Theatre, business alum does entrepreneurial artistry
Andryn Arithson pursuing myriad strategies to success, and when she’s not working in her day job, she pursues shadow puppetry. Image courtesy of Andryn Arithson.
For much of history, going back to the Roman Empire and earlier, the arts depended largely on a patronage system, through which royals, nobles and other wealthy people commissioned or sponsored theater, paintings and more, often to bolster their political ambitions or social standing.
In the Western world, that shifted first to a more egalitarian kind of patronage—selling tickets to a mass market—in recent centuries. By the late 20th century, public funding of the arts became an important source of support.
All those models still exist. But in the 21st century, entrepreneurship has become increasingly important, especially to emerging young artists, a fact recognized by arts programs at the University of Colorado Boulder. For example, the College of Music created an Entrepreneurship Center for Music and the encourages students to take outside courses that will help them succeed as working artists.
Andryn Arthison and Emily Saavedra do a practice set up in the McGuckin parking lot in August 2014, before the pair performed at the Trident Cafe in Boulder. Photo by B. Mann.
“I’m always seeking out opportunities and strategies so I can earn at least part of my living by being an artist,” says Arithson, finance manager for the Denver-based nonprofit Mile High Youth Corps.
Arithson, long interested in the use of puppetry in theater, has done everything from design puppets for Boulder’s and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, to present workshops on campus and perform at small local venues.
Her most recent project, Never Again the Same, is a shadow-puppet play co-created with Emily Saavedra and based on an urban retelling of Little Red Riding Hood by Boulder native, Naropa University graduate and author . Schantz narrates while Saavedra and Arithson create shadows behind the screen.
Inspired by the mechanics of classical shadow puppetry such as the Indonesian Wayang, the creators used ordinary objects to tell the story.
“We use found objects, household objects, plastic, glass, a condom, other materials, and our own bodies to make images and convey metaphors,” Arithson says.
Since the summer of 2014, the three artists have found different ways to fund the project and present it to audiences. On Aug. 30, they produced the play at Boulder’s Trident Booksellers and Café. On Halloween they performed the play for a theater class at -Boulder through a program-fee grant. And March 27-28 they will perform at Kakes Studios under their new company name, Splintered Light Theatre, as part of .
“We’ve come at it from a lot of different angles. With the Trident, we thought about things like the cost of the venue and marketing strategies, since we weren’t working with a lot of funding,” Arithson says. “Grant funding is competitive in a different way. It’s sort of like making one big sale as opposed to a bunch of small ones. We’ve used a strategic mix of ways to go about it.”
Emily Harrison (PhDThtr’12), who co-founded Square Product Theatre in 2006 with -Boulder grad Jess Buttery (BAThtr’10) and actor Michelle Moore, sees Arithson as a true small-scale artist-entrepreneur.
“Andryn is an artist very much focused on the process of making art, which in theater is a bit unusual in this country because of the restraints artists deal with as far as resources are concerned: time, space to work and funding, primarily,” Harrison says. “She focuses on one project at a time, giving herself time to develop the work and create something really visually evocative.”
Arithson applauds the -Boulder theater department’s growing emphasis on entrepreneurship. And as with anything in the professional world, she says, being an artist is ultimately all about relationships.
“For theater students, I would urge them to really foster those connections while they are in school. That was one of the most valuable things I got from the theater program aside from the education,” she says.
“I met Emily Harrison through the department and we got an opportunity to perform for a class through (Assistant Professor of Theatre) .”
If You Go
Never Again the Same: A shadow puppetry retelling of Little Red Riding Hood for adults
Written and narrated by Sarah Elizabeth Schantz
Performed and designed by Andryn Arithson and Emily Saavedra
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, March 27 and Friday, March 28
Where: , 2115 Pearl St., Boulder
Tickets: $7-$10
More info: and
Clay Evans is director of communications for Presents.