Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / CI to Eye | Monica Holt On Curiosity, Leadership, and Evita

Transcript

CI to Eye | Monica Holt On Curiosity, Leadership, and Evita · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

• 0:09
  Hey podcast listeners.
• 0:10
  We have some really big news today.
• 0:14
  We have a brand new podcast host and I want to
• 0:19
  welcome her today. The one and only, you know her, you love her: Monica Holt.
• 0:24
  Hi Christopher. Thank you. I'm so, so happy to be here.
• 0:29
  I know that so many of our listeners are probably familiar with you.
• 0:33
  You have been on the podcast a couple of times before. Also,
• 0:36
  you have an amazing reputation. People know you. Your network is very vast.
• 0:40
  We've talked about your career path on the podcast in the past.
• 0:45
  It's rather unique for -- do you consider yourself a mid-millennial?
• 0:50
  An elder millennial?
• 0:51
  Maybe mid-elder.
• 0:53
  Mid-elder, all one word. As a mid-elder,
• 0:56
  you stayed at the Kennedy Center for 16 years,
• 0:58
  which is for the millennial generation is a long time to camp in one
• 1:02
  organization.
• 1:03
  You also climbed from sort of an entry level junior position in marketing at
• 1:08
  the Kennedy Center all the way to the top of the marketing food chain.
• 1:12
  And then did something highly unusual,
• 1:15
  which is you moved from the marketing side of the equation to the
• 1:19
  artistic planning, programming side of the equation,
• 1:22
  which is not a jump most people make.
• 1:24
  That is not a move we are sort of accustomed to seeing in our industry,
• 1:28
  so it's super unique.
• 1:30
  What kept you growing and evolving at the Kennedy Center for so long?
• 1:36
  Well, I guess first and foremost, I grew up in the DC area,
• 1:39
  so institutions like the Kennedy Center and Arena Stage and Shakespeare,
• 1:44
  Signature, Wolf Trap even --
• 1:46
  they were all kind of formative to who I was as a theater kid,
• 1:50
  as someone who loved the arts. So when I was able to join the center,
• 1:55
  that was a dream come true.
• 1:56
  So just inherently I wanted to hold onto that dream as long as possible,
• 2:01
  but in terms of how I moved around the organization and what motivated
• 2:06
  me there, in addition to the mission of the building,
• 2:10
  the commitment to not just the artists and audiences in the building,
• 2:14
  but kind of the larger national remit of being a cultural center for the
• 2:19
  United States, both for everyone here and also diplomatically abroad,
• 2:23
  and of course a memorial in the legacy of John F. Kennedy.
• 2:27
  Those things became entrenched in me very quickly as I looked around and saw
• 2:32
  so many people committed to that same vision. But I
• 2:36
  think while I didn't move outside of the building the way that folks might to
• 2:41
  find other opportunities, I'm just a really curious person.
• 2:46
  I love knowing how things work, right? If our coffee machine breaks,
• 2:50
  I'm going to Google for three hours trying to figure out what part and how do I
• 2:54
  fix it, and maybe I'll put on a headlamp and look into the inner workings,
• 2:58
  but I, knowing how things work, maybe because I like knowing how to fix things,
• 3:02
  which is something for my therapist, but
• 3:05
  that curiosity really kept me driven to think beyond
• 3:10
  just what my job was at that time or what department I was in.
• 3:14
  There was such a big organization that I could learn so much from and soak that
• 3:17
  up. And to complement that, at the center,
• 3:21
  I was surrounded by people who were willing to answer my questions. So yes,
• 3:25
  I made a point to be on time when I said I was going to be somewhere and to show
• 3:30
  up for the people that mattered and to deliver on the results that I was tasked
• 3:33
  with. But I was surrounded by people who were fostering who I was becoming,
• 3:38
  who were answering every question I had about every detail and giving me the
• 3:42
  information I needed to continue my curiosity in other areas of the building.
• 3:48
  Without that environment paired with the mission,
• 3:51
  I wouldn't have had the opportunity to grow.
• 3:53
  And with the support of everyone around me,
• 3:56
  when this opportunity came to move from marketing and as a real theater kid at
• 4:00
  heart,
• 4:01
  the chance to go work as the director of theater programming to general manage
• 4:05
  Kennedy Center new productions, that's an opportunity you don't say no to.
• 4:10
  And then from there,
• 4:11
  obviously just growing even more and in my last position,
• 4:16
  overseeing all of our artistic programs and the production team and the Kennedy
• 4:20
  Center Orchestra,
• 4:22
  just that constant surrounding of folks driven by not just mission,
• 4:25
  but their own creativity.
