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S1.E5 | Michael J. Bobbitt: Leading Innovative Growth in the Arts Sector

• Thembi Duncan • Season 1 • Episode 5

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S1.E5.

Arts and culture visionary Michael J. Bobbitt joins Thembi this week to discuss the pressing need for systemic change in the arts sector. In his role as Executive Director of Mass Cultural Council, Michael "walks the walk" and consistently implements innovation and sparks paradigm shift in the agency.

In this rich discussion, Michael also talks about the double-edged sword of grantmaking, the challenges of change management, and what the arts sector must do to survive.

Want to be a guest on KeyBARD? Send Thembi a message on PodMatch: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1740803399472257afce75768

KeyBARD is produced, written, and hosted by Thembi Duncan.
Theme music by Sycho Sid.

Listen and Connect:

Thembi: Hello, hello, and welcome to KeyBARD. I am Thembi, and today I am so excited to be speaking with arts leader, theatre director, choreographer, and playwright, Dr. Michael J. Bobbitt. Yay! So, before we get into this conversation, I am going to tell you a little bit about him, okay? 

He is the highest-ranking cultural official in Massachusetts State government. Since his appointment as Executive Director of Mass Cultural Council in February 2021, the Council has made some significant strides, including crafting its first Racial Equity Plan, securing and distributing a historic $60.1 million in state pandemic relief for the cultural sector, and crafting and adopting its FY24 to FY26 Strategic Plan.

Michael's prior roles as Artistic Director at New Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts and Adventure Theatre-MTC In Maryland established him as a driving force in professional regional theatre and theatre training. 

In 2023, he was appointed by Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey to serve on her Advisory Council on Black Empowerment. Michael's extensive arts management, business, and race equity training includes programs at Harvard Business School, Harvard Kennedy School, Cornell University, LEADBoston, artEquity, and National Arts Strategies, culminating in achievements including the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for his dedication to the arts and educational theatre. 

His contributions earned him recognition as one of Boston's Most Influential Men of Color by Get Konnected!, Boston Business Journal's 2023 Power 50 Movement Makers, and induction into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. 

Additionally, his impact resonated through his directorial and choreographic growers, which has been showcased in renowned theatres nationwide and internationally, alongside his written words which have been featured in festivals and published by Concord Theatricals and Plays for Young Audiences.

Michael's commitment to the arts has been acknowledged with awards like the Excel Leadership Award from the Center for Nonprofit Profit Advancement, the Emerging Leader Award from the Montgomery County Executives Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, MassOpera's Action Bearing Award, and OrigiNation Cultural Arts Center's Sojourner Truth Award honoring his exceptional contributions to cultural enrichment and innovative leadership.

Welcome, Michael. (Laughs.)

Michael: That bio is so obnoxious. 

(Laughter.)

Thembi: It's your fault for accomplishing so much. Don't blame it on the bio. 

Michael: So it's so funny to hear it, because I I've done a lot and I'm doing it just because this is my life's work and I love it, love it, love it so much. I should also clarify that the “Dr.” is an honorary degree, and it actually doesn't happen until May, so I'm not quite a Doctor yet, but 

Thembi: Okay, okay…

Michael: It depends on when people read this bio.

Thembi: Alright, he'll be a doctor later, folks. Hold. Stand by for that. Stand by for Doctor Michael. So for now, it'll be right. But we're waiting. We're waiting. You're a doctor in our hearts. 

(Laughter.)

Michael: Thank you. Maya Angelou had 50 honorary doctorates, by the way…

Thembi: Wow! Okay, so you have 49 more to get before it’s all over, okay? That's your assignment. 

(Laughter.)

Thembi: So listen -- okay, I need to understand something. Your career began as a theatre practitioner, right? And you (he shakes his head.) --- so, okay, well let's see – let’s see where it began, because you went from an artist to an arts administrator, and then eventually a state arts leader. And I want to look back over that and get a sense of, like, what surprised you about that whole journey? Did you expect the journey to take this route?

Michael: No. I have a 22-year-old right now who is struggling with adulting. He said adulthood is the worst hood he's ever lived in (Laughs.) and I only say that because when we're that age, we we get so focused on what it is we want to do, and I was, too. So my first career sort of was pursuing to be a classical trumpeter. I went to college to study trumpet, and then after I realized European classical music wasn't my jam, I moved on, back to my other love, which was dance. And then I found my way to theatre as a performer.  

I only spent a few years performing regional theatre and tours, but I shifted quickly to teaching, and some directing, and some choreographing, and then that seemed like it was going to sustain me for a minute. And then it became interesting, because the last sort of 15 years when I was sort of running and leading as Artistic Director and doing freelance work, I realized I enjoyed being outside of room, making the room available for artists to be  artists, rather than being in the room making the art. 

I didn't know what that meant, and now that I have this job as a bureaucrat, I feel fully comfortable. I feel like all the things in my brain – the strategic thinking, the tactical thinking, the race equity work, the business work, now the policy work, all are sort of aligning in the right place. So, I don't know where it's going to take me, but right now, I feel fully fulfilled. So it's all been a surprise throughout my career, and I'm looking forward to the next surprise. 

Thembi: I love that. So, the trumpet was the first thing, before you – and then dance, and then theatre. So dance in the sense of the dance world? So not like dance as a part of theatre…

Michael: No, no…I was pursuing a career as a concert dancer. I was in concert dance classes, mostly the classical ballet world, which is strange, because if you see me – well, you know me – but if anyone else sees me, I'm 6’2”, 220 lbs. So I was not a ballet dancer. But you know, why not? Why not? 

