Author: Douglas McLennan

Cincinnati Symphony CEO Named New Head Of Interlochen

“A nonprofit, Interlochen includes one of the nation’s most renowned arts camps, which draws 2,500 students each summer for intensive work in seven arts disciplines in a nature setting. The center also has a 500-student fine arts boarding school, an acclaimed concert series and a public radio station. Its alumni include opera legend Jessye Norman, pop singer Josh Groban and conductor Lorin Maazel.”

First Look At George Lucas’s Futuristic Plans For A San Francisco Museum

“Call it hedging your bets, call it beefing up your odds, call it the architectural equivalent of quite publicly asking two people to prom on the same day: The dual-track proposal is an unusual gambit by any measure. And it suggests that rather than feeling chastened enough by those prior defeats to reassess his sales pitch, to slow down and rethink the plans for the museum in a wholesale way, Lucas is instead growing ever more impatient to get a deal done.”

Research: What Kind Of Arts Video Do Audiences Want?

“Based on our research data, digital content has two functions primarily: it develops the audience’s familiarity with the company’s work, and it aligns their expectations of a particular performance. Rather than using supporting materials to make a purchase decision, audiences tend to consume them after booking their tickets, to gain an insight into the story and creative process, reassure themselves of the quality of the company and production, and increase their level of anticipation ahead of the performance.”

Researchers: Why Happiness Doesn’t Make You More Creative

“A positive mood is useful when first brainstorming, processing information, and coming up with as many ideas as possible—you don’t want to bring judgment into that, because it could stifle idea generation.
But rigor is the key to overcoming obstacles and completing tasks—and good mood doesn’t improve problem-solving, which involves judgments that almost by necessity won’t feel good: critique and evaluation, experimentation and failure. The stress that arises from problems may be unpleasant but it also motivates us to complete tasks, Davis says. In other words, negative emotions are actually beneficial to the creative process.”

Hal Prince: Theatre Needs More Producers

“Today, the producing population has been infiltrated by investors who assume the job title of “producer.” In the days when I was producing, I had 175 investors. They were press agents, company managers, actors, stagehands, and, of course, a few of my parents’ friends. But the names of producers above the title were never more than three. If you are a creative producer with an impressive track record, investors should have no serious role reading a script, contributing to the casting of a show, approving its decisions, and—guess what—attending the meeting the day after a show has opened and giving advertising advice.”

A Need For Women’s Theatre

“I believe in small, immersive theatre, and that the disappearance of the black box—which is happening all over—means devastation to the form. When we package theatre up and market it like dollar store pregnancy tests, we lose the power of the form. Women make up 50 percent of our world, so without the contemporary voices of women on today’s stages, audiences are only getting half of the story. Humanity cannot afford this. Especially not now.”