Intro: 0:05

Welcome to the business of Houston Hospitality, where we visit with and learn from the people behind Houston's vibrant and diverse hospitality industry. Each week we speak with owners and operators of restaurants, hotels, venues, attractions, museums, theaters, and more. Please welcome your host, president of the Houston Hospitality Alliance and founder of Convive Hospitality Consultant, Jonathan Horowitz.

Jonathan: 0:34

Greetings from Houston. This is the Business of Houston Hospitality. I am your host, Jonathan Horowitz, and today I will be speaking with Dean Gladden, who is the Managing Director of the Alley Theater here in Houston. As always, we'll talk to Dean about his history in the city, how the business of the theater is going, and what Dean thinks about Houston's hospitality industry and its future. Welcome to the show, Dean.

Dean: 1:01

Well, thank you, Jonathan. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Jonathan: 1:03

Yeah, glad to have you. Thank you very much for taking the time. Looking forward to hearing your perspective on, on all things arts and hospitality in Houston. But before we get into those details let's hear a little bit, learn a little bit about you and your past, you know where are you from? What have you done? How did you get to Houston? All of those fun things.

Dean: 1:25

Well, I, I'm I grew up in a small town called Mount Gilead, Ohio. And so I'm, I'm a Buckeye and I came down here in 2006. And as they say, you know, I got down here as fast as I could.

Jonathan: 1:39

Thing all the time.

Dean: 1:41

I spent my entire career in a shrinking economic environment in Ohio, and when I came down here, it was like, Oh my gosh. This is what it's like to be in a growing economy.

Jonathan: 1:52

Big, big city, right? Big change. Yeah. I can, I can honestly say I've never been to your hometown in Ohio. I'm sure that's a shock.

Dean: 2:00

Yeah. So I I've been in arts management my entire career. And I managed a small arts council in Lyme, Ohio. Then I managed the arts commission in Toledo. And then I, I got in the theater business in 19. 82 with the Great Lake Shakespeare Company, which is known because Tom Hanks was an intern there the day. And and then I, I joined the Cleveland Playhouse and I was managing director there for about 20 years. And I came down here and I've been managing director of the Alley Theater for the last 18 years.

Jonathan: 2:35

And I'm assuming you made that move for this job specifically. Gotcha.

Dean: 2:40

recruited me down here.

Jonathan: 2:42

Well, good for them and good for us actually, you know it's been 18, I'm sure fantastic years for you.

Dean: 2:50

It has. And, and, and what an interesting time. I got down here just in time for the stock market to drop 50%. And, and and,

Jonathan: 3:00

Well, you, you've, you've been through that

Dean: 3:02

campaign to renovate the building. And, and, and the year after we renovated the building, Harvey paid us a visit and we had about 28 million worth of damage and then we got that all fixed and the next thing we know we've got COVID. So yes, it's been an eventful time.

Jonathan: 3:17

boy. I can only imagine. I mean, you know, just when you think things are straightened out and you're in, you're on the upswing, it's just, just one more challenge. And we're certainly going to talk about those things. How about, how about education schooling? Did you always know that you were going to go into this field? Is it something that you went to school for? How did all that happen?

Dean: 3:38

So I was a music major in college. I went to Miami University and then in Ohio, by the way.

Jonathan: 3:44

Yeah. Not, not the other Miami.

Dean: 3:46

We try to explain to people that Miami University in Ohio was founded in 1809. At the time, Florida was still owned by Spain. So,

Jonathan: 3:55

Nice.

Dean: 3:56

And after that I decided that I wanted to get into arts management. So I went to graduate school at Drexel University in Philadelphia. And and I thought I was going to go into orchestra management, but I couldn't find a job in orchestra management. So that's how I ended up in the arts council business. My first job in Lyme, Ohio. And then, and then I got into theater and it's been great. I love theater because of the variety of products. So every time you put on a new show, it's like. It's a whole new product, so it's very exciting. And the Alley Theatre, of course, is known internationally as one of the great theatres in America. And and, and we program year round, so we refer to ourselves as the Denny's of theatre companies. We never close.

