Welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

We have a fun episode in store for you.

It's a little bit of a crossover show because my partner today is Hector Niño, the well known host of The Heart of Art podcast on KAMU.

It's good to have you in here.

Jay, it's been a long time coming.

I mean, we've been working together for a while, but this is our first time together in the studio for your show.

I mean, I know you've been on the heart of art, once before I interviewed you.

Yes, yes, but I'm excited to be here today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I think this is going to be optimized for the for the two of us.

And I'm going to explain why.

Our guest today is Anne Black, the longtime executive director of OPAS which has been bringing world class performing arts to Aggieland since the early 1970s and has led OPAS since 1987, but recently announced that she will retire before the end of the year.

And then she proceeded to unveil the season 54 lineup.

So welcome to the studio Anne Black.

Thanks, Jay.

Glad to be here.

I am so glad you're here.

So when you first took the reins of OPASin 1987, which, by the way, was my freshman year on this campus.

Oh, don't tell me that I had to tell you that.

What was this campus and community like in terms of consistent, quality performing arts?

Well, I came to opus in 1984.

I didn't become executive director until 1987, but when I came, we which was season 12.

We had a wonderful nucleus of community supporters.

The university was very supportive as well.

We did about 6 or 7 programs a year, one night only, largely classical ballet, opera, those kinds of things.

And then, you know, it was the BVSO was here already.

And so there was there were several organizations programing.

We in the BVSO were really the only classical.

They grew very quickly as we grew very quickly.

Our audience changed a lot over the years.

In 1987, at Town Hall, which is a committee of the MSC, did the Broadway series until 1987, and they lost a lot of money.

And Jim Reynolds, who was the director of the MSC, said, and that was literally my predecessor left in this summer.

I became executive director, and Jim said, we're going to give Broadway to OPAS And so I began trying to book a Broadway season.

We had CATS that first year, so it started off really strong.

And then it has kind of grown.

And then for years it was a combination.

At one time we had a full music series and a full Broadway series.

Back in those days, we had 200 students on the student committee, and we could do a lot.

And then little by little, we added OPAS Junior, we added intimate gatherings, we added other things.

And cut back to one, one season of Broadway and then other series to kind of make up the mix.

That's kind of where we are now.

Interesting.

I mean, I'm curious about, Broadway being, included with an OPAS.

What kind of incentivize that?

Well, there was an audience for Broadway, and the, you know, town hall was a student committee, and it was only a student committee.

It did not have a community board function as we did.

And so they largely were advertising only on campus.

And, you know, students were not buying Broadway in droves.

So community people were coming to Broadway, but they weren't really doing a lot of outreach, and they just were losing money.

Broadway's expensive, and it even was expensive in those days.

But I guess Jim felt like there were enough people that wanted it, that somebody had to do it.

And he gave it to us.

So, I mean, that's definitely made it up is what it is today.

Well, yeah, I know from listening to stories from people like our mutual friend Scott DeLucia and from, Rob Clark, who is on campus and has written an interesting book about all the local music, acts that have come to Aggieland throughout the decades.

Yes.

And, and it seemed like that if you were a a, I don't know, popular band or singer or performer, you you were making the college campus tour in Texas A&M was part of that.

And looking looking back, there were crazy famous people who came here.

Yes.

And so I'm wondering, how hard was it to then persuade some big time stage productions to come to Texas A&M University, especially in your earlier days with that?

Well, it was really relationships with people in the industry.

And and that is how we have gotten the caliber of programs we've gotten, is I have made a point to make friends in New York and have called on them.

They've called on me to say, we really need this extra date on the tour.

Can you do it?

And it has been very reciprocal.

When we wanted to do Tony Bennett and I talked to that agent and Tony Bennett was 80 years old.

Right.

And this was his last tour.

Wasn't really he wasn't really doing a tour, but his last year to go out on the road, they had to have three dates in Texas, and he would come.

And so I called my colleague at, the Grand Opera House in Galveston morning, Patton, because I knew she had the budget to pay him what he wanted.

And I call San Antonio Symphony.

And got my three dates right around here.

And we got him here, and that's really how it's done.

I mean, this is really how it's done.

Agents will come to us.

Particularly Broadway.

We learned very early.

Here's what's touring.

What do you want?

We make our list.

This thing falls out, something else comes in.

And this goes back and forth from about August till January.

And and they came to us as largely this year.

If you got to save the date for the preview party, for instance, it looked like a circus tent because we were building the whole season around water for elephants.

And two weeks before we went to print with the brochure and had already created the images for the party, they cancel that tour.

