Together with his boyish seems and broad grin, Ty Sutton, the brand new president and CEO of the Broward Middle for the Performing Arts, is the primary to confess that he’s achieved a lot already in his profession and has but to show 50. At 49, Sutton has been a CEO or govt director working the enterprise of performing arts for practically 20 years.
“It occurred very younger for me. And so, , after I give it some thought, I’ve been type of a fixture in my profession,” says Sutton. He’s not solely been a fixture, however he’s additionally been a fixer.
“I’ve run 4 main performing arts facilities now – in Colorado, Texas, Indiana and Ohio, and all of these jobs had been coming to resolve an issue.”
However when he took over the reins of the Broward Middle and its affiliated venues in February, Sutton knew he was inheriting a spot that had already been via its fixing.
Kelley Shandling had helmed the performing arts middle for 25 years since 2009 earlier than he retired in 2024. Beneath Shandling, the Broward Middle mounted its monumental capital enlargement venture, “ENCORE! Constructing Neighborhood via the Arts” in 2011. Greater than $60 million was raised to improve the power to a state-of-the-art efficiency venue primed for the longer term.
“Kelley was a terrific chief and so was Mark Nerenhausen [Broward Center’s CEO from 1998 to 2009] earlier than him,” Sutton says. “I knew each of them very effectively.”
“I got here in right here and not using a mandate,” Sutton says. To place all of it in context, he brings up the Broward Middle’s historical past.
“Again in 1987, folks weren’t constructing performing arts facilities like this one. And a gaggle of individuals right here for a decade earlier than had stated, ‘We’d like tradition. We’re not Miami. We’d like this.’ Buddy [Robert B.] Lochrie was one among them.”
Lochrie, who handed away in 2009, was the founding chairman of the Broward Performing Arts Basis in 1985 and was instrumental in getting the required non-public funding to construct the middle and create an endowment.
“You realize, they went out locally, they usually made guarantees, they usually fulfilled all these guarantees. However one factor that hasn’t occurred and that they didn’t management was this space across the constructing, which is now going via a large redevelopment,” Sutton says.
One of many concepts he repeats often throughout the interview, looking on the picturesque view from the Mary N. Porter Riverview Ballroom, is the notion of the prime spot on which the Broward Middle is positioned alongside the New River.
“I might simply like to see us actually create this space as a thriving arts and tradition district,” he says. He talks concerning the cultural establishments close to Riverwalk: the NSU Artwork Museum, the Museum of Discovery and Science and Esplanade Park, a frequent location for out of doors performances. “It’s simply a chance to create,” he says.
Sutton additionally oversees the Broward Middle’s affiliate venues, together with the enduring The Parker, previously often called the Parker Playhouse, which received a $30 million facelift accomplished in 2021, spearheaded by the Broward Performing Arts Basis. Additionally underneath the Broward Middle umbrella is the Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Middle on the campus of Nova Southeastern College and the Aventura Arts and Cultural Middle.
When the lights are up in any respect 4 venues, 30 reveals can occur in every week, says Sutton.
“You realize, it’s attention-grabbing. Nationally, should you discuss to folks within the performing arts, it’s not Miami, it’s Broward. And other people know the Broward Middle as a result of we have now two of the busiest theaters within the nation – the Au Rene right here on the Broward Middle and The Parker.”
SELF RELIANT
There’s a enterprise mannequin that the Broward Middle runs on, too, which is completely different than the opposite massive performing arts middle to its south, Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Middle, and the alternative of most different performing arts facilities across the nation.
“We’re not financed by authorities, so we have now to carry out like a enterprise,” he says. Cash from Broward County’s cultural division sometimes represents solely about 1 to 2 p.c of funding.
“Authorities funding doesn’t issue into any of our programming,” says Sutton, so when Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed funding to all arts organizations throughout the state in June, it had virtually no influence on Broward County’s performing arts facilities. “We’re a $65 million funds and we get $150,000 from the state, if we’re fortunate.”
