Photo by Pretty War-STL — Some Rights Reserved

Is Ticketmaster really the enemy? A lot of Bruce Springsteen fans might think so. But, where would we be without it?

As posted this week in a Festival News story, Springsteen’s management responded in kind to Ticketmaster’s Barry Diller.

The tension between the two began last February. For upcoming Springsteen concerts, Ticketmaster directed online users to a secondary site, TicketsNow, that offered premium tickets even as tickets were still available at the regular price. Ticketmaster acknowledged the “glitch.”

More recently, Barry Diller, the chairman of Ticketmaster, told the New York Post that it seemed a bit unfair to attack Ticketmaster for “making a technical mistake” when Springsteen holds so many tickets from his own fans. The Newark Star Ledger had published an article that 2,300 tickets were held back by Springsteen’s management for New Jersey friends and V.I.P.s — most of the tickets closest to the stage.

The paper, though, did not report that 95% of the tickets closet to the stage were in fact always available directly to fans.

Of course Springsteen, like all bands, talent and producers, takes holds on tickets. That’s nothing new. It is also not new that Springsteen is at the top of any list that identifies a performer’s devotion to his fans. Springsteen events are not only fan friendly, they are fan fun. In fact, Springsteen changed the nature of live rock performance by playing sets that are longer, better, and a test of his band’s endurance. Springsteen clearly lives for live performance, as do his fans.

Ticketmaster also lives for live performance. It is easy to forget that Ticketmaster solved a significant problem. It was not too long ago that producers lamented the corruption epidemic in box offices: box office managers holding tickets for friends, selling tickets on the side for their own gain, and skimming money off the top. There was no accountability and no transparency. Ticketmaster provided a system that made accountability integral and transparency a key to the service.

The “glitch” or the greed, depending on your p.o.v., was solved and Ticketmaster promised more transparency about ticket availability.

Box office personnel at too many venues are still some of the worst representatives of customer service. (Go ahead and try to have a pleasant experience at the Hirschfeld Theatre — “What the Arts Need to Learn from a Shoe Salesman”).

The live arts need Ticketmaster. For the most part, they are the best middleman to handle the volume, create open access, and run a fair system. As in all enterprises, the more transparency the better.

Ticketmaster is not the enemy. More often than not for the arts, Ticketmaster is a solid friend.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Gardzienice Theatre Association

One of the world’s great theatre companies, Gardzienice Theatre Association has a unique opportunity to create the European Centre for Theatre Practices.

Led by Wlodzimierz Staniewski, the company is currently under government evaluation. As part of this process, Poland’s Minister of Regional Development will take into consideration emails written in support of Gardzienice and its artistic impact — in Poland and around the world.

If successful, Gardzienice will be able to expand their facilities that have hosted so many artists, ensemble theatres, scientists, intellectuals, and next-generation theatre makers. Staniewski’s Gardzienice started with a few disciplined and devoted actors and musicians traveling by horse cart to capture the songs and stories of Eastern Europe’s hidden territories. Now, thirty-three years later, they have the opportunity to be at the center of our theatrical future.

Do take a moment to learn more and then give your voice to this international effort.

Gardzienice has transformed lives, theatre, and cultures. Let’s help make sure the transformation continues.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Ryan Paul Maxwell — Some Rights Reserved

This is the season of the graduation speech. In elementary schools, all one needs to know is that everyone is a star ready to shine. For university graduates, the world is a little more complicated.

To help graduates, our future artists, here are a few samples from some of the best graduation speeches of ‘09:

Paul Hawken @ University of Portland

…the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

Robert Rodriguez @ University of Texas at Austin

I’m from a big family. I can’t waste money. It’s against my genetic makeup. So, I had to substitute money with creativity and that’s what made all the difference. So, I had to make a movie in a way that broke the traditional mold and learn not to be a slave to tradition. Traditional thinking will hold you back… Be ready and willing to fail. Failure is good. It means that you’re seeking new ideas.

