“It’s been such a good fit to get to work in an area I love. When I came here, I found a whole other group of people who can do lots of other things connected to the performing arts and it was even more satisfying.
“What other job in Springfield could I get personal calls from Lilly Tomlin, get to take Carol Channing to lunch or lug Sutton Foster around town?”
Krissy Brown will begin as the SAC’s executive director on Friday. The SAC presents the annual Summer Arts Festival at Veterans Park and the Showtime entertainment series at the Clark State Performing Arts Center, and sponsors the Youth Arts Ambassadors program and a new youth education program, BrightLight.
The past decade has been one of changes in presenting shows in Springfield. Potential audiences found new entertainment options competing for their attention including larger and more affordable televisions and the rise of streaming. There was also the opening of several new outdoor entertainment venues offering live entertainment.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which stopped all live performances and limited what could be presented. Through it all, Rowe led efforts and made adjustments to lure audience to live entertainment here.
“As an organization grows, it has to grow with the times,” Rowe said.
His biggest challenge in the beginning of his executive director stint was balancing new responsibilities with what he’d been doing.
When Rowe began his SAC career, he was the staff’s youngest member at 45 and by the time he became executive director, he found a much younger staff who would help with bringing new audiences in.
He would seek their opinions on potential acts and opportunities. One of those moves that Rowe counts among the successes of his time is the development of the Youth Arts Ambassadors, but admits he was only involved in the administrative part of it.
“The Summer Arts Festival is our mainstay event, but the Ambassadors has legs we haven’t seen yet. We’re starting to see these kids going to college, going on professional auditions, in performing arts areas they’re interested in and you get parental involvement with it also,” he said.
Such a program didn’t exist when the young Rowe began performing at around age 10 playing a bear in a production of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and later in shows at South High School, including the title role in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” a nickname his SAC colleagues know him by. He directed his first stage show for Springfield Civic Theatre at age 19, built sets and played piano and organ in the area.
He’d partner up with other talents such as Jerry Boswell to present original Christmas shows for around 15 years that were a precursor to the now-annual presentations of “The Nutcracker.” Rowe would also team with Mike Mingo to do nightclub shows for years, but as that cooled, he looked for a new line of work.
While his ambition was to be a professional magician, Rowe said classified ads for such a profession were nonexistent, so he looked for an area he knew. In 2000, he was the first director of Project Jericho, which then-SAC executive director J. Chris Moore was a board member of. Rowe had known Moore since 1975.
When the SAC expanded its staff in 2001, Rowe was on Moore’s mind and he joined as marketing and design specialist.
“When I got here, I found there was a whole other group of people who can do lots of things connected to the performing arts and it’s been even more satisfying than performing,” said Rowe.
When Moore retired in 2013, a nationwide search for his replacement was done. When the selected candidate wasn’t the right fit, Moore recommended Rowe as the successor.
Moore’s reasoning was simple, saying (Rowe) gets it, Rowe recalled, that he was the right person at the right time who knew what works and how the organization works.
Rowe looked through an artistic lens to match the best shows for the right cost, helped see the organization out of some debt and kept it going when things like a flood forced an office closure followed by the pandemic on top of that.
“We kept rolling with no office space and through COVID and got the Arts Festival back in 2021 for three weeks,” he said.
In retirement, Rowe looks forward to traveling. One of his desires it to go to venues with theater organs in Ohio and neighboring states, one of his big interests. He played the State Theater’s organ many times over the years when it was a movie theater. He’d also like to revive dinner theater shows in the area.
Should Brown need his advice, Rowe is willing to help, but won’t be looking over her shoulder, something he appreciates Moore didn’t do to him.
“There’s many people who hate their jobs and I’ve had the rare chance to be somebody who has loved mine. It has been an adventure,” he said.
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