursue if they were looking to get into a career such as yours Wow that's a toughy I think it's really about opportunity and finding it wherever you can so for me I started as a visual artist I ended up primarily working performing arts institutions I was fortunate enough to hear about a position of philanthropy and do my best to fill it and the main reason I was qualified to do my job as a senior program officer is that I had worked in various art forms so it turns out what I was willing to do to pursue the jobs and find the best opportunities I could ended up really paying off for me later in my career and sometimes I intentionally took jobs where I would build skills where I wasn't as strong thinking about the long term of my career and I intentionally took a fundraising job a development job because that wasn't my strongest suit and did the hard work of that took a job managing a small dance company where I did everything but take out the trash in order to learn all these various dimensions of the work and so I think some of it is how do you pursue opportunities and how do you think about making yourself stronger for the next job and the job after that That's great advice It's so much better than just the kind of typical go get an internship or fellowship and I think while that will offer you so much in terms of the value one gets out of that I think there are ways to find opportunities and everything that you do I would also just add if this is a field that interests you to go see theater there's I think sometimes we get wrapped up in the career path of building my future and we forget about why we love this field and so any opportunity you have to go see theater see plays be able to talk about why you like plays or why you don't being able to converse about issues in the field and what you're reading and why art is vibrant and important I think it's a huge part of what I do I'm trying to be better at it every day and so I try to go see a lot of shows and I try to read more plays and know what's happening in the field because that's only going to help you be stronger and kind of affirm why this business and this thing called art is so wonderful I think you're so right because the only reason to do this is because you love you love the work otherwise there's not much that's very gratifying about it really it's about the work but having said that I think that there's a couple of other things I'd add one is that the more you the better in education you get I think the more tools you're going to have I think that the the better your critical thinking skills are the better a manager you're going to be and then the other thing is that this is totally a people business this is what what what all of the arts are is about people and so you you spend your whole life trying to meet people and to develop real meaningful relationships and relationships in which you learn from each other relationships in which you have an opportunity to see how you want to behave in the work world but but it's all about people it's really really great advice from all of you thank you so much are going to transition a little bit to some questions we got from the internet we've got one from Riviana from Oakland, California she's a student at Mills and ACT what were some of your professional goals when you were younger or currently how did they evolve and what are some goals now about Sarah so my ultimate goal right now at this point in my life is I want to be a managing director of a theater company a large theater company that is something I've set my heart on and so that is the the career path that I'm following currently and what was the rest of that question evolution how did it evolve yeah so I like I said I discovered that arts administration was a thing in college right before I graduated and I had a wonderful mentor at Boston College John Houchin who kind of took me under his wing and from there I didn't internship with the Huntington and I learned that I was terrible at production management so that was really helpful to find out that that was not something I probably wanted to pursue and then I was able to work for the Huntington theater company and I think working at a theater company was really was really great for me because it helped me identify what my skills were that the skills that I had that I was let me rephrase it helped me realize the skillset that I had to be a good manager and that that was something that I wanted to do and so from there I was able to kind of build my five ten year plan and I in my plan I decided that grad school was important to me and was going to be helpful for me so I went to a graduate program and now I'm here at Berkeley Rap is the associate managing director with my eyes on the future for that managing director Gage watch out Susie I'm so ready for you to take it well Susie what were some of your goals when you were starting out when I started out as I wanted a job wanted to be employed but I think initially I just knew that I wanted to be in the theater I knew that I wasn't I was a perfectly adequate actress and and was blessed to discover as Sarah did that I actually had a skill set that could be much more meaningful to the field and I think very quickly my sort of my uber vision was I wanted to have impact and I think that that's really been the the driving factor for me throughout my entire career if I'm gonna put the energy into this I want to feel like I'm making a difference I want to be able to look back at some point and say something was different because I was here and along the way I discovered that it was really important to me that the work be good that I wasn't willing to work in a company where the work was mediocre and that I had something to do with whether it was gonna be good or bad but I think and I also I guess discovered that what I really loved was creating an environment where other people could excel and where other people could learn and where we placed value on people learning and so when I think about what impact I've had one of the impacts I feel is that we've created a theater where people feel that they're encouraged to excel I would like to think that's true That's great How about you Ted? Yeah I can sum it up pretty quickly because I'll skip the first part where I wanted to be a great mechanical engineer because luckily that morphed into me wanting to be a sculptor and got better and