Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Broadway Just Gets Bigger
Touring shows form backbone of WAC programming
The Walton Arts Center hits its 30-year mark on April 26. And “we started presenting Broadway shows right out of the gate — six shows in the first season,” enthuses Jennifer Ross, director of programming.
“In the early years, we would have presented a single or maybe two performances for each production, and the number of performances grew over the years as our subscriber numbers grew,” she explains. “One of the big leaps of faith for WAC is when we decided to do the first eight performance run of the musical ‘Cats’ in our 11th season (200203). The next big leap was with our 16-performance run of Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in our 19th season (2010-11) during the summer!
“Our subscription season is now a solid six-show season, and each show presents eight performances … and we usually bring in one or two other Broadway-style shows for a weekend,” Ross goes on. “Our Broadway audience is strong and supportive! Without the audience we have, there’s no way that could have pulled off the two-week run of ‘Hamilton.’”
Ross adds that “in our upcoming season, ‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’ will present 14 performances, and we’ll also be announcing a couple of additional Broadway ‘specials’ when we announce the rest of our season.”
Ross is on the cusp of celebrating two decades of helping Walton Arts Center grow into the powerhouse that it is today.
“I’ve always been interested in theater and was lucky enough to grow up in a town with a very good repertory theater. In high school, visual arts became my passion and my degree is in (visual) arts education,” she says. “I was first hired as the school programs administrator for Walton Arts Center — [and] I jumped in feet first and immediately started learning as much as I could about everything. My career at WAC has mostly been as a member of the programming team, but at various times has included overseeing both the back-ofhouse and front-of-house teams, overseeing client usage of the building, artist services and all sorts of things.”
Nowadays Ross is a Tony voter who is instrumental in bringing selected Broadway shows to Northwest Arkansas. Every year, she and Scott Galbraith, also a Tony voter and vice president of programming, host a fun-filled sneak peek for Broadway subscribers. This year, she even got Galbraith to don a pair of red high heels when announcing the Arkansas premiere of “Tootsie: The Musical,” which will begin its run on Jan. 17 as part of the 2022-23 P&G Broadway season. The upcoming season also includes “My Fair Lady,” “Pretty Woman: The Musical,” “Chicago” and “Hadestown.”
She says that the Broadway shows are “the backbone of our presenting season” and that bringing shows to Baum Walker Theater is a “team effort.” But they are more than just Broadway.
“The majority of our shows each season are not touring Broadway shows, so none of us can focus just on Broadway.
That being said, the Broadway shows go into the calendar first — so we usually know pretty early in the booking cycle what the Broadway shows will be.”
After the Broadway calendar is established, she says, “we start filling in the space in between these shows with children and family programming, concerts and comedy, dance and world music performances and accessible programming through our 10x10 Arts Series,” which this year includes diverse programming such as musical performances by Joey Alexander Trio, the online performance of “Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom,” the “Triveni” concert by Zakir Hussien, the presentation “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” with a live soundtrack provided by Invoke and a dance workshop and performance by Contra Tiempo, among many other programs.
Ross adds that despite setting up the shows well in advance, she has learned to roll with the changes.
“Anything can happen with the tours! Just this year — a mere four weeks before our Broadway Sneak Peek event — we lost one of the shows we’d been planning on for a couple of years. Luckily, there was another tour that had the same exact week available, so we were able to make the substitution without too much trouble … but we’re all still sad about the show we lost.”
She is, as always, excited about the future of Broadway programming at Walton Arts Center, however. “The future is bright! With the continued support of our Broadway fans, we expect to keep bringing the best of touring Broadway and first-year national tours.”
In addition to bringing shows and events like Artosphere and the VoiceJam festival to the Walton Arts Center, WAC also partners with other arts organizations in the area helping to expand arts programming beyond their corner of Dickson Street.
“Symphony of Northwest Arkansas is a resident company of Walton Arts Center,” Ross explains. “We work together on many projects, including the Fourth of July celebration at the Walmart AMP and our family holiday program, ‘The Snowman.’ We’ve had a strong and successful relationship for many years.
“Likewise, TheatreSquared was a resident company with their home at Nadine Baum Studios for their first 10 years. We are thrilled that they have been so successful,” she goes on. “We work with other local arts organizations including Trike Theatre, Opera Fayetteville and the Fayetteville Film Fest and are continually growing relationships with other organizations through new initiatives. We work with these organizations and give them a place where they can perform or present their work and sometimes the support that they need to help them grow, like ticketing services.
“We strive to bring the productions and artists that people know and, at the same time, bring productions and artists that are new to Northwest Arkansas,” Ross concludes. “We know that our region is richly diverse, and we hope that by offering so many programs that everyone will be able to find something to love on our stage.”