Book Description

The Art of Governance is an essential guide for trustees in the performing arts and for the artists, managers, and community leaders who work with them. This book provides the larger context in which trustees govern—the art, artists, history, institutions, and national policies of the performing arts—and also explores more practical issues, such as board development, planning, finance, and fundraising. A wide range of distinguished artists, trustees, managers, and consultants have contributed articles, covering everything from “The Art of Theater” to “Understanding Financial Statements.” An invaluable tool for building an enlightened and inspired board, this resource above all recognizes the need of trustees in the performing arts to find a balance between the uncertainty of artistic creativity and the need for fiscal stability. Editors Nancy Roche and Jaan Whitehead have served on the boards and staff of numerous theater organizations. Nancy Roche has been a trustee of CENTER-STAGE in Baltimore since 1987, serving as president of the board for seven years and as interim managing director for one year. She has been a consultant on governance for the National Arts Stabilization (now National Arts Strategies), a councilor of the Maryland State Arts Commission from 1992-1999, and has twice served as lay panelist for the NEA. In the summer of 2000, she participated as a theater trustee in the National Critics’ Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut, returning in the following summer as a founding member of their week-long Trustees Program. She is a founding member of the National Council for the American Theatre and serves as a trustee and treasurer of the board of Theatre Communications Group. In addition, she serves on the boards of the Roland Park Country School, the Institute for Christian-Jewish Studies, and the Baltimore School for the Arts. She is a graduate of Dominican University and received an MA in teaching and an LLA, both from The Johns Hopkins University. Jaan Whitehead currently chairs the board of the SITI Company, an ensemble theater in New York led by Anne Bogart. She has served on the boards of The Acting Company, Arena Stage, Living Stage, and The Whole Theatre Company, where her particular interests have been board development and institutional change. She has also been a trustee of Theatre Communications Group and the National Cultural Alliance, an arts advocacy group in Washington, and is a founding member of the National Council for the American Theatre. In addition to her work as a trustee, she has been executive director of Theatre for a New Audience in New York and Development Director of CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore. Ms. Whitehead graduated from Wellesley College, holds and MA in economics from the University of Michigan, and, early in her career, works as an economist for private industry and the Federal Reserve Board. She received her PhD in political theory fro Princeton in 1988. She taught at Georgetown University for several years but, as her involvement in theater deepened, she made the arts her main work while retaining her interests in economic and political theory. Drawing on this background, she has recently been writing a series of essays on the challenges facing the arts in a commercial society.