Thembi: Why not? Exactly. That's wonderful. I love that trajectory and I love that you made that discovery in yourself, and you said, “You know, I really would rather create opportunities and facilitate opportunities for artists than be in the room.” But you still had those experiences that I'm sure inform your work now, which we’ll check in about in a bit. 

So right now, you're the highest-ranking cultural official in Massachusetts State government. How does this position shape the cultural landscape of the state of Massachusetts? 

Michael: Well, I've been asking them to give me a cape for that title because I feel like that should have a cape, right? 

Thembi: (Laughs.) I think so. Absolutely.

Michael: Right? No, that’s obnoxious.

Thembi: No, because, well, because across the country, not every state has this kind of infrastructure, am I right? In terms of arts support? 

Michael: Yeah, every state has a sort of a state arts agency and they're structured in many ways, even our territories. So Guam, Puerto Rico…they all have a state arts agency. They are structured differently, like some are part of their state’s administration. We are independent, some are 501(c)3s, but most of them get – all of them get an allocation from the National Endowment for the Arts to reallocate to their communities, and then some of them get money from their state legislature, or wherever they get their money.  

So, I don't know if that means that person who's running it is the highest-ranking government official for arts and culture. It just so happens to be, here, in Massachusetts, there's no other person who is in the arts that is above me in government. But the good thing is that – we had a strategic plan a couple of years ago, because most of what we have been doing is grant making. And now that I'm in grant making full-time and I've had some, I've been on the Board of grantmaking organizations, and I've been on many panels, so I know how grants work. But now that I'm in it full-time, I see that grants don't necessarily fix problems. They are band-aids, or they – and they certainly are meaningful and significant, but they're not taking away the reason why we need grants. And so, one of the questions I asked my staff during the strategic planning process was “What is the benefit of the agency to people that don't get grants?” And then secondly, “What are we uniquely positioned to do?” Well, we are part of government, and so we can go to government and think about how the cultural sector can get stuff from other agencies in the government, but also think about cultural policy and the creative economy and support the other needs of government. 

Government is trying to deal with all these things from housing, to race equity, to health equity. Well, the arts talks about its ability to cross all other sectors, and so now as a state agency, I can actually do that. I think of it like a housing agency. A housing agency, yes, it’s trying to get people that don't have houses, houses. But it's also trying to fix the issue that creates an unhoused population.

So, as a state agency supporting the creative sector, I want to get money to people in the arts that need it, but I also want to eradicate the issues that create the need for that money. And so those are things we're discovering now, and it's great that I’ve been an artist, I've been an arts leader, and consider myself a businessperson, because I can bring all those things together and figure out what the sector needs.

Thembi: I love how you can look at a situation from a standpoint of, “Okay, I see what's already happening, but let me get in front of this and try to understand the bigger structural system, and how we can implement change in a way that's lasting, and that actually has broad impact.” That's incredible. 

You just talked a little bit about across the country how there are different state agencies and arts councils, and they might be structured differently from Massachusetts, but they all have sort of the same purpose of supporting the arts.

And so, I'm assuming that you have conferences and meetings and conversations with your counterparts across the country. What are the kinds of conversations that you're having? Like, what are the things that are happening across the country with regards to the arts, that you are finding in common?

Michael: Yeah, so to your first point, I think one of the reasons why I think everyone should have some participation in the arts, whether it is actually making art or consuming art, because you know, we know as directors, and playwrights, you get a blank sheet of paper and then you have to see the future and create this thing. We get a script, we have to see the future, see the final product, and then bring all these things together to fix that. It's just a series of problem-solving. So that's what we have learned as artists. So that's kind of what I feel like my job is as a director of a state agency.

You know, across the country, there's all kinds of conversations. Our sector is really struggling. I just went to a convening the other day and we learned that the finances of organizations are contributing are now – 70% of their budgets are now contributed revenue, and it used to be more like 30-40-50 and now it's up to 70. And so the sector is in the business of fundraising much more than it is in the business of making art, and so that’s a problem. 

Trying to think about the systems issues that have created the problem…I think, you know, we're graduating people with degrees from art school with very little business acumen and no civics acumen, and so we as a sector tend to self-segregate from all the other sectors out there. Because maybe we don't speak their language, because we weren't trained in that. You know, all these kids leaving college with all this debt, and they don't know how to price their work, or negotiate a contract, or do their personal finances. 

We reject capitalism as a notion because we are artists, but we're also broke, and so we need to think like capitalists and make money. There are issues with tenured artistic directors that are in positions forever and ever and ever and ever and ever, and then we wonder why our audiences aren’t growing. Well, one person's aesthetic is the aesthetic of that organization for dozens and dozens of years. We are a very conservative sector, which I think is probably a controversial thing to say, but we don’t necessarily change programming. We really don't change our business models, even when we know they don't work. How many years have we been talking about subscriptions not working, and yet we still use them? We haven't investigated any other patron loyalty program out there. We even kick our subscribers out at the end of each season. I don't get kicked out of Netflix and Hulu! It doesn’t –

So it’s all of these things. The way we do finances, it’s – we're very conservative, and I defy anyone to argue with me on that. We may innovate in some programming, but even that, even that – the reliance on revivals in all art forms is a sense of conservativism. And so that's part of the conversation. We're also talking about the fact that our sector is not very organized when it comes to advocacy and lobbying. We are a trillion-dollar industry in this country, bigger than agriculture and utilities, and in some cases, retail, and education – and we’re not organized. So there’s very little cultural policy out there to support us and to regulate us, which I think needs to happen. Not the art, but the way we do business. And so, what does that look like if we were more organized?

