Today, September 30, 2010 at noon local dignitaries, cultural and civic leaders will gather at the AT&T Performing Arts Center to formally dedicate Annette Strauss Square, the Center’s outdoor venue named in honor of Annette Strauss, the late former Mayor of Dallas and champion of the Dallas Arts District.
The dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place in the new Annette Strauss Square, designed by the renowned London-based architecture firm, Foster + Partners. Speakers will include Mayor Tom Leppert; Dr. R. Gerald Turner, president of Southern Methodist University; Ted Strauss and representatives of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. Students from the Meadows School of Arts and thirteen-year-old piano prodigy Lewis Warren, Jr. will perform a work created for the occasion.
“The dedication of Annette Strauss Square, a facility made possible by the city and people of Dallas, helps to fulfill the original vision of the Center, and that is to provide a variety of entertainment experiences to as broad a range of audiences as possible,” said Howard Hallam, Board member of the AT&T Performing Arts Center and former chair. “A vibrant outdoor experience in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, Strauss Square gives people one more reason to visit the Center. This venue only adds to the full potential of the Center.”
Annette Strauss Square is the premier outdoor performance venue of the $354 million AT&T Performing Arts Center, which also includes the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House, Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre and Elaine D. and Charles A. Sammons Park. Funding for Strauss Square was made possible through a combination of private donations and public funding approved by Dallas voters.
The AT&T Performing Arts Center opened the Winspear Opera House, Wyly theatre and Sammons Park in October 2009 to great critical acclaim. During the inaugural season, the Center drew audiences from every corner of North Texas and from around the world. Following the Grand Opening, nearly 900 performances and events took place at the Center, including the world premiere opera, Moby-Dick, and the revisal musical, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman! The Center also helped to expand the reach of TITAS, introduced a jazz series and presented local musicians in free outdoor performances.
“The 2010-2011 season of the AT&T Performing Arts Center is already off to a great start, with a great variety of performances and record-breaking attendance,” said Doug Curtis, interim CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center. “The opening of Strauss Square creates great opportunities for the Center to continue to grow the breadth and reach of its programming and develop exciting new collaborations for the whole community to enjoy, while providing an additional source of support for the Center’s operations.”
The new Strauss Square provides a serene setting for outdoor performances, festivals and events in the heart of the downtown Dallas Arts District. The venue was designed by Foster + Partners, under the direction of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Norman Foster, to complement the adjacent Winspear Opera House, also designed by Foster + Partners. The primary feature of Strauss Square is the Shannon and Ted Skokos Pavilion, which contains rigging for lighting and sound equipment. The Skokos Pavilion exterior end walls are clad in diamond shaped panels arranged in a random mixture of silver anodized aluminum and brushed zinc finishes. This mixture of finishes heightens the play of light reflecting off the building, both during the day and at night, when artificial lights, set flush within the floor, illuminate the sides of the stage. The front of the stage house incorporates roller shutter doors, which retract to allow large speaker arrays to project out of the stage house enclosure during performances and then return to their protected enclosure when not in use. Backstage, Strauss Square has a designated truck dock to all for seamless loading in of performance equipment.
The new Strauss Square has also been designed to improve the audience experience. The performance lawn is graded down towards the stage to improve sight lines, and both permanent and temporary restroom facilities are discreetly located to the rear of the lawn for patrons’ use during performances.
Elevated side terraces also provide excellent stage views. There are three concession areas in Strauss Square, serving light food, beer, wine and full bar beverage options. For certain performances or events, there will be up to 1,000 seats in the front portion of the lawn area. Patrons can also bring blankets or sit on the lawn. Lawn chairs and coolers will not be permitted, nor will strollers, although the Center will provide stroller check.
Concrete site walls border the performance lawn, sheltering the audience from the traffic noise of Woodall Rodgers freeway, while also creating a permanent ticketing boundary, replacing the old temporary fencing. The integrated lighting within the hard landscaped areas continues from the surrounding Sammons Park, creating one seamless outdoor space.
History of Strauss Square
The original Arts District Square opened in the Dallas Arts District in the early 1990s, on a plot of land located directly east of The Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. In late 1998, under the leadership of then Mayor Ron Kirk, the Dallas City council dedicated the Arts District Square in honor of former Mayor Annette Strauss, a passionate supporter of the performing arts and an ardent proponent of the Dallas Arts District, shortly before her death. With little more than a temporary stage and lawn, Strauss Square drew 125,000 people annually to its performances.
