In the previous articles, we started with the basics—10 steps that you need to have an entity and get it off the ground, followed by a discussion of how to build an audience base. Then we moved into the basics of branding and marketing. In this article, we’ll talk about the creation of a team and board.
Creating a team around an opera company can be a tricky thing when you have no money to hire or pay anyone. Nonetheless, it can be done. You’ll probably always be working the hardest and pushing the most since you are the founder—but it’s very likely that you can find other people that are as passionate about your mission as you are if you make sure to align their goals with yours.
The best way to begin building a team in the opera company world is to cast your net out to other singers in your immediate network and see what their skills are. Why singers? Because you have something you can trade for their work—a role. This can go a long way.
If the singers in your network respond and talk about certain skills that they have—sales, PR, marketing, or customer service—begin talking to them about the role that they would like to play within the company. I am a big fan of having people write their own job descriptions. They can play to their strengths—and if they write it themselves, they are more likely to stick to it and not be surprised by a series of responsibilities within it later. Ideally, the singers you approach will have day jobs in the areas that they list as their expertise, so you can count on them having some real experience in the area.
A job description is simple. It basically lists the title of the job, a few sentences about where it fits into the company, and who they will report to. Then it lists, in bullet points, the responsibilities of the position. For example, a “marketing director” would likely report to the executive director and be responsible for all show publicity—overseeing posters, postcards, and distribution to cast; managing e-mail lists and outreach; heading up PR, including calling and emailing reporters and reviewers; keeping up to date with social media content; and managing any extraneous marketing transactions that you do, like buying radio spots and running group deals. You can split roles as much as you need to. If they don’t really know much about social media and e-mail lists but totally get the other pieces, then you take on what they can’t do. Every little bit helps.
A good opera company team has an executive director, who may or may not also act as the artistic director. The team will also have a marketing manager, a grant writer, and ideally someone who can also sell tickets and handle customer service—this can be called a customer service manager. An operations manager is also not a bad idea. This person can run events on the ground, in case you can’t make it, and handle transport of props and singers. Grant writing is often the hardest skill to find in singers. This might be something that you do yourself for a while, then hire someone later.
It’s critical that when you start out with a team, you start out with clear expectations. Employees should have reviewed and signed their job descriptions and they should be fully aware that they will be compensated with very little money but will instead get a role to sing as payment. If you do want to compensate in cash, consider tying them all into a situation where you each own a percentage of the company’s yearly profits. For example, your three managers can each own 5 percent of the company’s yearly profits and your grant writer can get 7 percent, as that position should be the most highly incented. The more you can put your team in the same boat as you, the better. If you do want to do a formal stipend a year, just remember that anything over the IRS quarterly limits ($1800 a year or $450 a calendar quarter) will require you to W-9 the employee being paid. (This also applies to a revenue-sharing arrangement.)
It’s best to get as many responsibilities and goals into your contracts for employees as possible. This might seem hard because you have no idea what to expect. If interested, e-mail me for some sample templates that contain reasonable opening goals for your managers. The more you put out in advance, the more you can enforce later. And the clearer you can be with your team, the better.
You also won’t be working in the same space, unless you are very lucky, so make sure to connect a few times a month to make sure you are all on the same page. I prefer Google Chat, since it does not require traveling. If employees are not making their goals, make it clear to them that you know this is not the case. Tie their role in your upcoming shows to their goals and make sure they are aware that they won’t get it if they don’t do what you agreed upon.
Companies thrive when they have constant and clear communication, and opera companies are no exception. Emotions also tend to run high in the arts, so make sure to keep a level head and a calm demeanor through your discussions. You might not like ideas that your team members are bringing forth, but make sure to listen and come up with cogent replies as to why you might not agree. They deserve at least that much for getting into the same boat as you.
The team you use to run your opera company is only one of many teams you will be putting together. The next teams that you will need to assemble are teams around each of your shows. A show usually includes a director, music director, pianist, stage manager, lighting designer, sound designer, and set designer. You can pare this team down for your opening shows and get more elaborate later.
When hiring, I suggest you start with a “top-down” approach. In other words, find a great director, one that is ideally inexpensive and just out of a school program, and have them hire their own team. This frees you from both the burden of finding people and the responsibility of potentially hiring someone that clashes with senior management.
Salaries for each of these parties can vary dramatically. I suggest that you just ask around quietly to the other opera companies in the area and figure out market rates. I have paid anywhere from $300 to $2,500 for a director and, in most cases, I got as much value from the lower-paid directors as I got from the higher-paid ones. So, negotiate.
You also want to make sure with your show team that you are super clear on what you expect. Their contracts should contain very precise goals and timelines—the more precise the better. This way, there are no surprises for either side. Any candidate for a role within a team should also have a good résumé, references, and pictures and videos of their work to show you. They should be open to interviews, willing to answer all your questions, and be attentive to your vision and goals. If you don’t see this, dismiss the person as an amateur and move on.
A quick note around the difference between artistic directors and executive directors. Often, the executive director is responsible for keeping the ship running on time and getting it funded, and the artistic director is responsible for picking shows, casting, dramaturgy, setting artistic visions, and so forth. In OperaModa, I ran the ship and Mary Lutz was our artistic director. Because Mary is a walking lexicon of opera history and repertoire and a good colleague, we happened to work quite well together.
In young companies, having two people in these roles can backfire. The problem is that the founder often ends up sweating hard in the executive director role to keep the company afloat while the artistic director gets to do all the fun stuff that they created the company to do, like picking shows, casting, etc. For this reason, I suggest that founders start out as “executive/artistic directors” and then move someone else into the executive director role as the company grows, so that you can maintain control over artistic decisions and avoid tension within the ranks.
In my previous article, I talked about potentially giving your performers a slice of the revenue as their compensation as opposed to a stipend. You can vary this in many ways. You can give a small stipend and a larger percentage, or a large stipend and a smaller percentage . . . all sorts of options exist. I highly recommend, however, that you consider, in the very beginning, tying them as much into revenue gains as possible and try to avoid a stipend if you can.
OperaModa used to pay $400 to all of our singers for a show on a regular basis, and this became crippling in early years—it almost took the company down. The more singers understand how little money there is in opera and how much the landscape has changed, the more they will get on board with this—but be prepared to explain exactly what the company’s expenditures and projected revenues are on a regular basis to remind them just how new your ship is. If you want, put it all on a board that is visible to the cast during rehearsals. Taking ownership is the sign of a good colleague.
Next month we’ll discuss the basics of putting together a board and fundraising, so you can get funds for your new entity to use. Send any questions in the meantime to gthiers@operamoda.com.