If we were organized like the health sector, or the tech sector, or even the gun lobby…they are extremely organized, and look at what they get? Even after all the murders that have happened, they still get all this protection. So, those are some of the conversations. Then there are some tactical things like panels, and race equity…we have some agencies that can’t even use the word equity in their grant programming. So it’s a number of things. 

Thembi: And in all of these conversations that are happening, are you seeing any sense of resolution to move forward, and move toward organizing and/or change in any way in the sector, or do you feel like it's just – right now it's just in the conversation phase?

Michael: At the risk of my colleagues getting mad at me, I'll just say it. I don't see a lot of change. Again, we're a very conservative sector, even though we want to think of ourselves as liberal, and radical thinkers, and innovative. We don’t do it. A lot. Again, sometimes in the art, we do, but when it comes to how we run our business, we don't do it. So I move fast. I'm happy to have the one or two conversations, but then once I get it, let's go, let's go, let's fix. And so, I'm probably out there as a change agent and radical thinker, and I'm hoping that I can inspire others to do this. 

You know, we talk about the benefits of arts and culture to the health community, and when I go to health summits and conferences and convenings, I don't see anyone from the arts sector in those rooms. Same thing with education. We talk about the benefit of arts in education. And yet, I go to these meetings and conferences, and there’s no one from the arts in the education room.

When the school board cuts arts programming from the budget and from the schools, then we act. But we aren't at the town hall meeting and the school board meeting with they're thinking about it. And so when they make the cut, there's no one there to defend it. And so it seems like no one cares. 

I was – someone the other day said to me, “They just don't get us. They don't like us, they're not supporting us.” And I'm like, “They don't know you. They don’t know us, Boo, because we spend all our time in the rehearsal rooms, and in our desks. It’s that joke – when you ask Americans what they think of Canadians, and their response is, “They don't.” That's kind of what I'm experiencing as I'm going around the state talking about the sector, like they don't think about us, they don't know us, because we haven't made ourselves available to be known.

Thembi: Okay but, you talked about being in the rehearsal room and not being in the conversations where people can understand more about the sector, and just its impact on the other sectors in our society and become more integrated with what's going on in the rest of society. What do you think about this sort of tendency of arts organizations to even feel like they have to have this year-round programming machine, to where the workers – they have no other choice but to always be in the rehearsal room, because it’s – you're working on a show, and then there's another show in preproduction, and there's another show -- it's just going around and around. Do you think that there's a way that arts organizations, and artists, and arts collectives, can kind of slow that down, so that they even have the time and the wherewithal to advocate and connect?

Michael: This is what I mean by being very conservative, because there are answers out there, and it means that you have to do something differently and investigate the things you’re doing and see if they work. We double down on the things we know. I was in a conversation recently where we were like, “We have to find new ways to capitalize our organization.” And the conversation shifted to doubling down on fundraising. And I was like, that’s not the solution. Doubling down on more programming is not the solution. It's like a hamster wheel, like, we're just spinning our wheels doing the same thing and expecting a different result, and – you know, last year we had 150 theatres close across the U.S. That's a crisis. That is a crisis. And yet, the theatre community has not gotten together to say, “Stop everything. This is what we need to focus on, or we will not be here soon.” 

So, you know, I presented at another panel conversation and at one point I stopped and said, “Can I just be frank for a minute? I just want to be frank. What are we doing here? Why are we complaining to each other about our problems? Clearly, we don't have the skill set to fix our problems. Maybe we need an intervention from people that work in business, and work in entrepreneurship, and work in venture capital. We need some help. And some person was upset at that comment and said, “We need to be together to share best practices.” And I said, “But you're a broke a** theatre company talking to another broke a** theatre company. What best practices are you sharing?”

So if we don't get off the hamster wheel and do something differently, we're going to still be in the same place in a few years. And so, I'm trying to be – because I was there, you know, I was there, I did it. But I also – when I ran theatres, you saw me everywhere. I was at the Chamber of Commerce meeting and all these different places, and that's the main reason why those theatre companies grew and grew rapidly. Because I realized that I can’t replicate what other people are doing, I’ve got to think outside the box. And it's the same thing in grantmaking. Grantmakers tend to double down on the people that get the money, so those people always get the same money. But if we don’t change the way we do grantmaking, we will never reach people that don’t get the money. So, it's a part of my ethos and the way I think, and I wish arts organizations would double down on the things that could make a difference. The new ideas, and the new changes, and investigating business models that have been broken for 50 years. 

Thembi: Wow, it really, you know, when it's put that plainly, it does make you wonder why hasn't the sector just overall said, “Let's take a pause.” I mean, we were forced to take a pause a couple of years ago and that was an interesting opportunity to make change, but we'll talk about that in a minute. I want to shift— 

Michael: We did nothing.

Thembi: Oh no, go ah—

Michael: It was a failure. 

Thembi: Yeah…

Michael: It was a failure. We made no – we did a little bit of streaming and then when we got back, we let go of streaming, which could have been amazing venture capitalist idea. But we did nothing.

Thembi: But did – but then okay, we had a chance. That was – literally we were forced to stop. Nobody, for a good amount of time, could gather in public. Now, you know, officially…obviously people were still doing it, sort of under the radar in some cases, but we had this opportunity, and we didn't. So what does that say? Does that mean the sector is doomed? Does – is it the, you know, the orchestra playing on the Titanic? What? What does it mean? 