Jonathan: 4:41

That's fantastic. Yeah, I guess around here that would be like Katz's Deli, right? Katz's never closes.

Dean: 4:47

Right.

Jonathan: 4:47

same, same for the theater. And, and obviously, you know, as, as you mentioned, world renowned, and we're so fortunate to have it here in the city. And actually, that, that kind of leads me into my first kind of real perspective. in depth question for you on a little bit broader topic of how do you see the arts fitting into the overall business of hospitality, right? So hospitality writ large can be anything from hotels and restaurants to venues and attractions and museums and theaters and You know, obviously to me, the arts plays into not only the local economy for the residents of any particular city, but also tourists and visitors and things like that. So I'm, I'm curious from your perspective, how you see the arts fitting into hospitality. Generally.

Dean: 5:43

Well, the arts are great economic driver. Houston is fortunate to have four resident companies, both the, the symphony, the ballet, the opera, and the alley are residents. And, and there's only I think four cities in the United States that have all four art forms. So, so we are a magnet to bring people back into the city and literally hundreds of thousands of people come and visit us every year. And, and, That is critical for the restaurant business, the hotel business, parking business and, and shopping. I mean, we, we really are the economic driver because we drive people back into downtown in the evening.

Jonathan: 6:30

Yeah. And sure. All of, all of those locations are kind of clustered in the downtown Houston area.

Dean: 6:36

Correct. Correct. And you add to that the Hobby Center with the Broadway series and Theater Under the Stars as well. And yes, you've got a huge magnet drawing people back downtown. And, and I think That people don't realize what, how important it is to the economy that these institutions are performing. Now, if you're an institution like ours, we perform Tuesday through Sunday, eight times a week. So

Jonathan: 7:07

a full schedule.

Dean: 7:08

That is, that's a very busy schedule, and, and you can imagine then you add on top of that when the symphony plays, and when the opera and the ballet play, and, and then Tuts and the Broadway series, and you've, you've got really a lot of critical mass in downtown.

Jonathan: 7:25

You know, it's interesting. And I hadn't really thought about it until I was, I was hearing what you're saying, but I've been in Houston now for 34 years, right? Went to college here and never left. And I have seen on a number of different occasions, attempts to really what they call revitalize downtown, right? Get people to, to come back. Into the city center after hours, you know, after working hours and evenings I've seen, you know, a lot of attempts to draw residents, you know, to, to build residential. And there's, I think they're still kind of working on more infrastructure, things, grocery stores, stores, et cetera. How, how have you seen that process? And obviously you've been here 18 years and have seen a lot of that. You know, how is that going? I mean, from my perspective as a resident of Houston I, I would say the arts are really one of the only reasons why I would come downtown after working hours, right? It

Dean: 8:25

Yeah, that's it. Obviously you can come to sports when the sports are in town basketball, you know, we're fortunate we've got basketball and baseball that are located in downtown as well. But yeah, that's, that's that's basically all the reasons that you'd want to be downtown. Unless you're attending a convention at the convention centers, but the growth that I've seen since I've been here in the last 18 years, the number of skyscrapers number of jobs that have moved downtown, the number of housing, you know, not only in Midtown Midtown is really grown, but we've just had, you know, a block away. Two towers, two residential towers built right near market square and then the parks. I mean, yeah, market square Wasn't much of anything and now it's thriving. We we just built Lynn Wyatt Park We've got Discovery Green was a parking lot when I got here that place is just booming all the time. The hotel business in downtown. My gosh, we must have 20 or more hotels that have been built or renovations done since I've been here.

Jonathan: 9:34

and more on the way, I believe. I

Dean: 9:35

Yeah, it

Jonathan: 9:36

even planning for more. Yeah.

Dean: 9:38

And, and I, I used to chair, I chaired the Convention Visitors Bureau during the time when the Super Bowl was here. And, and people were just amazed around the country, how Houston had changed. And the word of mouth about Houston is really great. I mean, the restaurant scene here is just, a second to none in the country and, and you've really got the culinary culture oh my gosh, that every, everything, every ethnic group you could imagine, it's all here.

