What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1465662
APRIL 24-30, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 7 WAC AT 30 FYI WAC Timeline 1986 — The first Walton Arts Center Council is formed, made up of three Univesity of Arkansas appointees and three city repre- sentatives charged to build an arts center. 1987 — Bill Mitchell is hired as WAC's first executive director. April 26, 1992 — The Walton Arts Center opens its doors. 1992 — Walton Arts Center becomes a founding member of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts "Arts in Education" program that created a model for work between arts centers and schools around the country. WAC is still a member and works with them on arts education training for teachers. 1998 — Anita Scism becomes CEO. 1999 — Nadine Baum Studios opens. 2005 — The Arkansas Music Pavilion begins hosting concerts in the parking lot at the Northwest Arkansas Mall. 2009 — Peter Lane becomes CEO. February 2011 — WAC purchases the AMP. 2012-13 — The AMP is temporarily located at the Washington County Fairgrounds. May 2013 — The Walton Arts Center Board approves a plan to relocate the AMP to a new permanent space in Rogers. November 2013 — Construction on the new AMP begins. June 2014 — The AMP opens. November 2016 — WAC completes a $23 million renovation and expansion. May 2020 — The Walmart Arkan- sas Music Pavilion completes a $17 million expansion. — Source: Walton Arts Center 30 and Thriving WAC finds its niche on stage and in classroom BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette W hen Patricia Relph moved to Northwest Arkansas in 1980, the Walton Arts Center was barely a gleam in anybody's eye. The first Walton Arts Center Council wasn't formed until 1986, and Bill Mitchell wasn't hired as the first executive director until late in 1987. More than a few people in Fayetteville wondered if the big hole in the ground at the corner of West Avenue and Dickson Street would ever be anything but raw dirt. But the arts scene was already thriving, as Relph — who has been arts learning specialist at WAC since 1999 and was a teaching artist before that — remembers clearly. Northwest Arkansas had a symphony — then called NASO — Opera in the Ozarks, a busy University Theatre, concerts not only at George's Majestic Lounge but in venues like Barnhill Arena and ballrooms at the Hilton and the Mountain Inn and community theaters like the Arts Center of the Ozarks in Springdale and Rogers Little Theater. Films like "The Blue and the Gray" were being made; new theatrical works were being developed at the Mount Sequoyah New Play Retreat; and a professional theater company, Ozark StageWorks, was waiting in the wings. "Our community and business leaders must have been confident that a new performing arts center would be a central place for much of this good activity," Relph speculates. "And it has been. "In the late 1980s, the Walton Family, the University of Arkansas and the city of Fayetteville each individually realized the need for an auditorium or a community arts facility that could accommodate major touring shows, local and regional performing acts and even corporate meetings," she explains. "As each group explored the options, it became apparent that there was potential to work together." Thanks to that collaboration, the Walton Family Foundation, the UA and the city contributed $9 million, an additional $7 million was raised from the private sector, and a $3 million endowment was set aside for operations, allowing the Walton Arts Center to open debt-free on April 26, 1992. According to a history provided by WAC, the Walton Arts Center's first season saw 55 performances of 42 shows, and the Broadway shows, although partial-week engagements, were the first of their kind in Northwest Arkansas. "In our 30th season, we will host 123 performances of 60 shows," says WAC spokeswoman Jennifer Wilson. "We have 56 performances of Broadway alone this season — and they are all week-long or two-week engagements. Ticket sales for the current 2021-22 season are 77,000." "The mission of Walton Arts Center has Patricia Relph (front left) is known to thousands of students and former students as "Dr. Pat," the arts learning specialist at WAC who helps integrate arts into classrooms across the region. (Courtesy Photo/WAC) See Education Page 39