Hillary Schave
Sandra Gajic’s journey from her childhood in Yugoslavia to a windowed office at Overture Center for the Arts is an immigrant’s story, a tale of resilience and perseverance.
It’s also a love story — about the performing arts. Overture’s new CEO and president is a lifelong opera fan who lights up when talking about the magic of live performance, and a veteran arts administrator.
Gajic is the first woman to head Overture, an organization with a rocky financial history and at least one scandal (former Overture president Robert D’Angelo settled sexual harassment lawsuits and spent time in federal prison for tax evasion and using his office to run private businesses). She assumed her new position in September, replacing universally loved Ted DeDee, who retired in the spring.
Gajic, who holds degrees in piano and economics from the University of Belgrade, started at Overture in late September, quickly settling into a Madison routine. She starts her morning by walking from her apartment on East Wilson Street to Ancora Coffee Roasters on King Street. She orders a plain bagel and coffee and reads The New York Times.
From there, she continues on to her second-floor office at Overture, dropping off the Times in a conference room for her colleagues to read.
Her mornings are not unlike they were in her last home in Vancouver, British Columbia. “It’s lovely,” says Gajic. “It’s a brief walk here and back, and I love it. It’s easy. I’m on my own, so I want a simple life. I don’t want a commute. In Vancouver, I didn’t even have a car.”
That was a lifestyle choice, of course. And these days, as Gajic well knows, downtown living is a privilege. But the biggest choice she ever made — the decision to leave Belgrade as the former Yugoslavia was breaking up in 1990 — was one of necessity. “I left the country as it economically and politically became difficult and unstable. That was just before the war started, and I was already on my own,” recalls Gajic, now 65. “I was divorced with two kids, and I couldn’t see a future for my kids. When I left to come [to North America], my kids were 10 and 12. We landed in Toronto, the three of us, knowing nobody and with no money, and we built a life.”
It wasn’t the first time she had to lean on her resourcefulness to survive. In the mid-1980s she and her ex-husband moved with two small children to Libya, where he worked as an engineer on a major port construction project. Women were virtually invisible; she never saw another woman driving or shopping. She ran a small daycare before finding a job with a Dutch consulting firm. But first she needed to arrange childcare for the kids and teach herself English — from a tiny booklet. “My English was pathetic; I could barely speak anything,” she says. “So I learned English from the Dutch.” She has studied a number of languages, including English, Croatian, Serbian, Italian, French and Spanish.
“So I really developed that sense of resiliency, finding solutions in a very difficult country,” says Gajic. “That’s what broke my marriage, too. I had a partner that didn’t know how to deal with any of it.” She returned to Belgrade with her children in 1988, where they faced shortages of food, water and electricity. “I had to be resourceful for all of us and find solutions for us as a family.”
She decided to leave Belgrade for good.
Gajic in 1991 with her daughter promoting Canadian Opera Company’s free outdoor summer event, “Operamania.”
In Toronto, she says, “Like any new immigrant, I immediately started looking for a job, took the kids to school. Within a week, I started working as a receptionist at a fitness club.” A week later, she took a second job at a small nonprofit, teaching business to young people. Then she answered an ad for an evening telemarketing job at the Canadian Opera Company. “I thought, ‘This is perfect. I’ll make extra money, and I’ll get free tickets for the opera for me and my kids.’” She would get home at 9:30 p.m., and have dinner with her son and daughter. “My kids were wonderful — very responsible, good kids,” says Gajic. After just three months she was offered a full-time position. “I was totally surprised,” says Gajic. “That was my dream, to have just that one job. So that’s how I got into the arts; it was more or less serendipity.”
She traces her love of opera back to childhood. “I come to it honestly. My grandmother used to play piano, and she would sing and she loved the opera, so I always associated love of opera with her — an amazing woman,” says Gajic. “And she instilled that love of classical music in me. I did study piano. And later in Toronto, I taught piano for years, as an extra source of revenue for us.” She also enjoys painting.
Gajic spent 16 years with the Canadian Opera Company before moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, where, for the past four years, she ran Vancouver City Theatres, a city-owned arts complex. During her tenure there she remembers coming to Madison for a conference and seeing Overture for the first time.
“It’s an unexpected space for a city of this size. It’s amazing, it’s wonderful. So that was my first reaction; this is phenomenal,” says Gajic.
Now at the helm of that amazing space, her thoughts wander to other things: “How do we fill these seats? What’s the programming that a city of this size wants to see? What’s the strength of the arts sector that can fill those houses?”
