Shanta Thake on Curiosity, Collaboration, and Building the Next Chapter of Lincoln Center

Monica Holt: Welcome back to CI to Eye. I’m Monica Holt. This fall we’ve spoken to leaders who are transforming their organizations, evolving legacy institutions from monuments to artistic excellence into essential civic infrastructure. But Lincoln Center’s upcoming West Side expansion is among the most meaningful and literal of these shifts. They’re tearing down a 20 foot barrier that separated Lincoln Center from its neighbors for decades, and that’s a powerful metaphor for everything my guest today is building with her colleagues. 

Shanta Thake is the Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. Before Lincoln Center, she spent 16 years at The Public Theater, programming up to 800 shows each year at Joe’s Pub. That experience taught her something crucial: no single curator can represent a city’s expansive taste. You need multiple voices. You need artists in curatorial seats. And you need to trust that the community knows what it needs.

Since arriving at Lincoln Center in 2021, Shanta has put that philosophy into practice again. She’s positioning the arts not as entertainment or luxury, but as essential to community wellbeing—as fundamental as diet and exercise. And that West Side expansion—the $335 million project to remove the wall and create welcoming entrances, park space, and a new outdoor theater facing the neighborhood? Well, that’s about confronting history and building a future together with your community. 

In our conversation, Shanta and I talk about what it takes to build consensus for radical change, why curiosity is the most important muscle in arts leadership, and what happens when you open up the vulnerable work of curation to an entire city. Let’s dive in.

Shanta Thake, welcome to CI to Eye. Thank you so much for being here. It’s so good to see you. 

Shanta Thake: It’s so good to see you. 

Monica Holt: I really appreciate you taking the time. You have such an incredible story. You have worked with many different institutions and really bringing them kind of into what the future can look like for community, for creativity. You’ve been leading Lincoln Center recently as Chief Artistic Officer through what feels a bit like a Renaissance period. But before we get there, you moved to New York how long ago? 

Shanta Thake: In 2002. 

Monica Holt: Okay. I’m sure you had big ideas about what was going to be possible with that move. Talk to me a little bit about that Shanta and who she was and what those big ideas were.

Shanta Thake: Yeah, actually I think I moved here with kind of small ideas, actually. I remember I moved to New York to be an actress. I really thought that was my path. I had gone to school for theater and also had a degree in management, but I thought that was totally useless because obviously I was going to come be famous very quickly. And I told my mom when I moved that what I really wanted was to find a way to get as many free tickets as I could, and to find my bar. Those were my two things. 

Monica Holt: Alright, a woman with goals. We love to see it. 

Shanta Thake: And that was really, I think, a driver for how I found my way through the city for those first months. And was very prescient, because I did end up landing at The Public Theater very shortly after I moved. That offered me both. It offered me access to a lot of free tickets to a lot of shows around the city and also a bar, which was Joe’s Pub right downstairs. So those were my goals and I achieved them, luckily.

Monica Holt: I love that. I mean, you’re starting to talk about it already. So Public Theater, you had quite a career there. Will you walk us through what the experience was coming into the organization for the first time and then how you grew across the years that you were there?

Shanta Thake: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, The Public is an incredible, incredible place with an amazing history. And I landed there really serendipitously, really 10 days after I moved to the city and as an intern. But they didn’t have really a defined internship program. It was very fast and loose there. I don’t think there were any other interns. I think I was the intern program when I came, but it was because I had shown my headshot to this man, James King, who had been the general manager there, and he was like, “Oh yeah, these are great… and George Wolfe is looking for a second assistant in his office.” So I went in and interviewed and started the day after. It was amazing. I mean, George Wolfe was such a hero of mine. I had seen Bring in ‘da Noise/Bring in ‘da Funk on Broadway when I had visited New York and was obsessed and he was one of the true great creators of our time.

And so I got to hang out in George’s office for six months and I worked there as an intern, but I loved being there. I mean, I never wanted to leave to go to auditions. I always wanted to stay in the office. He always had amazing people coming by and hanging out: Rosie Perez and Jimmy Smits and Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright. I mean, these were people just coming by and hanging out. And he was working on a number of amazing shows at the time, including Topdog/Underdog, Elaine Stritch: At Liberty, Radiant Baby… These were all happening at the same time when I was there. And so to leave, to go audition to be in some horrible show, it was like, why would I want to be a part of that when I am going to be a part of this? So I really stopped auditioning, but then I also really needed health insurance.

