Theatre Design & Technology - Oct 1967 - 26

broken down by school size. Institutions with an enrollment
under 8,000 tend to depend on subsidy directly from the
institution or from a student-body activity fee, and will allow
students free admission to productions. Production funds at
larger institutions will generally come from ticket sales to
both students and non-students. The implication is that the
large schools must rely on good management to produce the
operating funds for their programs. Several of these institutions also operate independent summer theatres which,
with the regular management requirements for continued operation of the theatre, offer some valuable management training.
The Theatre Administration Project of the American Educational Theatre Association recently conducted a survey of
285 colleges and universities to determine the extent and
nature of management training in these institutions. A summary of the findings indicates that management training in
American colleges and universities is conducted on a single
course basis at the graduate or combined graduate-under
graduate level. Most courses carry three semester or three
quarter hours credit, are offered yearly, and have an average
enrollment of ten or less. Instructors generally have a doctor's or master's degree and have experience in educational
and summer theatre management. Most programs use no
text, but if one is used it will probably be Plummer's The
Business of Showbusiness. Only a small percentage of the
schools offering courses in management actually graduate
students in the area. Such graduates are placed primarily
in academic theatre, but there are substantial numbers in
professional and community theatre as well. The material
covered in the typical course will stress college and university theatre management and administration, will perhaps
touch on high school management, and will deal to a limited
degree with professional theatre practice.
Management training is one of the rapidly expanding areas
of theatre in colleges and universities. A combined list from
the College Theatre Directory and the survey conducted by
the AETA Theatre Administration Project shows 91 institutions offering courses in theatre management and 11 others
planning to introduce the course in the near future. There is
a definite need for more extensive training and for broad information exchange within academic theatre and among academic, professional, community, and summer theatre. We

The Panel

need to locate the potential manager, give him the general
and specific training he needs, and provide an opportunity
for theory application through practical experience. I hope
this panel has some suggestions on how this gigantic task
might best be accomplished.
BIRKENHEAD: Thank you, Professor Oaks. We are fortunate
to have Mr. Nicholas E. Bedessem, representing state and
community operations at the National Endowment for the
Arts, examine our problem of supplying more managers for
theatre enterprises. Since the Federal Government has newly
increased its activity in the arts, his contribution will be of
particular interest.
BEDESSEM: In my work for the Federal Government, I represent a non-profit organization and since the government supports the arts, my concern is how the government operates
in this field. We at the Endowment are committed by law
and, more importantly, by conviction, to support and encourage, but in no way to dictate or control the arts. We
wish to promote as much participation throughout the country
as possible so that the beneficiaries of this additional support from the endowment use it to its best advantage when
it comes their way. This requires that there be in the arts
sector of the country at large, a sufficient number of either
that rare individual who can combine artistic genius with
administrative abil ity, the artistic director, or a whole series
of tandem teams made up of an artist and a manager who
can really work together.
My concern is that we don't have enough of either phenomenon. We took a very unscientific survey of 12 of the national arts service organizations last year and asked them for
an estimate of the needs for new key executives in their
respective fields in the next five years. The total they came
up with was 700. I don't know if this is very accurate maybe it should be 500 or 1000, surely not 10,000 but whatever the number, my concern is that we don't seem
to have enough now to replace the managers we lose so
where are any new ones to come from 7
The answer that you often hear is that we have to train and
educate them. This, too, is hedged in controversy. One
school of thought says they can't be trained, the next says
they can, but the members disagree among themselves about

Photo: John Primm

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