The congressman, who announced his coming departure in the first week of February after a 19-year tenure, will be formally presented this morning as the next president and chief executive officer of Shea’s Performing Arts Center, confirming what’s been the most poorly kept secret in Buffalo for weeks.

“There is a lot of theater nowadays in Congress,” Higgins told The Buffalo News. “The actors at Shea’s are professional. The actors in Congress, where it’s become increasingly more performative, are not.”

Higgins is leaving his seat in the 535-member House of Representatives to take the helm of the 3,019-seat Shea’s Buffalo Theatre, one of Buffalo’s most popular and well-attended cultural attractions, and two smaller venues, Shea’s Smith Theater and Shea’s 710 Theatre. A student of history, the congressman sees much in common between the theater and representative government.

“Theater has been an essential art form of democracy,” Higgins said, reaching back to Athens, Greece, in the sixth century BC to make his point.

Jonathan Dandes, elected chairman of Shea’s earlier this month, said Higgins was chosen from an extended process guided by a national search firm.

Shea’s search committee, chaired by Dr. Toni Vazquez, included board members and nonmembers alike. More than 100 initial responses were eventually pared to three finalists.

“Brian talked about his love for Shea’s and made believers of everybody,” Dandes said. “Our vision was so closely aligned in terms of what Shea’s is supposed to be all about that it was, quite frankly, a slam dunk.”

Higgins, who holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from SUNY Buffalo State University and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, was the unanimous choice, Dandes said.

Dandes said it was “liberating” to finally go public about Higgins’ appointment.

“This announcement has been made multiple times when everyone who knew was being sworn to secrecy. If you want to keep a secret with three people, two of them have to die,” Dandes laughed.

Higgins succeeds Michael Murphy, who was fired in October 2022 after six years as president. Employee complaints about his management style led to a large number of staff resignations during the tumultuous year, and the departure of five trustees after action wasn’t taken sooner against Murphy. M&T Bank withdrew its decadeslong sponsorship, since replaced by Five Star Bank.

Robert Brunschmid, Shea’s director of operations, told the Common Council in April that the theater instituted a series of changes and “was confident of continued progress.”

“Our new board, who are some holdovers and some new members, have really taken the challenge of Shea’s in all of its elements with great enthusiasm and expertise, and we’re lucky to have the board membership we do,” Dandes said.

Higgins said he’s excited to work in a 1926 theater designed by Rapp & Rapp, one of the handful of great movie-palace designers, with rare interior offerings by Louis Comfort Tiffany. He comes to Shea’s with the theater in solid financial health and the Broadway season at Shea’s Buffalo Theatre fully recovered from the pandemic.

The 2023-2024 season has 16,500 season subscribers, second only to the 2018-2019 season, when the offering of “Hamilton” – which Dandes called a “force of nature” – helped attract 18,474 subscribers.

For years now, Shea’s has been one of the leading touring Broadway theaters in the United States, which was made possible by the stage expansion in 1999.

“The staff and senior management at Shea’s have done an extraordinary job over the past 12 months or more,” Higgins said. “They are deserving of a leader who will allow them to be their authentic selves without fear or apprehension.”

Higgins said the average amount of time his staffers have worked with him is 10 years, compared to Congressional staffers who stay on their job in Washington, D.C., an average of three years.

“I have learned that the people who work with you are invaluable, and no vision can be realized without everybody believing in it,” he said.

High on Higgins’ to-do list is taking advantage of federal funding opportunities to bring more resources for all three theaters, and to use state and federal historic tax credits for projects at Shea’s Buffalo Theatre, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Higgins also wants to expand the theater’s reach into Southern Ontario, noting less than 1% of subscribers are Canadian.

He also wants to revitalize the Theatre District, founded in 1978.

“Shea’s is magical,” he said. “But the magical experience doesn’t start until you get in the building.”

Higgins has a deep family connection to theater. His uncle, Michael Breen, who had extensive acting and directing credits in Western New York, lived with the Higgins family throughout Brian Higgins’ childhood and beyond.

“He brought literature and arts and theater into our lives,” Higgins said. “He instilled in me a great appreciation for them.”

Matthew Crehan Higgins, Brian Higgins’ nephew and godson, also acts in Buffalo.

“I don’t claim to be of the theater, but I have people close to me who are,” Higgins said.

As a youth, Higgins was enchanted attending matinees at another Shea’s movie house – Shea’s Seneca Theatre, before the venue was demolished in 1970.

The movie theater was surrounded by shoe stores, dress shops, men’s shops and restaurants still populating Seneca Street on what was South Buffalo’s main commercial strip.

Coincidentally, Higgins’ father, Daniel Higgins Sr., a South District Council Member in 1978, voted to help Friends of Buffalo Theatre, which was trying to save the theater and stave off demolition. That group would later evolve into Shea’s O’Connell Preservation Guild, the nonprofit organization that since 1980 has operated the city-owned building.

Higgins finds a similar allure in Shea’s Buffalo Theatre, and proudly recalled when musician Bonnie Raitt, after he introduced himself to her backstage years ago in Washington, said without being prompted that Shea’s was one of the most beautiful touring venues she had ever played.

Higgins favorite memory at Shea’s isn’t attending a musical, but a rock concert – Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band’s 1978 “Darkness on the Edge of Town” tour.

A big part of Higgins’ job, given his name recognition, contacts and knowledge of the ways of Washington, will be fundraising.

Dandes said the board is looking forward to making progress on raising the funds needed to install elevators and add bathrooms and other amenities to Shea’s Buffalo Theatre’s mezzanine and balcony levels. The fundraising effort came to a halt during the pandemic.

“If you are a special-needs person, or have trouble with mobility, Shea’s is tough to get in and out of,” Dandes said.

The selection of touring Broadway shows and other programming will continue to be done by Albert Nocciolino, Shea’s co-presenter and Tony award-winning producer.

“We don’t need someone to book Broadway shows,” Dandes said. “Albert epitomizes Shea’s Buffalo Theatre, and we are very fortunate to have him.”

Higgins also won’t need to worry about a roof – it was replaced in September by the city for $3 million as part of the theater’s lease. The theater also completed a yearslong full restoration in 2016 under former President and CEO Anthony Conte and restoration consultant Doris Collins.

Still, Dandes said, “the beauty of Shea’s is dependent every year on the ability to maintain it.”