Michael: We are very conservative. 

Thembi: (Laughs.) 

Michael: We are very, very conservative. 

Thembi: We'll leave it, we'll leave it.

Michael: I mean, I—

Thembi: Go ahead, go ahead. 

Michael: During the pandemic we all sort of shifted – even though we didn't think about this – we shifted to quarterly budgets where we evaluated where we were and we pivoted, just like they do in the corporate world. And then as soon as the pandemic was over, we went back to season planning, where we're trying to guess how our patrons are going to think 18 months down the road and we collect all their money. God forbid there's a fire, a flood, or another pandemic. We’ve now collected all that money at a discount to the patron, even though those patrons can afford to pay full price. I mean, we just went right back to what we were doing before. We learned not much during the pandemic. So, anyway…I could talk about that for a while. 

Thembi: Yeah, we'll touch back on it because it's it deserves more unpacking. Racial equity, you mentioned earlier. Under your leadership, the Mass Cultural Council launched a three-year racial equity plan. Can you talk about what a racial equity plan is, and how do you structure that and map its progress? How do you know when you're getting it right?

Michael: So, a couple of things. One is, I really believe that one of the mistakes that we often make is that we try to build these “DEIAJB” plans and deal with all the oppressions that we've ever created as a human race in one plan. It's not possible. The expertise that's needed in racial equity is different than disability equity, which is different than gender equity, which is different than any other equities. And there is intersectionality, but to build a plan to deal with each person's intersectional identities is impossible. And so I also believe that one of the challenges with racial equity is that when all these other oppressions come in the room, racism gets pushed to the bottom of the list because it's the hardest thing to fix. So to me, elevate it to the top. Deal with it first. Teach your whole team how to focus on racial equity and what that will do is give you a blueprint for all of the other oppressions you’re going to deal with. 

And so to me, it's about having a suite of plans versus one big, massive plan. And so, that's what we did. We focused on racism. We – it was a collective project where the whole staff and the board got to suggest ideas. We turned those ideas into smart outcome goals, where we attached measurables to them, so that we could track our progress and also share with the world our progress. And so that's the big way we track it. We literally put measurables – and some of the measurables are completing this task, like overhauling our HR process, adding to our job descriptions that it's everyone's job to advance racial equity, and that's part of the evaluation, too. Adding a race equity statement to the – we're leading our job postings with our race equity statements, instead of putting them at the end, like most people do. “All ethnicities encouraged to apply.” Well, if you're a white presenting organization, people of color are not going to read your application to the bottom. 

So that's what we've done, and we've had such great success. I mean, our grants to BIPOC organizations are meeting, and in some cases, slightly exceeding, the demographics of the state. People of color feel extremely much more connected to the organization. We are soon to be announcing our Death and Disability Equity Plan, and our Native American Equity Plan, and we have future plans to do a Rural Equity Plan and a Citizenship Equity Plan. But again, it's created an ethos in our mindset in organizations where, now we don't really have to talk about it because it's at the top of everyone's mind. And so everyone is thinking about reaching communities that have been historically underfunded and underserved. It’s great. 

Thembi: Do you find that now people are understanding your approach to the work, now that the racial equity plan is moving along and people are seeing a result from it, now are people having those “Aha” moments of like, “Oh, we can accomplish change, we can move towards equity.” 

Michael: Yeah, you know, change management is hard because people fear loss, loss of what they know, loss of power. And so, in the beginning, there was certainly some concern, but now, like, getting the racial eq—  getting the disability equity plan and Native equity plan, it was –  compared to the first plan, it was fairly easy to get done. And people see the results. You can literally point to the results and say, “We did this. We set out some goals, we did this.” 

And I also think this equity work. To me, I think of it like video games, where you always level up and you’re never finished. And so, we're continuing to dig deeper and define new action steps in our racism equity work, racial equity work. And it wasn't that we ignored any issues when it came to the other oppressions that we encountered, but we didn't have the space to really build the plan until just recently. So we dealt with anything that was coming to us from the disabilities community, or from the gender community. So it's been great, but again, because of these plans and the way we approached it, we've built the mindset at the agency where everyone – literally in every conversation, people are like, “What about…what about this?” “What about this?” “We forgot about this.” And so, I’m happy for it.

Thembi: That's incredible. Does your background as an artist and a practitioner in various art forms inform how you lead, with regards to the arts?

Michael: Yeah, two things. One is my background as poor Black child from Northwest DC leads most things that I do, because I think the arts saved me. You know, home was not a fun place. Every single adult I knew dealt with joblessness, addictions, mental health issues, incarceration. And so getting out of the house, because there was so much noise there, was the goal. And the place I found comfort was in the arts. It kept me out of the house as long as I could, so I got home at 6pm, even in elementary school, because I went to ceramics or dance after school, in DC public schools. So I think about all those little Michael Bobbitts out there that have those homes like mine, and it literally inspires everything that I do. It's the main thing that pushes me forward. 

I think the arts part – and this is again why I think we're in the business of imagination and creativity, and that's what we should be selling, primarily. That's what we should be monetizing, because I’m never without ideas. And so, as we're tackling big systems issues, I have a hundred ideas. And if you don't like this idea, I have this idea, I have this idea, I have this idea. Or I can find a way to get a new idea, and that’s, to me, I mean like – I was talking to a bunch of CEOs of big businesses recently, and I said, “How many of you hire staff, they get the job, and then something is not working, and you’re getting mad at them because they don't know how to fix it. But you didn't vet their creativity when you were hiring them. 

