Monica Holt On Curiosity, Leadership, and Evita

Christopher Williams: Hey podcast listeners. We have some really big news today. We have a brand new podcast host and I want to welcome her today. The one and only, you know her, you love her: Monica Holt.

Monica Holt: Hi Christopher. Thank you. I’m so, so happy to be here.

Christopher Williams: I know that so many of our listeners are probably familiar with you. You have been on the podcast a couple of times before. Also, you have an amazing reputation. People know you. Your network is very vast. We’ve talked about your career path on the podcast in the past. It’s rather unique for — do you consider yourself a mid-millennial? An elder millennial?

Monica Holt: Maybe mid-elder.

Christopher Williams: Mid-elder, all one word. As a mid-elder, you stayed at the Kennedy Center for 16 years, which is for the millennial generation is a long time to camp in one organization. You also climbed from sort of an entry level junior position in marketing at the Kennedy Center all the way to the top of the marketing food chain. And then did something highly unusual, which is you moved from the marketing side of the equation to the artistic planning, programming side of the equation, which is not a jump most people make. That is not a move we are sort of accustomed to seeing in our industry, so it’s super unique. What kept you growing and evolving at the Kennedy Center for so long?

Monica Holt: Well, I guess first and foremost, I grew up in the DC area, so institutions like the Kennedy Center and Arena Stage and Shakespeare, Signature, Wolf Trap even — they were all kind of formative to who I was as a theater kid, as someone who loved the arts. So when I was able to join the center, that was a dream come true. So just inherently I wanted to hold onto that dream as long as possible, but in terms of how I moved around the organization and what motivated me there, in addition to the mission of the building, the commitment to not just the artists and audiences in the building, but kind of the larger national remit of being a cultural center for the United States, both for everyone here and also diplomatically abroad, and of course a memorial in the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Those things became entrenched in me very quickly as I looked around and saw so many people committed to that same vision.

But I think while I didn’t move outside of the building the way that folks might to find other opportunities, I’m just a really curious person. I love knowing how things work, right? If our coffee machine breaks, I’m going to Google for three hours trying to figure out what part and how do I fix it, and maybe I’ll put on a headlamp and look into the inner workings, but I, knowing how things work, maybe because I like knowing how to fix things, which is something for my therapist, but that curiosity really kept me driven to think beyond just what my job was at that time or what department I was in. There was such a big organization that I could learn so much from and soak that up.

And to complement that, at the center, I was surrounded by people who were willing to answer my questions. So yes, I made a point to be on time when I said I was going to be somewhere and to show up for the people that mattered and to deliver on the results that I was tasked with. But I was surrounded by people who were fostering who I was becoming, who were answering every question I had about every detail and giving me the information I needed to continue my curiosity in other areas of the building. Without that environment paired with the mission, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to grow. And with the support of everyone around me, when this opportunity came to move from marketing and as a real theater kid at heart, the chance to go work as the director of theater programming to general manage Kennedy Center new productions, that’s an opportunity you don’t say no to. And then from there, obviously just growing even more and in my last position, overseeing all of our artistic programs and the production team and the Kennedy Center Orchestra, just that constant surrounding of folks driven by not just mission, but their own creativity. That’s the type of place that you know to hang on to and to give back to as much as possible.

Christopher Williams: That’s so cool. While you were there, you obviously got to do some amazing things. You were in such close proximity to really starry people and really remarkable events like the Honors and Twain. How did being a part of those kinds of moments and being in proximity to those folks shape the way you really think about the field and your role in it?

Monica Holt: Yeah, there’s nothing quite like being able to be surrounded by creative people that came through as artists, as part of the production team and artisans behind the scenes, and also the curatorial staff is naturally incredibly creative. And sitting in a room talking about an idea for a festival or what are we going to do for X, Y, Z season that’s coming up. Those are moments that I treasure as much as being behind the scenes and seeing an artist doing their first vocal rehearsal before the Honors. But the other moments that I hold dear are just being part of the audience, the magic of not just watching a beautiful or hilarious or moving piece of work happen in front of you, but being part of a whole community, watching that happen.

