Barry Mandel, Executive Director of Houston’s Theater District What do you do when all the city’s most important arts organizations are under water, and you’re the one in charge? by John W. Stiles

Barry Mandel, executive director of Houston’s Theater District since 1998, is not an easy man to track down. Especially these days. The Theater District Association is the point of convergence for the Alley Theatre, the Houston Ballet, the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera, Theater Under The Stars, Da Camera of Houston, Broadway in Houston, and the Society for the Performing Arts. On June 9 of this year, these eight organizations began looking to the executive director for more than the usual help in coordinating marketing and promotional efforts. In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, June 9, Mandel took a call at his home near Braeswood and Buffalo Speedway from the security people telling him what had just happened at each of the buildings. He wasn’t able to get downtown through the floodwaters until noon, and he was able to see firsthand the extent of the flooding. "I gotta tell you, my first reaction was, What the f--k are we going to do? There’s no way we can get over this one."

The several feet of rain that Tropical Storm Allison dumped on Houston had made its way into and over the banks of Buffalo Bayou. When a basement wall of the old Albert Thomas Convention Center gave way, a torrent of water turned Bayou Place into its namesake and used the tunnel system to snake out and into the basements of the Alley, Jones Hall, and the Wortham. What Mandel found at the Wortham was a 15,000-square-foot basement six feet deep in a brackish mix of water, sewage, and fuel. Costumes were lost, instruments ruined, histories destroyed. The Alley lost its small stage. A handful of the symphony’s waterlogged original scores may be saved if an experimental freeze-drying process works–or they may be lost forever.

It would seem Mandel jumped from the frying pan into the fire. The emotional stress of running a service for a group of primary care physicians whose practice centered around HIV/AIDS patients started Mandel on a search for a happier work environment several years ago. He is no stranger to the world of nonprofit, serving as he does, on the boards of the Houston Food Bank and the AIDS Foundation, as well as holding a position on the allocations panel for the United Way. His position as executive director of the Theater District, though, represents his first foray into making a living at nonprofit work.

A native Houstonian, Mandel graduated from Bellaire High School and headed north to Boston University. Although he loved his time in Boston, he was happy to come home. "What happened while I was gone, especially from an arts standpoint, is the city transformed itself. The arts are so easily accessible in Boston, and I realized they are just as easily accessible here. After New York, we have the most number of theater seats in a concentrated downtown area of any city in the country. You’ve got international performances happening right here."

Mandel’s love of the fine arts was kindled early. "I remember being in third grade and going to a student matinee at the symphony. It was my first time. I was completely transfixed by the music, and it only happened because my teacher had a relationship with the guy who played first violin." Mandel now presides over an annual summit of more than 6,000 educators from the Greater Houston area, invited at the beginning of every season to view the upcoming schedule of events and opportunities for their students.

"For this upcoming season, some of the most exciting things are: Broadway in Houston is doing The Lion King–T.U.T.S. will be doing Cirque du Soleil–the Alley is doing The Glass Menagerie with Elizabeth Ashley . . . you know, that woman from Evening Shade–HGO will be doing Samson and Delilah–and it’s the inaugural season for the symphony’s new musical conductor, Hans Graf–and the Hobby Center will be opening next year." All this comes out in one breath. "It really is a new millennium for Houston."

Mandel is in his element and having a ball. He has even found time again this year to contribute to the script of Best Little Whitehouse in Texas, this year’s Halloween Magic production. His only concern is over whether the character Wanda June Smathers (played by Barry’s long-term partner, Scott Sawyer) will get as many laughs this year as last. A far cry from that Saturday morning last June. It must have looked awfully dark back then, but Mandel was right where he wanted to be and the good news was right around the corner. "The response from the artistic staffs and corporate community was overwhelming. Enron called me that same Saturday morning and said, ‘OK, what are you going to need?’ I was sitting here watching Toby Mattox’s desk float out of his SPA office and Enron is offering me office space for 50. Price Waterhouse Coopers did an office supply drive for us, Dynagy gave us furniture, Wells Fargo gave us vacant office space so we could move, en masse, the opera and ballet wardrobe rooms into one of the floors of their building."

Several days after our interview, I needed a bit of clarification from Mandel on a minor point. It was late Friday and I left a message on his office machine to call me Monday. Within the hour, Mandel was shouting out his answer over his cell phone. He was somewhere north of Corsicana, en route to Dallas, struggling to be heard over the guffaws coming from his car full of friends. They were going to be late to the party, but Barry Mandel was right where he wanted to be, in the middle of it and having a blast.