Please Touch Museum®
Position Description
MANAGER, STUDIO AND PERFORMING ARTS
Reports To: / Director, Education / Department: / Education
Direct Reports: / Division: / Education
FLSA Status: / Exempt / Grade:
Effective Date: / FY17
Status: / Full-Time / Hours / Week:Tuesday - Saturday / 40

Background

Please Touch Museum, the Children’s Museum of Philadelphia (PTM) was founded in 1976 and was the first children’s museum to focus exclusively on young children ages birth to seven. PTM is multidisciplinary, providing exhibits and programs in the visual and performing arts, including theater, music and dance, literacy, humanities, math and science. PTM’s exhibits are themed environments that are hands-on and interactive helping children to learn, develop and practice the skills they need to be successful21st-century learners. The mission of Please Touch Museum is change a child’s life as they discover the power of learning through play. In 2008 PTM moved to Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, a National Historic Landmark Building built for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition.

Position Summary:
The Manager oversees the vision, planning and implementation of a full roster of innovative, family-friendly, high quality creative arts and theater programs that support early learning skills including literacy, social-emotional development,STEM, and arts through a varied and robust schedule of programs. Programs include performances, open-ended maker explorations, art experiences, and large-scale, museum-wide events that align with the Museum’s mission, strategic plan, exhibits, and ongoing educational programs. Programs developed will provide visitors access to unique experiences, including performances and materials, that support early childhood development in engaging, creative, and research-supported methods. Programs will provide opportunities for families to experience new ideas, and gain exposure to a variety of cultures, and the diversity of expression.
Primary Responsibilities:
  • Responsible to research, develop, and propose a wide variety of creative and performing arts programs throughout the Museum, including the Please Touch Playhouse. Programs should offer playful, relevant, accessible experiences that appeal to a variety of multigenerational audiences. Programs will provide opportunities for some of children’s first experiences with making and experiencing the diversity of creative expression through music, theater, art, and maker-based programs that align with Education Department programming and PTM exhibit themes.
  • Leads programs for children and families both in and outside the Museum, including performing and studio arts programs as well as ongoing general educational programming.
  • Provide direct oversight of all logistics for performances and creative arts workshops at the Museum including actively engaging a roster of high quality family friendly performers, contracting outside talent and negotiating fees, developing systems to work with Operations and Marketing departments to communicate event set-up and marketing the programs, working with Development on funding opportunities, and stage managing programs as needed.
  • Establishes partnerships with organizations around the city for collaborative programming to expand the reach of the Museum and diversity of offerings inside the building.
  • Will work with the Manager, Program Evaluation & Research Initiatives to gather data on programs throughout the year and evaluate programs on an ongoing basis.
  • Lead Project Manager for the Museum large scale signature events e.g.: Countdown to Noon, Storybook Ball, and Monster Mash. Is responsible for the logistic, vision, and collaborating with other departments related to the signature events. Will be responsible lead manager during the events.
  • Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications:
  • B.A. or B.S. in in Art, Performance, Early Childhood Education, or related discipline. M.A., M.S., or M.Ed. preferred.
  • Minimum of five years’ experience in early childhood, arts-based programming.
  • Five plus years of managerial experience with demonstrated ability to lead people and get results through others.
  • Demonstrated experience working with children aged 0 to seven and their families.
  • Extensive background in child development and informal learning, best practices in early learning and museum education, best practices in arts programming, familiarity with performances and arts programs for families.
  • Experience with budgetary development and maintenance.
  • Strong project management skills required to oversee day to day departmental operations, as well as long-termplanning.Long and short term project tracking and management. (Event development and programming creation and scheduling, theater programming development and production, performance season calendar creation, maintenance and dissemination.)
  • Excellent computer skills: Excel, Word, Publisher, Basecamp, Google documents.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Experience with stage lighting system including programmable light board and dimmer packs maintenance and operation. Sound system set-up and operation.
  • Excellent written and verbal skills; Experience developing and leading programs for children in a museum setting required.Demonstrate excellent writing related to proposals of programs and lesson plans, creating production descriptions, programming materials, theater based web site information.
  • Must be able to create theater season documents, museum-wide event documents, guest performer season documents and updating all departments on said information in a professional and accurate manner.
  • Experience in processing contracts for all outside partners.
  • Proven ability in creating written plans for various events and programs performance based programming descriptions, event one-sheets, web-based production and guest performer write-ups, contract language, coherent e-mail skills for contract negotiations, communication with visitors.
  • Proven ability inimplementing a variety of programs for multigenerational visitors;giving tours of the building.
  • Excellent presentations skills to conduct meetings.
  • Handle properly daily costumer service issues in course of performance duties.
  • Proven ability in managing all aspects of guest performers in the building. Creating new performance work.
  • These areas require independent thought and an experienced decision maker.
  • Must be able to work evenings to attend several special evenings events a year.
  • The successful candidate will demonstrate an understanding of the role of museum education in lifelong learning, 21st century skill-building, and learning through play.
  • A proven track record for developing the highest quality arts and theater museum programs for multigenerational audiences, with a special interest in early learning.
  • Excellent communication for program facilitation, internal and external meetings, public speaking, conference presentations, interviews. Bilingual skills a plus
  • Ability to maintain a creative, team-building, cooperative approach to developing and presenting theater and arts programs.
  • Ability to manage a large diverse workforce focused on museum theater and arts education and multigenerational learning. Ability to maintain a creative, cooperative approach, constructive approach to job performance

Please Touch Museum offers an excellent working environment; a comprehensive benefit package and competitive salary. To apply for this opportunity, please mail your cover letter, resume, accomplishments and salary requirements to: Senior Director of Human Resources, Please Touch Museum, 4231 Avenue of the Republic, Philadelphia, PA 19131: Email: fax: 215-581-3182 Office telephone: 215-581-3189 EOE

Posted: Wednesday, June 28, 2017

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