Page 34 - APAP - Inside Arts - Conference 2020
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AGING IN
BY JAKE STEPANSKY
WHAT CAN A VARIETY OF GENERATIONS ACCOMPLISH TOGETHER IN THE ARTS INDUSTRY? TURNS OUT, AGE DIVERSITY CAN ADD TO A HEALTHY AND HIGHLY FUNCTIONAL WORKPLACE.
IF you’re in your 20s, and you’ve walked into a business meeting as
the only 20-something in the room, you could suffer from
Youngest Person in the Room Syndrome. But my friend Karen Chee, a comedian and writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers, has a different take on what could be an uncomfortable situation.
“It's wonderful to get to work with people who aren't just other anxious 20-somethings struggling to be adults and obsessed with, like, Venmo,” she says.
As one of those anxious 20-somethings, I’ve been circling that idea for the past few years without ever quite having reason or words to articulate it. Something about the clarity of Chee’s statement helped me identify the crux of the matter: Age diversity is fundamental to a healthy workplace and a healthy artistic practice.
I’m certainly not the first to crack that code. At the 2018 APAP|NYC Conference in New York City, a panel of industry leaders participated in an invigorating conversation about the ways that
32 INSIDE ARTS CONFERENCE 2020