Remember the People’s Arts District? It was a group of outsider artists that organized in the early 2000s to oppose plans spurred by philanthropist Jerry Frautschi to create a downtown arts center (Frautschi’s initial $50 million gift grew over the next few years to a record-breaking $205 million). The opposition didn’t stop Overture, but reactions were strong. The year the gift was announced, Mercury Players’ former artistic director asked my husband, Andrew Rohn, and me to write an “anti-Overture” musical to perform at the Bartell. We wrote an anti-corporate musical, Walmartopia, instead. The show had plenty of jabs about Overture; we called the arts center “Wal-Arts,” as a (okay, rather obvious) reference to the corporatization of art.
In 2006, the artistic leadership of Mercury Players Theatre had a bitter fight when we wanted to perform Walmartopia at Overture, which opened in September 2004. They dumped us, and StageQ stepped in to produce it at the Capitol Theater; by my reckoning, it might be the only locally written musical performed at Overture.
Young Sandra, center, with her mother, Tonka Gajic, left, and paternal grandmother (and piano player) Angela Barabas.
I share a bit of this story with Gajic as context for these concerns — some of which exist for any large arts facility. But when a $200 million building dominates downtown, it seems like the obvious question is “Is this really for me?” Artists, especially those struggling to live in a place with some of the lowest arts funding levels in the nation, want to know: Will it help build and sustain artistic careers? Will artists be able to afford a ticket to see other performers?
Gajic ponders for a minute before answering. “I understand those concerns, or discontent,” she says. “So, what we as a senior team started talking about and working toward is to start creating residency programs for small theater companies.” In Vancouver, she explains, Civic Theaters funded a residency in a 200-seat black-box theater, somewhat similar to Promenade Hall. “We did a two-year program, and the theater itself funded it. Five theater companies got free access to two years, and they created a season.”
She has other ideas, too, including opening the Rotunda Studio, where Kids in the Rotunda takes place on Saturdays, to more performances. “We need to start opening the spaces to young musicians. We are looking at having a late-night after-hours all-ages venue,” says Gajic. “To me, it’s painful to see dark spaces. So, putting light into them, giving them to the community, is what we need to do. And we will be doing it. We just need to find out how to do it, and put it in our budget.” I mention the idea of welcoming buskers, or street performers, into the building; she jots it down.
Madison’s pronounced racial disparities loom large in Gajic’s mind, too. And she understands the role the arts have to play in creating inclusive spaces. “I see our responsibility is to actually do something about that disparity, and I know people are already doing a lot — but not enough,” says Gajic. “Part of our mission is really to be a full member of the community. I always feel that my role is to be a civil servant. And what is our civic purpose? And how can we also balance the financial side of it?”
In 2016, prior to Gajic’s hire, Overture hired Dr. Ed Holmes, a former principal at West High School, as the organization’s first director of diversity and inclusion. Overture continues to expand its multicultural programming and hosts a roster of teaching artists who go into classrooms to teach everything from storytelling to dance and quilting. This June, Overture will host the Midwest Arts Integration Conference, exploring ways to implement arts-based learning in classrooms. In October, Overture and local tech company Zendesk hosted an intense one-day workshop, “Paths to Inclusion,” aimed at arts and tech leaders. The keynote speaker, Tanya Odom, is a world-renowned expert on racism and unconscious bias.
In short, when it comes to inclusion, Overture is getting its own house in order. “We really need to start changing from within,” says Gajic. “We can’t start delivering programs just because it’s a cool thing to do. It’s not a cool thing to do — it’s a thing to do. We believe in that. I believe personally in that. Yes, Madison is two cities, and our job, our responsibility is to bridge that. And not just to bring people in and give them free tickets, but to also go there.”
By “go there,” she means expanding beyond Overture’s walls. “The vision is to really start expanding our programming outside Overture Center, and how can we bridge the need in the community that’s in other parts of the community — whether it’s south Madison or east or northeast,” she says. “We have a great roster of artists and teachers that are part of our tribe, so to speak, and we will start delivering programs in other communities.”
Gajic with Dr. Ed Holmes, Overture’s director of diversity & inclusion. The two work in adjacent offices.
She is also excited to welcome three new interns to Overture’s offices. “One of them will be dedicated to the community engagement program. The three young people that are coming are from very diverse backgrounds. One is from Mexico, the other is from Eritrea, and the other is African American. We are going to be embedding them in different departments,” she says.
“This is not a place for rich, white people,” adds Gajic. “I want everyone to be welcome and part of our family. Providing that all-inclusive and equitable access is our mandate.”
Also a mandate: surviving financially. Gajic says running a performing arts business relies on a “complex business model.”
In 2012, Overture became a private nonprofit. According to its latest “Report to the Community,” from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018, Overture’s revenues topped $18 million. Broadway and Overture Presents ticket sales account for nearly half of that — 46 percent. Nineteen percent is from contributions, grants and sponsorships;10 percent comes from fees from the 10 resident companies, and another 10 percent from an annual $1.9 million grant from the city of Madison; the rest is derived from promoter fees, room rentals and outreach programs.