Monica Holt: Sure. A classic tale.

Shanta Thake: And so I needed a full-time job, and I loved – I had done a lot of concert promotion and booking shows and open mics in college, and Joe’s Pub was there and I loved Joe’s Pub and I would volunteer to stage manage the shows at night at Joe’s Pub. And eventually they had a position available. And so I got it and I started in Joe’s in January of 2003, and then I proceeded to work there for about another 16 years.

Monica Holt: What a dream in a lot of ways.

Shanta Thake: Yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing.

Monica Holt: So the quality of just showing up, right? Saying I want to help. How can I help? How can I help?

Shanta Thake: Yeah. I always tell people that nonprofit arts reward passion and hard work. And if you can show up with an actual passion that you can figure out how to feed in some way through the work and are willing to do that work, you can really soar in the nonprofit arts – if you can really commit to being curious constantly.

Monica Holt: Very well said. You were about to say what then your role became over those 16 years. I’m sure your way of thinking curatorially was evolving in that time. So just tell me a little bit about what all those years, what that looked and felt like inside the organization.

Shanta Thake: It was an amazing, really vibrant time. And so I always say that I think The Public was about six different institutions in the time I worked there. It was constantly evolving and shifting and changing. So my experience there was doing the same. And I started in Joe’s Pub in 2003. I became the director in 2007 and then was the director for 10 years there. And in that time, I think the interesting evolution was not at Joe’s Pub necessarily, but was with the world, which was that the music industry fell apart in the late aughts. So around 2007 through ‘10 was really the rise of streaming music and the loss of income in the music industry entirely. So this placement of being at a nonprofit music venue and understanding or having the beginnings of an understanding of what it meant to work in a nonprofit, what the theater community had, what the dance community had, what jazz had, and these other forms that the for-profit commercial music industry had no access to.

So we had to really figure out a new model together. And that was, all of these things were unbelievable shifts in our ecosystem, but they all allowed for a different kind of conversation and a different kind of platforming for artists and what was needed. And I think that’s always been really a vibrant space for me to be living in. And so that’s what we did at Joe’s Pub. We really thought about how to be a nonprofit music venue, how to commission artists, how to grow their careers with them. And then I went on to oversee all of the programs of The Public in – I actually forget what year now, but sometime around 2017 or ‘18. They were all growing because we had Hamilton and the resource that came with that. And so we were able to really grow these programs of our public works and mobile unit, which was touring to all of these correctional facilities and community centers. There was a lot of vibrancy at the time, but we needed new systems to figure out how to really talk to each other and learn from each other and not create silos within the institution, which was happening – and is what does happen when you have a resource, that people start to think about who has more and who doesn’t have resources. And so that was actually a really fulfilling part of that role.

Monica Holt: Hearing your perspective on what it’s like to be a part of that organization when something so significant in the cultural space, but then that has this financial impact, happens. Is there any more you could just share about what it was like? Less so with the spotlight from Hamilton, the art which we love and celebrate and always will, but from that institutional change perspective on what that meant for The Public?

Shanta Thake: Yeah, The Public has always had this really beautiful mission tied to values and tied to creating work that’s incredibly relevant. And the programs of The Public are sort of the tentacles of The Public that are in different kinds of relationships that actually a season of shows can’t have, but still hold these values, but sort of take little slices of who The Public is out into the world in various ways. And that can change and grow and the best missions are always quite malleable. But at that time it really felt like this world of possibility that really, because of this one, we have to shepherd it very carefully because we’ve also been through this cycle before of having A Chorus Line and having Hair. And The Public has been on that roller coaster for a long time. And so understanding that these things come, they go, and the most important thing is the core of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, I think to me was really clear and was really clear from the board and really clear at every level of that conversation, of: this is great that this is happening. We have an enormous set of possibilities that were not open to us a year ago and we can’t lose track, we can’t get ahead of our skis, we can’t do all of these things that are very easy to do when you have just an enormous influx of cash and you also have a lot more people that want to have meetings with you.