Those moments I treasure as much and those keep me motivated almost as much as anything behind the scenes. There are two more recent examples of this that still feel like they’re going to be seared into my heart and brain for life. In New York, the night before the Tony Awards, a friend and I went to see Just In Time, which if you don’t know is the Bobby Darin biopic musical. Biopic musical? It’s the Bobby Darin bio musical, and it’s starring Jonathan Groff and without spoiling too much, the way the show works is that at the beginning and the end of the show, Jonathan is Jonathan and it’s the night before the Tony’s. So emotions are already kind of high, and even just during the show, Jonathan is on stage just giving everything in this performance. I mean, bearing his soul and his sweat and saliva, tears, and all the things.

Christopher Williams: Being wet, like he is.

Monica Holt: Exactly, being a classic Jonathan-Groff-is-being-wet-on-stage, but he’s just giving everything. And watching it, you’re just like, oh, this is someone living his dreams. He’s up there and he is living his dreams on stage and all of us get to bear witness to it and be a part of it. And then towards the end of the show, about 10 minutes until the end, he kind of becomes Jonathan again and he says something like, “Performing was Bobby’s favorite thing to do, and it’s also mine.” And his voice starts to break a little, and you just get this huge amount of emotion in his voice. Everyone feels it, and everyone just starts clapping and spontaneously stands up and just starts giving him an ovation 10 minutes before the end of the show. He’s crying. We’re all crying. It was just a moment of care and catharsis and community, and that can happen on any night.

You don’t know. Another audience experience is I was in London recently and saw Evita with the absolutely incredible Rachel Zegler and Diego Rodriguez, but well, I think everyone’s online, so I think everyone who will be listening to this probably knows at the top of Act Two, Rachel Zegler walks onto the balcony of the London Palladium and sings Don’t Cry For Me Argentina outside to the street. But what has happened since the first performance is crowds have continued to gather and gather and gather, lining up as early as 7:30 when the ticket buyers are going in for Act One, to watch this moment happen. And it is beautiful in the show. Thematically, it works to have her on the balcony for the show, for those inside the theater, absolutely, but also it’s creating community beyond the ticket holders. It’s creating a sense of community to the broader theater world, of intrigue, of interest, of conversation. It is life imitating art, imitating life, maybe three more times back and forth. I get goosebumps all over thinking about it and to see our art moving forward in a way that is so relevant and meaningful and connected… Truly, if anyone happens to be listening and is in London, just go see it. She is spectacular. He’s spectacular. You’re just stunned for the whole show at how great it is.

Christopher Williams: It’s on my list. It’s on my list. Well, let’s talk about perhaps what some listeners might be thinking is an elephant in the room, but essentially your shift away from the Kennedy Center. If you don’t know what’s happening at the Kennedy Center right now, then you probably don’t work in this industry, so we won’t cover that because we’ve covered it in the past and there’s a thing called Google, but you left the Kennedy Center of your own accord following the regime’s takeover of the center, when it really became clear that certain voices were being elevated while others were clearly being pushed out. What do we want to say about that?

Monica Holt: I was in a position where I had a front row seat to everything that happened that week in February, and I think for me, as soon as members of the board were dismissed and the chairman of the board — who has been the biggest philanthropist the Kennedy Center has had and such a supporter of both artists and staff of the center for such a long time — as soon as they were dismissed, it became pretty clear that this wasn’t going to be the organization that I had known since I was coming to The Nutcracker as a kid. Then the night before the board meeting where they dismissed our president of 10 years, Deborah Rutter, who has been such a champion for our whole industry, I think at that point I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to stay. I was in some ways lucky enough to have that be my choice, which meant that I could try to be — for a month or two — the calm in the storm, helping the staff and the artists, because that leadership wasn’t introducing itself to many people. New folks were appearing in the building that weren’t known to the staff. There was no all staff meeting. There was just a total lack of transparency. So it felt important to me that as long as I had the opportunity, even if I knew this was going to be short term for me, to take those moments to do what I could for our artists and whatever that meant, and to do what I could for not just my team, but the whole staff, the center, to be there to try and be kind of a lighthouse in the storm. But I was very clear that it was now — the Kennedy Center became on that day a political organization. It is not an arts organization right now. It is a political organization.

