They're among the unsung heroes of the arts world, ensuring that the sector stays professional. Shane Hegarty asks some prominent board members why they do it.
They don't get the roses, the curtain calls or the standing ovations. They'll tell you they don't want the plaudits. They are the directors of theatre companies, festivals and other artistic groups, and they tend to be at the invisible end of the spectrum. "They are a hidden subsidy that is not recognised," says Mary Finan, chairwoman of the Gate Theatre and a member of Opera Ireland's board. "Those on arts boards all give a lot of time but without wanting the recognition for the work."
Boards are almost entirely made up of volunteers, many of them already successful in other fields. "I found myself thinking about this the other day," says Barney Whelan, former public-relations manager of ESB, who is a member of half a dozen boards, including those of Dublin Fringe Festival and Opera Theatre Company. "I was getting home one night at 11.30 and I thought, I'm doing all this purely for the good of it?" So why does he do it? "I just do," he laughs.
He says others are motivated by their interest in art. "I'm trying to shy away from saying that they need a passion for the arts," he adds, "but I have met those who are there for that reason but who bring in their certain expertise while they're there. There has to be a willingness to give of their expertise, whether they're an insurance man, PR person or whatever. And there has to be a willingness to work hard on an irregular basis. Whether it's every few weeks or a couple of times a year, every so often when they are called they have to be ready to help."
Finan says: "It is a time commitment, but as far as we're concerned it's a labour of love. For me, as a schoolgirl and a student the Gate brought me many happy memories, and each of the board members would have their own memories. So this is a way in which to pay the theatre back for those times. That's the motivation. I would imagine that each of the board would look back and say that it contributed to their quality of life, that it contributed to the colour and richness of their lives, and this is their way of repaying the Gate for that."
Peter Crowley, chairman of Dublin Theatre Festival, says it can go deeper. He is part of an informal group of business people who meet to discuss the direction of the arts and their potential contribution to its development. "Some think that business people are only concerned with the bottom line and money, and making their business a success, but they do actually worry about other things, too. And there is a network of people who are interested in what it means to be Irish, and they think that theatre and arts hold the answer to that question. These are areas where we know who we are and where we are in the world. Look at the respect that Irish theatre has in the world. It's very much part of the Irish brand, and it's worth getting excited about."
They are not there to "add their aura by showing up once in while", he says. "It's easy to say that you need someone to get out and get money, but to a certain extent, while not mundane, if you have the right product it's easy to get out and get money. But I think that the contribution people make to boards is beyond just the idea that we need someone up here to make some calls and wheel in some money for us. I think it's about professionalising the thing without killing in any way the artistic endeavour."
But it is a brave organisation that will appoint only artists. "What it takes, to my mind, is people who care about the arts yet still bring that sort of rigour and business sense of how the thing should run, from the point of view of knowing how the thing should be managed in a professional way, of how it should be marketed and financed. So it is a bit about knowing how business principles are applied, because ultimately it's going to help these people and things to survive."
Whelan, whose experience comes not only from direct participation but also from his previous role deciding which events and groups were most worthy of ESB's sponsorship, says: "I encountered one organisation recently who were made up solely of artistic people, and it was obvious that they were rooted in a non-business approach. Patricia Quinn of the Arts Council has talked regularly about the need for an up-skilling of boards in terms of business acumen. There may be committed board members who don't have the acumen. She would have urged the need with some organisations to get them up to speed."
Mary Finan, who is also chairwoman of Wilson Hartnell Public Relations, says the business approach is the only approach. "You always need to apply the same principles on an arts body as you would in business. They don't change. A public company would clearly have additional responsibilities to a private one, but the basic principles are the same, and at the Gate they would be applied much in the same way as the individuals on the board would in their own companies."
Dr Dermot Egan, the chairman of the National Concert Hall, used to head the Irish Management Institute. "I would have always looked at it as I would look at any board, which is that directors should direct the company, not run it."
Different boards have different pressures, however. During a crisis at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2001, when Marie Donnelly, who was then its chairwoman, recommended a new director for the museum before the interview panel had agreed on one, there were accusations that Síle de Valera, as the minister for arts, had interfered in the process. As with IMMA's, the board of the National Concert Hall is appointed by the Government. "I don't come under any direct pressures from the Minister [John O'Donoghue\] in any way," says Dr Egan. "He appoints the board and the chairman and then they are free to get on with it, obviously as long as they keep within the remit laid out."
After seven years he is remarkably sanguine about the function of his board, emphasising that when an organisation has a focused policy and a good management team, the board's job becomes much easier. "You must manage tightly, but you must still be ambitious and go out and do things. In order to get the sponsorship you have to be doing things, and business has been very good to us. I would just say that it's not rocket science: we just go out and manage the thing."