Monica Holt: Well, I’m sure.

Shanta Thake: I would say that’s probably the most immediate feeling is like, oh wow, everybody wants their musicals to happen at Joe’s Pub, at The Public, at any place within, because you feel like you have the eyes of the world on you.

Monica Holt: Yeah, I’m sure. So you have this vibrant, successful career while you’re at The Public. You decide ultimately to then move to Lincoln Center. I would say at surface level, those are two organizations that have very different outward appearances. The Public, I have known, others have known, [for] bold, accessible work – really kind of in the trenches with creatives moving in their ascendancy and beyond. And Lincoln Center I think has felt to many at times like more of a monument to high culture just by the nature of the plaza, The Met, the ballet companies that find their home in that space as well. How did you approach that transition and kind of navigating assumptions but also bringing with you this desire to bridge that kind of different institutional culture?

Shanta Thake: I think the timing is that I came in 2021, so the idea of what anything was was so hazy for all of us and what anything could be. And this demand of our institutions internally and externally to meet a different kind of moment was felt in every day. And we felt that at The Public every day. We felt that in the news. But this idea that, okay, you’re an arts organization in the center of my city, what have you done for me? Why do you have tax exempt status? Who are you serving? Why? What are the stories on your stages? I mean, these were the questions that were coming up every day in staff meetings, in our paper… So this onslaught of a different kind of question and a different kind of request from our nonprofit arts, I think, of showing up in a different way for our communities was really very prescient.

Lincoln Center actually in 2019 had adopted a new strategic plan and was about, okay, let’s shift the way we do our work to support the resident arts organizations on campus. Let’s focus on access and innovation. So I don’t think I would’ve been hired into a different kind of institution than one that was focused on those. So it was clear in my interview process and in what I was hearing in the world that this was an evolving place that was interested in the conversations that we had been having at the public and bringing those to Lincoln Center or joining those conversations at Lincoln Center. I think the overall question of what is a brand or what are people’s… looms large. Lincoln Center looms large. It’s meant to loom large, and this idea that it is something you aspire to is built into the architecture and that’s something that is a privilege to work in and also something that we have to work to shift the perception of what that means and who it’s for and why these big beautiful buildings are for everybody. So that’s a very long way of saying that I really felt at home at Lincoln Center right away, actually. I did not feel a significant culture shift because I think I was entering into a conversation they were having that I had been in already.

Monica Holt: Yeah, it was the right time. It sounds like it was a moment when folks were prepared and your values were aligning with where the institution was and wanted to go. So now you’re at Lincoln Center as their head of artistic. Tell us a little bit about your role and what Lincoln Center and the landscape of being on the plaza means.

Shanta Thake: So Lincoln Center is an interesting organization. It is a big place. It’s 11 arts organizations actually on campus. And I am the Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. And then the other 10 include Jazz at Lincoln Center, Film at Lincoln Center, Chamber Music Society, Julliard, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic, et cetera, et cetera. So it’s an amazing, really vibrant place and the idea is that when these 11 organizations are in community with one another, we are larger than the sum of our parts.

Monica Holt: Not to quote you to you, but you’ve described your role as being one of expansive force at Lincoln Center. What does that mean in practice? How does that differ from maybe traditional arts leadership or the impresario model of artistic directorship at organizations? And what does it mean for you in the day-to-day?

Shanta Thake: The day-to-day? Well, I’ll say another – something that I learned at Joe’s Pub really was that at Joe’s Pub we did about somewhere between 700 and 800 shows a year there. And there is no possible way for me to have programmed all of those shows because I don’t have taste that’s that expansive. I don’t know enough about all of these different forms. I can’t possibly be seeing that many shows in the city all over, in the singer-songwriter community, the jazz community, the classical community. And so you end up being in a different kind of conversation with your artist community, with the staff. And so Joe’s, when we worked together, even if you were the curator, the artistic director as I was, the marketing director is also programming because they’re also seeing shows and they’re at the shows and they meet somebody that then… and that sort of autonomy and ability to express yourself and bring it into the place you love and work was really important at Joe’s Pub and made it so much better than it would’ve been otherwise.

