"DON'T GIVE UP!"

After today, I have 3 days left of my internship. Today, one of the most influential days I've had here happened. Joe Dowling spoke to a room full of interns eager to hear what he had to say about his professional career as an artist and a manager for theaters all over the world. To give a little background on Joe Dowling, he has been the Director of the Guthrie Theater for the last fifteen years and just signed on last month to be the Director for five more years. Before that, Joe worked and lived in Ireland and multiple theaters as well as in America and Canada. During the last fifteen years, Joe has guided the Guthrie Theater from a one-theater workspace into a nationally recognized public hub containing three different and important theater spaces: a thrust stage, a proscenium, and a studio. As the artistry of the work done at the Guthrie has expanded, the management of the theater has grown as well. The Guthrie is now a nationally recognized, non-profit theater that nurtures budding artists, local artists, as well as national artists.

Since Joe has done all these wonderful things with the help of a fantastic staff, it was fantastic to hear him speak about what he thought made a successful theater and to get some advice from him. A big lesson I got from Joe's discussion was to be successful in the arts you must have a mix of artistic and business mindfulness. People want to see good art, so there must be special attention paid to keeping high standards in the creative process. Yet, there must be attention paid to keeping the sales going strong as well. The question arose as to how to keep selling tickets during a recession. Joe responded that sales have not dropped for the Guthrie and these are some of the reasons: people want to see good theater and that is what the Guthrie provides. Also, the marketing team has been forced to give some discounts out to the patrons, yet keep a balance for income. Joe claimed that arts do better during a recession and that is because when there are hards times economically, socially, etc. society turns to artists to provide insight. This leads into Joe's final message to the eager young people sitting in front of him. Don't give up! There will most definitely be hard times and failures in art, but we must keep going. We must keep going not only for ourselves, but for the reason for the art. Art is of great importance to society whether Americans want to admit it or not. Art changes lives.

A final word that I would like to end this blog with is from Joe (who took it from Shakespeare): "Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail." Although Lady Macbeth is talking about the courage to murder, the message can still be applied to an artists' life. In other words, don't give up! *Left ear tug!*