Jay Pension

Lecturer

Jay Pension (AR 781 – Special Topics) has taught courses over the last 10 years, such as: Arts Administration, Arts Marketing and Audience Development, Branding for the Arts, Fundraising and the Arts, Managing Creativity, Performing Arts Management, Producing in the American Theatre, Storytelling with Mission, Vision, and Values, and Theatre Management.

Jay’s scholarship exists at the nexus of the creative practice of theatre producing and empirical and theoretical research. This activity centers on engagement and cross-sector collaboration for theatres and nonprofit arts organizations.

He is currently co-developing a new book called, The Engagement Economy: Lessons from the Arts on how Connection is Driving the Global Marketplace, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press. The book extends the application of a new paradigm for arts marketing centered on engagement which was explored in his last co-authored book published by Oxford University Press. He also served as the co-editor of Business Issues in the Arts, an edited volume that explores key topics in the arts sector. Both books are currently used across the United States in arts management classrooms.

He has published articles in the Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, and the Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy. In addition to publications, Jay has presented his research at the International Conference on Arts and Cultural Management (AIMAC), the Association of Arts Administration Educators Conference (AAAE), the Society for Arts Leadership Educators Conference (SALE), Social Theory, Politics, and the Arts (STP&A), and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE). He is a board member for Social Theory, Politics and the Arts (STP&A), and is a co-founder/board member of the Society of Arts Leadership Educators (SALE).

Over the past 15 years Jay has worked as a producer on over 100 theatre productions in Boston and New York City. He has worked in leadership in a variety of nonprofit theatre contexts with varying budget and audience sizes in Boston and on Martha’s Vineyard. In his current creative practice, he is a producer on Marian, a new musical about the life of Marian Anderson, a Black contralto who, in 1939, performed before a racially integrated audience of 75,000 at the Lincoln Memorial.

He holds a BFA and an MFA in Theatre, and a Ph.D. in Arts Administration.