And it’s what allowed me to start curating, even though I had really no business curating when I was 22 and had moved to the city, I had a sense of who I was and what I wanted to show. And when I had started seeing enough shows and being in enough communities, I got to try it out. And that was really important for me and for those artists to have an entryway. The same thing is true at Lincoln Center. It’s – To try to represent New York City, let alone being a national and international platform, it’s absurd to think one person completely makes no sense. And that was never that way at Lincoln Center either. I wasn’t inventing this. There were multiple different festivals with different artistic directors at the lead and then those are moving into… But I think what we have perhaps shifted a little bit more strongly or made more visible is who all of these curators are and bringing the artist curators into the mix and having them curate pieces of our different festivals and showing their own thought process around curation and making that piece a little bit more visible.

So Clint Ramos is working on American Songbook right now, and it’s really beautiful to watch his take because he’s a great American artist and to think about what is his songbook, what are all of the influences, who are all the artists he’s in conversation with? And that lens itself offers an audience a powerful idea of what their own curation might look like. Not everybody is going to have the chance to curate at Lincoln Center, but everybody is curating for themselves all the time. To show people the power of their own cultural capital, I think, was always something we talked about, of course, of what it means to offer people access to these different forms of art making, art creation. But I think also curation is its own art, and feeling like you have power within that is something that I hope we start to offer by virtue of showing all of these various voices.

Monica Holt: Yeah, the approach that you’re describing, I love hearing that. It’s something that at the Kennedy Center, over my years there, I struggled with a bit, both as an outsider when I wasn’t in programming, but then also as a quote insider in programming. And in my most recent role, really wanting to take a moment to say, agreed, not everyone is going to be making the final decision, calling the agent, dealing with the contract, working one-on-one with the artist, but programming as a democratized force, as one that can have a lot of inputs, is more than anything else just so much more interesting than only having the same couple voices tell us what’s going to be on our stages at all times. We were really lucky that we had these kind of experts in all these fields, and this creative collective that we were building in the programming team.

But I like to think, I hope, that over my last few years, there became a bit more of an openness, that ideas were more welcome in the space even if you weren’t living in a programming or production space. And I also want to thank you in that way because our mutual friend, the most wonderful Marc Bamuthi Joseph, suggested at one point after I had taken the role that I reach out to you. It was so helpful for me to know both that there have been very successful models where this idea was working, but also to get that encouragement that it wasn’t a crazy thing to think that you could break down the barriers and the way things had always been done to lead to something that felt modern and appropriate for the community and the audiences we were building. So I love hearing you talk about it because it also just brings me back to this moment in time where I was getting to know you first and you just provided such guidance and inspiration for me as I was figuring out how to navigate a kind of complicated legacy institution from a new vantage point. So thank you.

Shanta Thake: That’s very kind. I had always looked at the Kennedy Center, as well, as this model of taking these artists’ voices and putting them directly into the conversation and trusting our artists to lead us and for institutions always to be in the backseat of that. And what a beautiful, vulnerable place that is for an institution, actually. And to extend that to others. I think you do get a sense of how much stronger it makes you. The more questions you ask, the more curious you become, the more you learn. And when we were making changes to programming and getting a lot of feedback around what people felt like they were missing and not seeing, that’s really important because what all of us are doing is trying to create a space for belonging and for people to see themselves here. And when people get upset or something’s not going the way they want, that’s the best sign that they’re invested.

They do care. And those are the people that you actually have to be in the biggest conversations with because those are people that really actually believe that the work you do matters. I think of curation as making a mix tape and that feeling when somebody’s listening to the mix tape you made and how sweaty and uncomfortable and just like, oh God, I hope they like it. It’s so vulnerable. And to open up that process and that vulnerability to other people I think is really such a gift. But it does take some real courage and I’m still learning how to do it.

