Michael Kaiser

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Michael M. Kaiser is president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Dubbed "the turnaround king" for his work at such arts institutions as the Kansas City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Opera House, Kaiser has earned international renown for his expertise in arts management.[1]

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[edit] Early life and career

Born October 27, 1953, in New York City, Kaiser grew up in New Rochelle, New York, earning an undergraduate degree in economics and music from Brandeis University, Magna Cum Laude, and a masters degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. His study of vocal music reflected an early passion for the arts, and while he hoped for a career as an opera singer he was, as he put it,"just dreadful" [2]

Kaiser's early career focused on management consulting. In 1981, he founded Kaiser Associates, a strategic planning company, whose clients included General Motors and IBM. But in 1985, spurred by his lifelong love of the arts, he sold his management consultancy to enter the world of arts management.

[edit] Transition to arts management

When he joined the Kansas City Ballet as general manager in 1985, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. Within two years, Kaiser had revamped and energized the troupe's fundraising, and attracted critical attention and acclaim through ambitious programming initiatives. His leadership enabled the company to pay off the accumulated deficit, which had nearly led to its closure.[citation needed]

Kaiser joined the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as executive director in 1991. The company faced extreme challenges, stemming from a $1.5 million accumulated deficit. Kaiser developed a strategic plan with the company's board and staff, targeting fundraising and marketing as key areas for overhaul. Recognizing the company's broad, international appeal, Kaiser set about putting the dancers before a much larger audience. In December 1992, the company was featured on The Donahue Show, then the premiere daytime television program. In an unprecedented move, the full one-hour program was devoted to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, an event viewed by 18 million Americans. In 1993, the company performed at President Bill Clinton's inaugural gala, which was broadcast to an audience of 88 million. During Kaiser's tenure as executive director, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre eliminated its deficit, increased the efficiency of its touring programs, and enhanced its national and international image.[1] [3]

In 1995, Kaiser became executive director of American Ballet Theatre. With an accumulated deficit of $5.5 million, the company was struggling on the brink of closure. Ticket revenues were insufficient to meet the company's needs and the towering debt had reduced the board, management, and staff to a daily struggle to keep afloat, forestalling any strategic or long-range planning.[4] Kaiser set about finding the large donations needed to reduce the $5.5 million deficit. He revamped the touring program, reaching out to cities across the United States as well as in Asia and Europe. He created new education programs to nurture both new dancers and new audiences. And he fueled aggressive new marketing programs, burnishing American Ballet Theatre's long-held reputation as a "company of stars." Within three years, the company had eliminated the entire accumulated deficit and established a surplus. After his success at American Ballet Theatre, the Chicago Tribune coined the sobriquet "The Turnaround King" for Kaiser.[1]

In 1998, Kaiser assumed leadership of the Royal Opera House in London, home of the Royal Opera, London and the Royal Ballet. In the midst of a major renovation, faced with a projected $30 million deficit, and flailing in a firestorm of criticism from the public, its board, and its patrons, the Royal Opera House was facing the most severe crisis of its history. Despite press reports predicting, even welcoming, the demise of the organization, and vitriol from patrons, Kaiser set to work, negotiating with the unions, placating the creative staff of the two resident companies, guiding the new facility through its final construction and problematic technical and stagecraft operations, and beginning the delicate work of repairing the institution's reputation as he worked to erase its debt. Within two years, the deficit was paid off, the new building paid for and opened, and an endowment fund established to protect the security of the Royal Opera House's future. [5]

[edit] Kaiser at the Kennedy Center

In 2001, Kaiser joined the Kennedy Center as president. Unlike the organizations which had established his reputation as a savior of companies on the brink of disaster, the Kennedy Center was financially stable and not in need of a turnaround. But Kaiser set the goal of enhancing the center's status as the nation's center for the performing arts, a destination for both American and international arts lovers.

His first undertaking was the "Sondheim Celebration", an unprecedented staging of six musicals by Stephen Sondheim, within one season, under one roof: Sweeney Todd, Company, A Little Night Music, Sunday in the Park with George, Merrily We Roll Along, and Passion.[6] Critical response to the Sondheim Celebration was extraordinary, [7]and the box office opened to record-breaking sales. [8]

Two other theatrical achievements were a retrospective of Tennesee Williams’ work and a highly acclaimed celebration of the ten plays of August Wilson[9] presented in sequential order.

Having set the bar high, Kaiser continued to upgrade the Kennedy Center's artistic profile, negotiating long-term agreements with the Kirov Opera and the Kirov Ballet, the Royal Shakespeare Company, New York City Ballet, and the Bolshoi Ballet that ensured their regular appearance at the Kennedy Center; producing a historic "Festival of China", which brought hundreds of Chinese performers and artists to American audiences for the first time; and expanding the Kennedy Center's jazz and family programming.[citation needed] He has expanded educational programming, increasing the annual education budget to $25 million for programs reaching young people and adults—more than any other arts institution.[citation needed]

Long committed to teaching and education, Kaiser has made the Kennedy Center a university of sorts for arts organizations and arts managers, creating the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute to provide advanced training for young arts administrators and developing a series of programs to help train others in the field. [10]

He has created a "capacity-building" program[11], that offers mentoring services to the leaders of 32 African American, Latino, Asian American and Native American arts groups from across the United States, and has instituted a similar program for 33 arts organizations in New York City.[citation needed] And he has established a fellows program[12] for arts managers, enabling students and practicing arts managers to study at the Kennedy Center in a practicum that exposes them to the day to day work of the center's departments, from marketing and fundraising to programming and operations.

