The staff and supporters of the Alberta Bair Theater are going to celebrate the tenure of William “Woody” Wood the way many theater goers remember him: on the stage, welcoming the crowd, and reminding them to turn off or silence their cell phone.
Wood is leaving Billings in July to join the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts and the Albert L. Lorenzo Cultural Center in Michigan as its director of cultural affairs.
Wood has been executive director at the ABT for nearly a decade.
“Shortly after I arrived the economy tanked,” he says.
Wood arrived in Billings during the winter of 2008, at the beginning of what has since been dubbed the great recession.
He says it was a struggle, but with the help of the community, sacrifices of the staff and the organization, the Alberta Bair Theatre survived.
“That’s what I am most proud of,” he says. “Just being able to keep this organization healthy and strong through that time so that now we’re talking about that capital campaign, we’re talking about moving forward. We’re talking about how we can be a vibrant part of this community for the next 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-years. There were some dark days in there where everybody was worried.”
That’s in stark contrast to hundreds of other performing arts organizations across the country that went dark, some for good.
“They never even dimmed,” Wood says of the ABT.
In fact, the ABT has thrived. For example, this past season, the theater had the most sell-out performances
in history, including the recent appearance by Garrison Keillor of Prairie Home Companion fame.
Wood says he’s proud how the cultural community in Billings has come together to improve the quality of life.
“And if you don’t have those things, you’re not going to get quality doctors and the quality jobs that follow,” he says. He says ABT alone generates $10 million a year for the region.
Wood is leaving just as the ABT is poised to launch a $10 million capital campaign to renovate and expand. That weighed on Wood’s mind as he considered his future.
“I struggled with that a lot when I made this decision,” he says. “You don’t get to choose when opportunities knock on your door. And I probably wouldn’t have chosen this time to leave but this opportunity just presented itself and I know as I am leaving I’m leaving this organization very strong and in very capable hands.”
Wood says his return to Michigan is another step in his professional career and it puts him closer to family.
The Alberta Bair staff and board will throw a party in honor of Woody Wood July 29, 2016 from 4-6 pm on the stage at the ABT.