• 4:27
  That's the type of place that you know to hang on to and to give back to as much
• 4:31
  as possible.
• 4:32
  That's so cool. While you were there,
• 4:34
  you obviously got to do some amazing things.
• 4:36
  You were in such close proximity to really starry people and
• 4:41
  really remarkable events like the Honors and Twain.
• 4:44
  How did being a part of those kinds of moments and being in proximity to those
• 4:49
  folks shape the way you really think about the field and your role in it?
• 4:54
  Yeah,
• 4:55
  there's nothing quite like being able to be surrounded by creative people that
• 4:58
  came through as artists,
• 4:59
  as part of the production team and artisans behind the scenes,
• 5:03
  and also the curatorial staff is naturally incredibly creative.
• 5:07
  And sitting in a room talking about an idea for a festival or what are we going
• 5:11
  to do for X, Y, Z season that's coming up.
• 5:14
  Those are moments that I treasure as much as being behind the scenes and
• 5:19
  seeing an artist doing their first vocal rehearsal before the Honors.
• 5:24
  But the other moments that I hold dear are just being part of the audience,
• 5:29
  the magic of not just watching a beautiful or
• 5:34
  hilarious or moving piece of work happen in front of you,
• 5:37
  but being part of a whole community,
• 5:38
  watching that happen. Those moments I treasure as much and those keep me
• 5:43
  motivated almost as much as anything behind the scenes.
• 5:48
  There are two more recent examples of this that still feel like they're going to
• 5:52
  be seared into my heart and brain for life. In New York,
• 5:57
  the night before the Tony Awards, a friend and I went to see Just In Time,
• 6:01
  which if you don't know is the Bobby Darin biopic musical.
• 6:05
  Biopic musical? It's the Bobby Darin bio musical,
• 6:11
  and it's starring Jonathan Groff and without spoiling too much,
• 6:15
  the way the show works is that at the beginning and the end of the show,
• 6:18
  Jonathan is Jonathan and it's the night before the Tony's.
• 6:22
  So emotions are already kind of high, and even just during the show,
• 6:26
  Jonathan is on stage just giving everything in this performance. I mean,
• 6:30
  bearing his soul and his sweat and saliva,
• 6:35
  tears, and all the things.
• 6:36
  Being wet, like he is.
• 6:38
  Exactly, being a classic Jonathan-Groff-is-being-wet-on-stage,
• 6:41
  but he's just giving everything. And watching it, you're just like, oh,
• 6:46
  this is someone living his dreams.
• 6:48
  He's up there and he is living his dreams on stage and all of us get to bear
• 6:52
  witness to it and be a part of it. And then towards the end of the show,
• 6:56
  about 10 minutes until the end,
• 6:57
  he kind of becomes Jonathan again and he says something like,
• 7:01
  "Performing was Bobby's favorite thing to do,
• 7:05
  and it's also mine." And his voice starts to break a little,
• 7:08
  and you just get this huge amount of emotion in his voice. Everyone feels it,
• 7:13
  and everyone just starts clapping and spontaneously stands up and just starts
• 7:17
  giving him an ovation 10 minutes before the end of the show. He's crying.
• 7:21
  We're all crying.
• 7:23
  It was just a moment of care and catharsis and community,
• 7:27
  and that can happen on any night. You don't know.
• 7:30
  Another audience experience is I was in London recently and saw Evita
• 7:35
  with the absolutely incredible Rachel Zegler and Diego
• 7:39
  Rodriguez, but well, I think everyone's online,
• 7:43
  so I think everyone who will be listening to this probably knows at the top of
• 7:47
  Act Two,
• 7:49
  Rachel Zegler walks onto the balcony of the London Palladium and sings Don't Cry
• 7:53
  For Me Argentina outside to the street.
• 7:56
  But what has happened since the first performance is crowds have continued to
• 8:00
  gather and gather and gather,
• 8:02
  lining up as early as 7:30 when the ticket buyers are going in for Act One,
• 8:08
  to watch this moment happen. And it is beautiful in the show. Thematically,
• 8:13
  it works to have her on the balcony for the show, for those inside the theater,
• 8:16
  absolutely,
• 8:18
  but also it's creating community beyond the ticket holders.
• 8:22
  It's creating a sense of community to the broader theater world, of intrigue,
• 8:26
  of interest, of conversation. It is life imitating art, imitating life,
• 8:31
  maybe three more times back and forth.
• 8:33
  I get goosebumps all over thinking about it and to see our art moving
• 8:38
  forward in a way that is so relevant and meaningful and connected...
