New MATCH director gets to work quickly
The job came with a long to-do list and no time to waste.
But when Chuck Still arrived this month to become executive director of the new Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston, he first had to find a desk. His office still is under construction at 3400 Main.
The MATCH, designed by Lake|Flato and Studio RED Architects, is taking shape quickly, due to open this fall. Expected to be a game-changer for small and midsize performing arts groups, the 59,000-square-foot facility will have four theaters ranging from 70 to about 330 seats. The largest is a fixed-seat proscenium; others include a 150-seat space for dance and a pair of flexible black boxes; plus a large art gallery, rehearsal studios, offices, a coffee and wine bar and a public outdoor space.
Still, 58, knows his way around an arts start-up. He came to Houston after six years as the first executive director of the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, situated in a restored historical space in Old Saybrook, Conn., with a 250seat theater and a small museum.
“Who in his right mind would imagine a brand new institution knocking out 220 shows a year, and how do you find your niche when you’re filling two dozen niches a year?,” says his welcome letter on the center’s website.
The previous decade, Still directed Vero Beach, Fla.’s three-stage Riverside Theatre, where he oversaw a $20 million capital improvement campaign and renovation.
The big difference is the number of arts groups who hope to use the MATCH: at least two dozen, probably more. Some have been on board for years; others are just emerging.
“I’m not sure any human being should have to deal with as many organizations as I am,” Still said, good naturedly. “It’s an interesting balancing act.”
At the Kate, as the center is known, he learned to be flexible, understanding that all groups don’t operate the same way, to the Equity standards he follows. “But I’m too old and OCD to expect there won’t be some pretty good guidelines,” he added.
Main Street Theater will stage its children’s productions in the MATCH’s largest space, bringing in as many as 100,000 students a year for daytime shows. Evenings could bring a little bit of everything from theater, dance and music to literary events and lectures. One of the two black-box theaters converts to an additional art gallery.
Aside from sorting out who needs which space, when — Still hasn’t found software to manage all the MATCH will offer — he’s also examining what users can afford.
“The point is to give them a place to do what they want to do without putting more pressure on them,” he said. “We’re not here to make money renting to them.”
That philanthropic mission makes the MATCH unique, he added. “What a tribute to Houston. I don’t know of any other city that would do that.”
Still has set up shop temporarily with consultant Jill Jewett, who’s leading the fundraising effort for the highly anticipated $25 million facility. They still need $2.8 million of that goal to give the facility all that’s been envisioned by its future users.
Still and Jewett want the building to be as complete inside as out when it opens, with enough quality lighting, projectors and sound equipment as well as the right ticketing software.
“Those things are necessary to make it run the way we want,” he said. “Small theater groups can take anything and make it work, but that’s not what we want the MATCH to be. We want them to have space to be as creative as they can. We could open with less, but this is about realizing the full promise.” He couldn’t resist a pitch. “This is a time when a gift has a very real, very large impact on what the final MATCH ends up being. You could see your gift made into reality by the end of this year,” he said.
A widower with three grown children and a grandchild, none of whom live near Houston, Still has spent most of his free time so far settling into a loft downtown.
“Once the boxes are unpacked, I’ll be all over the place,” he said.
He’s already seen shows at the Ensemble, Main Street Theater and Houston Grand Opera. He was especially pleased by the diversity of last weekend’s huge Saturday night crowd at the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, which ended a day of homecoming celebrations for conceptual artist Mel Chin and kicked off the opening of the “degrees of separation” group show.
“Many of them were young, seeking it out. In Connecticut, gallery openings are usually attended by a largely older, wealthy and Caucasian crowd. This was just a mixture of everybody,” Still said. “It’s the kind of crowd we hope the MATCH will have as well.”
molly.glentzer@chron.com