Articulations

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Exit for Long Center CEO

As if Arts Center Stage weren't already facing enough challenges in trying to build the Long Center for the Performing Arts during a sluggish economy, now the organization must also hunt for a new president and CEO to spearhead the effort. Last week, David Fleming, the man who has held that position for the past three years, submitted his resignation so he could take the job of executive director for the Edward W. Weidner Center for the Performing Arts in Green Bay, Wis. Fleming will oversee an $11 million budget to run a pair of theatres on the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay campus and a 980-seat theatre in downtown Green Bay, as well as book a 4,500-seat theatre in Milwaukee. The most important thing about the Weidner? It's built. At the time Fleming came to Austin, Long Center development was still on a pretty fast track, and Fleming could expect to be managing an open center in 2004. Almost two years into his tenure, the opening was pushed back to 2005, and now, a year later, it's been pushed back again to 2006 -- at the earliest. Given the uncertainty in the economy, further delays could be forthcoming. Fleming, who says he missed being actively involved in running a theatre, found life too short for the wait. And really, it's tough to blame him.

Still, it adds another hurdle in the long road to realizing the Long Center. Just a week ago, Fleming acknowledged in print that the board was considering construction of the facility in phases, one theatre at a time ("Money Woes May Mean Changes for Long Center," Austin American-Statesman, July 16). For many months now, funding for the center has hovered just above the $60 million level, close to $50 million short of the total estimated construction cost. With the ballet, symphony, and opera facing a no-extensions deadline of April 2006 to be out of UT's Bass Concert Hall (which must close for 18 months to upgrade safety requirements), the center cannot afford to wait until it has all the funding in place to break ground. One option is to use the $60 million to build the 2,300-seat Dell Foundation Hall in time for the three large performing-arts groups to use in 2006 and keep raising funds to construct the other two planned performance halls and rehearsal facility. But that plan invites new hurdles: 1) the perception that Arts Center Stage is catering to three large arts institutions at the expense of 197 smaller ones; 2) the fear that the Long Center may abandon plans to build the other spaces once the largest hall is finished; and 3) the need for new designs for the center, since the original plans called for a structural interlocking of the various theatres.

Certainly, a highly visible and articulate leader of the organization could do much to ease the minds of center supporters regarding numbers 1 and 2, but, alas, the obvious person to fill that position will be gone at the end of September, and the board will be devoting its energies to finding his successor. Here's hoping that they clear this hurdle quickly and easily and can begin to clear some of the others that have cropped up in their path. For more information, call 482-0800.