Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Women in Theatre in Business: a Case Study with Bohemia Realty Group
The Interval: The theatre industry is increasingly full of multi-hyphenates, and most often, this means younger artists who don’t limit themselves to just one discipline. Fewer and fewer people are just playwrights, just directors, or just actors anymore, preferring to explore multiple creative pursuits. It allows people to stay flexible in a challenging industry.
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I'm actually not surprised to hear from this article how successful Bohemia Realty Group as I am always experiencing how well theatre people run organizations, business teams or even group projects. Theatre teaches amazing teamwork, improvisation and as the article says creativity skills necessary for business. I am not surprised how the two jobs work together to help improve the universal skills. Sarah Saltzberg points out a lot of similarities between real estate and the arts, which is something I wish we talked a little bit more at a conservatory. I know that our professors’ goal is to raise the next generation of theatre practitioners who are actually working in theatre but this article brings up the point that we need to sometime do side jobs for financial stability. I wish this was a more transparent idea that we talked about. I know I am halfway through my education and I haven’t gone through all the classes but I feel like this idea that might be able to be brought into the job discussion.
It is interesting that the author of this article normally thinks that theater and business are unrelated considering so much of it is about selling yourself. Not to mention the fact that a business minor is one of the most popular among students in School of Drama. I am glad that people are not only becoming so receptive to theater people branching into other areas of the workforce, but are also adopting some of our ways of working. Working in such a hectic environment, we tend to be pretty efficient. I also think it is awesome that CMU encourages this kind of thinking about our careers. It surprised me how many people do not want to work in theater, and surprised me even more when I myself started to get so interested in events management, but professors here are really open minded about that and strive to bring in alums and friends in those other areas of the industry to encourage us to explore and know our options and I really admire that. I feel like a lot of schools and just people in general view that kind of thought as selling out, but I think that getting a degree in theater and working in another field can only help people take theater more seriously and therefore make it a more viable career for those who come after us.
I always think it is humorous when people are shocked in seeing that people who are naturally theatre people or who started off in theatre become successful in other fields or disciplines. One of the best things about being a part of the theatre making experience is that it teaches you valuable lessons in collaboration, communication, teamwork, and adaptability. I think there is something to be said about the versatility in background that theatre provides so you can do the things you love (like co-writing Getting’ The Band Back Together as Saltzberg did) while also using the skills you have learned to expand on that and make it into something (maybe more profitable or more stable- in some instances) but ultimately different that the initial plan. I will never understand why business and art have to be seen as these two fields that are vastly different because art is a part of business by nature and there is some artistic nature to the forces that create business. Ultimately, as an artist, you are creating the business of yourself- so why do these two things have to be seen as fighting forces?
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