By Joe Giovannetti
My summer in San Diego, California is coming to a close, and it’s hard to sum up everything I have learned in just a few short paragraphs. My experience at the La Jolla Playhouse has been nothing short of amazing. From the knowledge I gained, to the people I’ve met, every day was a new adventure. Most importantly, I learned more about myself along the way. I’ll sum all of this up the only way a millennial knows how: in exclamatory-list format! (more…)
By Chip Potter
From learning film production lingo to receiving a Los Angeles rite of passage (an undeserved parking ticket), this summer has certainly been an incredible education.
From my studies as an undergraduate to my current focus on my graduate degree, I have found it is very easy, and even at times tempting, to work in the abstract. After all, learning leadership qualities in a classroom is quite different than applying those qualities inside an office. However, I realized that my ability to apply what I learned at Northwestern set me apart during my summer working in the Los Angeles film industry. (more…)
By Paige Lester
Perhaps the hardest part about this summer is trying to figure out how to summarize a time filled with learning, challenges, inspiration, and fun into a single blog post. Instead of trying to squeeze everything that I encountered and learned over the last 10 weeks into a few hundred words, I’m going to hit on some big picture lessons learned along the way. (more…)
Work by Takashi Murakami
By Ruida Zhu
As a social media intern at the MCA, not only should I understand and appreciate contemporary art, I am also obliged to convince other people that they should at least take a chance and look at contemporary art on the most highly-consumed media platforms. But most people around me hate the idea of even glancing at contemporary art. So, I feel compelled to step out of the virtual world and take as many people as possible to the museum to see contemporary art in person. (more…)
By Joe Giovannetti
Now a little over halfway into my internship, I am loving my experience as a Company Management/General Management intern at the La Jolla Playhouse! However, outside of the theater industry, I always get the same question: “What is Company Management?” (more…)
By Chip Potter
During my first days working in Los Angeles, I was understandably a bit timid. I was in a new city and wanted to make a good first impression on by bosses at Ghost House Pictures and Cold Iron Pictures, so I kept my head down and focused on the work in front of me.
A great deal of my day was centered around reading scripts writing coverage – that is, giving my boss a summary of the screenplay and my brief thoughts of it. Then, one day, one of my supervisors came over to my desk and asked me what I thought of a script I had just sent him coverage for. I began to respond with roughly the same wording as my coverage: a bit indecisive and ineffectual, not wanting to upset any previously established opinions surrounding the script. He stopped me and said, “Sure, but what do you actually think of it?” (more…)
by Kathryn Lawson
MSLCE students are joined by business, engineering, and other students from across the university in Gregg Latterman’s class on entrepreneurship in the arts. Students break themselves up into groups with the goal of taking their original business venture idea from concept to reality in ten weeks. Latterman brings in entrepreneurs from Chicago and across the country to mentor students as they build their business canvas, develop and refine their ideas, and test the market demand for their products. After an intense quarter of work, students pitch their ideas in front of a panel of entrepreneurs, VCs, and other potential investors.
by Pablo Boczkowski
On September 1, 2014, I began a three-year assignment to launch the Master of Science in Leadership for Creative Enterprises program (MSLCE, for short) at Northwestern University’s School of Communication. With my tenure as faculty director coming to an end very shortly, I would like to reflect on the journey traveled so far and on lessons learned leading this creative enterprise.
Over the past three years, the program has grown considerably. The number of students projected to be in the classroom when the fall 2017 quarter starts will more than double those that started in fall 2014. This has happened at the same time that our selectivity has risen remarkably and consistently. We have also had a major expansion on the faculty side with the hiring of three new full-time professors affiliated with the program. Our curriculum was also expanded with the addition of several new classes, day-long workshops, and research seminars. (more…)
By John Hounihan
What does it take to put on a play festival?
From day one of planning, each piece of an organization must come together to meet the massive needs of dozens of productions. I have faced this head on, as a large part of my internship has been providing support for Collaboraction’s annual PEACEBOOK Festival.
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By Paige Lester
I’m sitting in the back of a conference room full of people I don’t know, running on minimal sleep, and have a million thoughts racing through my mind about my tasks for the day. The group is discussing the difficulties of integrating art into their schools and curriculum, when…
“Art is the thing. It’s not a part of the thing, not on top of the thing, but the thing.”
I feel wide awake and I cannot take my eyes off of the presenter. A tenured principal in CPS and founder of a school system in Memphis, she has captured the minds and hearts of every single person in that room. From that moment on, I knew the Summer Leadership Retreat was going to be a week I would never forget. (more…)
