Findings and Assessment: Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts

Elizabeth Long Lingo Evaluates Doris Duke Program

“Innovation is a complex process—characterized by fits and starts of insight; stumbling and triumphs; newly discovered obstacles and opportunities; and ultimately, a deepening under-standing of the innovation process and facility with the strategies and tactics needed to bring an innovation to fruition.”

Facing changes in the economy, funding streams, technology, and audience engagement, the performing arts field needs innovative approaches to meeting these challenges. Yet given the often boot-strapped nature of their operations, performing arts leaders rarely have the time, space and resources to engage in the in-depth strategic thinking and bold experimentation needed to re-imagine their future. In sponsoring the EmcArts Innovation Lab, DDCF provided leaders just that opportunity—to invent and imagine, to deeply and critically engage their assumptions, beliefs, practices, and business models that tether the field to the past.

In her assessment of EmcArts Innovation Lab, Elizabeth Long Lingo considers the Lab’s major contributions to the field as well as more specific measures of Lab success. Throughout, she offers feedback on how the Lab might be improved to leverage further the investment in the program going forward. Read the full article: Finding and Assessment: Innovation Lab for the Performing Arts

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Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
EmcArts