“One of the biggest things I looked at was marketing and that’s still a big part of my day, to get the word out beyond the borders of Fairfield so that we have a larger presence. “It couldn’t be one thing or the other, it had to be a marriage of all these aspects,” she said.
One of her first tasks was to create a business plan, to shape the direction of the FCAC and help it move forward. “Balancing all of that was learning for everybody, but a lot of it was stuff I did as the business manager in Pensacola.” “There was still a learning curve with the parks department and the city as to what the role of this building would be, how it would fit in with the community,” she said. There are many aspects to her duties at the Fairfield Community Arts Center: Managing educational programs renting the facility for receptions and other private events working with performing groups such as the Fairfield Footlighters and the Miami Valley Dance Theatre, who use the theater and classrooms marketing a broad array of performances not only to city residents but to the entire region and overseeing exhibitions in the center’s art gallery. “Arts administration combines a lot of my interests,” she said, indicating that she not only enjoys the creative aspects of the job, but also the number crunching and marketing. She took a year off, then started looking for work. He landed a job in Springfield at Lockheed Martin, which trumped her non-profit theater management job, so they came to Southwest Ohio. Her husband went back to school then and got a degree in graphic arts. in directing at the University of Hawaii before returning to Pensacola to become the box office supervisor, and eventually business manager, of the same theater where she started her career. She met her husband Bob in 1990, and as a Navy man, he took her off to Hawaii, where she got her M.F.A. “I saw what New York actors really went through and decided that wasn’t for me,” she said. I did a lot of community theater and got a degree in theater in college at the University of West Florida.”Īfter college, Schiller spent some time working for the off-Broadway 29th Street Theatre doing scene designs. “I’ve done at least a show a year ever since, give or take. “It was a great experience and I had just enough of a part to get bitten by the theater bug,” she said. When she was 14, her mother was looking for something for her to do for the summer and sent her to audition for the play “Snow White” at the Pensacola Little Theatre, where she landed a role as the lead characters right-hand maiden. She said as a child she loved to draw and paint, and took piano lessons for eight years. I can do that.’”Ĭhosen from a field of over 160 applicants, Schiller started at the center in December 2005, just a few months after it opened.īut the arts, especially the theater, have always been central to her life. I looked down the list of requirements and said, ‘I can do that. “It was one of the first resumes I sent out,” she said. When she moved to Ohio from Pensacola, Fla., Schiller saw the job posting for the arts center manager position before she saw the arts center. Schiller not only manages the city’s “art hub,” but is also an active participant, having performed in Fairfield Summer Community Theatre shows, but also becoming a regular director for the Footlighters, this spring taking the helm on the comedy “I Hate Hamlet.” “There are times when I leave the building late at night (and) see the whole building lit up, something going on in every room,” Schiller said. Schiller herself has been amazed at the growth and the variety of activities that have taken hold in the FCAC - everything from after-school ballet classes to a Wii bowling league. It improves the whole arts scene and has become the hub of all arts activities in Fairfield.” “There are more arts opportunities than just theater, especially opportunities for young people, and it helps the community in so many ways.
“She’s brought in a lot of different shows, applies for a lot of grants to bring in things we wouldn’t normally see,” Davis said. Since taking over management of the FCAC in December 2005, Schiller has guided the facility and the organization behind it to find its multi-faceted niche in the community and the region.
0 kommentar(er)