Oh boy.

I had known I've keep a little email folder.

Just stuff we're probably not going to do, but I went to that folder.

Mystic pizza was something we had said no to early on, and it was touring in March and I called that agent said, if you can do these two dates in March, we'll take it.

And they did, and we did.

But that's how the whole thing kind of can fall apart and come back together very quickly.

Wow.

And we have a great group of graphic designers and people that, you know, whatever kamikaze crazy things happen in the in the booking of the season, they manage to make it work.

Quick turn that turned into a pizza.

Yes.

That's right.

That's showbiz baby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And do they require.

So for something like that, do they need to be in this part of the country anyway in order to make things work?

Kind of swinging down through the South.

The Broadway tours really have to have 5 or 6 dates to get across Texas.

Okay.

And most of them need we always come in and do two nights in the early part of the week, so that somebody at the back end who can do three performances can do it.

And that's really how we we can't do weekends anyway.

Right.

Particularly in the fall, I don't even try.

Yeah.

Because we never know what the football schedule is until after we've gotten pretty far down the road.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

So.

Okay.

And that's just kind of the formula that we've put together.

And it has worked so far.

Good.

Oh it works.

That's for sure.

You want to throw another one before I kind of twist us into, local economy type question.

Let's go for it.

Okay.

So generations of leadership at this university and anyone who's been involved in this community and economic development owe you a giant hug in my opinion, because I know how important, quality of life and arts related amenities are to recruiting faculty and researchers and administrators and industries considering a big investment in facilities and people.

So without OPAS this is my opinion, without OPAS, And what you have helped build.

I don't think we pull all those fish into the boat.

What do you think?

We bring a lot of people.

If you set aside the ticket holders, the people from all the zip codes, and we have season ticket holders in the Woodlands in Austin, you can get here and park and get back home in the time it takes you to park in Houston and pay $15 to park in and get anywhere.

So we have a lot of subscribers who drive, and we keep up with all that data because we apply for Arts Council for support.

And it's it's all about heads in beds.

So that's one piece because they've come in, they've had a meal.

You don't drive from anywhere and not eat something before or after.

But the other thing that sometimes gets missed is that every Broadway show is putting 30 or 40 people in a bed for 2 or 3 nights and feeding them three times a day.

The whole time they're here and they're shopping, you know, we're taking them to the mall and here, there and everywhere.

So the financial impact is much larger than people would realize.

They forget about those people that are coming to perform in terms of heads in bed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

From a tourism standpoint.

But also I really believe that, there are at least some companies that they're not as eager to invest in a community deeply.

Oh, absolutely.

If they're people aren't going to have access to performing arts.

Right?

Right.

Particularly if they're moving from an area where they have enjoyed it.

We have a lot of, as you know, Aggies coming back here to retire.

And yes, they want football and baseball and basketball and all of the Aggie things.

But they also want what they had in Houston or Dallas or wherever they're coming from, where they could go to a Broadway show.

And they want that enrichment for their kids.

You know, we bring 14 or 15,000 students a year into writer theater for school performances.

So all of those things make up is very valuable, and the university recognizes that.

And when they're doing new faculty orientation, our brochure is one of the things they want to handle.

I mean, I'm curious about, that demographic of your audience at opus.

Would you say it is more locals, or is it more from outside towns?

And how far does your marketing cover geographically?

Well, our marketing covers the entire Brazos Valley.

And when I say Brazos Valley, it also Waco, which is not really part of the Brazos Valley, but we're advertising heavily in all those areas.

We do ads in Texas Monthly.

We always have a big ad in the summer about the upcoming season.

We do ads in the Texas Aggie magazine, and and we draw a lot of people from that.

I wish I brought all those figures with me.

That's okay.

We didn't we did ask you ahead of time to do that.

I know, but, you know, those are things I should just have in my head and don't for this year yet.

So, you know, I think largely it's local, percentage wise, I would say maybe as much as 20% comes outside Bryan College Station.

That's pretty significant.

Yeah, I would say so, yeah.

I'm going to stop real quickly to reintroduce you.

If you're just tuning in.

I'm Jay Sokol, along with the host of the heart of Art, Hector Niño.

Our guest is Anne Black, long time director of OPAS, who is retiring after 39 years and 42 4242.

See, I was a liberal arts major, not a math major, for 42 years.

Well, you're you're going from 1986.

You're right.

I came in 84, 49, 39.

Is the executive director correct?

Okay.

That's correct.

