2,272 stories by "Joe Patti"
David Dombrosky was the plenary speaker at the Ohio Arts Presenters Network conference I attended this week. At one point in his presentation, he used a chart that seemed very familiar and m…
There was a very interesting article on the Forbes website which explored the point at which the IRS determines your arts career is actually a job and not a hobby. Since you can deduct job r…
Though I don’t cite him very often, I keep an eye on the blog of Broadway producer Ken Davenport because he tends to ask questions about how Broadway can do a better job of serving the…
I thought I would talk a little about performance contracts today. It may not have been in relation to performance contracts, but I recently read that many people are under the impression th…
CityLab had an article on the changing role of libraries in communities which was based on a longer piece about the Columbus (OH) Metropolitan Library (CML). As I have mentioned before, I fr…
An underlying theme of many of my posts has been about the importance of acknowledging that failure and mistakes are part of the artistic development process. A recent post by Justin Brady o…
When the entertainment tax in Spain skyrocketed, attendance at shows fell precipitously. To lure people back, one comedy theater company instituted a program where people would only pay if t…
I was listening to the radio yesterday when they mentioned the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. I was amazed to learn the researchers had gained some insight in to how w…
You may have seen that the St. Louis Symphony experienced a pop-up protest urging a change of attitude in light of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO. I have looked at reporting on…
My mother sent me a recipe for chocolate chip cookies today. This sort of thing has been going on for a few years. She has been finding these new cookie recipes which she swears are better t…
Do you ever sit in your office, thinking wistfully of the days when you were a kid and you would run around the playground, playing games and swinging on the swings? Do you think your audien…
Andrew Taylor tweeted today that he would be speaking about theater spaces this week in Taipei and linked to a video of the Taipei Performing Arts Center. At first I thought Andrew was going…
I listened in on an National Endowment for the Arts webinar today that was billed as addressing arts education. But the reality was, the speaker, Richard Harwood of the Harwood Institute see…
Last Wednesday was Ask A Curator Day in which over 700 international museums participated, answering questions about their collections and museums in general. The effort reminded me of an ar…
At a loss about how to forge closer bonds between the community and your organization? Let them bake bread! Not only do you have the example of Bread and Puppet Theater, to inspire you but t…
Drew McManus is fulfilling one of my ambitions. When I was first starting out this blog, I envisioned creating some sort of repository of information about arts and arts administration that …
It is fortunate that I am not often able to relate how I personally handled a crisis. However, we recently ran into a situation where we had a signed commitment for a show and the attraction…
If you are wringing your hands over the difficulty you are having attracting students to your performances and events, you are not alone– university football programs are having diffic…
This story can’t be allowed to pass uncommented upon. Or at least, I feel the need to comment more extensively than did Thomas Cott when he tweeted this link. In a case of damned if yo…
Last week we were having a conversation to create a repair and replacement plan based on life cycle expectations for our performing arts facility. Of course, there are already a number of is…
I was really surprised to find my name tucked at the bottom of Barry Hessenius’ 2014’s Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts (USA) In fact, since I re…
You may have seen this recent piece in The New Yorker on creativity. My state arts council linked to it and now I see multiple others have as well. Author Joshua Rothman asks, “How did…
Nod to Thomas Cott for calling attention to a post on TRG blog about Mission versus business models. I will cut right to the chase and say that I honed right in on their discussion of making…
Springboard for the Arts recently profiled Artists U, an artist lead, artist centered professional development and planning project. The project started in Philadelphia and has spread to Bal…
Two weeks ago my neighbors were gathered around their pool talking excitedly about doing the ice bucket challenge. One of the kids asked five or six times what ALS was throughout the convers…
