I’ve known hundreds of artists throughout my career in the arts world. Theatre is the most collaborative of all the major art forms, excluding film, perhaps, so it’s impossible to be involved in the theatre for any significant period of time without meeting dozens of actors, dancers, and singers, as well as costume, lighting, graphic, sound and scenic designers and those who artfully implement those designs. It’s a diverse group. One thing almost all of them had in common was that they considered themselves “professional.” And since most of the time we were paying them, by the simplest definition that is exactly what they were.

Unfortunately (for some), many of those same professionals are no longer getting paid to practice their art. For some that means they traded in their ballet shoes for a business suit; for others that means they just stopped getting work. I also know scores of artists that practice professionally in addition to holding down a full-time job. And I don’t mean a restaurant job; I mean a regular 9 to 5, paper-pushing job. In fact, I would say that since moving to Nashville, 90% of the theatre artists I’ve met fall into that last category. They’re getting paid (a pittance) to do their thing, but it’s not going to support a family or help them build wealth over time.

How should we feel about this reality?

One opinion is that 99% of artists are drastically underpaid, and 1% are frighteningly overpaid, and that if fees were distributed more evenly, we would have a more self-sustaining art jobs. (I will coin this the Occupy Broadway Stance)

Another position to take is that this is natural selection at work. The arts scene weeds out those who are not fit for survival in such a difficult industry, and if you can’t survive, then you probably shouldn’t.

But I tend to think that we are on the brink of a new industry model. Like a river forming a new tributary to relieve the pressure build-up of a dam downstream, I think our society’s need to make and consume art will ultimately force a new outlet to emerge. And I think there are two societal shifts that are currently taking place that will serve to enable this new stream to form: Free Agency and Smart Growth.

I’ve waxed at length about Smart Growth, so I won’t rehash, but suffice it to say that once we repopulate and reinvigorate downtowns across the nation, artists that have long been languishing in the suburbs, will again be able to congregate at coffee shops, community centers, and other “third places,” and devise new ways of showcasing their talents to audiences that have also taken up residence nearby and are looking for entertainment outside of their screen-driven lives.

Next, the number of traditional corporate and manufacturing jobs is never going to return to pre-2008 levels. 44% of Americans now describe themselves as “free agents,” compared to 28% in 2008. () That’s a pretty steep increase in just three years. Free agents are not tied to one employer. In fact, they are often not tied to any one profession. They are contractors that set their own hours, and are in turn afforded the chance to pursue multiple opportunities. What this means for the arts is that the web programmer can now allocate some of his time to practicing his saxophone, the graphic designer can pick up his paint brush, and the physical therapist can dance again.

The missing pieces are the organizations that serve both audience and artist. I think we will find that local arts agencies and the downtown improvement associations take the opportunity and enhance the lives and livelihoods of everyone in the community. We will find empty storefronts converted to art galleries and music venues. Parking lots and parks will be employed as performance spaces and festival grounds. Public art projects will proliferate. As a result, property values and commercial activity will increase, rewarding these organizations with increased revenue.

 It’s already happening in bigger cities, but there is absolutely no reason that this model can’t scale downward to smaller towns and retrofitted suburbs to equal effect.

I’ve completed my goals and resolutions for 2012, and looking over them, it appears that the theme for this year is “actions speak louder than words.”  I’m not alone, it seems. As loyal readers know, my work is about building arts and entertainment models that fit into the next phase of town planning, which is a movement away from suburban sprawl and a return to mixed-use, walkable communities. It used to be called New Urbanism, but now it’s just “The Way It Is.”

So as I’m catching up on my blog reading this morning, I ran across two separate posts by two respected bloggers from both the Town Planning and Theatre sectors, and they were both saying the essentially the same thing.

First, Scott Walters over at Theatre Ideas is fed up with all the talk of the need for an industry-wide change, and he’s out to actually do something to change it by building a new model for small town arts sustainability. I am looking forward to tracking his progress and hopefully stealing some great ideas.

Next, I headed over to the Placeshakers blog, a town planning blog, and I read an insightful post from Ben Brown  commenting on Time magazine’s decision to make “The Protester” the 2011 person of the year. Brown echoes Walters by saying that it simply isn’t enough to complain about the way of the world.

That’s been my main problem with the Occupy movements. Sure, I fall within the 99% and I agree that something is broken, but I don’t hear solutions, or actual steps to be taken to achieve measurable results.

I have resolved to actually create change this year, and not just wish for it. I’ve set goals that are clear and measurable, and I’m finally in a position to get them done.  I’m going to implement a new model for Downtown Associations (Local Arts Agency, Business Improvement Districts, whatever you want to call them) that actually produce and present properly scaled community arts, entertainment, and rituals that are accessible, sustainable, and repeatable. This model will be able to transplanted into any mixed-use community environment. Over the course of the year, I will be blogging about the process and progress, and publish it all in 2013. Lemme at ‘em.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I took a full year off from blogging about the arts and community building. I won’t bore with the all of the reasons why, but suffice to say that my routine got all messed up, and then, you know, it just got pushed from the back burner to the freezer. But I’m back now and I thought the right way to start would be to write about the overarching lesson I learned in my time away from the blogosphere.

The number one factor still affecting everything about American society is the baby boom generation. They have been running the show since the end of Second World War (albeit from diapers), and they continue to be the driving force behind our economy. They are the tidal wave of our recent history. Let’s look at a few notable examples from the last 60 years or so:

Suburbia: The parents of the baby boomers demanded a safer and more spacious environment to raise their burgeoning families. Developers obliged.

The Summer of ’69: The hippie generation was born out of a significant percentage largest generation finding themselves out of school, directionless, and scared of war. Their children, the Millennials, are feeling that way right now, just substitute lifelong poverty for the draft.