Sutton talks the numbers just like the CEO of a multi-million enterprise. “We’re about 85 p.c earned income and about 15 p.c contributed — lots of that’s from foundations and particular person donors.”
He arrived on the Broward Middle with a stellar repute and his personal accolades. Throughout his six years as president and CEO of Dayton Stay in Dayton, Ohio, 5 venues had been underneath the Dayton Stay model, together with opening the PNC Arts Annex and the Dayton Stay Artistic Academy, a performing arts training middle. Earlier than that, he was govt director of the Butler Arts Middle at Butler College in Indianapolis; led the Wagner Noel Performing Arts Middle in Midland, Texas; and managed an $8.2 million renovation on the Lincoln Middle for the Performing Arts in Fort Collins, Colorado, which shut down for a yr throughout its main overhaul.
A COLLEGE HOBBY
The profession trajectory to the highest of the performing arts venue enterprise began off as a interest in school. Sutton grew up in San Francisco, then headed to the College of Utah in Salt Lake Metropolis – “an enormous college, 30,000 folks.” He majored in political science. “I assumed I used to be going to do regulation or finance. I knew lots of people within the finance world.”
After which, he says, he began engaged on the faculty’s live performance committee. “It was for the coed authorities, and I had grown up within the arts. I sang all via highschool, however I knew it was by no means a profession, it was simply one thing I loved, being in numerous choirs.”
He remembers that it was the mid-Nineteen Nineties and as school college students do, those that had dedicated to placing on the reveals began dropping out. “We had some huge cash I may spend and as folks bailed, I simply saved reserving artists.”
He had tenacity and he began calling folks and received to know managers who had been saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got actual cash, and you may pay.’’’
The subsequent factor he knew he had booked Dave Matthews of the Dave Matthews Band and Tim Reynolds, member of TR3. He began working for promoters in Salt Lake Metropolis. “I actually began studying the enterprise.” He did get his diploma in political science from the college and met his now spouse, Polly, there.
“She was ending her grasp’s diploma, and I used to be working there.” After being a profitable live performance promoter, the college employed him to do their programming. “We met within the arts.”
Polly danced with the Utah Ballet on the College of Utah Faculty of Dance, professionally with Charleston Ballet Theatre, the Anaheim Ballet, American Folks Ballet and has been on the dance schools at Brigham Younger College and Butler College. For the reason that couple and their two kids moved to South Florida, she is having fun with time as a Pilates teacher for Membership Pilates Studios at a number of Broward County places.
As he continued to achieve success within the live performance selling enterprise, Sutton says, “I by no means thought it was my profession. It was at all times, effectively, I’ll do that for some time as a result of it’s enjoyable after which I’ll go do finance or get an actual grown-up job.”
Then the grown-up job got here – he labored for the 2002 Salt Lake Olympic and Paralympic Video games and was finally employed by the Nationwide Hockey League’s Anaheim Geese.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
Now, with Fort Lauderdale at his toes, Sutton says he’s trying many years down the highway at what the Broward Middle could possibly be. “What will we have to be locally?” And he understands some hurdles such because the non-public improvement taking place downtown. “You will discover frequent floor with non-public builders, and I’ve constructed rather a lot in my profession, so I get the place they’re coming from. However I believe if we are able to lead by way of persevering with to inform our story higher about what the experiences we provide imply to folks, then builders need in on that – they need to understand how they construct on that.”
His imaginative and prescient for the Broward Middle is that it’s the epicenter of an important arts and leisure district. “I believe if all of us actually lean into that with streetscapes and beautification and walkability and eating places and all of the issues that, effectively, that we don’t have proper now, I believe that’s precisely the place we might be. However we nonetheless have to remain targeted on how we proceed to make it worthwhile for folks to return right here, to maintain making the expertise higher and higher.”
His years working in sports activities honed his technique in what it takes to excel within the C-suite of a performing arts middle. “It’s the identical as sports activities. You must put out a successful product for folks to need to come, proper?”
