Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2023 - 25

happen. I was like, 'Huh, I should maybe
just go get on the mothership.' "
Entering a New Phase with
USITT
What made you want to take this job?
" I had been in my role at Opera America
for 11 years, and for the first six of them,
I was the director of programs and services.
Then there were some staffing
changes and I became the chief programs
officer. I liked being 'CCCPO,' right?
That's what they called me. There was
not another upward role within my organization.
I was at the top level. My boss
knew it. I knew it. We had talked about
what opportunities might be next. While
I had thought all along that I still want to
leave to run an opera company, what I had
discovered over time as I matured was I
really like working in the national association
structure.
" I wanted to be able to use that piece
of my experience because it's rare to take
something that I'd spent 10 years learning
how to do and apply it. Then here was
USITT, which really and truly was coming
home because these are my people.
As much as I love opera, I do love all the
performing arts. I've worked in so many
of them. My husband's a composer. I do
all kinds of things related to theatre and
dance and jazz. "
What are you most looking forward to
as USITT's new executive director?
" I think what I'm most looking forward to
is, as we move forward, coming out of the
darkest three years in the history of the
performing arts that I can remember. I'm
looking forward to seeing how live performance
reshapes itself and being a part of
sharing that message across the industry
to those who are coming into the industry
and others who may not have seen
themselves working in this space. There's
a place for everyone. Bring all your cool,
awesome, amazing, creative weirdness
because that's what we're all about. Also,
I look forward to planning some of those
things that we can do that are not just our
conference, which is awesome and spectacular,
but I'm really looking forward to
finding ways to support the membership
and engage with them more over the
course of the year. "
What would you most like to accomplish
within your first 100 days?
" I've been trying to think about how to
frame that out. Lea Asbell-Swanger and
I have had some great discussions, and
all props and honor to her as the interim
executive director. I want to really dig in
with her both as somebody who's been
with the Institute a long time and as past
president and sit down and talk about the
things that she's seen progress over time
that are important and key to tackle. I'm
looking at a staff that hasn't had a full-time
leader since last June.
" I look forward to figuring out what
support the staff needs, because we've
got an opportunity to evaluate how we
do things and what we can do to make it
more efficient. Looking at systems, looking
at structure, looking at staffing overall.
Do we need more people? What are
our resources? What are our resources
financially? What are our human resources?
What are our resources in organizational
resources and systems? I'm excited
to step into and work on that and get as
many of those pieces in place so that staff
feel supported, but also that we improve
our communication collectively if there's
ways to make things more efficient. So
that's the very nuts-and-bolts, clean-thehouse
kind of things.
" The fiscal year rolls on July 1. So,
we're looking at the budget for next year.
I'm excited about going to the Prague
Quadrennial (PQ) and the PQ exhibit in
June. But this is the moment where we
must start the fundraising cycle for PQ
2027.
" There are some board governance
changes that haven't had a chance to happen
because there wasn't an executive
director in place. So, I'm really interested
to work on getting the programming committee
in place before we get rolling on
heavy-duty programming for Seattle next
year.
" I also want to hear from the membership.
I want to get to know them. I
want to look at the other programming
we do. I think so much of USITT is that
people identify us with a conference,
which is an awesome and amazing experience.
Stage Expo is like nothing I've
ever seen. But what are the other things
as an Institute that we offer to our membership
throughout the year? We're the
leader in education and training. What
does that look like? How do we promote
that? Come to us and we will connect
you with all those vendors that make the
Stage Expo so amazing. We are going to
connect with them to offer training on
their equipment so that you can be up to
date and continue with your professional
development-the kind of training you
can't get elsewhere, and the content that's
not being offered in school.
When new leaders come in, everyone
expects change to occur. How do you
determine which changes to make?
" This is an organization that's been
around for 63 years now, and we know
that it's solid, and we know that there
are a lot of things about it that have become,
shall we say, ingrained-things we
do because we've done them this way for
a long time. And new leadership always
provides an opportunity to step back and
look for a second, while we continue to
move forward and do the work that we
do. So, I'm going to take advantage of being
in this position. I'm working with the
staff on it, I'm working with the board on
it, and I'm working with the volunteers,
asking, 'How's this working for you?' Let's
really sit down and take a look and ask,
'Is this the best way to...? What's your goal
here? What does this-where it's a piece
of software, or section, or communication
tool-do for you and is it achieving what
you'd like it to?'
" If it isn't, let's talk about whether
we need to change it or whether we just
need to add more resources to it, or perhaps
it's just not getting used anymore
and maybe we don't add resources. So,
we're going to take some time to do some
evaluation. Making those choices is based
somewhat in data but is also going to
be based in having those conversations
about member experience, and what are
the easiest to change. Any change has its
own challenges. We'll keep working on it,
but it'll prioritize the things that make the
most sense to change, or are necessary,
because that's what is going to move the
Institute forward.
Leading and Listening
How would you describe yourself as a
leader?
" I try to be very open as a leader. I'm a collaborative
leader in many ways, but I will
also be the first to say, my birthday is in
August. I am a Leo. I'm very much about
protecting the pride. That's something
that I feel we collectively, as a whole, as a
staff, are going to be able to come together
SPRING 2023 | THEATRE DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY | 25
Theatre Design & Technology - Spring 2023

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