A Tough Nut to Crack: Reflecting on the Delicate Dance of Holiday Fundraising
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Misty Copeland in The Nutcracker. Photo credit: Rosalie O’Connor, courtesy of American Ballet Theatre.
Editor’s note: In our annual holiday post from Karen Brooks Hopkins, the president emerita of Brooklyn Academy of Music shares some end-of-the-year reflections from her career in fundraising. You can read Karen’s previous posts here.
Holiday shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) always presented a bit of a conundrum. Our movie theaters were packed, and usually we were screening the best films of the season. Our historic lobby at 30 Lafayette Avenue was festive and decorated, and red and green lights glowed on the outside of the building.
The ongoing problem was finding the right live shows that would work for BAM’s young audience, serve our diverse community and… sell tickets. In other words, your basic Scrooge was not going to cut it.
For many years, Mark Morris’ wonderful, edgy version of “The Nutcracker,” “The Hard Nut,” filled the bill, but the show was often on tour during the most in-demand holiday dates, so we were left with an empty stage.
As luck would have it, one night, I ended up at a dinner with the development director of ABT (American Ballet Theater), and he told me that the brilliant choreographer, Alexei Ratmansky, was creating a brand-new extravagant “Nutcracker” for the company — who, as we know, are among the greatest ballet dancers in the world. Ratmansky isn’t just another “tutu” guy; he is original, deep, understood Tchaikovsky’s spectacular music, and, most important, knows how to deliver a great show.
I immediately proposed that we make a multi-year agreement to run the new show at BAM during the full holiday season. It wasn’t an exact a fit for our avant-garde audience loyalists, but it would be a great counterpoint to City Ballet’s annual blockbuster at Lincoln Center.
But as you know, nothing in the arts world is simple when fundraising is involved. The show was enormous and expensive, as “The Nutcracker” tends to be, so ABT lined up a serious donor, Mr. David Koch, to commission the work. Now, Koch, a famously outspoken conservative, was controversial in New York (to say the least), but his name had long graced the former New York State Theater at Lincoln Center, so Manhattanites were, for the most part, used to his visibility. But Brooklyn, located in the county of “Kings,” was the bluest of the blue politically, and I knew the Koch name, as sponsor, was going to bring a strong reaction via nasty emails, eyerolls and, worst of all, booing from the audience if he made an actual appearance on stage at the opening to greet the crowd.
Audiences have become more vocal about their opinions these past few decades, not only of shows, but of donors, and Koch, like Phillip Morris and other generous supporters, was not going to escape the wrath of Brooklyn theater goers.
The Koch contribution to the show, therefore, had to be navigated carefully. We decided to skip the onstage thank you featuring Mr. Koch in person and to simply have ABT’s president do the acknowledgement, which generated a murmur, but not outright booing or tomato throwing! And I also concluded it was best to personally respond to every “outraged” letter on the subject and promised each letter writer that I would share their thoughts with ABT’s leadership.
Sometimes, just hearing people out and writing to them directly without sending them down the bureaucratic chain actually helps because at least people feel heard. Needless to say, however, this issue has become increasingly hot over the years, even giving rise to demonstrations at museums and performances where the donor’s political stance and those of the artist, and sometimes the audience, have been at odds. It’s certainly a real problem, given how desperate the field is for resources.
Rachel Moore, then the executive director of ABT, and our BAM team (with Koch’s money in hand to create the show) worked hard and knocked out a five-year deal so that BAM, after so many starts and stops, was now officially in the “Nutcracker” business.
When we finally got through the opening in 2010, however, fundraising was only one of our problems. We did pretty well in the first year, but ABT was used to getting Lincoln Center ticket prices and they were high for the BAM audience, so we often found big holes in the orchestra while the mezzanine and the balcony were full. We understood, of course, that ABT had spent a fortune building the show (even with the Koch commissioning money) and they had to recoup some of their investment. But simultaneously, we urged them to get the orchestra prices more in line with what our audience was used to.
Finally, by the third year, this specific donor had faded into the background, and we had come to a better understanding of pricing and how to sell the show. But it still needed something special that would really connect with our Brooklyn community. Then, just as we started wringing our hands and stressing about getting the attendance and support we needed to sustain the show for a few more years, right on cue, a holiday miracle occurred.
The brilliant, iconic Misty Copeland was assigned to dance the part of Clara, the lead role in “The Nutcracker,” whose coming-of-age tale as she changes from innocent girl to magnificent young woman is the beating heart of the story. And when Misty danced, we finally had the hit we were looking for. Crowds lined up around the block to see her on the BAM stage. Her talent and charisma illuminated the old Opera House, ignited our Brooklyn audience, and fulfilled our holiday dreams for BAM.
At long last… we took a deep breath, remembering Christmases past and how the complications of getting this Nutcracker to the stage had made us think more, not only about raising the money, but how to actually deal with the money we raised and where it came from. Things are just complicated, and dealing with fundraising and donors and politics — well, that’s just a tough nut to crack.
Have a good one!
Karen Brooks Hopkins is president emerita of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Most recently, she served as co-producer of the Off Broadway play Sabbath’s Theater, starring John Turturro and Elizabeth Marvel.