Monica Holt: Yeah, I could just listen to you talk about that forever because it’s just so clear how you look at and lead within organizations as a mix of both demonstrating and also not being afraid to lead from behind and letting others help show the way. And that is a quite remarkable thing in and of itself. So I do want to talk a little specifically about some of the innovation and programs that have been happening at Lincoln Center in the past few years under your tenure or evolving under your tenure. One program that I have loved watching you continue to develop is Summer for the City. It’s become this really incredible celebration. Lincoln Center as a whole feels transformed during this festival. Can you walk us through, a little bit, the genesis?

Shanta Thake: Honestly, it started before I got there, which was with Restart Stages, which had started really in summer of ‘21 and was prime pandemic time, really, and figuring out how we gather again. And so people were flocking to the green and really making this a part of what they were doing in New York in this very scary time. And then the programming was remarkable. It involved all of the resident arts organizations. They really talked about it as turning Lincoln Center inside out and bringing what was the best from around campus and the city. And so it laid a different kind of groundwork for what was possible at Lincoln Center and what was possible in the summer. 

And my own experience coming in was a lot of whiteboarding with the team. And what we knew was that previously we had all of these festivals in the summer – Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center Outdoors, and Midsummer Night Swing. And they happened in three week increments and they were all marketed very differently. They all spoke to a different audience, they had different pricing structures. They were all beautiful, fulsome programs led by different individuals and teams. But we started with this idea of, what would it look like if we spoke with the same voice to all of these communities and offered all of these folks a chance to actually meet a new community and not to make assumptions about our audience that they only like one thing? Which, of course – we know the world is changing so rapidly all the time and we all like so many different things. So why are we only telling them about one thing at a time? 

And that’s, I think, the difference of what live performance can do versus Netflix. Netflix is built on making your algorithm as small as possible, and actually our job is different than that. We’re not just trying to show you something we think you’ll like, we’re trying to get you to be in a community of people. And so I think again, that shift of, we’re a civic organization, we’re a civic cultural institution, was really underlying a lot of this. And so the idea was, what if we just put all these festivals on top of one another? And making it one nine-week festival where these audiences could find one another? And we really did some math and we did some thinking about how these would overlay and what it could look like. And honestly, it’s more resource heavy to do three separate festivals. And instead for us all to work together and say, this is one thing. And to think of ourselves as one institution together. And so that was the start of Summer for the City.

Monica Holt: And as you were talking about the ways that community comes together, I think it includes performances, it includes social dance, but also blood drives, wellness programs, ways to kind of bring that arts impact, arts for non-arts outcomes vantage point, which is to say the ability to gather, convene, and help alongside live music and events. I think it’s been more and more clear how you’re placing this idea of wellbeing in the center of a lot of the programs as you’re looking at the season. I’m curious, as you think about leveraging arts for infrastructure and for community health, how does that philosophy shape your programming decisions or how are you using that as you look ahead at Lincoln Center?

Shanta Thake: Yeah, my whole personal outlook has shifted since the pandemic on the power of the arts. And I really thought we would come back from having everything shut down and everybody would be waving a different kind of flag for the arts. Remember what that felt like to not be able to leave, to not be able to see anything, to see anyone, and how horrible that feeling was? And for those of us that worked in the arts, it was such a dramatic shift. But what I started to recognize in that time also was that a lot of these people had not been going to the arts every day like we had been. 

And then this different kind of ask post-pandemic of, what can the arts do that nothing else can? And what do we need now more than ever? And those answers are the same, which is to gather people. And so what a time to work in the arts. What a time to have what I think is one of the greatest needs of society right now, to be able to meet that need with the work that we’re doing. And to be able to articulate that differently as, this is not just entertainment. This is part of your wellbeing. 

And we’re trying to really have a different kind of conversation that of course is being backed up by numerous studies. And I think the science is catching up with what we know but haven’t articulated in this way, which is alongside diet and exercise – which everybody could articulate as things that are part of a healthy life. Doesn’t mean we want to do them… but luckily there’s this third thing which is arts. Participation in the arts and being in your community. And that’s fun. That can be a really beautiful part of a life, and it’s something that sustains us, that makes us healthier, that creates things that have us living longer and more connected to the people around us and are more connected to making our city stronger, to understanding what it means to even pick up litter on the street and wanting to care about our neighbors and ourselves in a different way.