Jonathan: 10:12

sure. And we, and we talk about, you know, the diversity of Houston in general and just how incredibly diverse the entire city is and international and cosmopolitan. Certainly the culinary scene, you know, is a huge part of that. And you know, it's been fantastic to see that recognition grow. I would say probably in the past 10, years or so to really get that national and international recognition of, of not only the diversity, but the quality and the accolades, you know, that, that has been certainly fantastic. And we're getting, you know, it's interesting what you say about people's reaction to coming to Houston. I hear all the time, you know, folks would say, I wasn't necessarily planning to come here. I didn't want to come to Houston, but I had to for some reason, whatever it was, whether it's business meetings or a convention or medical, you know, going to the med center, whatever it is, and people will say I've I'm amazed, you know, it's fantastic. It wasn't I had this complete misconception and, you know, the The restaurants and the arts and just, you know, the parks and the venues, it's beyond what, what people would consider. And, and my whole thing is, geez, you know, if we can continue to bring people here, they'll, they'll get the point. They'll see it, you know, they'll experience it for themselves.

Dean: 11:29

Yeah. And I, I think, you know the fact that, that Houston has been, you know, attracting more and more of the sports events, the big national sports events that get such great coverage, you know, with the NCAA tournament this past year. And it just goes on and on. And, and of course, having a baseball team that, that's won the World Series and gone to the World Series and

Jonathan: 11:53

that that doesn't hurt. Yeah, that, doesn't

Dean: 11:55

all that publicity really pays off and, and the number of travelers that we have coming in and out of the airport and coming into Houston. I mean, I mean, the other thing that people don't realize is, is 50 percent of our visitors are visiting relatives here. And, and when people come in, they are, they're just like you, they're blown away by. Oh, I had no idea. Oh, I had no idea. I just had some friends in from Cleveland this weekend, and they, they were absolutely blown away.

Jonathan: 12:26

I'm, I'm curious, you know, when you have folks like that come in, if they haven't been here before, what do you show them, you know, what, what do you take those folks obviously besides the alley hopefully they were able to take in a show, but you know, what else do you show off or

Dean: 12:39

yeah, this, this couple had only been here once and that was to our, the wedding of our daughter.

Jonathan: 12:45

Oh, nice.

Dean: 12:45

Which happened to be on art car weekend, which was a

Jonathan: 12:48

yeah. Cool.

Dean: 12:50

So, so and we took him to barbecue and we did a few things like that, but on this trip in, they, they wanted to experience NASA. So we did the VIP experience and NASA. We took them out to Hugo's restaurant. We, we took him out to Nympha's restaurant. We we went down to Galveston and did one of the historic tours and, and then ate down there. And and then, and then back here we just, you know, we, we did everything from tacos a go go to the rodeo. So we definitely spent a lot of, you know, I did a tour of all the museums and then, and then we went to the rodeo. So it was, it was, it was a chock filled weekend

Jonathan: 13:31

I was

Dean: 13:32

touring and seeing, seeing the city.

Jonathan: 13:34

You're quite the tour guide. I mean, that's, that is a, a jam packed itinerary for sure. And yeah, obviously with, with the rodeo being in town right now, that's an iconic Houston annual event. We, we had our events for. The association the alliance on Monday night, this past Monday night, and out of the wine garden out there. And it was really fantastic, a lot of great people. And, and, you know, you could tell just the energy and there were 75, 000 people there at the show last night, which is crazy. But really, really a great iconic Houston event. So let's, let's talk a little bit more specifically about the Alley and its history its place in the world, its place in the city in terms of the arts and then also, you know, obviously some of the challenges that you've experienced over the years, whether that be hurricanes, floods and or COVID. Because I would imagine that Things have changed a bit in terms of how people experience the arts and participation in that and attendance. So kind of, kind of walk us through that a little bit, a little bit of the history and then also you know, kind of where you are now and what you anticipate for the future for the alley.

