Her official title is development director of Arizona Theatre Company, but Leslie Freed is still an educator at heart. She loves introducing people to the behind-the-scenes world of the theater, where costumes are sewn, sets are built and magic happens.
Throughout her career with museums and nonprofit organizations, her focus has been on sharing knowledge, history and culture. She also has a talent for raising money to ensure that those stories continue to be told.
“So many people who come to the theater – realize that we build the sets here [in Tucson], and we build them specifically to be transported up to our other venue in Phoenix,” says Leslie. ATC’s shows usually open at the historic Temple of Music and Art in downtown Tucson and then travel up I-10 for a run at the Herberger Theater Center in downtown Phoenix. “Our costume shop, our scene shop, everything is done in Tucson. I love taking donors – or anyone – behind the scenes. They can meet the artisans that create all of this. That’s my favorite part.”
As ATC is poised to open its 50th season this fall, Leslie says, “We want to do it justice, celebrating the fact that we’ve been in existence for 50 years. We’re going to have a very special season, and a lot of surprises and good things.” Although Leslie has been with ATC for only two of those years, the excitement in her voice belies her passion for the organization.
Before bringing that passion to nonprofit leadership, Leslie channeled it into education, earning her the Texas Teacher of the Year award from the Academy of Mathematics and Sciences in 1995. “I was nominated by a student’s parents. She and her family had moved to El Paso from China – her father was a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso – and she spoke no English,” Leslie says. “By the end of the school year, she was fluent in English and I’d had her teach Chinese to her classmates. She went on to medical school and became a doctor. I was so proud of her.”
Involved in the nonprofit world as a volunteer for years, Leslie eventually found herself pulled into a professional role. In 1998, while volunteering with the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center, she helped plan the annual fundraising dinner, which featured retired Army General Colin Powell as the guest speaker. Just days before the event, the museum’s program director quit and Leslie was asked to step in and manage the dinner. She must have pulled it off, because she was then offered the position of program director.
For the next four years, Leslie coordinated all of the EPHM’s events, including a semi-annual teacher training conference and the annual community-wide Days of Remembrance commemorations. She also organized fundraisers, bringing in world renowned speakers such as Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Christopher Reeve. But in 2001, an electrical malfunction in one of the museum’s interactive exhibits set off a fire that burned the museum down.
“Because it occurred after the museum was closed, and it was three weeks after 9/11, obviously there was a thorough investigation, but it proved to be due to the malfunction,” says Leslie. Faced with the opportunity and challenge of rebuilding, Leslie was promoted to executive director and tasked with a $2 million capital campaign. She successfully surpassed the fundraising goal by $400,000 – with most of the money coming from within the El Paso community. But that wasn’t her sole accomplishment. In 2003, she helped found the Texas Coalition for Holocaust Education.
In 2008, the museum reopened in a new, larger facility in El Paso’s downtown museum corridor and Leslie was named El Paso Businesswoman of the Year. Then, ready to turn the reins over and move onto something else, Leslie retired.
In 2012, she moved to Tucson to be with her children, Yaxha Ruvein (logic and English literature teacher at BASIS Tucson North) and Bryan Davis (director of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s Holocaust Education and Commemoration Project, and interim executive director of the Jewish History Museum and Holocaust History Center), and granddaughters, Emberly, Djuna and Zola. And she found Tucson to be very welcoming. “It’s hard at my age to pick up and move to a new community, but I’ve made good friends. I love living here. It’s a good fit,” Leslie says.
She quickly got involved with the Jewish community, volunteering with Mitzvah Magic, a program of JFSA’s Women’s Philanthropy and Jewish Family & Children’s Services and, not surprisingly, with the JHM and HHC. However, Leslie was soon eager for something more demanding.
“I found out that I retired way too soon,” Leslie says. “I loved working too much.” So she took on the role of development director for the 390th Memorial Museum Foundation. Located on the grounds of the Pima Air & Space Museum, it honors the World War II heroics of the 390th Bomb Group and features a fully restored B-17 “flying fortress.”
“It went through a major renovation while I was there,” says Leslie. “It’s really an absolutely fascinating museum. It interested me to still be in a museum atmosphere, and with my background at the Holocaust museum, I could bring a lot of history to that museum as well.”
When the spot for development director opened up at ATC, Leslie felt ready for a new challenge. “I enjoy meeting people and seeing how much they enjoy coming to the theater,” she says. “The more I learn about ATC, the more I see the quality of the productions and everything that goes into it, the professionalism; it just reels you in.”
Leslie’s recommendations for ATC’s spring productions include John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” (Tucson, March 5-26; Phoenix, March 31-April 17) and “The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord” (Tucson, April 9-30; Phoenix, May 5-29), a comedy by Scott Carter. As for the upcoming 50th season, Leslie says we should prepare to be amazed.
