All stories by Joe Patti on BroadwayStars

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Deliberate Practice, Imagination, Openness To New Experiences by Joe Patti

The idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master something has largely been debunked since Malcolm Gladwell first suggested it. Still, I think he did everyone a favor by suggesting this number …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:33AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Big Ideas From Small Places by Joe Patti

Great ideas can be found and cultivated everywhere. That is the basic message of a blog post on the Center for Small Towns’ website.  They note that reporting on rural towns often s…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 03:36AM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 11, 2017

Have I Said Too Much Or Haven't Said Enough? by Joe Patti

I have a fairly regular standing appointment on a radio station to talk about upcoming events at our performing arts center. Often the host will ask me to talk about the process we go throug…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:33AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Does Your Experience Need Speed Bumps? by Joe Patti

Via Marginal Revolution blog, comes a story about a tourist spot in China that supposedly put in speed bumps to force people to slow down and appreciate the scenery. It made me think, is thi…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:06AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Relevance Begins At The Door by Joe Patti

If you haven’t been following Nina Simon on her Museum 2.0 blog or haven’t read her book, The Art of Relevance, her recent TEDx Palo Alto talk could be a good 12 minute intro to …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:54AM[SHARE]
Thursday, May 4, 2017

On Not Surrendering To "The Flow" by Joe Patti

Via Artsjournal.com is a thought-provoking essay about artistic performance on Aeon. Dancer Barbara Gail Montero posits that a true expert performer doesn’t surrender to “the flo…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:31AM[SHARE]

May Be Best Not To Suggest A Donation by Joe Patti

You may have heard about the lawsuit against the Metropolitan Museum of Art whose signs recommending $25 admission fee was seen as obfuscating the fact you can pay what you want.  The mus…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Hero To The World, Ho-hum At Home by Joe Patti

I have mentioned a couple times how Jamie Bennett addressed a belief in a TEDx talk that art is what other people do in other places.  I wonder if there might be a little “familiari…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 03:54AM[SHARE]
Monday, May 1, 2017

Whose Theater Is It Anyway? by Joe Patti

I have written about stakeholder revolts where people in the community force non-profit boards to reconstitute themselves, usually in reaction to a planned closing of the organization. …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:02PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 27, 2017

If Everybody Sings, We Can't Be The Best by Joe Patti

In a recent article on Salon, music professor Steven Demorest, talks about the way music education in schools can create anxiety in people about singing. He cites a scene from the Oscar winn…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:18AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 26, 2017

So I Joined A Cult by Joe Patti

Do you have a few moments so I can share some information about a cult I joined? No, wait, wait, before you run away. This is not that type of cult. In fact, this cult demands much less in t…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 03:31AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 24, 2017

Classical Composers Were The Rock Stars Of Their Day. Would They Be Allowed To Be Rock Stars Today? by Joe Patti

I don’t often advocate for specific performers here on Butts in the Seats. I get enough requests to review things on my blog and hundreds of emails from artists at my day job that I do…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:36PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 20, 2017

Is Creativity Really The Best Aphrodisiac? by Joe Patti

Well I am glad I mentioned yesterday how fulfilling I found all the creative projects I have been involved with over the course of my career. Today in The Atlantic, they had a story about th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:48PM[SHARE]

Protecting Yourself Against Embezzling Grannies by Joe Patti

Every couple months the treasurer tells our board of directors how easy it would be to embezzle funds due to the lack of sufficient checks and balances. She is especially wary of the fact th…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Wherein I Muse About The Value of Self Investment by Joe Patti

Recently I have been thinking back about different projects I have participated in over the last 10-15 years that I really found fulfilling. I invested a lot of time in those projects and di…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:36AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 17, 2017

Well-Established, Innovative, Accredited, Untested Terminology Does Not Have Generation Specific Appeal by Joe Patti

Back in February, Seth Godin made a post about “The two vocabularies (because there are two audiences),” discussing how the vocabulary that appeals to people who consider themsel…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:54PM[SHARE]
Thursday, April 13, 2017