So we’re trying to just make that narrative more part of what we’re saying to everybody and making that more visible to people. But then, how dare we put up these barriers? If we know these things that actually were critical to people’s health and wellbeing, then it has to be for everybody. So figuring out what that means, what our community looks like, how do we reflect that community on our stages? How do we tell those stories? And then try to get as many of those barriers out of the way, including just the mental barriers of, is that place for me? Should I go? Do I have the time? Do I have childcare? All of those pieces that we try one by one as many ways as we can to find ways to extend that invitation and say, you have to be here actually, because by you being here, it makes us all better. It makes you care about me more. And you. So that’s, I think… the job is different now.

Monica Holt: And really, that connection and that relationship being an outcome of this deep community work, building empathy together, as you were saying, it’s so important. You were talking a little bit about barriers and how we remove them in that sense, which does provide a natural transition for me to ask you a little bit about the West Side expansion. Can you just talk us through a little bit about what that project is and the conversations that led to that moment of deciding to move forward?

Shanta Thake: Yeah, it’s such a beautiful project and it’s part of this ‘how curiosity gets rewarded’ conversation, and I think asking ourselves different questions about our city, our history, what role does Lincoln Center have to play, what role have we played? And questioning some of these deep held assumptions and histories, written histories, of, “Thank goodness Lincoln Center was built. It cleared this slum.” And then asking a different kind of conversation of like, who lived here? What must that have been like to have your home destroyed for the creation of not just Lincoln Center, but the Lincoln Center neighborhood, Fordham University, multiple other things under the banner of urban renewal? And what is lost when progress comes? And just asking a different set of questions. And of course, when you start asking those questions, you realize that there’s plenty of people who have been asking those questions all along and illuminating those histories. We just haven’t necessarily foregrounded their experience.

We started learning about James P. Johnson and Thelonious Monk, who lived in the neighborhood, and just this idea of what had been created in this space. So all of these beautiful histories that you start to learn about and think, wow, this makes us stronger, actually, because this shows that this has always been a place for the arts. This has always been a neighborhood that has held a vibrant arts community. And now Lincoln Center is the embodiment of that currently. However, in the creation of Lincoln Center and of course the destruction of a portion of this neighborhood, we lost things. We’re also telling a new story. And that story was one of excellence, of holding the western cannon and certainly the western classical cannon of all of these great arts organizations coming together, and in the building of these buildings built a wall on the West Side. Notably on the West Side of campus, there is NYCHA housing, which is the housing authorities apartment, subsidized housing building, and is a different income bracket than what is to our east and in what is the upper West Side and a wealthier group of individuals that live and benefit from having Lincoln Center in their neighborhood.

But on the West Side, we have this wall, I think 20 feet tall at its height. And then of course the back of the Metropolitan Opera, our loading docks, our parking garage entrances, and it’s one of the least welcoming. You would never know… you could be on that side of campus and never know that there’s Lincoln Center on the other side. And so we are learning about our neighborhood and getting more curious about who actually lives to the west of us currently, and folks that were there that lived through this destruction construction, and getting to know our neighbors and getting to hear how they feel about this wall, and not asking that question necessarily, but just asking how do they feel about Lincoln Center? And so many of them referenced this wall and have paid attention to the fact that we had constructed this very clear barrier between what we were doing and what they were doing. So it was very present. 

And so then the conversation about, well, what would this look like and how could we create a space that allowed you to – an entrance to the west that feels like our neighbors to the east have coming to campus? And then that began… Once you start to unravel those threads, you get answers. And you have to be ready for those answers. And luckily, we were ready for those answers, which were, we love having performance here. We definitely want performance to stay here, but we want to have a beautiful park. We want an entrance that feels as grand as the entrance on the east. And so we worked with the community and thousands of interviews and focus groups and community leaders and board meetings. And it’s not a simple project, but it’s been a really beautiful process so far. And we break ground next year.

Monica Holt: And it’s a natural extension of a lot of what you have been talking about in terms of how you are building what programming looks like for the future, how you are creating more authentic ways for community to gather in ways that are good and healthy for them. How are you building consensus when it comes to creating significant change in an institution that has some really deep traditions and supporters of those deep traditions?