[edit] Expansion plans

"His biggest project is on the drawing board: He recently asked philanthropist Catherine Reynolds for a $100 million gift to launch construction of two buildings on a new federally funded plaza to house a museum and education center. Reynolds obliged." [4]

[edit] Other activities

Kaiser is also a cultural ambassador for the U.S. State Department, advising performing arts organizations around the world on building institutional strength through marketing, strategic planning, and fundraising. He has created an online educational forum for arts administrators[13], where professionals and students in the field can share experience, ask and answer questions, and seek employment and board opportunities.

[edit] Awards

  • Dance Magazine Award 2001
  • Capezio Award 2002
  • Helen Hayes Washington Post Award for Innovative Leadership in the Theater Community 2003
  • St. Petersburg 300 Medal 2004
  • Washingtonian of the Year 2004
  • US Department of State Citation 2005
  • Blacks in Dance Award 2005
  • First American to receive China's "Award for Cultural Exchange" 2005
  • The Order of the Mexican Eagle 2006
  • Musical America's 2006 Impresario of the Year

[edit] Further reading

Kaiser has served as a research economist for Nobel prize-winning economist, Wassily Leontief,[citation needed] and is the author of three books:

  • Strategic Planning in the Arts: A Practical Guide (1995)
  • Developing Industry Strategies: A Practical Guide of Industry Analysis (1983)
  • Understanding the Competition: A Practical Guide of Competitive Analysis (1981)

[edit] Personal life

Kaiser has two siblings: Thomas Kaiser is a history professor at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and Susan Kaiser founded a non-profit pre-school named "Bread and Roses". Kaiser donated a kidney to his sister, Susan, in 1988.[14]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Sid Smith, "Makeover Artistry: American Ballet Theatre Reclaims Financial Footing Thanks to 'Turnaround King' ", Chicago Tribune, August 11, 1996
  2. ^ MIT World at mitworld.mit.edu: "Kaiser abandoned his dream of becoming a professional singer after realizing he was “just dreadful”.
  3. ^ Todd Purdom, "An Impresario With a Sideline: Rescuing Troubled Cultural Groups", interview in The New York Times, December 9, 2004: 'For Dance Theater, he noted, the most acute problem -- $900,000 owed to "the people who can shut you down," including insurers -- was "nothing, not even in the scheme of Harlem, let alone New York." Within five or six weeks, Mr. Kaiser helped the company retire its debts, find a new executive director, expand its board and begin facing the future. "I needed to show troubled organizations around the country that you can fix your problems," he said. "I take very little credit for the actual implementation. They've done it." '
  4. ^ a b Bruce B. Auster, "Turnaround Artist", profile in US News & World Report, March 2, 2003
  5. ^ Tim Page, "Michael Kaiser: Impressario of the Year", Musical America, musicalamerica.com online, 2007: "...he cut ticket prices, erased a company deficit of $30 million, and completed raising the funds for a $360 million renovation."
  6. ^ Bruce B. Auster, page 2: "The good feeling can be traced largely to Kaiser's decision to produce six plays by Stephen Sondheim last year. This was no mean feat--"an impossible idea," says Chapin--given that the Kennedy Center had become a tour stop, a place where not even one play originated, let alone six sell-outs at a time."
  7. ^ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00EEDE1E3AF93BA2575BC0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3 John Rockwell, "MUSIC; Sondheim Has His Shrine, and It's Not on Broadway", The New York Times, August 18, 2002]:"In the meantime, when it comes to newly considered schemes to keep these masterpieces of American musical culture alive, Mr. Kaiser has shown the way"
  8. ^ Paul Harris, Variety, February 2002: "WASHINGTON -- Credit the Kennedy Center for helping to revive D.C.'s moribund tourism economy, which has been in the tank since Sept. 11. Its festival of six musicals by Stephen Sondheim registered a one-day record for single ticket sales Feb. 11. The box office sold $639,000 in tickets that first day at a $76 top... At week's end, sales had topped $3.3 million, including $2 million in advance subscription and group sales...."
  9. ^ August Wilson 20th Century: The Kennedy Center
  10. ^ Bruce B. Auster, page 2:"This year 12 students from arts organizations around the world are studying to be arts managers. Each is writing a strategic plan for a minority arts organization that has teamed with the Kennedy Center, part of Kaiser's push to bring the performing arts to more communities."
  11. ^ Kennedy Center Programs: Programs for Organizations
  12. ^ Kennedy Center Programs: Fellowships
  13. ^ artsmanager.org
  14. ^ Jacqueline Trescott, "Kennedy Center Brings In a Star; 'Turnaround King' Michael Kaiser Rarely Mentions His Greatest Rescue", The Washington Post, Jan 28, 2001; G.01;

[edit] External links