“You have 600,000 people coming annually to our building,” explains Gajic. Half of those patrons are not paying for tickets, thanks to free programming and subsidized ticket programs. This is both a benefit — in terms of accessibility and inclusion — and a challenge when it comes to funding the center.
Some of the shows nearest and dearest to Gajic’s heart are budget drains. “We want to take some more artistic risks and bring some edgier productions,” she says. “We need to balance what we can sell and what we need to find funding for. If it has great artistic merit or it’s a social justice theme, we need to find funding for it, whether it’s from our own earned revenue or from corporate or individual philanthropy.”
Gajic hopes to boost attendance for international performers like the Soweto Gospel Choir, a 2019 Grammy-winning ensemble that visited in November.
She wants to raise the profile of Overture’s international offerings, which she calls “pieces of the world,” like the Soweto Gospel Choir or Ballet Folklorico de Mexico. “It breaks my heart that people don’t buy tickets for that,” says Gajic. “Why is it when the world comes here, people are not that curious?” Prices for those shows are a bargain compared to the Broadway series, but Overture tends to lose money by programming them. Gajic wants to solve this puzzle. “We see it as our investment to the community. So even when we are finalizing the programming for next season, we know that at least half of our programming that we are bringing will not be generating money, not even covering its own expenses. We hope people will buy the glass of wine or beer and take it with them into the theater, because that definitely helps.”
Anne Katz, executive director of Arts Wisconsin, understands the balancing act Gajic is undertaking. “I think she is smart, savvy, has a good sense of humor, and, from what I can tell she already understands the need to make money and to keep broadening Overture’s opportunities for engagement,” says Katz. “I think she’s the right person to keep making the case that Overture is a community organization that benefits the whole community, and doing that in a practical, smart, thoughtful way.”
Overture is already 15 years old (with some parts much older) and it needs attention. “There are mechanical systems that are the original, still from the ’80s that have not been replaced,” says Gajic. “This is not sexy talk. Not something anyone wants to invest in. So that’s the challenge, to find the money, whether it’s the facade — that’s really showing the signs of aging in this climate — or some major capital replacement or repair projects that will require our attention.” She also wants Overture to overhaul its website and expand its digital footprint, including providing broadcasts or simulcasts of shows.
For the moment, says Gajic, Overture is on stable ground financially. “But we don’t have a contingency in case something goes bad,” says Gajic. “We have a tiny endowment, so we will need to build that. The five-year plan is to create that endowment that will save us from the vagaries of the market and help us remain here for the next 100 years — so we are financially stable, we are vital, we are sustainable.”
Part of remaining vital is listening to the audience. Recent market research revealed (big surprise) that people want more food and beverages available during their entertainment. “It really has become a worldwide trend that you take your drink inside the theater. It used to be sacrilegious that you would take a glass of wine and listen to the opera, but times have changed, and audiences expect that, and they are asking for it, so we need to just get on with the times,” says Gajic.
One person who’s grateful for the changing attitude and policy is Jennifer Uphoff Gray, artistic director of Forward Theater Company, one of Overture’s resident companies. Since Gajic arrived, Overture has opened up the bar during Forward’s shows in the Playhouse, which Gray says makes a difference. “She has a passion for making the building itself a more welcoming place where people want to spend time. People will socialize more, and those little things make a difference in how people feel about coming to Overture.
A perfect Saturday for Gajic: Work a little, then take a break to watch Kids in the Rotunda.
“Whenever I’m in the building, it seems like she’s there,” adds Gray. “She’s really rolled up her sleeves. It’s lovely to find her in all the nooks and crannies.” Gajic admits there’s nothing she loves more than being at Overture.
She’s effusive about Madison’s talent pool. “The quality of work of the resident companies is really higher than what you would expect in a city of this size,” says Gajic. “Whether it’s the symphony, CTM, Kanopy Dance, or Forward Theater. Whatever I am seeing, it’s really, really great work. The city has lots to be proud of.”
Asking her to choose a memorable performance is like asking a parent to choose a favorite. “I love them all. I love the variety. I’m a kid in a toy store. For me, toys are everywhere,” says Gajic. “People ask me what’s my favorite opera. I’m a diver, and they ask me what’s my favorite dive. It’s the one I’m in. I get excited about being in the audience with other people, experiencing that moment, that magic of live performance.”
She likes working on Saturdays because of the free Kids in the Rotunda shows. “I love it. I love seeing kids and families. On Saturdays, I do a little bit of work, then I go down to see a performance, then I go up again,” says Gajic. “It’s my favorite Saturday pastime. That — coupled with the Farmers’ Market — is a perfect Saturday.”