better at that and then I wanted to put on exhibition so more people could see my work and the work of my friends and that involved to me finding out about arts management and getting an MBA in arts management and then really pursuing that wanting to be a great arts manager and then luckily I focused and found a niche in that where it was all about marketing getting more people to see the art how did we get the community and people who aren't always part of it to be in and making it be more about more diverse aspects of community and then luckily enough finding the opportunity to be in philanthropy then saying oh wait how do we actually benefit the entire community really in line with what you're saying Susie in terms of benefiting the community using the art, great art that can connect us all so now that's my dream and goal is really creating that community connection and having us evolve a little bit as a species if that's not too much to reach for. Oh that's really cool those are really wonderful answers we're going to bring up Jamie Ewing Shore she is our education fellow at the Berkeley Rep School of Theater she has a few more questions from the internet we're going to take a couple and wrap things up. If you have any questions that you'd like to contribute please tweet the hashtag creative careers and I also just to Susie's point on the creative careers website which is berkeleyrep.org slash creative careers we have a list of all the Lord theaters that offer fellowships internships and apprenticeships as well as their job opening so it's a great tool again it's berkeleyrep.org slash creative careers so this is a question from Kat in Westport, Connecticut Kat says I managed several early career theater administrators but have no professional development budget to speak of what are some free slash cheap suggestions for helping entry-level professionals build skills and connections without switching jobs every two to three years it's a deep question it's a big one professional development you know if you're in Connecticut there are some wonderful arts organizations there and it would seem to me that if you could if you can create even part-time fellowships internships with any of those arts organizations there's an opportunity for somebody to expand on what it is that they're learning academically and give them access to people who are really good Connecticut has fantastic arts organizations and like the arts and ideas the international festival of arts and ideas every year in New Haven they always need tons of people to make that thing run you know I mean there are some online resources I don't know that I don't know I don't know about all of them because I haven't looked at them in a long time but for instance if you can afford to to be and if you're a member to be able to send your students to the East Coast TCG conferences is a great way to open their eyes just to what is going on in the field I think that something else that you know I think about there are online classes that I've taken or that our staff has taken there's online resources in in HR in there's fundraising programs that you can study online so that there there's some targeted programs but I I still think being able to be in a building with people is about the best education you can get that may not be very helpful I hope it was Jamie do you have any other questions this is a question from Leah at Whittier College and Leah asks I work with a number of students who are designing their own majors instead of going through traditional degree degrees in theater and business what advice would you give students integrating a number of areas of study in terms of searching for internships do you think are actually super beneficial to administrative careers that you might not think are? my law in the arts class has proven to be extremely useful in the position that I'm in now I deal a lot with contracts and contracting language and the amount of legality that surrounds putting on a production is something that I think can be hidden from view my position deals with that often so my law in the arts class any kind of legal law coursework that you can do is extremely helpful and useful human resources organizational behavior real estate law is another one that is really no matter how small or big the organization they deal with it there's a lot of terrible marketing classes out there but to have some understanding of what vocabulary is of marketing is useful and how to read data how to understand data I think that those would be some of them that come to mind basic financial management class is also very very useful and I would say this is going to sound very general but a class in leadership or either reading books reading those books on the Harvard business review I've actually been so inspired reading books that are kind of geared toward the for-profit leadership sector but that have been so useful and so interesting to think about how to implement that in a non-profit creative environment and if you're in one art form please look at other art forms you can find other inspiration so many artists obviously do so just to be conversant in more than the one thing that you're most passionate about you know there's something else which is that there's a lot of people who learn management skills you can learn how to supervise you can learn how to provide direction and feedback and all of that sort of thing but I think that there's a huge difference between managing and leading and anytime that you can take a class or read a book or observe someone who is exhibiting leadership that is something that whether you end up being a leader or not it is it is an experience worth having and and it's the thing that's probably hardest to teach it's really great thank you I think we should end on that note thank you everyone for watching thank you so much to our panel as Jamie said it is fellowship season so if you are an aspiring arts administrator looking for fellowship or an internship please go to the berkeleyrep.org school of theater creative careers we've got a nice long list of all the open internships and fellowships with a lot of useful resources as well to help you apply for that job resume tips as well so please please please check us out berkeleyrep.org school of theater creative careers thank you very much and thank you to our sponsor American Express have a great evening thank you