Bio
Jay Pension, M.F.A., Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the departments of Entrepreneurship & Leadership and Theatre & Drama.
He is the faculty advisor for the Performing Arts Management & Entrepreneurship minor, which serves students from across the university from a variety of academic disciplines. He is also the faculty advisor of the Performing Arts Management concentration – part of the Bachelor of Theatre Arts major. The concentration centers on the development of emerging theatre producers and managers. Jay teaches Producing in the American Theatre, Fundraising and the Arts, Arts Marketing and Audience Development, and Performing Arts 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 more generally.
He recently co-authored a book published by Oxford University Press proposing a new marketing paradigm for arts organizations centered on engagement. 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 with Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston, and 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 encourages students from the School of Music, Theatre & Dance to explore all of the offerings at the EXCEL Lab, and to reach out if they are interested in the Performing Arts Management and Entrepreneurship minor.
He holds a BFA and an MFA in Theatre, and a Ph.D. in Arts Administration.
