Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work · Nick Petrella and Andy Heise

#359: David Cote (Playwright, Librettist, and Theater Critic) (pt. 1 of 2)

·31 min·2 clips

David Cote says opera writing asks, “How can I do the least amount here to inspire the composer?”

1. Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work, episode #359 features David Cote discussing his career as a playwright, librettist, and theater critic. 2. Andy Heiss and Nick Petrella interview David Cote, whose work includes opera, theater criticism, and writing about social justice subjects. 3. The episode asks how an artist can build a sustainable career when playwriting and librettist commissions rarely provide stable income. 4. After graduating from Bard College in 1992, Cote moved from New Hampshire to New York intending to become an actor. 5. Cote spent about eight years performing unpaid off-off-Broadway shows while temping, working in coffee and copy shops, and waiting tables. 6. Cote and Jenny Woodward created Off, a photocopied journal for alternative theater distributed through downtown New York theaters. 7. Off covered artists and productions that Cote felt The New York Times and The Village Voice were overlooking. 8. In 2000, Jason Zinneman recommended Cote for a theater-writing position at Time Out New York because of his downtown theater knowledge. 9. Cote stayed at Time Out New York for about 17 years and described its reviews as a technical writing workshop. 10. Cote said Off was effective for developing his writing, giving contributors community, and helping some writers enter journalism or publishing. 11. Cote described his career as a combination of passivity, lucky breaks, and hard work, with participation in scenes creating opportunities. 12. Cote says financial sustainability and personal well-being can conflict when a conventional job limits creative work. 13. Cote estimates that only two or three librettists in the United States make a living solely from librettist commissions. 14. Cote recommends that writers “embrace the hyphen” by combining creative work with teaching, arts administration, television, or other storytelling jobs. 15. Cote cites Stereophonic as an example of a theater project that took 10 years to reach the stage. 16. Cote says his operas often take about five years from an initial idea to production because they depend on composer and director collaboration. 17. Heiss and Petrella conduct the conversation as a reflective career interview with follow-up questions about entrepreneurship, money, and artistic process. 18. Cote answers with conversational skepticism, personal examples, and technical comparisons between libretti and plays. 19. Playwrights, librettists, critics, and arts entrepreneurs. 20. Listeners seeking quick creative-career formulas.

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