I'd love to know how you and, OPAS have approached each season in terms of knowing what will resonate with this community because I, I feel like we are a medium sized community with a monster size university in it.

We are a highly educated population on, on, on the whole, but we are also a very young population.

Considering our an 80,000 ish, college students.

And then there are variables of, of culture and geography and politics and religion and so on.

So what are things that that you have come to know about what works here and maybe things that don't work here?

Some of it is years of experience.

We also survey our audiences and we ask them, our board of directors is made up of community members, students that are on the executive committee of the student committee, and administers, university administration faculty.

So they are a good cross-section of the community.

As a whole.

And we rely on them to tell us after a program and we have a board meeting and.

Oh, well, you know, we've heard terrible comments about that.

And My Fair Lady didn't end properly.

And I she left him.

Unacceptable.

Good for her.

So, you know, we talk to people a lot, and we ask them, you know what?

What do your friends think about what we're doing this season?

We got a huge response at the preview event the other night.

One of the ways I can tell is when we announce a title, if you can hear an audible response and there was not a single, some got more than others.

The Neil Diamond musical got a big response.

And it's the number one seller right now already.

Fraggle Rock.

We have a student who is so excited to see that on the lineup and see that the students that said on the program advisory committee were just very excited about Fraggle Rock.

So, you know, we rely on the students to tell us what students want, and we rely on the community and particularly the ones who buy packages, what they like and what they don't like.

And we do some things that we know probably are not going to sell as well as others, but but we need to do them daily.

We need an international piece every single year on this series.

Right.

And we may not sell out.

We may not even do half a house.

It varies, but, our mission is to enlighten, entertain and inspire.

And if we're only doing entertainment, then we're not being true to our mission that we'll have that.

Yeah.

That's beautiful.

I mean, according you, you've said I'm very proud of the team we've built to continue the lasting legacy of at opus.

I'm curious, you know, you were talking about, how are you listening to the audience reaction for for, to see how well it will do within the audience that you weren't a target, but, what other like, specific things or processes have you implemented within OPAS?

That has now become common practice at OPAS?

Oh, gosh.

Well, what I've told my staff and students from year one, the base of the pyramid is customer service.

If we bring in an artist and they ask for a hot plate and Campbell's chicken Noodle soup and a straw, we don't question if it could be HEB brand soup.

They're in a different bed in a different city every night, and some things have to remain constant for them to give us their best performance in terms of our patrons.

There's not a question we shouldn't answer.

I answer emails well into the night sometimes after a show that because if people are are upset or concerned, or if they just want to tell me they loved it.

Yeah, that response quickly.

It's not always in the minute, but the first thing I do in the morning is check my email and respond.

You can't take good enough care of people.

You have to you have to keep feeding them and hugging them and patting them on the back, for taking good care of us.

And what we put on this stage to me is secondary to that.

Right?

Hopefully that's not going to change.

I mean it's clearly that you you've done a good job at that with how successful OPAS has been throughout the years.

I was curious about specifically you've been director since 1987 and I'm sure that the recruiting, technique that you use, has probably changed because of the technology, that it has changed.

I'm curious as to, what what were the old ways of recruiting and how has that process changed as technology has changed?

When you're talking about recruiting groups that would come here greeting recruiting patrons.

Well, I spend a lot of time speaking to Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs and Aggie Moms clubs all over the country.

About OPAS in and how we do what we do.

And we have a we have a lot of groups.

I don't know if when you come to overseas, if you hear us.

Oh yeah.

Announcing the groups that are there.

We do have someone on the staff now that will be working, probably 35% of her time will be group sales.

We're working with the Brazos County Young Professionals.

You know, I've long thought we need a single night at OPAS.

There are a lot of people out there that don't want to come alone.

And so we're we're going to work through the Brazos County Young professionals and see if we can't get that going next year.

Wow.

Great idea.

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we we do some of the same things all the time.

But the world changes every day.

Yeah, and people take in information in different ways every day.

So part of our challenge is meeting people where they are and giving them the information in the way it's the most palatable, right?

Easiest for them to, to take in.

Definitely.

I mean, I know that you studied theater in college, right?

And so it was definitely clear that you wanted to go into this career.

So.

But did you always feel prepared to lead OPAS?

Or were you always confident that you would be as successful as you have been?

Oh, no.

No.

How did that start up?

No, I studied theater out of college, got married, had two kids, went into the real estate business.

I was a realtor for ten years before we moved to College Station, and I was doing community theater.

I was very buried in theater, always wherever I was.

Where was this?

In Arkansas.

Okay.