Dean: 14:51

Yeah, well, the alley was, was formed back in 1947. So it was one of the earliest resident theaters in the United States. And Nina Vance started it and ran it until 1980 upon her death. And it received big funding from the Ford Foundation in the, in the 60s. And built the iconic theater that you see today in and, and opened in, in 1968. And it was, it was quite the event. A number of astronauts and, and the governor and everybody was here. And it has, it has had a fabulous reputation since that time. We've had Pulitzer Prize winning playwrights that, that have premiered their plays here. We've won the Tony Award for best regional theater. We've had numerous shows go to Broadway. We've taken numerous shows to off Broadway, and And we've toured shows over 40 different cities in the United States, and all the work is developed here. A lot of people don't realize that that we have about 100, 230 employees

Jonathan: 15:59

I was going to ask you the, yeah, the, where

Dean: 16:02

we are, we build everything. So, so we build the sets, we build the costumes. I mean, everything is couture here. Everything, everything is designed specifically for the one show that you're seeing. And I mean, even the wigs, the wigs are all handmade here. If you can imagine, and usually every woman is wearing a wig in the show. So it takes about 40 hours to build a wig by hand, one hair at a time. All that work is done right here on site. We have basically a theater factory where we're putting out a show every month. And, and so we have a fabulous crew of artisans that, that make all of this stuff. And so it's all custom made and it's, it's, and we hire the. The best designers, the best actors, the best directors, they're all work on Broadway and have Broadway credits. If you read our programs, you can read their work around the country. And so what you're seeing here is the caliber of the work is the same that you would see in New York. And when we did the renovation of the, of the theater It was finished in, in 2015. We made sure that the theater was completely state of the art. So we spent about 46 and a half million dollars inside the inside. The outside stayed the same, but the inside completely changed. And it was actually the theater was Jack hammered out. Completely and then rebuilt from the basement up and we have the best technology. We have technology that Broadway doesn't have. Really the best technology you, you can buy. Our, our rigging system is automated instead of a manual system like you'd find on Broadway. The only rigging system like this in the United States is Cirque du Soleil has the same system that

Jonathan: 17:51

Wow.

Dean: 17:52

So it, it is really amazing the stuff that we can do.

Jonathan: 17:55

Yeah, and, and as far as the actual physical performance spaces, can you talk about the size of theater seats, you know, things like that,

Dean: 18:06

So the Hubbard stage is 774 seats. And what's great about that theater is it feels very, very intimate because everything is raked on a high

Jonathan: 18:18

like a pitch, like an angle,

Dean: 18:19

Yeah, so, so, so it's, it's like going into a Coliseum, the old Roman Coliseums, where they're all, they're all pitched and, and so, and it, and it surrounds the stage. So back in the old theater before we did the renovation, 60 percent of, of the audience sat in the back third of the house. Now, 60 percent of the audience sits in the first 11 rows.

Jonathan: 18:42

Wow.

Dean: 18:43

if you take our back row, And you, and you put it in Jones Hall or you put it in Wortham Center, you would still be in the best seats. And so, and that's our back row, because it's just that intimate. It's that intimate. So that's the large theater. The other, the even more intimate is our 300 seat theater that can be done in the round or a proscenium and, and Nina Vance loved that space because her original theater was in the round that she had run up until 68. And so she wanted to keep that feeling. that intimacy and, and there, there are only five rows on each side. So you, you are just five rows from the actors, very intimate and, and, and a terrific theatrical experience.

Jonathan: 19:28

that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So, that renovation was done around 2015, and then of course we had Harvey come through.

Dean: 19:37

Harvey came through. So we, we've been hit twice. We got hit by Allison in 2001

Jonathan: 19:43

I remember that.

Dean: 19:45

and, and flooded this, the 300 seat theater and all the shops that were below. So after that, we moved all the shops up into space. We're on top of the alley parking garage.

Jonathan: 19:58

Right.

