New Case Collection From Yale School of Drama
The Case Research and Development Team (CRDT) at Yale School of Management has added 78 case studies from the Theater Management department at Yale School of Drama.
The Case Research and Development Team (CRDT) at Yale School of Management has added 78 case studies from the Theater Management department at Yale School of Drama.
Students and faculty of the Theater Management department produced this collection of cases over the last decade. One of the most extensive collections of materials on theater management available, the cases address both traditional and modern dilemmas in arts management, including financial systems, leadership, diversity and inclusion, organizational design, succession, marketing, media, technology, and sourcing and managing funds. Recent cases include multimedia, such as video clips, and interview transcripts of leaders in the arts field. Teaching notes or supplementary materials are available to instructors for most cases.
The Theater Management program makes extensive use of cases in its teaching. Joan Channick, Professor in the Practice of Theater Management and Chair of the Theater Management department, said, “We’ve found cases to be an effective vehicle for teaching leadership concepts and management tools to our theater management students. But, we learned early on that there weren’t nearly enough cases focused on the arts community, and so we set about creating our own with the help of the Case Research and Development Team. I’m thrilled to be able to make this collection more widely available, so that others can draw on the lessons of our predecessors as well, whether in the classroom or the board room. ”
“The collection will be an invaluable resource to anyone teaching in the arts, managing arts organizations, pursuing an arts degree, investing in the arts, or considering a leadership role within an arts organization,” observed CRDT Director Jaan Elias. “But these cases also explore some of the most fundamental questions in management and should be useful for students and faculty well beyond drama and arts programs.”
Students and faculty produced these cases as part of the Theater Management department’s masters degree requirement. Students work closely with faculty and spend over a year with an arts organization (museums, operas, dance companies, performing arts centers, foundations, and other organizations) to develop the material. They also receive guidance from CRDT’s Elias. Each case is then reviewed by an editorial board comprised of faculty, alumni, and other theater professionals before it is published and made available for public use.
The case collection is not the first collaboration between the two schools. The Yale School of Management and Yale School of Drama offer a joint degree program in which students may receive both a Master of Fine Arts and Master of Business Administration degree in four years.
To integrate the case collections, CRDT’s Julie Hawthorne (MBA, ’20), and the Theater Management department’s Laurie Ortega-Murphy (MFA, ’20), Laura Cornwall (MFA, ’19), and Jason Najjoum (MFA/MBA ’18) worked together to make the collection available on CRDT’s case directory.
“These important cases are now easily accessible through the website and can be purchased quickly for a number of uses,” Elias noted.
Students, faculty, and staff of Yale may browse the new Yale School of Drama arts management collection on the CRDT Case Directory. To purchase, please visit Yale Management Media.