What happens if you talk to them about creativity, and imagination, and ideas? And you made space, and you built your culture around cultivating creativity for your staff. You brought an artist once a month to do something creative. You did teambuilding exercises at creative organizations. You had a benefit in your benefits packet that gave them money to go experience art every year. Like we do gym benefits, let’s do arts benefits. What would happen to your staff’s ability to generate ideas and problem-solve? I think it’s beaucoup money. I think you would be, like, making so much money out there. 

And so, those are the two things that – being a poor Black child from DC with a dysfunctional home, and secondly, just that the arts has expanded my mind to creativity. 

Thembi: I love that answer. That's incredible. Let's talk a little bit about pandemic relief. Mask Cultural Council distributed $60.1 million in pandemic relief funding across the state of Massachusetts. In what ways have artists and arts organizations recovered from the COVID-19 challenge, or have they at all? What have you seen, with regards to the funding and their recovery, and just also other aspects of recovery, if it has happened at all?

Michael: I don't know. I know because we – the legislation that that money came with, we worked hard to make sure that we identified that priorities were going to BIPOC communities, disability communities, rural diversity, geographic diversity, and programmatic diversity. And the whole staff prioritized reaching people that have never received funding before. In fact, it was a priority point – first-time grantees got priority. So we reached a whole bunch of people, and I know from a lot of people – and also, we were thinking artistic diversity, so we're reaching out to the drag artists, to the tattooists, to the street artists. These people never get considered for grants. And so, many of them didn't even, like, want to apply, and we had to go back to them, and I was like, harassing them. I was at the balls and at the clubs at night going, “You need to apply. You need to apply. It’s only going to take 10 minutes. We’ve redesigned the program so that it's easy for you. Please apply. Please apply.” And so when they got those grants, this overwhelming feeling of success and validation for the work they were doing came about, so I think that to me is the biggest excitement.

There were organizations, too. We did a lot of organizations. Small – the legislation also didn’t prioritize nonprofits, and we have a lot of for profits. For profits that are not profiting, but also don't have access to other state support, in sort of the way economic development supports small businesses. Often those organizations aren’t included in those grant portfolios. 

We also know that a lot of immigrants come here, and they're coming from countries that don't have a nonprofit practice, so they create for profits. So we were able to support a whole lot of new organizations.

So to me, it was about someone sees us, someone feels us. So the validation of that. The other thing I would say is that we learned that the sector is way larger, and it is, and so it helped me to really push us towards the strategic plan, because we just don’t have  money to support everyone else. But if I can support you by integrating you into other state agencies, there might be other fee for services, or contracts, or grants that they have. 

Some of the numbers that we're seeing show that the arts organizations are getting closer to pandemic level audiences – a little bit under. But the cost of doing business has increased, partly because of diversity. People are really, really zeroing in on the benefits of having diverse people, but most of that created more expense and not a lot of new incomes. I still think we have a lot of work to do in changing our business models. So that's my next phase – is trying to get them a little bit more business savvy so that they can feel knowledgeable in trying new things. And there's no risk capital money out there, and that's going to be the big fear part for them, we still have a lot of work to do to recover from the pandemic.

Thembi: You are many things. You are also an educator. In that realm of your life, what are the kinds of conversations that you're having with students and folks who are emerging in the field? 

Michael: It's the same conversation – that we have to radically reimagine everything we've done in the arts sector. We can't think of anything that we've done before as a sacred cow that cannot be re-looked at and reused. It is drastically different in any other sector. They're always thinking about the future and how to pivot, and readjust, and adjust their business models, but we – conservative sector. So that's what I'm talking to students about. Like, this is your sector in a few years. Like 5, 10, 15 years, you're going to be the leaders. Are you going to perpetuate the stuff that you know right now is creating financial stress and a devaluation of our sector? 

You're learning in school – because our curriculums are also dated – you’re learning in school that, “This is the way we do marketing.” “This is the way we manage boards.” “This the way we do governance.” Fine, learn that, because you need to know the history, you need to know what is there, but also force yourself to ask questions. To radically imagine. To interrogate, and to analyze to see if those are the right things to do. You have to figure out what this arts world looks like for you, and do you want to be a starving artist, this term that we accept as part of the zeitgeist. I reject it. We should not be starving. Nonprofits should not be struggling. And we accept it. So you have to interrogate all that.

Thembi: Do you think that folks who work in nonprofits fully understand the sense of what nonprofits are? Do you think that they fully understand that it's more of a tax designation than a way of life? Like, it seems like there's this mentality of “Oh, we shouldn't be making money.” “Oh, we shouldn't be profiting,” if you will, for lack of a better word. “We shouldn't benefit financially from this work.” It does – when you talk about rejecting the idea of the starving artist, it seems like across the industry there is this sense of, “It's not right to make money and to do well off of the arts. Do you feel like that's a predominant way of seeing it?

Michael: Yeah, we're mission-based, and so it's about the service part. And so, there is this sort of rejection of capitalism, but you're right, it's based on myths. It’s based on misinformation. You're right, it's a tax status, and, you know, they are many nonprofits out there that are like – Harvard is a $4 billion nonprofit. (Laughs.) So it’s not a business model, it's a tax designation, and there are things that we can learn from the for-profit sector that I think would be beneficial to what we're doing. So yeah, that's part of the issue. So because we're all struggling, and because artists, again aren't trained to know how to market themselves, we're just perpetuating – and then they come out of school without a basic knowledge of business and/or civics because I'm struggling getting artists to show up at the public square and put pressure on their leadership. Again, there's no cultural policy. And then those people become leaders of arts organizations, and maybe that's one of the reasons why the arts organizations are struggling – because the leadership doesn’t have enough knowledge that it could have.