Dean: 19:59

We've got 75, 000 square feet up there and that's where we build everything. And then take it down by freight elevator. So but we had renovated the basement and put in dressing rooms and props and storage and and of course the theater. And the water was 15 feet high. We had over 5 million gallons of water in the building.

Jonathan: 20:23

that was from Allison or Harvey?

Dean: 20:25

This is from Harvey.

Jonathan: 20:26

Harvey. Okay, yeah. Which was 2016? 2017. 17. Yeah.

Dean: 20:31

Yeah. Yeah. Or 2016. I guess it was a choice. I guess I always mixed up 2016, 2017. I can never keep track. One of those, one of those

Jonathan: 20:40

Right. Right. After the 46 and a half million

Dean: 20:43

Yeah, it was after it was after the renovation. And and so, you know, we, we fixed that, that we fixed that problem. And then we have waterproofed the entire building. So, so every door that goes into our building is a waterproof door. We have, we have I think five submarine doors below level and we've done everything we can think of to mitigate. Any possible flooding in the future, but yeah, the whole thing was about 28 million. Yeah.

Jonathan: 21:15

Wow. Wow. All, all over again. I mean,

Dean: 21:19

And, and a lot of people don't really, you know, we're a not for profit. So this is, you know money been contributed that pays for all of this thanks to our fabulous patrons. I mean, the alley earns about. 45% of its revenue and 55% comes from contributions. And in fact, all the arts in the theater district are, are all not-for-profits that are heavily subsidized by people's generosity. This is a very generous giving city. We have fabulous foundations and fabulous individuals that really do a great job of, of taking care of the city.

Jonathan: 22:01

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, thank goodness because obviously with millions and millions of people here and then all the visitors and the, the tourists and conventioneers and everybody else who comes, you know, Into the city of Houston gets to, you know, take advantage of those things and and experience the arts and the museums and everything else that Houston has to offer. But I know we're extremely fortunate to be in a very business friendly city, a very successful city. Cosmopolitan business city with a lot of really fantastic, generous folks who really appreciate and want to support the arts. And that goes, you know, individuals and corporations as well, because I'm sure you have a fair amount of corporate support

Dean: 22:44

Yes, that as well. And, you know, I think, you know, you can't have a great city if you don't have great culture. And, and we are very fortunate. Not only, not only of course the performing arts do you have great, but you've got great museums, you've got one of the great, great zoos in the country. So, so we are, we are really fortunate. All this is really due to the philanthropy that is here in the city.

Jonathan: 23:12

So we talked to obviously about some of those the challenges with, with the physical space and the flooding and everything, and you got through all that and back on track and then of course, 2020 happens and we shut most of everything down for the better part of a couple of years, although Houston did sort of come out of it, I would say a little bit. Earlier than than others, and I know other cities around the country have had a harder time bouncing back. You know, we hear a lot in the hospitality industry. Oh, things are Things are back to normal. People are out doing things. They're back in restaurants. They're spending, et cetera, et cetera. I would love to hear your perspective on how things have changed and what continuing challenges you face in the arts industry, the alley specifically now that we have sort of developed into this new normal post COVID in, in the Houston arts and hospitality.

Dean: 24:12

Yes, when, when COVID happened, we had it, it happened for us. We had opened a show on Wednesday. It was in March and we opened 1984. And and then, and then the next day the rodeo was going on and we heard the rodeo had been canceled and was canceled. And we knew if the rodeo is canceled, then that was going to be it for us. So, so we opened a show and closed it the next day. And, and then we were closed you know, for another, for the whole next season. And it was, you know, at the time we thought, Oh, this will be temporary. And, and, you know, and we kept all of our employees employed until June 30th, the end of our fiscal year. And then we realized that, you know, we're never going to be performing for over a year. And we kept 105 people on, which was more. Than any theater in the country kept

Jonathan: 25:07

Wow. Even

Dean: 25:08

our actors on as well. And we did videos and and produced and released to the community for free these, these plays that we had performed with the actors in their homes, all with a camera. And, and we'd stop by and bring lighting and we'd bring them costumes and, and props and drop it by their doorstep. Then they'd get it up. They'd have to set it up. And we we have a videographer on staff who then put everything together and, and we released these videos and, and, and they turned out to be pretty popular. We did our, our version of Christmas Carol was seen by over 250, 000 people. And in all 50 states and 30 different countries

Jonathan: 25:55

Wow. That's

Dean: 25:57

was amazing when

Jonathan: 25:58

No, I mean, and.