We're from Fort Worth, but my husband took a job in Arkansas, and we were there for ten years.

And, when we moved to College Station, I was not planning to work.

I had just learned that I was going to have to do.

I think it was 90 hours to get a Texas real estate license.

I've been doing.

I mean, anyway, so I thought, okay, our daughters were in the sixth grade and the 11th grade, and I was just going to help them get settled in.

And we had a friend that worked at the foundation, and he called and said, there's a job.

It's just got your name written.

I said, I don't want to go to work.

Just come talk to Jim Riddle.

He said, just can't you don't, you know, just come talk to him.

And I was working two weeks later, so it was perfect.

It was perfect.

What kind of work were you doing before you got that director position?

And how did that prepare you for the director?

Well, at that time, the executive director of OPAS was also the senior associate director of the MSC for finance.

So OPAS was kind of a and then there was someone who was the advisor to the student committee.

And so when I came, I came as a program assistant to the executive director who is here and have time to do all the things.

So I started doing the booking with him, from day one.

So for three years, I was really doing it, not making the decisions necessarily, but doing it.

So I had an opportunity to get to know the agents and the relationships started building there.

Oh, so you were learning from from the get go when you started?

That's awesome.

I mean, I'm wondering how will you watch shows now after working behind the scenes in shows for 40 years?

I mean, yeah.

What do you look for in a performance?

Are you able to just sit back and enjoy it?

I'm going to be able to do that now.

Right now.

I'm listening for language, sexual innuendo, all the things that I know.

If we bring this piece, I have two things I don't.

I mean, that just kind of, if I'm not paying close attention to this is going to hell, I'm going to have to explain this, because we try really hard to make sure people know what they're coming to, if they do the due diligence.

If they call me and say, is this appropriate for my 12 year old?

My response always is, I don't know your 12 year old because people have different sensibilities, and that is probably more so today than ever in my life.

So, you know, I will be able to just enjoy a show without worrying about whether I'm going to get hate mail afterwards.

Yeah.

And personally answering it yourself, I cannot believe that.

It's amazing.

We're kind of entering our final stretch.

We've got about three minutes to go, and I'm sure Hector has specific questions about this, but I really first became aware of OPAS and the, the credibility of it when, Baryshnikov and the Bull Bolshoi Ballet came and that seemed even to me, I could feel a little pivot in the way people were talking about me.

Is that fair to say?

It is fair.

We had always done the Houston Ballet, and that's what closed season every year.

And they built the Wortham Center over the summer, well, over a couple of years in the mid-eighties.

And so in 1987, when I was ready to book a season, they didn't want to do run outs to College Station anymore.

Yeah, they were a regional ballet company, and, they didn't want to come unless we would do three nights.

And I said, we can't do that.

And he said, well, you're not going to get any ballet for less than that.

So I called my agent at Columbia Artists and I said, I need a really good ballet company, and here's my budget.

And she said, how about Rudolf Nureyev in the Paris Opera Ballet?

Holy moly.

And she said, but you'll have to build him a floor.

He's 50 years old, and I know you don't have that kind of floor.

We're not a dance school.

I said, okay.

And we built him a floor and he came.

And the following year we got the world premiere of the Bolshoi Grigorovich company.

I had a wonderful supervisor in Jim Reynolds who gave me a long leash because he had a vision.

And, he was willing to let me take some risks.

Yeah.

Hector, you want to take the final run before we have to say farewell to hand?

And I want to make a connection.

Just a real.

Yeah.

Please do.

The way I connect us back to KAMU is constant.

I listen to KAMU, my husband does.

You all did a piece on Michael Tilson Thomas when he died last week.

And he was here in season 17.

Wow.

And it was what we called the bad season.

There were bad.

Right?

Yes.

And he, played pictures at an exhibition with bats just over and over and over around his head.

Oh my gosh.

And then for his encore, he came out and played the Batman theme.

Did he really?

Yes.

And that's all I could think about when I was listening to your piece on him last week.

He was here.

Wow.

Well, and, Mike, thank you so much for being a supporter of the arts here in this area.

I mean, you're impactful is immeasurable.

And we will see the legacy for for years to come.

I hope so.

Definitely.

Now, thank you again.

On behalf of Hector and myself and all came you.

Thanks for coming here and letting us have this chat as you are cruising towards retirement.

Thank you for having me.

Of course.

Brazos Matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio 90.9 KAMU FM, a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show is engineered and edited by Matt Dittman.

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For Hector Niño, I'm Jay Socol, thank you so much for watching and listening.

Have a great day.