Texas Border Business
By Roberto Hugo González / Texas Border Business
McALLEN, Texas — The City of McAllen is moving forward with Arts for All, a community initiative designed to give approximately 900 to 1,000 Rio Grande Valley students each year access to live Broadway productions and opportunities to interact with touring professionals.
City Manager Isaac J. Tawil announced the next phase of the initiative during the city’s Fall for the Arts event at the McAllen Performing Arts Center, describing it as an effort to turn an earlier commitment into an active community campaign.
“Today, we are taking the next step,” Tawil said. “Today is about moving Arts for All from an idea and a commitment into an active community campaign.”
Under the initiative, students would attend five or six live Broadway productions each year at the McAllen Performing Arts Center. They would also have opportunities to engage with members of touring productions and learn about their careers, training, and the discipline required to reach a professional stage.
“For many students, it will be their first time inside the Performing Arts Center, their first Broadway production, and their first opportunity to speak with a professional artist,” Tawil said. “I hope it will not be their last.”
The program is intended to reach students from school districts across the Rio Grande Valley.
Tawil said access is central to the effort, arguing that a community’s quality of life should be measured not only by the cultural opportunities it offers but also by who can participate.
“When we talk about quality of life, we cannot define it simply by what exists in our community,” Tawil said. “We must define it by who has access to it.”
Arts for All will depend in part on support from businesses, organizations and individuals. Tawil said a $250 contribution can sponsor one student for an entire Broadway series, not a single performance.
“That is not one ticket to one performance,” he said. “It is a season of experiences, a season of stories, a season of music, creativity, and discovery.”
Tawil said the initiative comes as McAllen sees growing demand for Broadway programming. Broadway subscriptions are up 15% this year, according to the city manager, while several single-night engagements have sold out.
McAllen is also working to expand the length of touring Broadway engagements at the Performing Arts Center.
Tawil said the city will move from a single performance to a two-night engagement beginning with Beetlejuice. Strong attendance could help McAllen make the case for longer engagements, with the eventual goal of hosting Broadway productions for a full week.
“That is how progress happens: one performance, then two, then four, and eventually an entire week of world-class theater right here in the Rio Grande Valley,” Tawil said.
He said every subscription, ticket sale, and full house helps demonstrate to national producers and touring companies that there is a market for major productions in McAllen and the broader Rio Grande Valley.
At the same time, Tawil said the city’s success in attracting productions must be accompanied by efforts to make those performances accessible to young people.
“It is not enough to bring world-class productions to our city if many of our young people can only see them from the outside,” he said.
Tawil said the city cannot carry out Arts for All by itself and called on educators, artists, community organizations, businesses and residents to participate.
For students who receive the opportunity, he said, the impact could extend beyond attending a performance.
“That is what access can do,” Tawil said. “It does more than fill a seat. It opens a mind.”
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