Warren Tranquada is President and CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center, a role he has held since 2022. Before moving to Dallas, Warren spent 13 years at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, where he held roles including Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Warren recently sat down with host Lili Clark of the Learning from Leaders podcast to talk about the importance of philanthropy, serving diverse audiences, and collaborating with other nonprofits to strengthen the arts in Dallas.
The Role of Philanthropy in the Performing Arts
According to Warren, “one of the things that’s special about the [art] scene here is how deep it is.” While the renowned Dallas Arts District initially attracted Warren to the city, he notes that “what surprised me when I got here is how many small organizations are creating really innovative work…[with] the support of the philanthropic community.” During his three years in Dallas so far, Warren has been struck by the “breadth of supporters who are willing to write really, really big checks to make big things happen in Dallas, whether that’s in the arts or medicine or universities.” Warren points to the AT&T Performing Arts Center as an example of this generosity, which was completed in 2009 and built primarily with private donations.
“There is no performing arts center in the country that can survive without philanthropy.”
Warren Tranquada
When it comes to the live arts, Warren emphasizes that “there is no performing arts center in the country that can survive without philanthropy.” As for the AT&T Performing Arts Center, he explains that approximately half of the Center’s operating costs are supported by philanthropy and half by business income. Donations enable the Center to offer more affordable tickets to Dallasites. Were the Center to amortize the true cost of operations and community programming into the cost of a ticket, the price would be prohibitive, contradicting the Center’s goals of attracting new and diverse audiences.
Working Together to Strengthen the Dallas Art Scene
Warren highlights how teamwork and communication across organizations have helped the Dallas art scene flourish, describing a community that understands how “we can do more when we work together.” During the pandemic, Dallas arts organizations came together to determine how to withstand the challenges together. Warren explains how this “advocacy as a sector locally and nationally was essential to some of the relief packages that helped organizations survive COVID.” Collaboration has continued since. Warren details a 2024 city bond program to benefit the arts: Rather than compete for money as separate organizations, leaders within the arts jointly selected projects to benefit from the bond. This collective action “took the bond package for the arts from $15 million to $75 million,” says Warren, who believes that the City Council “appreciated that we were speaking with one voice” to make a strong argument for investing in the arts.
At the Center, collaboration with local nonprofits includes sharing services. The Center “[provides] ticketing services to more than a dozen organizations,” effectively “[taking] that big, fixed investment we’ve made” and sharing its benefits with others, as Warren explains. This kind of cross-organizational work is a central tenet of the Center’s mission to activate other organizations and spaces in Dallas—together creating a more vibrant community.
The Challenge of “attracting new audiences”
Years ago, a memorable James Brown concert showed Warren the power of live performance to create a “connection between an audience [and] an artist.” Despite the magic of experiencing the performing arts, Warren notes that customers now attend live performances less frequently. He explains how “attracting new audiences is our most important priority right now, and it’s the most important priority for everyone in the arts nationally.”
Today, the biggest competition to the performing arts is streaming services, including YouTube. YouTube’s ability to feed the viewer customized content that can be watched on the viewer’s schedule represents a marked difference to the Center’s model. As Warren quips, “We’re the opposite of that. We tell you what to see. You can only see it on Thursday at 7 p.m., not 7:15, not 6:45. We even tell you when you’re allowed to take a break.” To overcome the inflexibility of the performing arts, Warren describes how a performance “has to be special and leverage that live experience.” One entertainer who exceeds at creating these kinds of special performances is Taylor Swift. “She’s been masterful at being able to perform in front of 80 thousand people and somehow make them feel like she’s talking directly to them,” Warren explains.
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Beyond the difficulty of attracting new attendees, the Center must navigate curatorial and revenue questions. Warren describes how there “is a constant battle between how do we sell tickets and generate the most income for the center to keep the doors open and what do we think is the right kind of curatorial vision for what happens on our stage? And that’s a tough balance to get right.” Warren, however, relishes the challenge: “I got into the nonprofit sector really because of my interest in complex business models and having impact. And what I love about nonprofits is that there’s no one definition of success. You’re constantly thinking through trade-offs of what’s going to lead to financial sustainability [and] what is going to drive mission.”