Bill Clinton @ Florida A&M University

The most important question of the 21st century is not what or how much, it is ‘How?’ How do you propose to turn your good ideas into positive changes in other people’s lives? You must be the ‘how generation.’

Ken Burns @ Boston College

Insist that we support the sciences and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the defense of the country; they just make the country worth defending.

Smokey Robinson @ Berklee College Of Music

When you get a chance to earn a living living your dream, you cannot beat that. So if that happens for you, embrace that with your entire being.

John Legend @ University of Pennsylvania College of Arts & Sciences

As a nation — and as a world — we need more truth. Let me repeat that. We need more truth… Searching for truth is in many ways the same as searching for your soul. Since I am touted as a soul singer, I’m often asked to define what soul is. Well, it’s hard to define, but I’m sure that soulfulness and truth are very closely related. Soul isn’t about a particular race or a particular genre of music. Fiona Apple can be soulful. Bruce Springsteen can be soulful. Lil Wayne can be soulful. Frank Sinatra can be soulful. Soul is about authenticity.

Barbara Ehrenreich @ UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

As long as there is a story to be told, an injustice to be exposed, a mystery to be solved, we will find a way to do it. A recession won’t stop us. A dying industry won’t stop us. Even poverty won’t stop us because we are all on a mission here. That’s the meaning of your journalism degree. Do not consider it a certificate promising some sort of entitlement. Consider it a license to fight. In the ’70s, it was gonzo journalism. For us right now, it’s guerrilla journalism, and we will not be stopped.

Re-program the world, create new work, discover new approaches, be authentic, and fight to tell your story: the future of art is now.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Bill Reichblum

The American theatre is changing - for the better.

At this year’s biannual conference of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for American not-for-profit theatres, artists, producers, and theatre makers, international collaboration and next-gen engagement were the focus.

In the past, many of these gatherings have felt too self-congratulatory: oh, how special we all are; how enlightened we are; how politically correct we are; and, definitely how important we are. Maybe it’s the economic crisis, maybe it’s the evolution of leadership, maybe it’s the openness to younger generations through technology platforms, or maybe it’s a combination of all these factors: this conference succeeded in looking outward.

Meiyin Wang, of the great Under the Radar Festival, put it best when she was tasked to evaluate another theatre’s mission: “We cannot afford to be inbreeders: we’ll get really ugly, really quickly.”

One of the highlights was an intimate performance by Sudan’s National theatre, the Albugaa Theatre. What was most striking was the generosity of the TCG audience. It wasn’t about professional courtesy, or merely being a nice host for a group of artists willing to jump into performance right after long and complicated travels. It was about being a genuine audience: to see the world through new eyes. Self-centered cynicism disappeared, and an honest exchange took place.

Andrew Zolli, the guy who can make demographic presentations as funny as a stand-up act, as well as enlightening, provided the keys to what the most innovative leadership teams do:

• Make the top personnel accountable
• Constantly place lots of small bets
• Invest in those employees who are closest to the customer
• Leverage innovations outside company
• Copy existing “best practices”, but do so sparingly
• Embrace a “cognitive portfolio” approach: people inside thinking differently on same set of issues
• Systematically scan the company for “weak signals”
• Create highly differentiated partnerships

Andrew and his Z + Partners provide a pretty good road map for making arts institutions better. He also provided a post-it note slogan to hold onto in the midst of all the noise of our daily lives: “The fastest moving trends get all the attention; but the slowest moving trends have the most power.”

The final words of wisdom came during a gathering led by Michael Fields (Dell’Arte’s Mad River Festival is coming soon): even though we are all so global, our sustenance comes from our community.

Look outward, welcome new voices, connect to community, and always be generous: America appears to be building, and sustaining, a new theatrical profile.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by MyEyeSees — Some Rights Reserved

The news biz needs to learn from the arts biz.

Is anyone else getting tired of listening to old school journalists lament their irrelevance?

Article after article, conference after conference, journalists whine about their lack of readership, complain about staff cuts, smirk at bloggers, and roll their eyes at the mention of Twitter.

I wonder: Have they ever asked themselves if their declining readership is a result not of our online culture but, instead, a reflection of a job being done badly?