Shanta Thake: Essentially, at some level – hopefully the mission level – everybody’s bought into some idea of what this place is. So there’s already a big sort of gateway into these institutions, which is like, do you believe in this thing? Whether you’re working in the cafeteria or the box office or in marketing or in programming, there’s a sense of, it’s not about me, it’s about this thing and I want to be a part of that thing. So this consensus building I think is really about tapping into those pieces of who are we? Who do we want to be? Who do we have to be? And that takes trust, it takes time, but there are some very clear core pieces, and that’s where we start and we just keep going back to those. What do we want our audience to feel like when they arrive here? What do we want them… how do we want them to leave? What do we want them to do? Who do we want our city to be populated with? Those are things we share. And so I think if we can respect one another and each other’s work, if we can kind of just remind ourselves when we’re successful, it’s because of everybody here.

Monica Holt: That makes sense. Going back to the West Side expansion for a second, talking about how the community – as you were having these conversations – made it clear that a park is something that would be important to them. I think that’s such a good kind of very in the weeds question, is: how do you translate community input without losing the essence of what people are asking for, but still understanding what the boundaries you have to have from your position and resources are too? How do you look at that balance?

Shanta Thake: There’s somewhere in between where you’re listening for the core of what people want, and you’re not going to have a talent show for community members every week, but you are going to find a way to lift up the voices of people from the neighborhood. You are going to find a way to make sure that people also know what you’re doing. I mean, I think it’s very easy to critique a program or say you’re not doing anything that speaks to me if you never go to anything. And so finding the path for people to really understand, these are the three things we really want you at. And once you’ve seen those, tell us what spoke to you. What was it about those that felt important to you? And what would you imagine, when you come to the park three years from now, would be something that you’d want to feel when you leave or imagine for yourself when you’d want to leave? And just build those into what we see in the world and what our artists are telling us. And I always feel like artists are a thousand feet ahead of us all the time, noticing and paying attention to and seeing where the gaps are. And so somewhere in between all of that listening, you’re trying to create a season of work, the right platforms, the right things that make sense on these platforms that reflect those conversations.

Monica Holt: That’s good fodder for us to all think about a little bit more as we’re looking at how we’re planning seasons and what we’re bringing forward. Looking ahead, what is keeping you energized as you’re thinking about what comes next and what you’re building towards?

Shanta Thake: I do feel like our artists always keep me energized, and grounding ourselves in the work on our stages and thinking through things together and using the opportunities that we are together to be in conversation, to not just sit in your seat and leave at the end of the show and get back on the train, but really use these moments, these precious moments we have of sitting without our phones in our hands. So really think into what we want for ourselves, what we want for our city, what we want for our kids, what we want for our grownups, and how do we imagine our place within that, is a real gift. I mean, the things we’re thinking about a lot are, like you said, wellbeing is really centered in our work going forward and that conversation, how do we make that more visible? I think the conversation around technology and artisan technology and what they’re making and how to create a human-centered approach to technology is something I’m really excited about. I think technology overall is for me a scary place where I feel like I don’t quite know what’s happening and who and how and how it works and how I’m going to use it even. So I feel like this idea that we have the ability to make real change, that we have ability to shape technology, that this is not something that needs to be done to us, that can be a tool for us, and that there are amazing ways that we can look at the world that we just haven’t had access to before, also.

Monica Holt: You’re staying curious and you’re inviting more conversation. And this idea of, how do you build the shared future between things that scare some of us [or] we don’t know about, and have artists be the connector between these different languages? What are your hopes for the kind of rising generation of arts leaders as you’re looking at the field ahead?

Shanta Thake: I hope they see a place for themselves. I hope they go into this work unafraid of sharing their voice. And I remember Penny Arcade told me at some point – Penny Arcade is an incredible performing artist. And I was sitting in one of her shows at soundcheck, and she said to me, all of these men have been curating for years. Why not you? Why not you? Why not your voice? I was like, huh. And she was like, I see you at all the shows. I see you doing these things. Why don’t you just do it? Just do it. And so I think, why not you? 

