Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

AI is changing how audiences discover arts and cultural experiences, and the implications extend far beyond marketing and IT teams. For arts leaders, understanding how audiences find, evaluate, and choose cultural experiences is essential to staying relevant. In this episode recorded live at Capacity Boot Camp 2026 , Dan Titmuss, Senior Consultant, AI & Organic Search at Capacity, demystifies how...

Arts and cultural organizations are constantly being asked to demonstrate their impact. Data can help us make that case, but how do we bring the stories behind the numbers to life? For Giorgia Lupi, award-winning information designer and partner at Pentagram, data is far more than a collection of facts and figures. Approaching numbers with an artist's mindset can help us communicate not just what...

For Cory Pattak, lighting design has always carried a sense of magic. Over a 20-year career, Cory has designed productions across Broadway, regional theatre, international stages, cruise lines, and more. He is now bringing that same eye for spectacle to a new Pixar-themed production for Hong Kong Disneyland, set to premiere in 2027. In this episode, Cory explains what a lighting designer actually...

The arts help people feel, connect, and find the courage to act. How can we better harness that power—and communicate it beyond our own circles—to ensure the longevity of our field? For Lisa Richards Toney, her connection to art is deeply personal. From finding her confidence through youth arts programs in Washington, D.C. to studying at Spelman College and working in arts education and management...

How do you build a museum around a subject that's constantly evolving?  As CEO of Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture (MOPOP), Michele Y. Smith is helping preserve what refuses to stand still. With exhibitions spanning music, film, fashion, gaming, and fandom, MOPOP examines pop culture not simply as entertainment, but as a reflection of the ideas, identities, and social changes shaping our lives in r...

What changes when artists aren't simply invited to perform, but are given a seat at the table where ideas, policies, and solutions take shape? Joseph Fowler has spent his career moving between artistic disciplines, institutions, and cultural ecosystems around the world. After training at The Royal Ballet School and performing professionally as a dancer, his curiosity took him behind the scenes as...

The future isn't something that simply happens to us. It's something we help create through the stories we tell, the technologies we use, and the choices we make about how to live together. Baratunde Thurston has spent his career exploring what that responsibility looks like across comedy, media, civic life, and nature. Again and again, his work returns to a deeply human question: how do we embrac...

Rebranding a beloved institution requires not only defining what comes next, but building enough trust and shared ownership that both longtime supporters and new audiences see themselves in the future. Courtney Burke Summers recently helped lead the sweeping rebrand of Celebrity Series of Boston into Vivo Performing Arts, launching a new identity designed to better reflect the organization's role...

What if a museum's job isn't simply to preserve history, but to help us imagine a different future? Lisa Yun Lee has spent her career exploring what cultural institutions can make possible when they understand themselves as civic spaces. As Executive Director of the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, she leads an institution created by public housing residents to preserve their own histori...

A great exhibition or performance can draw people in, but a strong institutional brand shapes how they understand the experience—and whether they feel invited to return. Kim Jakominich has spent more than 15 years working across publishing, public media, museums, and cultural destinations. Now Chief Brand Officer at the Barnes Foundation and Calder Gardens, she leads an integrated team spanning ma...

As our attention becomes increasingly fragmented, the value of being fully present together has never been greater. The most memorable experiences go beyond spectacle and  create a clear sense of place, invite participation, and give people something meaningful to feel together. Ann Morrow Johnson has spent her career designing those kinds of experiences. After more than a decade at Walt Disney Im...

Join Monica Holt for a live recording of Arts Unscripted with Marc Bamuthi Joseph, an internationally acclaimed cultural strategist, spoken word artist, and Chief of Impact at SOZO. Bamuthi has built a singular career at the intersection of creativity, leadership, and social impact—from performing on Broadway and co-founding Youth Speaks to shaping civic and cultural strategy at Yerba Buena Center...

Producer's Note:  While Arts Unscripted is on summer hiatus, we're re-sharing a few of our favorite episodes from past seasons. Clive was actually the first guest to sit down and chat with Monica. The YoungArts application is open now through October 6th, so it's the perfect time to revisit how Clive thinks about supporting young, multi-disciplinary artists. --- Can legacy arts institutions innova...

