Very true, but I'd also like to point out that except for the top tier positions, arts administrators (at least in New York City) are running themselves increasingly ragged and watching their wages stagnate year after year. It's devastating to see an organization spend tons of money on everything BUT the people who work there. And to question this is to behave disloyally. Everyone at the top needs to reevaluate their priorities.

Thanks for this wonderful article, Diane. I'm totally in favor of "outlandish" suggestions – we have to get our minds out of the box!

I lead a small company in which the artistic staff IS the administrative staff and for most of the year we get paid zero – but we pay artists (even when we don’t pay ourselves). We don’t apply for as many grants as other companies, we don’t have the manpower. We don’t belong to every “league” of theaters, we can’t afford that. We don’t go to Conferences, we can’t afford that. We don’t have a fancy website – and we update it ourselves… and the truth is all that probably costs us a lot of funding that we just don’t get.

How we can create a landscape in which we don't need all these bells and whistles to excite funders? What if funders focused on helping theaters find ways to trim administrative costs (rather than creating reasons to expand them) and support artists, instead of creating new programming or a fabulous re-designed lobby? What if theaters were rewarded for bringing these things into better alignment?

Jeni, if your "administrative staff" is doing nothing to ensure the financial soundness of the organization, then are they really administering? You yourself point out that the way you run your organization "probably costs us a lot of funding that we just don't get."

I think there's probably a healthier balance between running a company and producing art than you are currently pursuing, by your own description. I hope you find it! It sounds like you've got a lot of rationale for choosing not to run an fiscally responsible organization, which you dismiss as "bells and whistles" but that I might call the "ABCs of sustainable art production." Speaking as a passionate volunteer fundraiser and management coach for some amazing theater artists in the DC area, I can see why funders — assuming they ever hear of you since you pooh-pooh the conventional methods of getting the word out — may have a hard time investing in the organization's sense of its own worth.

I don't think Diane's article is promoting the creation of more arts organizations that work the way you suggest yours does, even if you are creating great art.

I also don't think it's "outlandish" to suggest that you need to find the personpower — whether it's a volunteer board, a paid consultant, or some other fashion — to just do some organizational basics. I'm strongly struck by the idea that to get outside of the box, there needs to be a box to begin with.

I know that sounds harsh — I truly don't know your company and for all I know you produce amazing work. But really, it also sounds like you slag off every opportunity at sustainability; your choice, but I don't see the future of arts in america being impacted by fly-by-night operations, and I urge you to think of administrative and fundraising basics as a way to contribute meaningfully to the collective dialogue on the arts in this country, rather than shouting into a barrel.

pretty good article,and applies to the UK as much as it does to the USofA….and the same applies,not just to theatres, but to the UK funding bodies, especially the Arts Council……when I first was dealing with SW Arts in the 80s they had a payroll of about 5…boss,deputy boss, 2 administrators and 1 secretary…now there are over 20 all on proper salaries….ridiculous.,I cannot swear to the figures, but it was pretty much like that.
So when a new funding initiative or govt directive appears all that happens for the artist is that he or she sees above them a slight rearrangement into slightly different jobs of the same administrators all on the same kind of salaries…..and (grumble grumble) these are the people who collate and formulate the multiple feedback and appraisal forms that are supposed to inform their paymasters as to how they are doing. If they can say they they have talked to 25 local artisit this month and , (an increase of 20% from the previous month) and advised them on funding and artistic issues, they are seen to have been doing their job well by their bosses.but the question never arises on any form whether they have managed to actually increase the revenue stream for any group or company.

If the adminstrators are in charge of their own work appraisal and defining their own targets how, the ******** blazes can they be expected to work for the artisit rather than merely protect their own job.
Another gorgeous hiccough that can occur is in percieved heirarchy. We hade a lovely local initiative going for a bit whereby the arts council, though a local council intermediary,arrnged a common adminstrator for five startup locol theatre companies. Hoorah….we all thought, we now have an administrator for one day a week….but no..we becanme informed that this person was not our employee one day a week, BUT, we were her clients….and suddenly all the things we had put on our company wish lists for an adminstrator to do became crossed off…and it became apparent very soon that this person .and the specific needs of each of these companies were not being met at all. Surprisingly enough this project was signed off as a success to the Arts Council because of the way the final feedback questions were framed…..

Just one example…..but I'm sure we could add more….I do agree with the sustainability option, adminstrators need to be in place…and the scariest kind are the ones where tthe artist is the client. and not setting the agenda. We got a generic arts administrator who did not have the range of skills to help all her charges…but we had no control over her employemnt description so merely suffered the fact that we has an "on paper" administrator who really did us as a company no good at all.
Anyone got any more examples of onpaper adminstrators who did not help
conclusions I guess….adminstrators should not be clients if the artisit, they should be employees….comments ?

Olly, I thought your comments were interesting.

One thing I'd note about the USA is that most of these companies are non-profits, or charity organizations. In a sense, that means they work for the betterment of the community at large, and not "for" actors. Here's how I think of non-profit organizations, including theaters: a board of directors, whose actual legal responsibility is to ensure the fiscal soundness and mission focus of the organization, is entrusted by the government and the people, to oversee the workings of the organization. The administrators work for that board and by extension for the public. They do not work "for" artists in any sense at all.

I think it's an interesting tension worth considering and perhaps even confronting directly with arts organizations you work with. Artistic Director, who do you work for? What is your mission? How do you fulfill it? How does your work with artists make that mission happen?

You may be out of alignment with the organizations' mission yourself, with some of the assumptions you seem to be making about how things should work. That doesn't mean I think you're wrong that things in some organization somewhere should work like that, just that you may be working yourself up over something by just coming from your own perspective, not that of the organization or of the founding principles. Maybe you should do more research before working with particular organizations, and/or try to find a better fit with the mission and the very basic foundational realities of organizations you are working with.

Food for thought, anyhow! All the best with creating your art.

Artist make work. Administrators appraise and fundraiser, appease and appeal. We need them both in whatever measures and it’s unhelpful to suggest that we’re overpaid. We might be captains of industry – charitable ones at that – but we’re neither bloated bankers or fat politicians who dont deliver. Administrators open the doors, sell the tickets and protect the artists from the worst excesses of bad press and poor reactions. Need I say more.

The problem is the administrators consider themselves the "owners" of the theatre, and the artists are merely workers hired on to entertain "their" audience. My colleagues and I used to laugh and refer to ourselves as "migrant arts workers" as we traveled the country trying to stitch together enough work to keep ourselves in health insurance at the expense of our family lives. The relationship is the same as farmers and field hands now, but it shouldn't be, as the entire reason for a theatre institution's existence is to provide a forum where audiences enjoy what artists produce. We live in a world where a mid-level theatre administrator make more money per week than the leading artists at the same institution. As long as this is true what is produced on stages in the United States will continue to shrink and atrophy.