On a breezy summer afternoon in 2007, Bruce Wand, Director of Information Technology and Services at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, was walking down the steep hill from his office towards towards the Festival’s main campus. He had been called for an impromptu meeting with the Festival’s Executive Director Paul Nicholson and Artistic Director Bill Rauch, to discuss the future role of technology at the Festival. It was no small question, and Wand had been adeptly handling these types of discussions for the past quarter of a century that he’d been with the Festival. But he could feel his apprehension mounting as he descended the hill on his way to Nicholson’s office—this conversation could spark some very big changes in the Festival.
Wand knew that, now more than ever, there was a focus on how to operate the Festival’s many programs more efficiently, as well as an equal emphasis on how to successfully make great works of art relevant to a changing audience. The 2007-2008 season would bring a renewed focus to creating the next strategic plan, and with the recent hiring of Rauch as the Festival’s new Artistic Director and with Nicholson’s retirement in the foreseeable future, Wand realized that the time was ripe to establish strategic priorities that looked not just towards the next five years, but also generations down the line. He was certain that the most potentially revolutionary of these changes was the manner in which the Festival incorporated technology of the future into its daily operations.
Luckily for Wand, the Festival’s primary constraint, unlike at most theatres, is not money—the Information Technology and Services Department had shown that when it could demonstrate real value to the organization, the money would be found. Instead, the Festival’s main constraints were time and space. As his footsteps echoed across the bricks at the center of the Festival’s campus, a single question reverberated through his thoughts. Given the competing needs and desires of each of the key departments within the Festival, what should the strategic priorities of the ITS Department be in order to ensure the continued success of the Festival?
Publication Date: 2010-05-15
Suggested Citation: Devon Smith, "Technology at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2007)," Yale Theater Management Knowledge Base Case Study #10-05, May 15, 2010
Keywords: Oregon, Organizational Direction, Technology
Teaching Notes: Yes (contact yaletmknowledgebase@yale.edu)
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