Thembi: You happen to have a certain way of thinking and way of addressing and equalizing systems. And that's based on your experiences as a young person, all throughout your career, that you've turned your lens outward to others to make sure that you implement initiatives that bring about equity. 

Do you believe that cultural institutions have a responsibility to address issues in terms of amplifying marginalized voices, pushing towards equity in all areas, as you mentioned. Do you do you think there's a responsibility there? 

Michael: I do. I do for a couple of reasons. One, I think art is inherently a social justice tool. I can't think of any major social justice movement in this country that didn't have arts at the center of it. If you think about the Civil Rights movement, and you can hear those souls in your head think about the AIDS crisis, and you can't think about it without thinking about Keith Herring’s and Basquiat’s art. Movies like Philadelphia. The plays of Terrence McNally and Larry Cramer. You can't think about the Vietnam War without hearing the Temptations songs and the music of the hippies. I mean, it’s inherently a social justice tool, so to me that’s a part of the responsibility.

The second part is that we say that art is integrated into all of society – it can do all these things. So let’s act like it. Let’s actually do it. Let’s actually show up in those spaces and do it. The other reason why I say it’s useful is that to me, it’s really good for business. It’s really good for business. If your organization is predominantly white, you have to get to the place where you realize it was designed to be that way. It didn't happen by accident. White people got together, and they created this model. And so, they’re going to design it because of their lived experiences for people that they know. And I'm not saying that it's done with some ill intention. Maybe some have, but it wasn’t done to exclude in most cases, but that’s what the result is. And so, if people want to be diverse, they have to redesign their business model with people of color. 

I remember I did a workshop, a race equity workshop for a car dealership. It was sort of a parent company of like 100 dealerships up and down the east coast, and I walked into their C Suite. And it was all middle-aged white guys. And the first thing I said was, “Oh, you all are losing a lot of money.” They are like, “What are you talking about? The third quarter projections or like, blah-blah-blah-blah.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you know how to sell cars to white people.” And they were like, “Ohh…Ohh, yeah. We don't have the perspective in the room to understand how to reach people of color.” 

So for that reason, maybe our decline in audiences and our devaluation comes from the fact that we are marketing mostly to the people that look like us. And so there's an opportunity to grow. The other thing I also say to people that the reason why you have a responsibility is that the thing that makes me a Black man is the music, and the dance, and the words, and the language, and the fashion. So arts and culture is built into my DNA. So there's a built-in audience there. And if you're not programming or structuring your business – and it can't just be programming. That one show about Asian people is not going to fix your racism problem. That discount ticket is not going to fix your racism problem. That outreach coordinator that you have is not going to fix it. It's a holistic look at your whole organization. You're going to miss out on all those people. So if you aren’t diversifying, you’re dying. And if you aren’t integrating into all of the social justice issues of this world right now, you're going to die. And I think that's what's happening to our sector – one of the things that’s happening in our sector.

Thembi: You mentioned earlier that when you were seeking to expand the reach of the Mass Cultural Council in terms of the types of businesses that were getting pandemic relief, you said you were out at the balls, you were out in the communities. You were out there. You weren't saying, Hey, you all need to come into my office for a webinar or sorry for like a seminar or you know, a conversation on how to apply. You were going into the community. Do you think that that is a part of the challenge of organizations that haven't increased their reach, that they are expecting communities that they haven't built a relationship with to come to them?

Michael: Yep, yep. And it was the whole staff. I mean, the staff was trolling Instagrams, and part of the lesson for them was that if people have never been funded by you before, or been rejected, it's going to take a little bit more effort than that one message. So you’ve got to reach out to them multiple times. You have to go meet them. My husband used to get mad at me because whenever we were running around town, if I saw an artist on the corner, I would run over to them and give him a card. And he would go, “We have to go, we have reservations.” And I’m like, “But there’s an artist that needs money.” And so, it takes that kind of work and I think one of our, you know, the way I describe it is that I know Black people about will count the faces of people of color in the catalog and brochure before they will decide whether or not they're going to participate in your organization, or even consider you. I know when Steve says, “Let's go to blah-blah-blah town,” the first thing I do is get online and look up racism in blah-blah-blah town. And so, you’ve got to meet them. You’ve got to go to them. You’ve got to figure out what they need and what they want to see. And you’ve got to make them feel like they’re part of your community before they will really engage. And so, it's more effort, but that's where your potential growth is. Honestly. 

Thembi: Mmm-hmm.

Michael: Our friend Joy Zinoman taught me that. When she started doing Black shows, she went to the churches. I mean, she was running—

Thembi: Where people were. 

Michael: Went where they were.

Thembi: Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, okay. So we were talking about sort of the human connection and bringing people into the fold in that way. Now I want to talk about technology. What right now is the current role of technology in the Massachusetts cultural sector, and how do you see technology expanding in the field over the next few years. Particularly, I'm interested in virtual arts spaces. You touched a little bit on that in terms of as a response to the pandemic, but now I'd like to hear about what are original ideas that are coming out, not as a way to get around not being able to meet in person, but as a way of expanding our ability to engage with each other across geographical distance. 