Dean: 26:00

you can rent any commercial version, you name the star and or see it for free on your streaming service. And we had, we had 250, 000 people see ours. So that was, that was, that gives you the impact of the alley nationally and internationally.

Jonathan: 26:16

Well, and, you know, like so many other businesses of all different types and varieties, you know, The key word around that time was pivot, right? Everybody was trying to figure out what their pivot was going to be. And I know even from a personal experience, my wife who's in events and as an event director, she, you know, was able to transition all of her. in person events to online virtual events, you know, very similar to what, what you all were able to accomplish. And, you know, to be able to continue to reach people who have a need and want to experience the arts, but not able to do it in person. I mean, obviously you know, it's a great benefit to be able to provide that to them even virtually and even very unconventionally. I'm sure it was very well received by folks who were kind of starving for that interaction.

Dean: 27:07

Yeah. And, and but, but the arts groups were hurt after COVID we, we saw, especially the theater industry of all. Across the country that pretty much the average loss of our subscription base in theater across the country was anywhere from 30 to 50 percent. And for us, for us, it was about 30 and, and we're still working to get people back.

Jonathan: 27:32

Yeah, so that was obviously the next logical question is sort of where is it now, what are the continuing challenges that you face and what do you see going forward? Is it, is it continually coming back slowly, but is it getting there?

Dean: 27:48

well we have, we've recovered in terms of our total audience, but they've turned into single ticket buyers. So our budget in 2019, we kind of use that as the benchmark was about 19 million in our budget. Today's about 23 million. So, so we have, you know, we've come back and come back strong, but we're still suffering from that lack of subscription base. And that's going to take Probably years to, to bring back. If I said anything to your listeners, I'd say, go see, go to the

Jonathan: 28:21

Absolutely.

Dean: 28:22

Doesn't it? I don't care who you support, go to the theater and go to the live events and see stuff. There's an article in the New York times just today. As that said, basically Broadway is still suffering, but concerts are doing fine. Broadway touring is doing fine. And And, you know, on, on a whole the orchestra world seems to be coming back pretty well from where they were. And the ballet world seems to be coming back pretty well. But theater still seems to be, for some reason, the one art form that's still, still having some challenges.

Jonathan: 28:57

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we we certainly want to do everything we possibly can to continue to promote that and encourage people to go experience those live events and support in any way possible. Because it is such an important part of The hospitality industry in general, and then also, as you said, the culture of of the city, which is which is so incredibly important. And so I want to take a one more moment to talk a little bit about the hospitality industry generally. And you've, as you mentioned, been very involved over the years as you were the chair of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is the predecessor of the current Houston Hospitality Alliance and so, you know, I just wanted to get your perspective on the importance of, of that kind of involvement and that service and, and what, you know, these organizations, you know, generally mean, you know, to the city and to the hospitality industry and just kind of the benefits of, of having organizations like these. Sure.

Dean: 30:02

Well we are very fortunate in Houston to have such a strong hospitality industry, quite frankly. Not only do you have the arts, which are such a critical part, hospitality industry, but you, we have seen the number of hotel rooms and the quality of the hotels, I mean, have just skyrocketed. And so we've got price points for everybody here. When, when they added the new Marriott Marquis to the right next to the convention center, what a boost that was to help continue because people like to have, you know, large hotels right next to the convention center. So, so that's been key. I mean, the conventions have grown and grown and grown. We've really done well at bringing people that people realizing that Houston is a. fabulous city to visit. And, and then as we've, as we mentioned, the cuisine and the restaurant business is just unbelievable. And, and you can have just so much fun. We have our actors, our combination of local actors and out of town actors. And I hosted dinner to welcome the, the company. We just had a welcoming last night for our production of Jane Eyre. And, and. The people that are, that come in from out of town are just blown away by what Houston has to offer. And, and I've had, I've had new employees and I'll just never forget, I just recently hired a new employee and his wife and touring them around and they kept saying, what a clean city. They came from Philadelphia. What a clean city. This city is beautiful. I can't believe how clean the city is. This is really beautiful. Everything about it is beautiful.