And I grew up in DC so if I had wanted to work in politics, I assure you I would’ve worked in politics. I was there for the mission of the building, for the artists, audiences, and industry members that it served, and for my people who were my colleagues and staff over that time in the building. So it was clear that I needed to leave. Leaving my people was extremely hard. What I think has been important to me now is as I figure out what comes next for me and what that looks like is, okay, how can I best use not just my experiences or times over all of these years at the center, but even just in these past few months, an experience that while traumatic and troubling for the center and for the arts field is also happening across so many other institutions in DC across the country — how can I use that experience to be helpful to the field, to artists, to my former colleagues? Whether that is tangibly helping, whether that is working to figure out how projects that we were planning for the future can move forward in other ways, or whether that’s bringing some joy or excitement or belief in the future and hope.

And so when you approached me about heading this way for a bit, it was such an exciting moment because Capacity has always been an organization that is so grounded in its values, that is so committed not just to the industry and the art, but also to the people. I think Capacity feels like an organization that is always thinking about the heartbeats and not just the metrics, which is a pretty remarkable thing that I was thrilled to be able to jump at the opportunity to work with you and your team a bit.

Christopher Williams: Well, I know, I mean, we have known each other for more than a decade, and I think we have always had a very hard-to-describe innate connection to one another. We could go a really long time without speaking and then we could just drop right back in and it always felt so good. And so I very much know what it’s like for people to be led by you. So just hearing about how you had to walk away and how you were such an exemplary leader all the way until the very end, it’s so heartening and so easy for me to hear that story because that’s just so you. Well, so let’s talk about the podcast. What actually draws you to saying yes when I asked you to do this?

Monica Holt: Well, I do anything for you, obviously. And for Capacity.

Christopher Williams: I’ll remember that.

Monica Holt: But this in particular, I think to that point of, as I’m figuring out what comes next and what the field needs right now, my hope would be that the same kind of curiosity that has driven me in my career, I can bring to the program. Because CI to Eye has already been such a wonderful resource, I mean, for me, even at all different stages of my career, and a way to stay connected and really keep an ear for what’s bubbling up or what’s to come that I might not have my finger on the pulse in. And I think a lot of people feel that way. My hope is that I can take that mission and drive and also start to engage in conversations with executive leaders of organizations right now. I think in a time where folks are really worried, bringing in our leaders into the conversation to help give some guidance will be really instructive. My goal is to bring some more artists into the fold because again, their own perspective and drive for joy and being able to have those conversations with them for me will also bring me a lot of comfort and joy to be able to hear more about what’s on their minds and how we can continue supporting them through all of our various streams of work.

But then also using this as an opportunity for all of us to maybe hear from some voices outside the field right now. I think one thing that CI is always good at, and certainly Boot Camp has always been great at, is not being too insular in the approach to problem solving for the industry. And I think I’m seeing that more and more over time start to grow and permeate the field, but this to me feels like a good opportunity to continue bolstering that by bringing in some folks who might have a different perspective, not necessarily only marketing focused, but really across the board, organizational structures and behaviors, leadership, all of those pieces. So I mean, what could be more exciting than learning by just talking to folks who love to do what they do or are experts in their field. And I hope that I can carry that across on this amazing platform and hopefully bring a little joy, a little joy to folks.

Christopher Williams: We need it.

Monica Holt: I know, we all need it. Yeah, I’m also hoping that people will reach out and let us know what they want to hear. If you’re listening, reach out on LinkedIn, Instagram, however, and let me know what you want to hear in the next few months. I think this season will be a lot of fun, and obviously your team is incredible, and yeah, I’m just thrilled and really grateful for the opportunity and it feels like a big privilege.

Christopher Williams: Well, we feel extraordinarily lucky to have you. I’m so excited. New episodes with Monica are going to begin dropping on a weekly basis, so that’s probably the most frequently we’ve ever published the podcast. So if you’re not already subscribed, now is the time to subscribe wherever you do listen to your podcasts. And lastly, just Monica, welcome aboard. We’re so happy to have you.

Monica Holt: I’m so happy to be here! Can I start to say things like “smash that subscribe,” or is that only like YouTube?

Christopher Williams: Yes. Whatever words you want to use, we will start to make those your tags.

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