By Pablo Boczkowski
The MSLCE program is always improving, as a result of responding to both students’ needs and market trends. This fall quarter we launched a new class, Culture and Arts Analytics, taught by Ágnes Horvát. In this class students acquired the essential toolkit to interpret and mine Big Data resources for the creative sector. This is a key element of the making and distribution of creative goods and services in the digital age. (more…)
Blog
Larissa Buchholz’ research engages with the dynamics of cultural production and reception in an increasingly globally interdependent and interconnected world. Her forthcoming book The Global Rules of Art. The Dual Emergence of a Cultural World Economy examines global transformations in the contemporary visual arts, and the different ways that artists become valued worldwide. The book begins with a puzzle: as globalization entails extraordinary cross-border flows and growing transnational valuation of cultural goods, will these dynamics lead to the extended dominance of cultural goods from a few Western countries, resulting in cultural homogeneity, or enable greater circulation and recognition of cultural creations from non-Western regions, and thereby produce increased cultural diversity? (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Jeff “Jake” Jacobs has been an agent with Creative Artists Agency for nearly 30 years. Though the entertainment industry has changed considerably during that period, his responsibilities have remained largely the same.
“You’re in the pursuit of representing talented storytellers,” Jacobs explained during a recent interviews. “When you’re an agent you want to be representing storytellers, and your job is to help them … get their stories out there.” (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Ever since she began her new job as the managing director of Victory Gardens, Erica Daniels has gotten used to using the word “scrappy.”
That’s partly because of Victory Gardens’ size: the theatre company has a small staff of people who wear different hats, and getting things done involves first figuring out “how.” But it’s also because of the way the company compares to where Daniels’ has worked before, at theatre giants like Steppenwolf, where she worked as the artistic director, and Second City, where she worked as the president of theatricals. (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Leslie Zhu would like to help make art more widely available to the public.
A graduate of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunication and New York Institute of Technology, Zhu’s dream job is to be a creative director at either a museum or an advertising agency. She sees both as avenues to bridging her interests in marketing, branding, and the arts. (more…)
By Jake Nelson
Though a countless number of people have attended world renowned film festivals like Sundance and Cannes, few can say they’ve been there for college credit.
Chip Potter is one of them. The MSLCE student went to Sundance in 2013 for school credit while studying at DePauw University in Indiana.
“I met these people who are so passionate about what they did,” Potter said, referring to the filmmakers that were there representing their movies. What’s more, he saw some of these people get their films sold, which was a thrilling experience. Potter said it was witnessing the “realization of this dream.” (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Amy Aldrich has a unique interest in classical music. First, she performed it. Now, she wants to develop it.
The MSLCE student and San Diego native started as a clarinetist, before deciding she was more interesting in nonprofit development, specifically within classical music or theatre. While studying performing arts management and business administration at DePaul, she worked as a development intern for Chicago’s recently-shuttered Redmoon Theater, and for Studio 773. She’s also worked for the Newberry Consort, a classical music organization in downtown Chicago. (more…)
By Jacob Nelson
Erica Daniels’ career reads like a wishlist for aspiring theatre professionals.
Before she joined Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theater as Managing Director, she was the artistic director at Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the president of theatricals at The Second City. Daniels also did the original casting for Manhattan Theatre Club’s Broadway Production of Airline Highway, The Broadway Production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and the original production of August, Osage County. (more…)
By Miya Williams
For Minda Cerva, all roads lead to theatre.
The MSLCE student wants to general manage and co-produce an original Broadway musical, helping to develop it from beginning inspiration to opening night.
“To have a true labor of love become a long-running critical and audience hit would be the penultimate dream,” she said. (more…)
By Lauren Vernea
During the Fall quarter, MSLCE students took the foundational course “Understanding Creative Industries.” This course taught the history and current status of the creative and cultural enterprises. Students learned how advertising, regulation, globalization, digitalization, and talent have affected popular media industries such as film and music.
The seminar style classes opened up the floor to fascinating discussions on the complexity of art and industry. Students from many artistic backgrounds such as opera, theater, and visual art found that their industries had much in common when it came to marketing research or above the line talent. Through in-class videos, we learned how the media regulation system came into place and how it differs between self-regulation and government involvement. (more…)