Jonathan: 31:45

that's great. That's great. And, you know, we, we, we don't often get that in, in terms of not necessarily being thought of as a true tourist town. You know, much more of a business centric, convention centric city. But I think the word is getting out that it really does have great things to offer for tourism just in general, that that's not necessarily business or convention related. And it's getting better all the time, which is fantastic. Um, all right, well, let's. Let's wrap this up with our three questions. All right, I'm going to put you on the spot. For somebody in your position and having been in the arts basically your entire life where do you like to go? What is your favorite travel destination and why?

Dean: 32:36

In the United States or around the

Jonathan: 32:38

Could be anywhere, anywhere that you would go back to tomorrow if you had the opportunity.

Dean: 32:44

Well, I, you know, I spend a lot of time in New York going to theater. And, and so I, I love going to New York and both my kids live in, in New York. So, so I do visit New York a lot, but, but I mean, for really I think the best in theater is actually in London. London has. fabulous theater and, and and I love the city of London. It's just so easy to get around and walkable and, and charming and that. So the, those would be my, my two theater destinations.

Jonathan: 33:15

That's great. That's great. I my stepson is up in New York City right now as well. So we were just there last month and I agree. It's, it's a great place to go visit and certainly participate in the, in the theater scene up there as well. It's fantastic. Okay. Number two. What is your opinion of the best reason for people to come and visit Houston? Beyond just, beyond just

Dean: 33:42

mean, beyond the arts, I think That's the number one reason.

Jonathan: 33:47

Well, that's an easy

Dean: 33:48

great about the arts is, you know, you've got, you've got some of the greatest museums in the world, whether you go to the Menil or MFAH, or you go to the Natural Science Museum. Those, you do that during the day, and then you go see theater or the symphony or the ballet or the opera at night. How could you beat that?

Jonathan: 34:09

No, I think, I think you're absolutely right. And you throw in a couple great restaurants and, and there's your

Dean: 34:13

Right. And you got to eat, right? So you got fabulous restaurants.

Jonathan: 34:16

Yeah, I think, you know, I've talked to a number of folks over the years, and I think the arts scene in Houston has been underappreciated for a long time. We know how good it is here, but I think it is now starting to get its recognition that has been overdue for a long time. And you know, we're really excited about being able to help You know, promote that as much as possible far and wide. So, last question for you, Mr. Dean Gladden. What is the most important thing that you would say you've learned in your business career, obviously your business of the arts career, something that you would want to pass along to anybody who's interested in following your footsteps or wanting to get into the business? What is your best piece of advice?

Dean: 35:06

My best piece of advice is advice that I got when I was in high school working at a dairy drive in. And I was a freshman and a senior guy said to me, and he said to me, you know, when you work, you, if you have the mentality of, if I own this business, How would I want my employees to act or what would I want my employees to do? And if everybody just pretends that they owned the business and act accordingly, it would be, you'd have a great workforce.

Jonathan: 35:40

I think that's great. I think that makes perfect sense. And you know, it's definitely words to live by and in the business world for sure. Well, that concludes our. Interview for today, but I want to take a moment to thank you, Dean Gladden from the Alley Theater, Managing Director there for your time, your insights, the history, and your thoughts on all things Houston Hospitality. And of course, many thanks to the Houston Hospitality Alliance for continuing to connect, educate. Promote and advocate for the entire Houston hospitality community. You all can get more information about the HHA at www. houstonhospitalityalliance. com. Please join us next time as we continue to explore the people and the businesses behind Houston's diverse and renowned hospitality industry. Thank you for joining us.