The art scene in Phoenix is well established at this point.
Independent artists flock to spaces on Grand Avenue and Roosevelt Street to showcase their work. The Arizona Opera has been around for more than 50 years, performing everything from classics like “The Barber of Seville” to the more contemporary “Frankenstein.”
The Phoenix Art Museum is the largest art museum in the Southwest and is currently running an exhibit of Keith Haring pieces. The Phoenix Theatre Company has been putting on shows for more than 100 years, making it the oldest continually operating theater west of the Mississippi.
A titan in Arizona arts turned 60 this year. Locals might know it as the “pink birthday cake,” but everyone knows it as ASU Gammage. Opened in 1964, Gammage is the only public building Frank Lloyd Wright made in Arizona. In partnership with his good friend and president of Arizona State University at the time, Grady Gammage, the renowned architect took plans originally for an opera house in Baghdad to create the university’s performing arts space.
This week on Valley 101, a podcast by The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com, we sit down with the executive director of ASU Gammage Colleen Jennings-Roggensack to talk about the history of the theater and the magic it has kept for 60 years.
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She tells Valley 101 inside stories about working with NASA engineers to innovate the theater, her admiration for Wright’s dedication to the desert and how she brought Gammage into the modern day.
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