Monica Holt: Yeah, why not you? We will be that voice for whoever is listening, saying ‘why not you’?

Shanta Thake: I hope people have the real confidence in their point of view in the world, but certainly if you want to go into arts administration in any context, why not you? Absolutely. I hope this field continues to be a place or becomes a place where people’s curiosity will be rewarded, and that is the gift of working in arts admin if we do it right.

Monica Holt: Thank you for that. Okay, we’re here. Quickfire culture. If you could go back in time, what’s one performance or event or concert that you would’ve wanted to be present at?

Shanta Thake: Of course, there’s the Queen at Live Aid moments of – I would’ve loved to see Freddie Mercury perform. I also only saw Prince perform once, and I would love to go back and just go to every single tour he ever did. I was also thinking, I wish that I had been able to see… My grandmother was a classical Indian singer. I wish I had ever seen her perform in a professional context. My grandfather played with this symphony, his local symphony, in Missouri, and I never saw him perform there, even though he was performing in it while I was alive, and I really wish I would’ve seen him perform in his local symphony. I feel like those are the things that if I could go anywhere in time, I would’ve loved to see my grandparents performing.

Monica Holt: What a great answer. What a great answer. Also, what great roots! What is a free resource in any field that you think everyone should be checking out or availing themselves of?

Shanta Thake: So Citizen University is working on this thing… I love Citizen University. I’ve worked with them a couple of times. They do these amazing gatherings of leaders, leaders from all sides of the political spectrum, really around how to ground yourself in a civic practice. And they’re working on something now. They did something with the New York Times that they’re thinking about these walks, these culture walks, just to walk around your neighborhood. And a walk around the neighborhood next to your neighborhood. And asking yourself a series of questions around, why is this set up this way? What kind of people are here? What kind of people aren’t here? Where is the grocery store? Where’s the art center? Where is the movie theater? What is available to me in this place? What’s not available to me in this place? And I think, again, this curiosity about the sort of world that we walk through every day is so available to us, and yet I think we’re listening to our podcasts and getting to work as fast as we can or staying in our apartment as long as we can. But I love this idea and I think they’re working on something that will come out in the next little bit of a guided set of questions, but I’m sure you can find some more things. I love the idea of just having a set of real questions you want to ask yourself and going for a walk around your neighborhood.

Monica Holt: That’s wonderful advice. And then finally, our CI to Eye moment. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, boards, and the staff of thousands of arts organizations right now, what would that message be today?

Shanta Thake: My message to everyone is to participate. To find a way to participate. I tell my staff, you should be on a board. If you’re not on a board, then figure out what other nonprofit you love and start going more regularly and then figure out how to be on the board, because I guarantee you, they’ll put you on that board. And just find a way to give to your community. Even if you think you have nothing to give, there is a way for you to mentor, for you to be a part of something. And I think this time demands that you participate. You really have to find a way that you can’t just hole up into your own life and wait for things to be done to you or for you. This is really about you knowing a different kind of depth of who you are by virtue of what kind of environment you’re in. And a great arts worker is somebody that has a whole life, that is fulfilled, that has some other part of their life. That they’re not just getting up, going to work, and then going home. Or seeing a show and then going home. But they have other pieces that define them. And that I think is really critical in this time.

Monica Holt: Thank you. Shanta, talking to you is always so refreshing, and I just so appreciate the time you’ve given me and so many others now. Great advice, and I can’t wait to see all that’s next at Lincoln Center. I will be there with bells on when the West Side expansion opens and can’t wait for that. But in the meantime, there’s still so much meaningful work happening every day. And thank you for your leadership. 

Shanta Thake: Thank you Monica. Same to you.

Monica Holt: Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover the show and hear from leaders in the arts and beyond. If you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve got some pretty incredible episodes coming your way, and I wouldn’t want you to miss them. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Monica Holt. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are our incredible designers and video editors. Our music is by whoisuzo. Don’t forget to follow CI on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for CI’s newsletter at capacityinteractive.com and you’ll never miss an update. And you can always reach out to let us know who you’d like to hear next from on CI to Eye.