Cosette Before and After by Joe Patti

I bookmarked this story years ago and I don’t know why I never wrote about it. Back in 2015, the Toronto Globe and Mail did an 8 part story on the rehearsal and performance process of …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:42AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Breeze It, Buzz It, Easy Does It by Joe Patti

This week Jonathan Mandell addressed an issue that has been troubling me for a few years. I have noticed more and more frequently that actors don’t seem to be taking the time to decomp…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:18AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Unbiased Hiring Practices Have Been Around For A Long Time (Just Not Around Here) by Joe Patti

Drew McManus has been discussing diversity in programming for the last week or so on Adaptistration.  With those thoughts bopping around my cranium, it was probably only natural that a po…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:54AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Toward De-gamification of Job Interviews by Joe Patti

This week Barry Hessenius wrote about the process of interviewing someone for a job.  One of his points was not to use other people’s interview questions/generic questions you pull …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:06PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, April 4, 2017

All The Boring Moments Of The Creative Process by Joe Patti

I have been paying attention to what people do as part of their creative process lately. So I was happy to read George Saunders’ piece in The Guardian from last month, “What writ…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:42PM[SHARE]

Arts Council Director Who Discovered He Was An Artist by Joe Patti

For two-three years now I have regularly revisited the situation where generally people have an easier time identifying themselves as a participant in a sport than as an artist. Earlier this…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:18AM[SHARE]
Monday, April 3, 2017

You Want To Be A Non-Profit? You Have To Start Acting Like One by Joe Patti

You know how they say you need to dress for the job you want rather than the job you have? In much the same way, this is true for pursuing non-profit status. A few years back Ellis Carter li…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 30, 2017

People Like You Read A Blog Post Like This by Joe Patti

Even though it often feels like promoting arts and culture as a non-profit entity requires inventing entirely new methods wholecloth because our emphasis and motivations are not driven by a …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 02:24AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Cultural Intellectual Property Rights by Joe Patti

A few years back I had organized a panel on presenting the work of contemporary indigenous artists at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference. We were fortunate to have Moss…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 02:02AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, March 28, 2017

It's That They Think Ticket Prices Are Too High by Joe Patti

A little while ago I came across a presentation by the Wallace Foundation that seeks to aggregate a number of studies to provide insight for building millennial audiences. If you have been f…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:42AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Everyone Wants Creativity, But Don't Want To Flirt With Failure by Joe Patti

Now and again I have cited the 2010 IBM study where CEOs worldwide ranked creativity as the most relevant and important skill their employees needed to take their companies in the future.Â…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:12PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Talking To Your Neighbors About Saving The NEA by Joe Patti

Margy Waller’s piece about How To Talk About Saving the NEA has been making the rounds these last couple weeks. You should take a look at it if you haven’t already.  Her piece…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:48PM[SHARE]
Monday, March 20, 2017

Real Men Draw Superheroes by Joe Patti

An interesting article in Pacific Standard came across my feed in the last few weeks. It suggests that male disinterest in the arts is a result of social pressure to conform during the early…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:06PM[SHARE]
Friday, March 17, 2017

Design By Committee, Dictatorship Of The Many by Joe Patti

Ah, Spring! That time of year when an arts organization’s mind turns to thoughts of season brochures and other promotional materials. Whether those materials are created by a board com…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, March 16, 2017

We Accidentally Built An Arts And Community Space by Joe Patti

This really great story on the Americans for the Arts blog caught my eye that I would label as unintentional placemaking. Though I could think of other apt terms. Douglas Sorocco writes abou…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:36AM[SHARE]

All that Chat

2025-2026 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 12, 2025: Call Me Izzy - Studio 54
Sep 16, 2025: Art - Music Box Theatre
Oct 08, 2025: Beetlejuice - Palace Theatre
Nov 13, 2025: Oedipus - Studio 54
Nov 16, 2025: Chess - Imperial Theatre
Mar 23, 2026: Giant - Music Box Theatre
Apr 06, 2026: Becky Shaw - Hayes Theater
Apr 16, 2026: Proof - Booth Theatre
Apr 26, 2026: Drama Desk Cut-Off