“Boldly Go” is Matt Lehrman’s catch phrase. You might recognize it from “Star Trek,” the iconic TV show and movie collection that encourages exploration into new, exciting and sometimes dangerous territory.
For about a year Matt wore a yellow elastic bracelet phrase to serve as a daily affirmation that he was heading in a positive direction. Matt admits that age 50 was not a great year for him, but says, “51 is shaping up to be something terrific!”
Matt was the creator, developer and CEO of Alliance for Audience and Showup.com, a website that included the most comprehensive calendar and discount-ticket offerings of cultural happenings in the state. While it was a win-win for the patrons and the companies, after nine years of serving the community, the economy took its toll. Alliance for Audience and Showup.com closed their doors in October of 2012. “It was very painful,” Matt recalls, “but it was the right thing to do at the right time.” Matt considers himself a problem-solver, and after an appropriate “grieving” period, he had an “unveiling.” He took off the yellow bracelet and set about inventing and honing the next phase of his bold adventure in life.
Born and raised in New York, Matt’s first career goal was to be a rabbi. He was always a leader, whether as a song leader at Joseph Eisner (URJ) summer camp or in his Jewish youth groups. The arts were also a large part of his life growing up. His father is a water colorist and writer. In fact, Matt’s parents, Lewis and Lola Lehrman of Scottsdale, donated one of Lewis’ paintings to the Scottsdale JCC, where it hangs on the wall.
In college Matt changed his career path and worked for several banks in sales and marketing and was even a lobbyist forbankers in Washington, D.C. But he always kept up his cultural interests, acting as a docent for the Smithsonian museums while there. He married Toby Rubin, and they immediately set out on their next exploration together moving to the Phoenix area in December of 1988. Matt signed on as a volunteer docent at Scottsdale Center for the Arts, and then heard they were looking for someone to help with marketing. He applied for the job and was hired immediately. He served the Scottsdale Cultural Council as vice president of marketing and communications until he launched Alliance for Audience in late 2003.
His new adventures incorporate many of his interests and strengths. In addition to being an adjunct professor at Arizona State University teaching upper-level seminars on arts entrepreneurship and arts and public policy, he has begun a consulting business, Audience Avenue, LLC. “I’m not really an ‘arts’ expert,” Matt explains. “I’m an ‘audience’ expert.” He has been busily traveling around the country offering workshops in strategic planning, leadership coaching and marketing consulting services to arts organizations, cultural destinations and other types of mission-based companies. Matt is also excited to have been hired by the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Association to research Jewish arts and cultural programming and the feasibility of increasing offerings in Scottsdale.
Matt and Toby are recent empty-nesters with their son, Harrison, at the University of Arizona, and daughter, Marissa, at the University of Vermont. Both students have dabbled in the performing arts and though Harrison is working on a degree in psychology, his real love is in performing live improvisation. The Lehrmans have just adopted a rescue dog, appropriately named Hope.
Matt values his collection of “Star Trek” memorabilia, with his favorite perhaps being the photo of himself sitting on the bridge of the Enterprise, the space vehicle that has boldly taken its passengers to places “where no man has gone before.” He’s trusting that his new “enterprise,” Audience Avenue, will do the same for him.
