Acknowledgement List

It's Thanksgiving, and I'm in the middle of thesis paper research, so naturally I'm thinking a lot about who has been helpful and needs thanking.

Almost everyone I've contacted about varying topics has been both intrigued by my thesis and generous with their time and energy. I'm especially thankful to:

Robert Wildman, my faculty adviser, who has the extremely difficult job of both keeping my passion in check but encouraging my quest when I'm tired of it. He's playing the Sancho Panza to my Don Quixote.
Robert Long, who I emailed out of the blue, but has given me several puzzle pieces and introductions and continues to check in on my work.
All of the people who have agreed to be my "sounding board", reading drafts and commenting on what works or doesn't (Byron, Liz, and Bob).
All of the folks I've worked with at Americans for the Arts: Clayton Lord, Hannah Jacobson, and, by extension, Professor Roland Kushner. They care about our field and want to support those working in it.
Chris Miller, of the International Association of Venue Managers, who wasn't exasperated by my rudimentary understanding of his world.
It almost goes without saying, but shouldn't, that my gratitude towards Greg Lucas and Ramona Baker is immeasurable. Even when we butt heads, they still have my back.
My long-suffering, increasingly impatient husband, who is getting the short end of the stick at the moment, and my sweet sweet daughter, who doesn't like it that mommy "has more homework", but will understand one day (I hope!).

An admittedly short list, because really this journey started six and a half years ago, and there are more people to thank than room. I am taking the attitude of "paying it forward" since there's no way I could ever appropriately repay these folks for their generosity. My only hope is that I will be able to someday be as generous as they are today.

Comments

High Art vs Low Art

“The masses seek distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator.” - -The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin, 1936 Is there any more contentious question in the art world than the concept of “high” versus “low” I like venn diagrams. And shouldn't art really be in the middle? art? Who gets to judge? What are the parameters in which to judge? There is no standard definition for either concept and personal explanations range from simple to incredibly complex. One common theory about how to explain the difference is high art is “popular” and low art is “unpopular”, that is, appealing (or not) to many people. This also links to another version of the difference: that high art fosters the widest connection between people while a smaller subsection enjoys low art. This is in direct contradiction, though, to the idea of low art being part of mass culture (raising yet another question of “is art culture” or merely a com...

Pass the Collection Plate, Please.

Various sizes of buildings, with some sort of seating arranged in rows, facing a slightly raised platform. may have curtains around the platform. people --primarily men-- take the platform to orate to the audience seated before them. A plea for donations is made at some point, either before or after the show, which may have music and will definitely have directives masked as stories on how to be a human in this day-and-age. children will be seen, maybe, but definitely not heard. the men in charge will believe they have been given a special gift for leading this particular group of people. and the people, for whatever reason, will also believe this. and this group of people will believe that their building and person and each other are completely different and somehow better than all the other exact same groups around their town/city/county/state/nation. If theater wants to be treated as church and church as theater, then both are getting exactly what they have been setting up for the p...

Death & The Theater

I was listening to a recent episode of the Tim Ferris podcast and the guest, happiness scholar Arthur C. Brooks, was discussing death meditations. And the little lightbulb in my brain turned on with the thought, "We need to talk more about death in theaters." I know, I know, that seems like an illogical statement because it feels like we're always talking about the death of theater. This whole summer has been filled with articles and op-eds from across the country about how large regional theaters are dying in major cities. But that's not the kind of death Brooks was talking about, and in reality, it isn't death these articles are complaining about, either: they are trying to stay alive in a “E’s just resting” fashion, to find some kind of life-support for the theaters, to keep them going, receive new money from new audiences or donors, new shows, new gimmicks to draw more or different people in the door. Anything to keep from dying. We don't talk about death...

Perpetually Curious

Search This Blog