• 8:42
  Truly, if anyone happens to be listening and is in London, just go see it.
• 8:45
  She is spectacular. He's spectacular.
• 8:49
  You're just stunned for the whole show at how great it is.
• 8:53
  It's on my list. It's on my list. Well,
• 8:54
  let's talk about perhaps what some listeners might be thinking is an elephant in
• 8:58
  the room, but essentially your shift away from the Kennedy Center.
• 9:02
  If you don't know what's happening at the Kennedy Center right now,
• 9:06
  then you probably don't work in this industry,
• 9:08
  so we won't cover that because we've covered it in the past and there's a thing
• 9:12
  called Google,
• 9:13
  but you left the Kennedy Center of your own accord following the regime's
• 9:17
  takeover of the center,
• 9:19
  when it really became clear that certain voices were being elevated while others
• 9:23
  were clearly being pushed out. What do we want to say about that?
• 9:27
  I was in a position where I had a front row seat to everything that happened
• 9:32
  that week in February, and I think for me,
• 9:36
  as soon as members of the board were dismissed and the chairman of the board --
• 9:40
  who has been the biggest philanthropist the Kennedy Center has had and such a
• 9:43
  supporter of both artists and staff of the center for such a long time --
• 9:48
  as soon as they were dismissed,
• 9:50
  it became pretty clear that this wasn't going to be the organization that I had
• 9:54
  known since I was coming to The Nutcracker as a kid.
• 9:58
  Then the night before the board meeting where they dismissed our president
• 10:03
  of 10 years, Deborah Rutter,
• 10:05
  who has been such a champion for our whole industry,
• 10:09
  I think at that point I knew that I wasn't going to be able to stay.
• 10:13
  I was in some ways lucky enough to have that be my choice,
• 10:18
  which meant that I could try to be -- for a month or two --
• 10:22
  the calm in the storm, helping the staff and the artists,
• 10:26
  because that leadership wasn't introducing itself to many people.
• 10:30
  New folks were appearing in the building that weren't known to the staff.
• 10:35
  There was no all staff meeting. There was just a total lack of transparency.
• 10:39
  So it felt important to me that as long as I had the opportunity,
• 10:43
  even if I knew this was going to be short term for me,
• 10:47
  to take those moments to do what I could for our
• 10:50
  artists and whatever that meant, and to do what I could for not just my team,
• 10:54
  but the whole staff, the center,
• 10:56
  to be there to try and be kind of a lighthouse in the storm.
• 10:59
  But I was very clear that it was now --
• 11:02
  the Kennedy Center became on that day a political organization.
• 11:06
  It is not an arts organization right now.
• 11:08
  It is a political organization. And I grew up in DC so if I had wanted to work
• 11:13
  in politics, I assure you I would've worked in politics.
• 11:18
  I was there for the mission of the building, for the artists, audiences,
• 11:22
  and industry members that it served,
• 11:25
  and for my people who were my colleagues and staff over that time in the
• 11:29
  building. So it was clear that I needed to leave.
• 11:34
  Leaving my people was extremely hard.
• 11:37
  What I think has been important to me now is as I figure out what comes next for
• 11:42
  me and what that looks like is, okay,
• 11:44
  how can I best use not just my experiences or times
• 11:49
  over all of these years at the center, but even just in these past few months,
• 11:53
  an experience that while traumatic and troubling for the center and for
• 11:58
  the arts field is also happening across so many other institutions in
• 12:02
  DC across the country --
• 12:05
  how can I use that experience to be helpful to the field,
• 12:09
  to artists, to my former colleagues?
• 12:13
  Whether that is tangibly helping,
• 12:15
  whether that is working to figure out how projects that we were planning for the
• 12:20
  future can move forward in other ways,
• 12:23
  or whether that's bringing some joy or excitement or belief in the future and
• 12:28
  hope. And so when you approached me about heading this
• 12:33
  way for a bit,
• 12:34
  it was such an exciting moment because Capacity has always been an organization
• 12:38
  that is so grounded in its values,
• 12:40
  that is so committed not just to the industry and the art,
• 12:45
  but also to the people.
• 12:47
  I think Capacity feels like an organization that is always thinking about the
• 12:51
  heartbeats and not just the metrics,
• 12:54
  which is a pretty remarkable thing that I was thrilled to be able to jump at the
• 12:58
  opportunity to work with you and your team a bit.
• 13:01
  Well, I know, I mean, we have known each other for more than a decade,
• 13:04
  and I think we have always had a very hard-to-describe innate connection
• 13:09
  to one another.
