Tom Werder, the new executive director of the Arts Council of the Morris Area, is a firm believer in the civilizing power of art.
He experienced this first-hand in the Land of Oz, touring with an Australian puppet theater company when he was fresh out of college.
The troupe played remote outposts like Dinghy, where virtually the entire population–about 200 people, by Tom’s recollection–turned out for the show.
“We had to shut out the lights at intermission to have power for the coffee urns,” he recalled with a grin.
Almost 30 years later, Tom sees himself on a similar mission in Morristown.
“It’s all about bringing the arts to the center of the community,” he said over coffee at the Cappia Café, shortly after assuming leadership of the Arts Council of the Morris Area on May 21.
He succeeds Anne Aronovitch, an attorney and classically trained pianist who has retired after four years in charge. Anne will be honored on June 7 at the Frelinghuysen Arboretum at 6 p.m.
Tom, who spoke with MorristownGreen.com on his 50th birthday, inherits a nonprofit with a $750,000 budget, a highly regarded arts-in-education program and community initiatives ranging from world music on the Morristown Green and a First Night extravaganza on New Year’s Eve to art walks, “pop up” exhibitions and pumpkin illuminations.
His timing is good. The Arts Council has been conducting surveys and working with a consultant to chart a five-year plan. Key questions include how to get the most bang for the arts buck and how to use social media and new marketing techniques for maximum impact.
“The key thing that impressed us is he’s extremely passionate about the arts. He seemed extremely energized in terms of wanting to come here and help us and lead us through the next five years,” said Alan Levitan, president of the Arts Council board.
FOG MACHINES AND EPIPHANIES
Tom was the unanimous choice from more than 80 applicants, Alan said. The new director brings an insider’s view of the performing arts, gleaned from experience as a stage technician, along with marketing and management skills honed at several performing arts companies.
He studied lighting design and stage management at SUNY-Purchase and earned a master’s degree in theater management from the Yale University School of Drama. Most recently he managed the Two River Theater Company in Red Bank. That was preceded by an eight-year run as executive director of the Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company in Union and stints as managing director of the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick and the Portland Stage Company in Maine.
Along the way, Tom has taught at the high school and college levels. He also worked for a special-effects company, in the fog machine division. (His biggest customers: Firefighter training facilities and churches. “You couldn’t do a play about Easter without someone rising to heaven in a cloud of fog,” he recounted.)
Having a performing arts background might not seem like a plus at an organization that focuses intently on painters and sculptors. Yet that’s precisely what excited the Arts Council board, said Alan Levitan.
“He gets what we do,” said Alan, former president and CEO of the Kings supermarket chain. “He will bring a whole new measure of energy and perspective to the job because he hasn’t done it before.”
“I see my role as a facilitator and connector,” said Tom, citing his collaborations with performers, patrons and stage crews. “I think I will be strong at bringing key parts of the community around the idea of supporting the arts.”
He said he looks forward to exploring all of Morris County while continuing efforts to make Morristown an arts destination.
For him, the arts are about epiphanies.
“We all can think back to some transformative moment: Hearing an orchestra play, hearing choral music sung, seeing our first play, being on the edge of our seat, how our mouth would drop open, being amazed at how we were touched. The arts touch something we can’t express any other way. They are a way to share complicated feelings and interpret important moments in our lives, helping us to think differently about the world,” he said.
His aha! moment was seeing Godspell on Broadway as a child. That led to schoolboy star turns as Henry Higgins and Oliver Twist and Dr. Doolittle.
But nightmares about forgetting his lines convinced him to facilitate from the wings, as a stagehand.
“I realized how hard and scary it was to perform in front of an audience,” he said.
STORM CHASING AND PASO DOBLES
Tom and his wife, Hilda Cashman, who works at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, live in East Brunswick with their 14-year-old son, Aidan. Their oldest son, Alex, is a freshman at Kalamazoo College, where he sings in the choir.
Growing up, Tom played the cello. Nowadays his artistic impulses are channeled into photography and cooking. He’s also an avid skier and kayaker, and a weather junkie who fancies being a storm chaser in his next life.
He acknowledges how the internet and reality TV are churning up some turbulence in art circles, blurring the line between amateurs and professionals. Anyone can sing and dance before an audience of millions with a viral video on YouTube or an appearance on So You Think You Can Dance.
Tom welcomes such changes. Thanks to the dance show, he said, his son had a dance vocabulary by age 7. “He knows a paso doble from a waltz. That’s not a bad thing.”
Locally, he contends, people are feeling more comfortable about making art.
“It doesn’t seem so scary for adults. That’s something we promote at the Arts Council.”
