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A cornerstone of the city’s arts scene, the Tulsa Performing Arts Center aims to increase the accessibility of city arts and bring the community together.
The performing arts center is used by many of the city’s large performing arts organizations including Tulsa Ballet, Chamber Music Tulsa, American Theatre Company and the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra. The arts center also hosts traveling shows, including productions seen on Broadway.
Until 2019, the Tulsa Performing Arts Center was owned and operated by the city of Tulsa, and was part of the city budget. Since then, it has been part of the Tulsa Performing Arts Trust.
Tulsa Performing Arts Center CEO Mark Frie grew up in Tulsa and has performed across North America in musicals, concerts and operas. He returned to Oklahoma in 2008 to open Broken Arrow Performing Arts Center, where he served as executive director for nine years.
“I believe that the arts have a unique way of bringing people from different backgrounds together,” Frie said. “The arts can be very healing, and we look around the world and in our country at a lot of negativity and a lot of hate. The arts, I think, can unite and heal.”
Named director of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center in 2017 by Mayor G.T. Bynum, Frie recently led a successful campaign for Improve Our Tulsa funding that resulted in Tulsans voting in favor of a $79.7 million package for improvements to the center.
Frie believes the arts are an important part of life for people on a personal level, but says there is also valuable power in the arts’ impact on the city economy.
“The arts are an economic driver in our communities. We create hundreds of jobs, bring millions of dollars in economic impact into the state,” Frie said. “That's an important thing to remember as you look at funding and how the arts are being funded or not funded.”
Tulsa Performing Arts Center on Jan. 28.
Jeremy Stevens, director of community engagement, aims to increase the accessibility of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, especially now that the center is privately funded. Stevens said part of this involves looking at how art is happening in the larger community.
“How do we build that bridge to recognize and celebrate the artistic work being done in communities with the same vim and vigor that we do the forming things that happen in the building?” Stevens said.
Though audiences continue to grow post-pandemic, attendance remains less than it once was. Stevens takes account of showtimes, name recognition of a production and the target audience when reviewing ticket sales. Name recognition of a show continues to sell tickets but Stevens said he has seen a recent spike in young audiences’ interest in theater, rather than “theater for theater sake,” which Stevens credits to the educational aspect of the shows.
“It also has to do with, ‘Is the material accessible and understandable?’” Stephens said. “Because it has to be grades K through eight, it presents itself in a way that is fully relational, through all spectrums and demographics.”
The Tulsa Performing Arts Center is widely known and used as a venue, but Stevens wants the center to also be viewed as an entity and for its outreach.
The center has multiple outreach programs geared toward bringing the arts to its community. The center’s Any Given Child program provides a free theatrical performance for kindergarteners in Tulsa Public Schools. The center also hosts the Arts In the Air music festival, which pays local artists while providing a weekend of live performances.
Though the nature of the performing arts leads to a focus on the audience’s experience, Frie said Oklahoma audiences have an attitude and engagement that is especially rewarding to performers. Frie said touring performers often express to him that they especially enjoy performing for Oklahomans.
“There really is something about Oklahoma audiences in terms of how they respond and still have that great, wholesome, never-met-a-stranger feel that translates back to the actor or performer on stage,” Frie said. “I hear all the time that our audiences are some of the warmest audiences that people perform in front of throughout the country.”
The Tulsa Performing Arts Center is found at 110 E. 2nd St. Details on performances and outreach programs are available on its website.
This story was edited by Shelby Emery. Ryan Little, Nikkie Aisha and Mary Ann Livingood copy edited this story.