As the well of funding and sponsorship begins to dry up, is it the organisations without such balances on their boards that are in danger of going to the wall? "The basic responsibility of the board is to ensure that senior management is fulfilling its duty and to keep it in a position that it can deal with any liabilities that may arise," says Finan. "That duty probably becomes more important in lean times, but it should always be applied even in the good times, because you don't know when things will change, and you need to be prepared. Certainly, those boards that weren't behaving in a responsible way are likely to find themselves exposed to trouble. Even in the good times, it's important not to get carried away."
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Developing the brand - one chairman's motivation
Peter Crowley is trying to change hats. Metaphorically, of course. He is a little late, having been caught in a bit of business as managing director of IBI Corporate Finance, part of Bank of Ireland Group. Now he has to adjust his thinking to talk about his new position as chairman of Dublin Theatre Festival. "My thinking is a little awry," he says.
If this is awry, then he must be a steamroller when focused. Crowley is not a man you need to squeeze for information. It flows in bullet-pointed streams. Ask him one question and he answers the 10 you had planned to follow it with. He systematically details the work the theatre festival has done, is doing now and will do in the future, occasionally pausing to reiterate how much he loves the work.
"It's a great reset button, actually. I mean I've really enjoyed the time I've spent with the festival. I've been involved with it for three and a half years already, since I was talked into it by Fergus Linehan [the festival's director\] and Eithne Healy, who was chairperson then, before Moya Doherty took over. It's been bloody interesting, because it's so different at one level. I've always had an interest in live theatre and live music, that area, and to get involved in it from a semi-business point of view and applying the skills you learn here is great. But it's very different. Here [at the bank\], we're hired guns, it's project based: deliver or you're gone. You go out into the artistic world and it's all about momentum and developing the brand."
The 40-year-old seemed destined to end up chairing an arts board, formulating policy over coffee and biscuits and driving home late, the fate of a festival tucked up safely. It is a family tradition. His father, Niall, has been prominent in several organisations. His uncle Laurence is governor of the Bank of Ireland by day and director of the Gate Theatre by night, and his brother Niall Crowley Jr was involved in the IMMA board until its crisis in 2001.
"It's only when Fergus Linehan pointed it out to me that I realised it was the case," he says. "I suppose it certainly gave me an awareness. But I love live performance first of all. I love live music and live theatre. It's fantastically rewarding. Even when you're exhausted and you don't want to drag yourself to a play, when you do it leaves you with such a buzz."
If you meet him at the event's launch, it is worth avoiding a stereotypical greeting. "People sometimes say, oh, you're with an arts board, what are they like? Are they all air-kissing their way around the place? But the festival is phenomenally professional. Firstly, because it has to be to deliver 20 shows and make an impact in a fairly crowded entertainment marketplace, you have to be pretty focused. And what's happened over the past four years or so is that we really have professionalised the festival. Going to a festival board meeting now is not massively different in some ways from going to a company board meeting . . . In terms of basic building blocks, some of the themes are very similar."
It has needed to be professional. During Moya Doherty's time in the chair, a programme of change was implemented to rationalise an event now in its 46th cycle. It was done not so much to cut costs, although money did come into it, as to enhance the festival's reputation. The less-is-more principle was applied, with the festival restricted to the city centre, for example, after wandering towards suburban venues.
Crowley was heavily involved. "The first thing we did was to concentrate on the festival, be clear what we wanted to do. There was the fringe festival, and sometimes the festival sponsors the fringe as well as the festival, so what we did was to set up the fringe on its own, and it's gone on and thrived as a result, which is great, because it has a huge part to play in the whole buzz of the thing."
The festival, he says, became more selective rather than being what Crowley calls an umbrella for whatever was happening in a particular year. Finally, it developed as a producer - increasingly important given the budgetary crisis threatening Irish theatre. The success in 2001 of Enda Walsh's Bedbound, which subsequently ran in Edinburgh and London, was encouraging. "It's about developing the brand of the festival, building an audience to a point where people know that in two weeks in early October they're going to see 20 good-quality shows." This year will also see the development of the Irish Theatre Trust, set up to develop the art here.
Crowley talks about the "momentum of the brand" as easily as he talks about the artistic endeavour behind it, fulfilling the criteria he ascribes to a decent board. "We've to make sure it's an ambitious programme, because you can run a very safe festival and know you won't lose money, but the idea is to excite people. So it's a case of, first, does it have the right balance of quality and newness and, second, can we afford it?"
But perilous arts funding means getting the money may be harder than it used to be. He is happy with the festival's adoption of several title sponsors after Eircom ceased being chief sponsor, in 2001, and with the doubling of the festival's budget in two years, thanks to higher box offices and additional fund-raising.
He does admit relief that the Arts Council did not cut Dublin Theatre Festival's funding this year, even if it didn't increase it either. "From a corporate-confidence point of view, it's not an easy time to ask companies to put money up. But we have developed some loyal supporters, so we're hoping to continue to rely on them while also continuing to bring in new people."
And the future? "At the moment I'm concerned but optimistic. I'd hate to get to a situation where I became concerned but pessimistic."