Dot Com Bust: Boomers in the prime of their professional lives, flabbergasted by the Internet and not wanting to be considered old, invested billions in their kids’ cool ideas, forgetting everything they ever knew about profit and loss statements.

Real Estate Bubble: Baby Boomers with an eye on retirement and scarred by the false idol of internet riches, returned to real estate, the asset they know never depreciates (right?), and demanded second homes in coastal and temperate locations. Developers (and bankers) obliged.

Entitlements and Debt: Here we are today, with the largest generation retiring, the second largest generation in their 20’s, and the smallest generation in the middle trying to support both. (And legislate too, but that’s for another blog)

But this is a blog about the arts and community building, not economics, so I’ll get to the point. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” We have to pay attention to what the Boomers and their Millennial progeny want. What they want is out of the suburbs and into the urban neighborhood. They want out of traffic and onto sidewalks. They want cozy theatres, not colossal performing arts centers. They want colorful street performers and happenstance art. They crave the intimate and reject the intimidating.

The problem is that we have set up systems in the arts world that cater to what the Boomers used to like. In other words, we have “built the church for Easter.” What we thought was the wave of the future was just a tidal wave. It’s not too late. Much like we are now figuring out how to retrofit suburbia into transit-oriented, mixed-use urban cores, we can retrofit our arts industry as well. Arts and entertainment can also be mixed-use, properly scaled, and accessible to all. I look forward to blogging in 2012 about how arts and entertainment are activating and in fact delineating communities across North America, including city neighborhoods, suburban cores, and rural towns.

I hope you’ll join me by submitting examples from your area. I’ll be working on the best vehicle for those submissions in the weeks to come. That and a clever sign-off phrase. But until then, “Happy New Year” will have to do.

Happy New Year!

Is that so wrong? It’s been a busy year. I’ve produced a music festival moved to Nashville, sold a house, helped my wife launch her business, and began a new job myself. I’m back up and running though and will be posting weekly on the subjects of community activation including arts and entertainment, which thankfully happens to be the focus of my new job, which I’m sure I’ll talk more about in weeks to come. For those of you who have stayed loyal to the RSS feed, I hope you are pleased to see yourtownperforms.com emboldened again. I look forward to sharing cultural news and notes, as well as best (and worst) practices from towns all over North America… It’s good to be back.

Theatre Communications Group and the NEA have teamed up to produce this two-part series on Theatre in America today. This first part is titled, “Impact,” and the next seems to be entitled “Challenges.” Let’s hear what they have to say.

Stage Matters from Theatre Communications Group on Vimeo.

My 22-month old son, Luke, watches TV. I begrudgingly admit it because I told myself pre-parenthood that I would only allow my child to watch televised programming that was 100% educational until he or she was able to fully understand the concept of television, like how its made, its distinction from reality, and perhaps its long term debilitating effects. However, I succumbed very early to the temptation of giving the child something to focus on other than his mother and I when the real toys outlast their appeal and outside is somehow unbearable or inconvenient. Now it is simply part of his routine, and he’s not even two years old.  But what I look forward to more than anything, except successful potty training, is taking the boy to his first theatre production. I envision watching his eyes widen then the lights come up for the first time, and a colorfully costumed character walks onto the stage and commences with some fantastical tale of a hero’s quest. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I was pretty harsh on Nashville about the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, and while I don’t wish to retract my comments, I do want to write that it is not Nashville’s fault entirely. Monolithic downtown performing arts centers were actually a culture-wide phenomenon in the last quarter-century or so. TPAC is just a particularly unfortunate manifestation. In an effort to restore some karma, this week I’d like to point out a town that seems to have done something exceedingly wise to facilitate both the growth of the arts and neighborhood animation. The Town of New Haven, Connecticut, home to Yale University, has recently instituted an inspired program, and I have quoted the press release below:

New Haven (March, 2010) – The City of New Haven Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA), in partnership with the City of New Haven’s Office of Economic Development, and the New Haven Economic Development Corporation (EDC), announces “Project Storefronts”, a storefront for artists program. This pilot program is designed to enliven the City’s commercials districts through the temporary use of empty retail space that encourages artists and “creative entrepreneurs” to test the viability of new creative and arts-related retail or other businesses by providing subsidized access to currently empty retail spaces. (Read More)

I’m not sure what is more remarkable about this program, its genius or its simplicity. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post. The family and I went to Nashville for a little culture fix and I’ve been catching up since.  We ran the gamut of the Nashville cultural experience, seeing The National at the Ryman Auditorium (the primary reason for the trip), John Mayer, Dolly Parton, and a ton of country music all-stars at a Country Music Hall of Fame benefit concert at the Bridgestone Arena, and finally a theatrical adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird by the Tennessee Repertory Theatre at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center (TPAC). Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a musing about how the success of Farmers Markets around the country might hold important lessons for the arts industry. Well, this morning I came across this video of Diane Ragsdale, formerly of Mellon Foundation, speaking about this very parallel. I thought it might be worth an embed.

In my time working in Seaside, FL, the seminal and one of the most successful new urban communities in the world, I learned quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t in terms of events and entertainment in a resort community. No two resorts are the same, but many have some common structures that are important to note when looking at them through the eyes of an arts and entertainment planner. First, the developer has sold off, or wants to sell, most or all of the residential units or lots, which means that the developer has little control over the actions of the homeowner’s association. Second, a successful retail component is a key source of ongoing revenue for the developer, assuming they have retained ownership of the commercial buildings.

This configuration presents an interesting quandary for developers and their event planning. Read the rest of this entry »