Producer's Note:  While Arts Unscripted is on summer hiatus, we're re-sharing a few of our favorite episodes from past seasons. Cody recently celebrated Tony Award-winning runs with two Broadway productions:  Ragtime and CATS: The Jellicle Ball . With CATS set to close on August 8, it's an apt moment to revisit Cody's reflections on the production (and grab tickets while you still can). ----- Grea...

Producer's Note : While Arts Unscripted is on summer hiatus, we're re-sharing a few of our favorite episodes from past seasons. Carlos Simon is the the inaugural Composer Chair of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Composer-in-Residence since 2021 at the Kennedy Center. Since we recorded earlier this year, his Good News Mass keeps finding new orchestras and new audiences. With its Midwest premiere...

Producer's Note: While Arts Unscripted is on summer hiatus, we're re-sharing a few of our favorite episodes from past seasons. Shanta Thake is the vision behind Lincoln Center's free Summer for the City festival happening right now through August 8 in New York. It's a good moment to go back and hear how she thinks about building a season for an entire city, not just a subscriber base. ----- Shanta...

A festival lasts only a few weeks or months each year, but the work of leading one never stops. Jeffrey Haydon has spent his career at the helm of some of the country's most respected music festivals, including Ojai, Caramoor, and now Ravinia Festival, where he serves as President and CEO. Drawing on a background that bridges music and business, he has led major capital projects, expanded educatio...

The Tony Awards often celebrate the names on a show poster, but every Broadway production is carried by countless artists whose work rarely fits neatly into a category. So in anticipation of this year's awards ceremony, we're spotlighting a few of the performers, collaborators, and creative forces behind nominated productions. Beth Callen follows her curiosity wherever the music leads. A multi-ins...

The Tony Awards often celebrate the names on a show poster, but every Broadway production is carried by countless artists whose work rarely fits neatly into a category. So in anticipation of this year's awards ceremony, we're spotlighting a few of the performers, collaborators, and creative forces behind nominated productions. Victor Vazquez has spent his career expanding the possibilities of who...

The Tony Awards often celebrate the names on a show poster, but every Broadway production is carried by countless artists whose work rarely fits neatly into a category. So in anticipation of this year's awards ceremony, we're spotlighting a few of the performers, collaborators, and creative forces behind nominated productions. Allison Blackwell knows the power of ensemble storytelling firsthand. C...

Creative work is often romanticized as spontaneous: a flash of inspiration, a breakthrough moment, a burst of talent. In reality, many artists discover that creativity is less about sudden genius and more about the systems, rituals, and relationships that help ideas grow over time. For Oliver Richman, creativity has been both an early spark and an evolving practice. As a child, his performances fo...

Arts organizations thrive when teams stop operating in parallel and begin building together. Take it from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which is wrapping its biggest season in over a decade. By creating shared goals across teams and building systems that encourage communication instead of competition, the Symphony has seen unprecedented audience growth in just a few short years. In this episode,...

Susan Magsamen has spent her career arguing that creativity and aesthetic experiences are not luxuries, but biological necessities woven into how we heal, learn, and connect. A researcher, educator, and co-author of the New York Times bestseller Your Brain on Art , Susan has become one of the leading voices in the growing field of neuroaesthetics: the science of how the arts and sensory experience...

Jacob Jonas consistently questions who dance is for, where it belongs, and how it can be sustained.  From his early days as a street performer on Venice Beach to founding his own company at just 21, his work reflects a conviction that art must evolve alongside audiences. That perspective has shaped his drive to build new models for the field just as much as it has informed his creative practice. I...

Giorgia Lupi has built a career at the intersection of design, storytelling, and information, treating data not as cold fact but as something deeply human.  From organizing buttons in her grandmother's tailor shop in Italy to becoming a partner at Pentagram, her work consistently challenges the idea that analysis and artistry exist in separate worlds.  In this episode, Giorgia reflects on her path...