• 13:10
  We could go a really long time without speaking and then we could just drop
• 13:13
  right back in and it always felt so good.
• 13:15
  And so I very much know what it's like for people to be led by you.
• 13:20
  So just hearing about how you had to walk away and how you were such
• 13:25
  an exemplary leader all the way until the very end,
• 13:29
  it's so heartening and so easy for me to hear that story because that's just so
• 13:32
  you. Well, so let's talk about the podcast.
• 13:36
  What actually draws you to saying yes when I asked you to do this?
• 13:40
  Well, I do anything for you, obviously. And for Capacity.
• 13:43
  I'll remember that.
• 13:45
  But this in particular, I think to that point of,
• 13:49
  as I'm figuring out what comes next and what the field needs right now,
• 13:53
  my hope would be that the same kind of curiosity
• 13:58
  that has driven me in my career, I can bring to the program.
• 14:01
  Because CI to Eye has already been such a wonderful resource, I mean, for me,
• 14:06
  even at all different stages of my career,
• 14:08
  and a way to stay connected and really keep an ear for what's bubbling up or
• 14:12
  what's to come that I might not have my finger on the pulse in.
• 14:15
  And I think a lot of people feel that way.
• 14:18
  My hope is that I can take that mission and drive and also start
• 14:23
  to engage in conversations with executive leaders of organizations
• 14:28
  right now. I think in a time where folks are really worried,
• 14:30
  bringing in our leaders into the conversation to help give some guidance will be
• 14:34
  really instructive.
• 14:36
  My goal is to bring some more artists into the fold because again,
• 14:41
  their own perspective and drive for joy and being able to have those
• 14:44
  conversations with them for me will also bring me a lot of comfort and joy to be
• 14:48
  able to hear more about what's on their minds and how we can continue supporting
• 14:51
  them through all of our various streams of work. But then also using this as an
• 14:55
  opportunity for all of us to maybe hear from some voices outside the field right
• 15:00
  now. I think one thing that CI is always good at,
• 15:04
  and certainly Boot Camp has always been great at,
• 15:05
  is not being too insular in the approach to problem solving for the
• 15:10
  industry.
• 15:11
  And I think I'm seeing that more and more over time start to grow and permeate
• 15:15
  the field,
• 15:17
  but this to me feels like a good opportunity to continue bolstering that by
• 15:20
  bringing in some folks who might have a different perspective,
• 15:23
  not necessarily only marketing focused, but really across the board,
• 15:27
  organizational structures and behaviors, leadership, all of those pieces.
• 15:31
  So I mean,
• 15:32
  what could be more exciting than learning by just talking to
• 15:37
  folks who love to do what they do or are experts in their field.
• 15:40
  And I hope that I can carry that across on this amazing platform and
• 15:45
  hopefully bring a little joy, a little joy to folks.
• 15:48
  We need it.
• 15:50
  I know, we all need it. Yeah,
• 15:53
  I'm also hoping that people will reach out and let us know what they want to
• 15:56
  hear. If you're listening, reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, however,
• 16:00
  and let me know what you want to hear in the next few months.
• 16:04
  I think this season will be a lot of fun, and obviously your team is incredible,
• 16:08
  and yeah,
• 16:09
  I'm just thrilled and really grateful for the opportunity and it feels like a
• 16:13
  big privilege.
• 16:14
  Well, we feel extraordinarily lucky to have you. I'm so excited.
• 16:19
  New episodes with Monica are going to begin dropping on a weekly
• 16:24
  basis, so that's probably the most frequently we've ever published the podcast.
• 16:28
  So if you're not already subscribed,
• 16:31
  now is the time to subscribe wherever you do listen to your podcasts.
• 16:36
  And lastly, just Monica, welcome aboard. We're so happy to have you.
• 16:40
  I'm so happy to be here!
• 16:42
  Can I start to say things like "smash that subscribe," or is that only like
• 16:46
  YouTube?
• 16:46
  Yes. Whatever words you want to use, we will start to make those your tags.
• 17:00
  Thank you for listening to CI to Eye. Our music is by whoisuzo.
• 17:05
  If you enjoyed today's episode,
• 17:06
  please take a moment to rate us or leave a review.
• 17:09
  A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover CI to Eye and
• 17:13
  hear from experts in the arts and beyond. If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
• 17:18
  pass it on to all of your enemies. Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
• 17:21
  Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube,
• 17:23
  and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter.
• 17:28
  You can also sign up for our newsletter at capacityinteractive.com so you never
• 17:31
  miss an update. And if you haven't already,
• 17:34
  please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts.
• 17:37
  Until next time, stay nerdy.