Michael: It's everything. One, when do we make advances in technology, we usually don't go back as a society. So, nobody's out there using 8 tracks and CDs and cassette tapes. So we have to go with the flow, and because we're very conservative sector, we're using the last sector to incorporate. We fought websites. We were like, “No, we're going to keep printing brochures.” We fought social media, and it took forever for us to come around to that. We fought video. Marketing…remember all the struggle we got to get Equity and the unions to let us do video clips of the shows? And the same thing with streaming. 

Like, to me, the example – and part of my success and part of what I've been pontificating about is, let's look at examples outside of the sector. We tend to look for answers inside the sector and I still think I struggle with the term best practices because I don’t think they've been scientifically beta tested. I think they're generally accepted practices, and typically come from the well-funded, resourced organizations that we look to for examples. I like to look outside of the sector. So when I think of patrol loyalty programs, when I'm trying to rethink about subscriptions, I go to like the airlines, and the hotels, and the coffee shops, and the ice cream parlors, and the Netflixes. They’ve built patron loyalty programs that expand their audiences, not maintain, and what we do is try to maintain. It's a retention tool versus and expansion tool. 

So for me, technology, when I think about technology, there are so many examples out there where streaming has been a great benefit. The sports sector, when they started streaming into people's homes. The zeitgeist of sports grew. There's a reason why Friday Night Football is a big thing or like, the Super Bowl is this huge, huge thing. And what I liked about it is that they didn't go at it from trying to recreate the live experience in people's homes. They designed a whole new thing, right? So when you watch a game, there’s Instant Replay, there’s colorful commentary, there’s people drawing on the screen, there are data scrolls, there are bio pop-ups. There's so much more content and interaction, it becomes super visceral. What would happen if we thought about that when we were trying to bring the live aspect of the arts into people's homes. Everyone has a front row seat, but what would happen if, like we saw a concert – symphony orchestra, but we are now popping up bios about the players. We are cutting to the rehearsal. We are – I mean, there's so many opportunities and I think that's where the investment could be.  

There's a magic, there's a magic in that moment between the digital and the live world that we just haven’t even explored yet. What would happen if we put drones above the theatre stage so we could see what was happening at the top? What would happen if the costumes included a little button camera so you can actually see the other person. I mean, they're just – it’s endless. And it's not going to change the fact that some people want to come to the theatre and see it in person. I think it's only going to enhance that. But that’s what audiences are doing in every other form of entertainment, except for our live theatre stuff. Our live performing arts stuff.

Thembi: You said that if organizations don't embrace this forward motion that other sectors are embracing, and just by the nature of technology, that moving forward and not backward, that they're going to die. 

Michael: Mmm-hmm.

Thembi: And I mean, it makes me think about a mine, you know, like a coal mine being in a situation where, okay, we're moving on to different types of energy and the coal mine’s going to be closing soon. And people just being like, “Nope, I'm committed, I want to do this,” and just not looking at the bigger picture and realizing that, you know, a part of why audiences are not showing up is because you're not presenting them something that they're interested in. Because people are going to move toward what they're interested in. They're going to spend money on what they're interested in, we know that. But you're worried – you're keeping something static and being like, well, I'm doing this same revival, this same piece from, you know, 50 years past, that was created in a whole different time with a whole different sort of worldview. Why isn't anybody coming to see it, and it's like because everybody else has moved on. 

Michael: Yep. You're double-downing on the thing that is contributing to your losses. It's the most bizarre thing. And I probably – I mean the good thing about Adventure Theatre, and I learned so much from that, is I didn't have a subscriber base. My audience aged out in three years.

(Laughter.)

Thembi: Wow. So you had to figure something out. Yeah…

Michael: Right. They loved us when they were five, and they became eight, they were like, “That's for babies.

Thembi: Right, right.

Michael: So I have always had to innovate and always had to think about the next new thing, and so it was a huge learning experience. But yeah, no, I think, you know, I see all the revivals being programmed in people’s seasons, and that's not for new audiences. That’s for old audiences. And then they go, “My people aren’t – new people aren’t coming.” And I go, “Oh, hmm. I’m surprised new people aren’t coming…because you’re doing…Hello Dolly…again. I’m Shocked. 

Thembi: Who could imagine? 

Michael: Yep. Yep.

Thembi: Wow. Okay, so what's next for you? What's next for the Mass Arts Council – I'm sorry, the Mass Cultural Council. What's next? What do you have coming on the horizon?

Michael: So, personally, I, after 32 years, because I left school to be a performer, I'm finishing up my Bachelor’s in a month and a half, so—

Thembi: Yay! Congratulations!

Michael: Yeah, I'm really excited about that. It's funny because learning is so much easier when you’re 51-52, then it was when you were 22. I’ve got like five anecdotes for every single theory that I’m learning. I’m like, “Oh, I've done that six times already.”

Thembi: Mmm-hmm.

Michael: And then in August I start a Global Executive MBA in Arts Innovation. So, like, a bunch of leaders from MBA schools around the whole world got together to create this one-year curriculum for arts leaders, also from around the world. So, In addition to learning from Harvard professors and Yale professors and Stanford professors, I’m learning from professors in Dubai and Chile and Singapore and Shanghai. So I'm so excited about that global perspective because I think globalization is also another opportunity for the arts sector to think about when it comes to how we innovate.

I'm curious what people are doing in other countries and how we can replicate that here, and I’m also curious to learn from my colleagues. So that’s a one-year program. I did start Executive Education certificates from Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy school, so I want to finish those up. schools. So I'm double-downing on that place where business and policy, integrate with the arts.

