Letter of the Day: Dowling's pay pales in comparision to what we receive

Last update: January 5, 2009 - 6:10 PM

I find it amazing that the artistic director of a nationally respected theater — the nation’s largest regional theater, I might add — is being criticized for the size of his salary when it is only a small percentage of the compensation “earned” by just about any professional athlete or CEO of a major corporation.

It’s a sad statement on our American value system when we will reward a guy who can throw a ball through a hoop (or score a touchdown or hit a homer) with millions of dollars a year, but we take pot shots at someone whose mission is to bring us theater that educates us to our own humanity in a truly unique and deeply meaningful way — a way which can alter our ideological paradigms, enable us to see the universality of our human experience and profoundly change our lives.

To put his work into a different perspective, Joe Dowling, who manages three theaters 365 days a year — theaters offering several hundred performances annually — makes far less than many professional and college football coaches. And for Rep. Marty Seifert to suggest that nonprofit pay be capped at the current governor’s salary is ridiculous. I’d say Tim Pawlenty’s salary of $120,000 is more than he deserved for the results of his efforts: a $5.2 billion deficit.

Marcia Aubineau, St. Paul

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