By
Shaun Clayton
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA Theater arts verteran to leave after 10 years
Julia DeHesus is making her final curtain call.
After having devoted 10 years of hard work and fundraising to the UA theater arts department, DeHesus will step down as its director of marketing and development on Feb. 16.
"I like her. I think she's really good at what she does, and I'm disappointed that she's not going to be here," said Marroney Theater box office employee and theater arts senior Carin Galanter.
DeHesus will leave the University of Arizona to become the head of the MFA theater management program at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.
"The reason I'm taking the new job is that it's an opportunity to move from an academic professional position to head up an MFA program in my own discipline," DeHesus said. "Although I teach theater management courses here in the department of theater arts, we really don't have a formal theater management program in the undergraduate or graduate level. That may happen someday, but this opportunity came up, and I think I'm ready to take it now and start there and help build that program."
As director of marketing and development, DeHesus' current duties include supervising the box office manager, who oversees the box offices for music, theater and dance. She also works as a media and public relations liaison and brings money into the department through fundraising and promotion.
The decision to leave was not an easy one for DeHesus. She has worked at the UA since July of 1991, a year after receiving her doctorate in fine arts from Texas Tech University. At the time, she was working as the marketing director for the University of Vermont theater department.
DeHesus's decision to leave Vermont for her position at UA is similar to her reason for leaving UA now - it was a great opportunity.
"This position came up, and I said to myself, 'Well, if I'm going to be at a university I want to be at a university that has a very strong, professionally oriented theater training program.' That was really one of the keys (to coming to UA)," she said.
DeHesus added that "the other key" was that she had family who were living in Arizona.
"I'm not from Arizona, but I had a sister who had just taken a position in Phoenix, and I thought that if I had to move cross-country again, I would want to be close to family," she said.
DeHesus said the first year in her position at UA was not an easy one. The Fine Arts Complex, as it is known today, was in the midst of construction, and the only open theater at the time, the Marroney Theater, was surrounded with fences and barbed wire. DeHesus quickly worked to raise public awareness that the theater, despite its unfriendly exterior, was still presenting performances.
In the years that followed, DeHesus' efforts helped to triple the earned income of the department as well as double ticket sales, each performance selling to near capacity. She has also made it possible for the theater department to put on six mainstage plays per season with 16 performances of each play, up from four plays per season with only eight or nine performances per play 10 years ago.
"We've been able to grow in the number of performances that kept up with the demand that was there," DeHesus said. "It was a natural evolution as we became more popular."
DeHesus also stepped up the professionalism of the advertising campaign for the theater, a move that won the theater arts season campaign a 2000 Addy, an award given annually by the Tucson Advertising Federation for excellence in professional advertising.
"We professionalized the look of our promotional materials, going from some very nice looking, basic brochures to a professional look with professional graphic designers," DeHesus said.
Thanks in part to her efforts, DeHesus said she considers her time at the UA on par with working at a professional theater.
"I really love the department of theater arts here," she said. "I think in lieu of being at a professional theater, I could not be in a better position in an academic institution. My work here at the UA is exactly the kind of stuff that I would be doing if I was working for a professional theater, and that is to the credit of the department. I hope I'm leaving this department in good hands."
The theater department has not yet filled the space that will be left by DeHesus. A national search will begin soon, with the position likely to be filled by July. Until then, DeHesus' duties will be handled by the marketing and development members of the theater arts faculty.
DeHesus will not be an easy person to replace, however, and theater arts faculty are mindful of the great asset that the department had in her.
"She's been involved with many different aspects of embracing the community and making people who come to the theater feel welcome," said Albert Tucci, head of the theater arts department. "She's brought a very professional caliber to everything that we do in marketing ... she's been a great strength, and she'll be greatly missed."
