- I would like to get to know a little bit more about your role within the Palace Theatre.

Can you give us a little bit?

- I'm the Executive Director at the Palace.

I've been there as the Executive Director since August of 2021.

If I had to describe it, I would say that I am the leader of the organization.

And I work with my leadership team to manage our employees and develop our staff to make sure that we put on the best events possible.

- Within your position, there is a heavy focus on promoting and fundraising.

- [Kevin] Uh-huh.

- So I want to talk a little bit about that in detail.

So what about promoting and fundraising, one, brings you joy, and why is it important to the organization?

- Fundraising, of course, everything goes to the bottom line.

You have to have a, you have to be able to fundraise in order to keep the doors open.

Fortunately for us, our house is more of a operations-type house where our budget is primarily built on the activities that happen within the theater.

So it makes it a little easier to have a good team.

A marketing director that's been there now for probably close to 20 years, makes my job a lot easier when it comes to that.

- And when it comes to the promoting piece, like, why do you think that that's so important?

- Well, because we're more of a rental house, a lot of the big name artists, they're brought in by national, regional, and local promoters.

So we focus a lot of our efforts on some of the community-based stuff, and it gives us the flexibility to create things that we feel the community would wanna see.

We partner with a lot of other organizations to have them come in and create, and give us something else to put out there.

It's not so much about buying the talent, it's about partnering and collaborating with other "creatives" as you guys call them, to come in and utilize the space.

- And why is that important to you, do you think?

- It's important to me because I got my start by, you know, just doing things.

And when you walk into a building like the Palace, you're pretty much inspired to do something.

And I think when we open the theater up to different individuals and different organizations that may not have ever been in there before, I think they're creative juices get going and it allows us to create something that may not already exist.

- That's beautiful.

- Yeah.

- And being able to provide these opportunity to folks, does it make you feel all tingly inside?

What about, like, fundraising and promoting brings you joy?

I know you have a background in it.

- Yeah, I mean, it's all community.

It's providing access and opportunity to as many people and as many organizations as we possibly can.

Like I said, I wouldn't be doing the things that I'm doing now if it were not for individuals that open the door for me in one way or another.

- So it's really important to keep places like the Palace Theatre sustainable, and alive, and beneficial to the community.

- I mean, it's hugely important.

And I think we are a pillar in the community in the sense where I think the Palace is an economic driver for not only downtown Albany, but for the region.

Whenever we have events that come in, you know, people come in from all over, they stay in hotels, they eat in the restaurants, and it provides a good tax base for the small businesses in the area.

And, you know, it livens up downtown.

- And that's really important too, 'cause, you know especially with the small businesses, restaurants, you know, hotels.

That really is money coming, flowing into the city.

- [Kevin] Yeah.

- Have you seen a positive impact at your time at the Palace about how that has affected the city with it economically or community-wise?

- Well we always hear from our partners.

The fundraising piece for us at times gets easy because the individuals that we're going to and ask them to support us, they see the direct benefits of being a neighbor to the Palace.

And they see the benefits of being a friend to the Palace because those are the organizations, and the businesses, and the individuals in the community that get a direct benefit from the activities that they see at the theater.

- With community in mind, what kind of special programs does the Palace do that benefits the local creative community?

- Well, we have our community engagement initiative, and there are a number of elements to that.

One of which is our workforce development component, where we actually train and certify security guards that work not only at the Palace, but we've known that they've gotten jobs at Capital Rep, the MVP Arena, the Capital Center.

We partnered with, of course, the Albany Symphony.

They're a resident at the Palace.

We've partnered with as many local arts organizations, community organizations as we can.

And we always look to engage anyone that wants to participate in the arts.

We welcome them to come to the Palace, and we'll sit down and see what we can work out.

- And how would people approach?

Like, let's say if a local theater collective wants to come and approach the Palace, how would that contact happen?

- Just call Kevin.

- Really, there you go.

It's easy!

- It's really that easy.

- Oh God, well hear that folks?

Make sure you call Kevin if you wanna be involved in that.

So what are some events that are coming up that folks should know about?

- In the coming months, we have a little bit of everything.

We have literally something for everybody.

We have Dark Star Orchestra, we have Blippi, we have an April Fool's comedy event that looks like it's gonna come in- - Ooh, that could be fun or scary.

- John Mellencamp.

I mean, you name it, we got it.

- Awesome.

- I mean, if you really want to know, if you go to palacealbany.org, it lists all of our upcoming events.

- Awesome, well thank you.

And one more thing, this is just random.

What has been your favorite moment at the Palace Theatre, whether it's with an entertainer, or any type of experience?

- It would probably be at this point, and it can change tomorrow, when I reached out to a promoter that was on tour with Kevin Hart and I had did dates with Kevin Hart as a promoter long, long time ago.

And when we booked the show, the show sold out in somewhere around, you know, two, three days, and he sold out two performances.

- Wow.

- As we were getting closer to the date, we got a call and said, "Hey, it looks like we're gonna have a surprise for the Albany community."

And they said that Chris Rock was gonna be making a special appearance, he was gonna open up for Kevin Hart.

And fortunately for me, and I think it was 2017, I actually co-promoted a Chris Rock concert at the Palace as a promoter.

So to have him come back, and I'm now the Executive Director, that was probably one of the most special moments- - Yeah!

- up until this point.

- The glow up, yes!

That's amazing.

And is Chris Rock a pretty cool guy?

- Yeah.

They both are, actually.

- Oh God, right?

I always see Kevin Hart everywhere, so I'm like- - Well, Kevin wasn't always that way when I met him.

But he's a great guy.

- So you saw his growth and he saw your growth.

- I don't even know if he even remembers me, but.

(both laughing) - Well, thank you Kevin.

I appreciate you coming by and talking about the Palace Theatre.

And I hope a lot of folks visit it this summer.

It's a great place.

It's a great resource for creativity.

Thank you.

- Oh, you're welcome.