When the campaign to build the AT&T Performing Arts Center began in 2000, the City of Dallas recognized the need to transform the existing make-shift performance stage in Strauss Square into a quality, permanent performance venue in the Dallas Arts District and entrusted the Center to create a state-of-the-art amphitheatre that could become the preeminent venue for outdoor performances, not only in Dallas, but throughout the Metroplex.
About Annette Strauss
Philanthropist, fundraiser, volunteer, arts patron, organizer and politician – perhaps no aspect of public service in Dallas was left untouched by the late Annette Strauss.
Born in Houston in 1924, Annette Greenfield grew up as the only child of a generous philanthropist, Jacob Greenfield. “What I have is what I’ve given away,” he often told his daughter. Annette credited her father as the greatest influence in her life. In high school, Annette mastered the art of public speaking, eventually winning two consecutive state championships. At the University of Texas, she became a tennis table champion and a member of Phi Beta Kappa while earning a bachelor’s degree from the College of Liberal Arts. She also met her future husband, Theodore “Ted” Strauss, on the UT campus.
After earning a master’s degree in sociology with honors from Columbia University in New York, Annette returned to Houston to work for the Red Cross. A year later, in 1946, she married Ted. After another year, the couple moved to Dallas, where they raised their two daughters.
Annette immersed herself in community volunteer work, becoming a major fundraiser for such organizations as the Dallas Symphony, the Crystal Charity Ball, Southern Methodist University, the United Way, and the Dallas Black Dance Theater, among dozens of others. She eventually chaired almost every major charity ball in Dallas, won almost every award for community services and raised millions of dollars for the arts.
In the 1970s, Annette shifted her attention to public service, joining Planned Parenthood, the Dallas Municipal Library Board and the Dallas Parks and Recreation Board. She became so adept at raising major gifts from large corporations that she eventually took a position with the public relations firm of Glenn, Bozell & Jacobs as its vice president of public affairs. Annette once estimated that she raised more than $9 million for her favorite causes.
In 1983, Annette won an at-large seat on the Dallas City Council. A year later, she became mayor pro tem. Then in 1987, voters elected Annette as the first woman to become mayor of Dallas. In 1989, the city of Dallas was named by Fortune magazine as “the best U.S. city in which to do business,” thanks largely to Annette’s performance in office.
She left City Hall in 1991 to become a public relations consultant with Levenson, Levenson & Hill. She was soon appointed Ambassador-at-Large for Dallas, a position she held for the rest of her life. Annette also served as a trustee for many foundations, including the Children’s Medical Center Foundation, the Dallas Methodist Hospitals Foundation, St. Paul Hospital Foundation, the Timberlawn Foundation and the Texas Historical Foundation.
In 1996, Family Gateway – a shelter for homeless families that Annette helped to start in 1986 – presented her with the first Annette G. Strauss Humanitarian Award, which is awarded annually to the Dallas area’s top volunteers. In 1997, the Southern Methodist University Tower Center for Political
Studies established the Annette Strauss Dallas International Series. Annette also was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame and was named a distinguished alumnus at the University of Texas.
About the AT&T Performing Arts Center
Open since October 2009, the AT&T Performing Arts Center is a vibrant destination for entertainment in the heart of the downtown Dallas Arts District. The Center presents a variety of programs, including its Lexus Broadway Series, Brinker International Forum, JAZZ ROOTS and, in association with TITAS, contemporary dance and music, and other performances. The Center also provides performance space for The Dallas Opera, Dallas Theater Center, Dallas Black Dance Theatre and Anita N. Martinez Ballet Folklorico, in unparalleled venues set within a 10-acre urban park.
The Dallas Fort Worth Lexus Dealer Association is the title sponsor of the Center’s Lexus Broadway Series. Lexus is the official vehicle of the Center and its resident companies, the official valet sponsor and the naming rights holder for the Center’s two underground parking areas. RideCentric is the Official Ground Transportation Provider of the Center.
More information on the AT&T Performing Arts Center is available at www.attpac.org. ###