When they did not have any real competition, no one’s argument about the significance of their work made any sense. Sure we thought some were too cozy with those in power, or some were too in love with a revolutionary spirit. Still, we read and we watched.

And as we watched, they enjoyed being watched. More and more, journalists aspired not for an article on the front page, but to be in front of the camera. More and more, they were less interested in delivering the news than in offering their ever-so informed opinion of the news.

Hairpieces and facelifts (but who really knows?) followed, as did their enhanced egos as the gatekeepers of the news.

With the web came competition - instantaneous reports from all over the world. No gatekeepers, only news. Journalists had become so enamored of their role to present “the news” at the end of the day (broadcast evening news, or tomorrow’s edition of the daily paper), they were unprepared for a world where gatekeeper status became democratic and selling news became competitive.

No longer do we genuflect before their job status as those who decide what news is important, when it should be presented, and how it should be packaged. Any review of news readership (newspaper, magazines, TV, and especially online sites) shows that we do hunger to know what it is going on the world. At the same time, we expect something more from our professional news services.

Their system worked when no one knew what was going in the world. So what do they do if we already know what is happening in the world throughout the day?

This is where the news biz needs to adapt the arts biz model.

Remember when CNN was the source for relevant news? It built a brand as the place to go for straight news from around the world. Their audience felt informed, enlightened and part of a global community.

But then with competition their mission changed. Out went in-depth news stories and global reports; in came opinion panels, talk shows, and hyperventilating news hosts gasping for air at the latest celebrity development no matter how small or insignificant. On the day of President Obama’s first European summit, CNN’s “Situation Room” focused on the reaction to Mrs. Obama touching the Queen. Why would anyone watch CNN for that kind of report?

The arts have been through this. With the growth and cultural significance of television and film, some predicted the death of live performance; many challenged live art to become more like the new media.

The live arts organizations that have succeeded have done so by staying true to their mission. In fact, many provide an experience that is determinedly different from other media. In other words, rather than trying to imitate, the live arts community asserted their unique offering.

It’s not about adopting social media, Facebook accounts, and twittering. It’s about providing a service that is unique. It’s about making a product for an audience.

In the live arts, we benefit from being able to watch the audience absorb our product. We know when a show is working, and certainly when it is not. I wonder how many newspaper executives watch people read their papers? How many television executives listen to conversations outside of their own studios?

Live arts have learned to become more connected to their audiences, to provide challenges, and to offer insights. Live arts know that an audience expects more than what they can get easily at home or get for less money at a movie theatre. That is why the live arts are still thriving today.

News businesses need to follow the example of the arts. We know the headlines, we don’t know the in-depth report. We absorb the highlights, but don’t make the connections for the story’s consequences, ramifications, and effect on tomorrow’s news.

If there’s anything to be discovered on KadmusArts.com it is this: the live arts might be the best example of a business that has a growing global reach, a national significance, and the humility to honor the aspirations of its audience.

Will the news business follow the arts’ lead?

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by .imelda — Some Rights Reserved

What’s the best way for artists to use Twitter?

As posted this week in Culture News, here’s an answer from the source: Biz Stone (@biz), co-founder of the fastest growing social network tool.

In a Billboard interview with Evie Nagy, Stone offers his top tips for how artists can reach and connect with their audiences. Although Stone thinks in terms of bands, his Twitter advice easily applies to all artists.

Make Your @username Your Calling Card
If you post your Twitter address everywhere you post your name, fans and supporters will be able to easily find you — and your tweets.

Twitter Spontaneously
The Twitter goal is to use the service for direct and immediate communication. While I doubt that few people would want an hour by hour update of anyone’s life, there is something to regularly posting tweets as a way of keeping one’s followers involved. After all, it’s only a thought in 140 characters or less.

Find Music’s Tweet Spot
Stone hopes that more artists will incorporate a live stream of visible twitter posts during an event — the ultimate in audience feedback.

Establish Your Rules of Engagement
As with many new social networks, artists can not only customize their use of Twitter but also the boundaries of access.

