To launch my career in arts journalism, I had to think outside the box
I wanted a byline, I found a community
Unlike most of my CUNY Entrepreneurial Journalism colleagues, I cannot boast about having started my own niche journalism venture. Sure, I ended up running DC Theater Arts, the DC region’s largest theater-focused media outlet, but that was never my goal when I started. My goal was just to get a byline.
At age 40, I had three young kids and hadn’t worked outside the home in five years. Returning to my former career was unfeasible, which left me at a crossroads. I could start fresh and do anything I wanted, and what I wanted more than anything was to write about theater. But a quick look at the field of theater journalism made it clear that forging a career as an arts journalist in the year 2017 would be like trying to hold onto a fistful of sand. I was breaking into a field that barely existed anymore. As with all aspects of news publishing, arts journalism was going through a great reckoning as digital took over from print. Fewer newspapers hired theater critics and even freelance jobs were hard to find. In addition, the people who had the few jobs that I coveted were nearly half my age. It was all very demoralizing.
An Accidental Editor
It became clear that if I was going to have a career as an arts journalist, I would have to think outside the box. I started writing for DC Theater Arts, one of the theater blogs in town, mostly because the founder, a local legend named Joel Markowitz, was the only person willing to take a chance on someone with zero experience.
When Joel contracted ALS and passed away suddenly a few years later, it was unclear if the publication would continue. Running it was basically volunteer work but I decided to give it a try. To be completely honest, my initial goals were mostly self-serving. Becoming an editor and publisher would open doors and allow me to blossom into the career I dreamed of. This was my chance to show people that I had what it took to be an arts journalist.
But then something unexpected happened. I fell in love with DC Theater Arts and the community it serves. I became an ardent admirer of the local theater professionals we covered and it upset me that there wasn’t a professional publication doing a deep dive into the accomplishments of this extraordinary community of artists. I worked with an amazing team of writers and editors who were just as passionate about the community, and who were there to buoy me when things got hard. The theater community we served was so grateful for our work, it was honestly impossible not to fall in love with them.
But a business can’t run on love alone.
From Editor to Entrepreneur
I set out to turn what started as a theater blog into a professional media outlet dedicated to promoting the local performing arts community. My journey is a work in progress, but I have already achieved several of my goals. First was updating the website from a clunky, outdated blog to a sleek, contemporary website. This website is designed to convey a clear message to our readers: We mean business. Next was a clearing out of writers. The blog I had inherited worked with many great writers but also some really amateur ones. In elevating the overall quality of the writing we publish, we have attracted more skilled writers who are happy to have their names associated with our brand.
Most recently, we took the plunge and converted DC Theater Arts from an LLC to a nonprofit. Becoming a nonprofit will open additional revenue streams to us and hopefully (fingers crossed!) bring in the resources needed to become a sustainable media outlet serving the needs of the DC region’s underserved arts community. My work with the CUNY Entrepreneurial Journalism program has been instrumental in giving me the skills to run a viable niche media outlet. Now I’m ready to put those skills to practice.
In the few years that I have been managing DC Theater Arts, the theater community has been dealt some heavy blows. In 2020, the industry faced two of the most difficult reckonings in its history. The complete shutdown of the industry for 18 months at the start of the COVID crisis has ramifications that will take years to sort out. Nearly as impactful are the reverberations of the social justice movements that took hold in the American theater community in 2020. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, and an industry movement called We See You White American Theatre, artists are speaking out about harmful work practices and toxic leadership, aspects of the field that used to be tolerated and spoken about only in whispers.
All of this is happening at a time when publications are reducing their arts coverage even further because… why write about the arts when people are still too scared to even buy a theater ticket? Morale is as low as it has ever been. I know an award-winning composer, whose work calendar is typically full, who took a job at Wegman’s cheese counter to make ends meet. A talented actress I know was in tears last week after putting on a show for an audience of only two people. It would be easy to succumb to this nihilism. But as any good entrepreneur will tell you: where there is crisis there is opportunity. Art and artists are never more important than when the world is in crisis, and I feel incredibly fortunate to be in a position to amplify this community.
As I had dreamed five years ago, I now get to write insightful criticism, interview artists that I admire, and craft thoughtful research articles about an industry in transition. But more importantly, I get to remind the world that art matters. Without these creators, what would we all have done while locked in our homes in 2020? Who would have been there to entertain us, to help us ruminate on the massive changes impacting our nation, and to give us a reason to get out of the house again when Covid finally allowed it?
And as long as our local artists continue to do that important work, I will keep looking for innovative ways to share their accomplishments with the world. And I’m grateful to the CUNY Entrepreneurial Journalism program for giving me the skills to do so.
