Skip to main content

Thesis Teaser #2

Abstract


Title of Thesis:                                   Courting the Community: Promises and Realities of New Performing Arts Centers in Small to Midsize Cities

Degree Candidate:                            Devra L. Thomas

Degree and Year:                              Master of Arts Administration 2014

Major Paper Directed by:                Robert Wildman

                                                            Welch Center for Graduate and Professional Studies

                                                            Goucher College


            The widespread construction of large-scale performing arts centers in order to revitalize downtowns has proliferated across the U.S. over the past twenty years. The economic research into the impact on the local arts ecosystem already established in these communities is slight. The goal of this thesis was to examine the arts ecosystems in four small and midsize cities located around the country that had recently completed such a revitalization project and determine what impact had been made on the various nonprofit performing arts organizations.
            Research conducted includes a review of each city’s building process and arts ecosystem, interviews with both the performing arts center management and nonprofit arts organization affiliates, and evaluation of financial data in public IRS 990 forms. After contextualizing the present-day concern by examining the history of competition within theater in 20th century America, there follows the actual repercussions of revitalization within these four cities and an exhortation to broaden the discussion among the new larger ecosystem.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Year, New You Vision Board

VISION BOARDS! Let's get a couple of things clear, right at the start. THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO MAKE A VISION BOARD. THIS IS NOT SCIENCE. You believe that putting pieces of pretty paper on another piece of paper calls into your life your deepest hopes and dreams, then you believe it with all your heart and soul. These are inspirational devices, not architectural blueprints. Ok, now that we have some caveats taken care of, the briefest of background before we get to the supplies and instructions (OH MY GOD THIS IS WHY THE ONLINE RECIPE BLOGS ARE LIKE THIS) I've been making vision boards consistently every year for my birthday (ish, usually on the new moon closest to my actual natal day) for a decade and before that on and off since college. I've always considered paper art as my chosen visual artistic medium, so vision boards were right up my manifestation alley. At one point in my life I wanted to work in magazine publishing (scratch that, I still do) so buying and keeping...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Doing Your Best Work With Others When You Feel Alone

I love any piece of writing that covers "creatives" and "artists." Even more, I love it when business magazines like Fast Company, Inc, and Harvard Business Review write articles about us arts folks. In one of the latest at Fast Co, author Jeff Goins tackles the idea of why you'll never do your best work alone . I want to riff on his three takeaways for the small theater and performing arts communities. Find a "Master" Goins uses the idea of Renaissance artists but this idea is also one used by Austin Kleon in his book Steal Like An Artist . However, this task may feel impossible for those of us living in smaller communities that may not have an established performing arts scene. Where are we to locate these masters? This may mean turning to online communities, diving into Youtube, or doing a lot of interlibrary loan exchanges to read what's been written by or about your chosen artists. Emulate your mentor's work. As most of my readers...
2 comments
Read more