Use the Platform Commitment-Free
Although Stone obviously wants everyone to sign up for Twitter, one can still follow Twitter posts without committing to the service

Surely, any way for fans or supporters to have personal contact from an artist is a good thing.

The more we break down barriers between the stage and the audience the better the work will be onstage. After all, our tradition of festivals comes from Ancient Greece, where there was no division between those who performed and those who watched. Everyone was part of the same community.

Now there’s a Twitter community.

Want more? To follow KadmusArts on Twitter, go to @reichblum.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Luisa Cortesao — Some Rights Reserved

The USA is very good at producing art as commerce (Hollywood), and pretty good at producing art as craft (National Endowment for the Arts).

Now, Yes-We-Can-Obama believes that USA can produce art as art.

President Obama has appointed Rocco Landesman to be the new chairman of the NEA. Landesman currently runs Jujamcyn Theatres, a Broadway theatre owning and producing organization.

Who better to lead the NEA than a producer — someone who knows how to produce art.

Landesman might have the perfect background to convince the public, connive the Congress, and conquer the press on behalf of the arts.

His parents ran a cabaret in his home town of St. Louis. Anyone whose parents proudly hosted Lenny Bruce has to be on the right side of artistic history.

Landesman received his doctorate from Yale School of Drama and then taught at Yale; left academia (another good sign) to lead a private investment company; formed a Broadway producing company with Des McAnuff; and was then hired by Jujamcyn.

Landesman is also known as a fan of country music, horse racing, and baseball. What could be more American?

Oskar Eustis, artistic director of the Public Theater and someone who understands well how to produce art that transforms audiences, was quoted in the Washington Post on Landesman’s nomination: “I was absolutely flabbergasted. For the theatre community, it is the most concrete evidence of Obama’s brilliance.”

A producer knows how to bring people together to contribute to a common vision. A producer knows how to analyze the costs necessary to pull off the vision. A producer knows how to find the money for the vision. A producer knows how to create an audience for the vision. A producer knows how to market the vision. A producer knows how to make art.

Rocco Landesman might just be the best person to leverage the NEA’s paltry budget request of $161.3 million for 2010 into an enterprise worthy of its mandate: a national endowment for the arts.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Steve Stearns — Some Rights Reserved

The US Republican party has become like bad experimental theatre.

You know the kind of black box experience. It’s angry. It’s dark. It’s against everyone and everything that is successful. There might not be a clear story, but there is a lot of screaming. It’s so in love with itself that it doesn’t realize there is no one in the audience.

Republican politicians and their media stars are angry — on television, on radio, in columns, in the capitol. They yell. They scold. They present themselves against the world, against President Obama, and now even against themselves.

Jim DeMint, a Republican senator from South Carolina, is one of the leading shrill voices that wants the party to be more pure. DeMint is not one for complexity or contradictions. He believes the path to success, and to the failure of Obama, is to see the world in black vs. white, understood as one ideology vs. another, and defined as us vs. them. No surprise that subtlety disappears when one is so angry.

DeMint has an easy and clear way of defining his party. As he wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, “Republicanism is about choice — in education, health care, energy and more… a Republican recommitment to freedom and limited government.”

(Hmm. Choice? So then surely there should be no problem with a woman’s right to choose, right? Freedom and limited government? So then surely there should be no reason for the government to prevent equality for gay and lesbian relationships, right? Wrong.)

DeMint’s Republicanism isn’t about what should be done; it’s about what should not be done.

They need to learn from bad experimental art, from the mediocrities of avant-garde. These are the ones who always know better; who know what real art is; who are dismissive of success; who are contemptuous of something that actually worked.

Memo to Republicans: Don’t present yourself as being against what everyone else is for. Don’t argue your work is better by telling us how much worse the other guy’s work is. Don’t define yourself in the negative.

When times are difficult, confusing, unsteady, experimental art can lead the way forward by offering something new, something genuine, something revelatory. Picasso, Joyce, Beckett, to name just a few, did not spend their time putting down others. They spent their time putting something out. They did not run from complexity, they embraced it. They did not yell. They did not scold. They created.