What Mass Cultural Council is doing right now is really trying to integrate the arts in all of government. I’m thinking about us like Kudzu, like we're going to be everywhere. (Laughs.) We’re going to be everywhere. So, I'm talking to all the secretaries: Secretary of Transportation, of Education, of Workforce Development, Economic Development, and saying, “Here’s what we have to offer. I see you have these things. Can I help you with this? Can you help us with this? What can we do to solve some of the state’s problems? I'm hoping that will open up a lot of opportunity for the sector, and I’m thinking about the agency as a broker and a concierge between the other sectors and the arts sector. And so, I’m hoping I can broker deals and contracts. I’m hoping I can create opportunities and fee-for-services. 

We’ll host other state agencies in webinars for the sector. We’ll see if they can tweak their programs to include arts and culture, and similarly, with the for-profit sector or other business sectors. So I'm kind of excited about some of that stuff. Again, our Disability Equity Plan and our Native American Equity Plan launches, so we have some big action steps coming out of that. The other thing I'm super excited about is that we have been beta testing this program called Arts on Prescription. So, for the last five years, we've had healthcare providers prescribe arts and culture activities to their patients as a supplement, complement, or even alternative to medicine. So you go to your doctor, he diagnoses you, he gives you whatever he needs to give you if it’s medicine. But he may also give you a ticket to the museum for the next six months. And then you take that prescription, you go to the museum, the museum acts as the pharmacy and fills the prescription, and then you send it to us for reimbursement. 

We're now talking to payers and managed care providers. And so, hopefully in about a month or so, we'll be announcing our first major insurer doing the reimbursements for arts and cultural activities, which is super exciting. I mean, some of the things we've heard is that the doctors love it. They have another tool. It's helping with social isolation and mental health and even in some cases, physical health. One doctor said he feels like he's prescribing beauty into someone's life. Another doctor said he feels like he's giving out golden tickets. Prescriptions are often written for the patient and a guest, or for the patient and their whole family. And to know that this might be reimbursed is amazing, because it would be a revenue stream, a new business model, a new way of getting new patrons, for the arts sector.

So at the moment we have over 400 arts organizations in the network, and hopefully once we announce the first payer and major health care system, the dominoes will fall, and other payers will jump on board. We’re also hearing from social workers, and school counselors, and housing authorities, and even the gaming commission to help with gambling addiction, so I think this Arts on Prescription thing can be a zeitgeist-level idea that I think will spread throughout the whole country. But it’s starting in Massachusetts.

Thembi: I love that so much, and something that is so significant about what you're talking about, and I've heard of this being coined as social prescribing with some work that's been going on in the UK, and this sounds very similar to that.

Michael: That’s where we got the idea from. So, social prescribing is the umbrella…

Thembi: Mmm-hmm…

Michael: That is, we've been really fine-tuning Arts on Prescription, but there's Parks on Prescription, there's food prescriptions. There’s all kinds of other social prescribing, but… 

Thembi: I love that.

Michael: No one’s ever pursued the idea of getting insurers to cover the costs. And they’re doing it with yoga, and reiki, and acupuncture, so it’s not a – and they may make a lot of money from it, too.

Thembi: Well, yeah, I mean that's what I'm getting at, is like this idea of yeah, you can think of anything. Wow, wouldn't it be nice if, wouldn't it be nice if right? in in our sector and sure there may be great. Ideas of what's possible with the arts. But what you're doing is you are reaching out specifically to ensure is you're thinking of the solution from a financial standpoint and making sure that it gets paid for. Because that's always the question when you when you talked about doubling down on fundraising and you're saying, Hey, we can get this underwritten, we have to be creative and thoughtful and expansive about where the money comes from, which I think is that key piece that's missing from a lot of these conversations, where people are like, oh yeah it would be great if we could do XYZ but oh well the money's not there and then it's just like goes back into that. 

Michael: Yep.

Thembi: …circle of despair.

Michael: Yep. it's the social determinants of health. We have identified what they are, but now we need solutions and here's the tool that uses assets that we already have. So, we’re not necessarily reinventing stuff, we’re just putting this with this. It's going to require people to validate anecdotal data as much as they validate numerical data, or analytical data. Because someone’s saying they feel better because they went to a museum, or they feel better because they got their food covered by their insurance, or they feel better because they went to the park. Or even things like prescribing financial knowledge classes because so many people feel sick because they’re stressed about their finances. So, if I can prescribe for you to go take a finance class, and that may help you to do whatever…so I think it's, you know, if we can scale this to the point where decision makers pay attention to it, I think we can see this becoming a tool for a lot of things.

Thembi: Absolutely incredible. Michael, this has been an excellent conversation. I've always love talking to you. You are so full of two important things: Ideas and action. You get things done and I love that so much about you. And I'm so glad you chose to take a little time to talk to me about it. 

Michael: I love you, too. I love our long history. Long, long, long history from when I played your grandma in Lil’ Red Riding Hood.

Thembi: That’s right, Lil’ Red! Oh, my gosh. Such a meaningful relationship to me. And so I'm, I want to know everything you're doing next. We're going to have to bring you back on so you can tell us what you're up to. You're stuck with us. It's happening. It's moving forward.  

Michael: Congrats to you on the podcast, too.

Thembi: Thank you! Till next time. 

KeyBARD is produced, written, and hosted by Thembi Duncan. Theme music by Sycho Sid. Visit us on Instagram @Keybard_IG. 

 

 

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Thembi Duncan

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Michael J. Bobbitt

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