Thena:
After working in operations at two arts organizations, I have found that I really love setting up and maintaining the structures that allow art that I care about to continue. I’m interested in moving towards a general/company management track. I’ve found that many apprentice-type programs for this kind of training are full time and pay minimum wage, which is unrealistic with my set of bills. What is the best way to gain experience that builds on my operations skillset?
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Dear Thena,
As a former below-minimum-wage fellow, I know this tension well, and it’s tough. Since I pursued a slightly more creative apprentice track before pivoting to program management, I phoned a Fefu Friend who did work as a company manager (apprentice, off-Broadway, and commercial roles). This response pulls from both of us!
The first thing is that you’ve already been working in operations at arts organizations. Don’t discount that experience when thinking about general and company management work—they’re both operational capacities in artistic spaces!
We’d also collectively recommend reaching out to other people in your network (or not! I’ve been delighted by how open arts admin people are to sharing more about their roles, even with a cold email or LinkedIn DM) who have the types of roles you hope to have in order to learn more about the industry. Company management / general management also looks different based on the sub-industry. Broadway, off-Broadway commercial work, non-profits in New York, touring companies, regional theaters—all of them have slight deviations of the work, so learning exactly what flavor is most exciting to you will help illuminate the types of skills you might still want to hone in addition to your existing operations skills.
Among the gaps you’ll probably find are contracts and contracting. Familiarize yourself with the arts unions and contracts—you can do this independently! The higher up you go in operations and management land, the more negotiations and contracting will be a part of your day-to-day, so building that experience early—and showing that you’ve taken the initiative to learn about it independently—is helpful.
And finally… good company managers are hard to come by. To be frank, it’s a challenging job with odd hours and competing demands—you have to have exceptional people skills, and there’s a need to always be “on” to support the work. But, because of this, there can be a good amount of turnover. It’s worth keeping an eye on what’s out there because at larger commercial theaters (or even non-profits) there are often three, even for company managers and/or assistants. If you can get into a more entry-level role as an assistant company manager and you keep learning, that can feed its way into a career, both in company management and general management.
Keep at it, operations baddie. We need more folks who are excited to dive into the numbers and systems that support our artistic spaces, and we promise you there’s a path for it!
Managers unite!
Fefu (and Her Friend)
