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Wednesday, November 23, 2022
Another Bay Area theater artistic director is exiting, after 17 years at the helm. Here's why
Datebook: Since 2017, artistic directors at almost all the biggest nonprofit theaters in the Bay Area have left their posts, most after decades on the job. Until Tuesday, Nov. 22, Marin Theatre Company was the lone holdout, with Jasson Minadakis at the helm for 17 years.
2 comments:
Maggie Latham
said...
Theatrical leadership is clearly difficult and taking its toll on artistic directors everywhere, but things may be more complicated in the Bay Area due to the high cost of living. Jasson Minadakis mentioned a desire to spend more time with his young children, and often times people at the helm of a company end up working extremely long hours which keeps them away from their families. He also mentioned the theatre industry being in the midst of quite a bit of change. It seems to me like the company is looking for a higher level of diversity or someone who perhaps does not fit the mold of the cisgender white man in order for the company to work on creating a new vision. This might be a good direction to move in after the issues in 2017 surrounding how his production of Thomas and Sally hypersexualized stereotypes about Black women, with many in the area calling it racist and sexist. It would be great for the company to have new faces in their leadership positions.
I am not too surprised to hear that so many individuals that have been leading a theatre community artistically are taking a step down or back from where they were previously. The world has changed so much in seventeen years, and especially in the last 4 years. With covid and virtual performances changing the way in which we interact within the medium of live arts, I can see it being overwhelming enough as is trying to adjust. Much more so if you are put into the frustrating situation in which you are now trying to operate with less than half of your resources you had available to your before the pandemic happened. I hope prices can stabilize more and budgets can start to climb again. One very frustrating aspect of my experience at CMU has been the seeming lack of resources available with which to perform shows. Especially when other programs I was looking at are making shows on a larger scale simply for being located in an area with lower costs overall.
2 comments:
Theatrical leadership is clearly difficult and taking its toll on artistic directors everywhere, but things may be more complicated in the Bay Area due to the high cost of living. Jasson Minadakis mentioned a desire to spend more time with his young children, and often times people at the helm of a company end up working extremely long hours which keeps them away from their families. He also mentioned the theatre industry being in the midst of quite a bit of change. It seems to me like the company is looking for a higher level of diversity or someone who perhaps does not fit the mold of the cisgender white man in order for the company to work on creating a new vision. This might be a good direction to move in after the issues in 2017 surrounding how his production of Thomas and Sally hypersexualized stereotypes about Black women, with many in the area calling it racist and sexist. It would be great for the company to have new faces in their leadership positions.
I am not too surprised to hear that so many individuals that have been leading a theatre community artistically are taking a step down or back from where they were previously. The world has changed so much in seventeen years, and especially in the last 4 years. With covid and virtual performances changing the way in which we interact within the medium of live arts, I can see it being overwhelming enough as is trying to adjust. Much more so if you are put into the frustrating situation in which you are now trying to operate with less than half of your resources you had available to your before the pandemic happened. I hope prices can stabilize more and budgets can start to climb again. One very frustrating aspect of my experience at CMU has been the seeming lack of resources available with which to perform shows. Especially when other programs I was looking at are making shows on a larger scale simply for being located in an area with lower costs overall.
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