If you want to inspire the next generation of voters, or audiences, don’t berate them for being deaf, dumb and blind. Guess what, no one likes that.

If only the Republicans could be inspired by Picasso, Joyce, or Beckett — that would make for better art and politics.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by AnnMari — Some Rights Reserved

Augusto Boal died this past weekend. He was a genuine revolutionary. A genuine artist. He was a peaceful man who saw theatre as a weapon — for liberation.

Boal experienced torture for his beliefs, exile for his art, and a high price for his cultural activism. His collection of writings in Theatre of the Oppressed has continued to spark three generations of artists’ creativity, politics, and world view.

Here for inspiration, argument, and a smile are some his words:

All theater is necessarily political, because all the activities of man are political and theater is one of them.

…the differences between the bourgeois artist-high priest, elite artist, the unique individual (who, precisely because his is unique, can be sold at a better price: the star, whose name appears before the title of the work, before the subject and theme, before the contents of what is going to be seen) — and, by contrast, the other artist, the man: the man, who because he is a man, is capable of being what men are capable of being. Art is immanent to all men, and not only to a select few; art is not be sold, no more than are breathing, thinking, loving. Art is not merchandise. But for the bourgeoisie everything is a commodity: man is a commodity. And this being so, all the things that man produces will likewise be commodities. Everything is prostituted in the bourgeois system, art as well as love. Man is the supreme prostitute of the bourgeoisie!

In the beginning the theater was the dithyrambic song: free people singing in the open air. The carnival. The feast.
Later, the ruling classes took possession of the theater and built their dividing walls.
First, they divided the people, separating actors from spectators: people who act and people who watch — the party is over! Secondly, among the actors, they separated the protagonists from the mass. The coercive indoctrination began!
Now the oppressed people are liberated themselves and, once more, are making the theater their own.

…the spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself! Theatre is action!

When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.
Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!
We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself; but have no doubts, it is a rehearsal of revolution!

The rehearsal continues.

- Bill Reichblum

Photo by Pessega — Some Rights Reserved

You work in sales. You might not know it, but if you work in the arts, you work in sales.

So, here’s a quick professional pop quiz. Which of the two slogans would be the best choice to sell potential ticket buyers on a show?

1. “Laugh Sensation of Two Continents” or,
2. “I respectfully suggest that those who come to the theater for casual entertainment do not buy a ticket to this attraction.”

The first was used by Michael Myerberg to sell the US premiere of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Even with Bert Lahr’s talent for comedy, and his lack of ability to remember Beckett’s words, there were not many laughs, let alone a sensation.

For the New York production, Myerberg changed his approach. Now billed as a show that only the discerning intellectual could possibly enjoy, the snob factor worked.

(Of course, this was a time of pre-Paris, pre-Britney, pre-Bush; back then it was smart to be smart and not smart to be dumb.)

These days it is hard to sell anything, let alone a one hundred dollar ticket to watch a couple of tramps trade quips, along with their recognition of the futility of existence.

With new productions of Godot playing in London and New York, we need to collect those slogans, posters, and campaigns that help sell theatre.

For inspiration…

Charles Dickens: “It is a hopeless endeavour to attract people to a theatre unless they can be first brought to believe that they will never get in.”

Will Rogers: “The theater is a great equalizer: it is the only place where the poor can look down on the rich.”

Peter Cook: “You know, I go to the theatre to be entertained. I don’t want to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction… I can get all that at home.”

Orson Welles on why theatre works better at night: “I would just like to mention Robert Houdin who in the eighteenth century invented the vanishing birdcage trick and the theater matinee — may he rot and perish. Good afternoon.”

Agnes de Mille on selling in America: “Theater people are always pining and agonizing because they’re afraid that they’ll be forgotten. And in America they’re quite right. They will be.”

For the most current, and maybe the most accurate statement on what takes place inside a theatre — Tracy Letts: “A normal person is just someone you don’t know real well.”

- Bill Reichblum