An Undecided Interview

Throughout my journey at Pace University, I had the opportunity to talk on zoom with Lisa Klages for an assignment for my business class taught by Professor Varise Cooper. She is graduated from Pace and is currently the director of Drunk Shakespeare NYC. As an undecided student interviewing someone with such a unique and versatile job seemed perfect for this interview project.

I finished this interview with a few key takeaways:

1. It’s ok to not know exactly what I want to do right now

Early in the interview, I discovered that Lisa Klages was an undecided student her first year at pace as well. We talked about how important it feels to explore our different interests before deciding definitively on a major. As someone with a million different interests, it was great to hear that not only am I allowed to question all of them but that it was encouraged because even if I don’t decide to pursue it that interest could help me in what I do decide to pursue.

2. Value your work

A lot of times in the art industry there’s this cliche of thinking that was lucky to even be making money on art. Her advice though was to not accept less than what I thought my work deserved. This advice was different from any I’ve ever heard before, but I think it’s important especially in the art world where the term “paid in exposure” is so common. While that kind of work is important, work that can buy food and pay rent is also important.

3. Collaboration will play a big part in creating art

There were at least a couple of her answers that boiled down to emphasizing how important things like networking and collaboration are to a career in entertainment art. This idea in itself wasn’t new to me but the idea that the people I’m going to school with now will be the people I’m working with in the future and to start working with them now wasn’t something I had thought a ton about before.?

Thank you so much to both my Professor for teaching me this semester and Lisa for taking the time out of her day to talk to me!