Meet the Board: Anna Cross
New WAA board member Anna Cross is the Cultural Arts Manager at City of Tracy
Tell us a bit about your organization and what your role involves.
I manage programs and operations for the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts, and I oversee the Cultural Arts Division for the City Manager's office.
Anna Cross
As part of the historic downtown of Tracy, we're an anchor for the redevelopment of the cultural district. We have several areas of activity here in Cultural Arts, including our presenting season which primarily uses our 549-seat historic Grand Theatre and includes everything from local and regional performing arts groups to Grammy Award-winning international musicians! We also have our Studio Theatre, used mostly for comedy and open mic nights. Our Exhibition Program rotates work in three public art galleries and our Civic Art Program operates in public spaces throughout the city. In addition, our Arts Education Program offers music, dance, and visual art classes for all ages in our eight arts education studios. We coordinate with our non-profit fundraising partner, the Grand Foundation, for events and initiatives throughout the year and oversee the City of Tracy’s Arts Commission with whom we work with for special events such as ArtWalks.
Working in this capacity — in a civic role, for cities and municipalities, where the arts are not the main order of business – means that a lot of my work is about educating the public as well as the staff of the various departments within the city, really advocating for the arts and communicating the benefit we bring to the community.
Working in community is also a key part of what I do and is essential to the programming piece of my job.
How does that civic role impact your programming? How does it compare to programming in other contexts?
At UCLA, where I began my career and had an amazing ten years of learning and experience under some of the best in the business, we were programming somewhat for the student contingency, of course, and thinking about engagement of students — so there are some similarities. My work mostly involved very outward facing programs aimed at bringing people onto campus. Often a university gets to be a little bit more intellectual around programming, with the ability to program experimental or more esoteric projects, which is great!
Working in a municipal setting calls for a pretty different function, and that is about responding to what the community wants — you absolutely have to program for who you're serving and think about how to reach those that haven’t realized this venue is theirs! Our jobs here are publicly funded, so it's incredibly important to do the listening, the surveys, and going into community and having those conversations.
As part of kicking off a new season, I attend a lot of community meetings with all kinds of organizations, getting their feedback on what we are offering. There is so much opportunity for direct contact with the community we serve, which I love and is absolutely at the heart of what we do.
How does that function intersect with the theater’s own programming goals or focus?
What we are really focused on right now is finding ways to represent people on our stage who have not been represented before. This is a conversation we've all been having in our field, especially in the last few years, but that conversation isn’t necessarily the same in all the communities in California or across the whole West, so there’s a bit of a different approach than being in, say, San Francisco or LA.
As a publicly funded arts center, it’s important to have balance in our programs. And there's an opportunity to talk to folks about it: “We're shifting programming and here's why, and this is how it will benefit the community as whole.” People usually understand and appreciate that perspective when it’s done in a sensitive and non-confrontational way, and while you may not get big audiences when you change things right away, you do get incredibly rewarding feedback and opportunities for education and dialogue. Those results directly meet our venue and city council goals of positively impacting the quality of life for our city’s residents and visitors.
Plus, the population here in Tracy is growing quickly with a lot of folks moving here to commute to work in the Bay Area, so we have this all these new people and communities to serve as we think about programing the space. They are genuinely excited when they learn about the work we do and the programs we offer.
We recently presented a performance called Lyric & Spirit: An International Celebration of Women’s Voices — an amazing collaboration by three women from Mozambique, Brazil, and South India, each working in very different musical styles, a mix of electronic, acoustic, and traditional. I trained as an ethnomusicologist, so it was right up my alley, and I was thrilled to be able to present the project! We had about 100 people here, and although that wasn’t a sell-out, the engagement from the audience was just incredible. Audience members were coming up to our team afterwards saying, “Thank you for putting this on stage, nothing like this has been presented here before and we feel welcome and seen - there's something here for us.”
So, we're really starting to see that change, which is incredibly gratifying.
How did you get connected with WAA?
My first introduction to WAA was back in 1998 though my mentor, the amazing Michael Blachly, who was my boss at UCLA. I made some longstanding connections through WAA at that time, although I didn’t attend the full conference until 2018 when I started a more programming-focused role at the Yucaipa Performing Arts Center, which I had just opened for that city.
Anna at WAA 2023; image credit: Jo Cosme
Any favorite experiences to share from this year’s conference in Seattle?
I serve on the board for Leela Dance Collective and their team attended for the first time this year. It was special to be able to help them through the experience with a few different hats on.
WAA’s conference feels like a manageable size where you can talk with almost everyone there! For me, meeting new people and those new to the field is something I value so much – just that opportunity for reciprocal learning, because there's always something that I can learn from new people as well as something that perhaps I can offer to them. The environment the WAA conference offers and the opportunity to share and experience different perspectives and ideas is very energizing.
What inspired you to join the WAA board? Is there anything in particular you are excited about in terms of your board service?
I want to give back to the performing arts community and was honored to be nominated. I love learning and am excited to learn in my role as a board member and for the opportunity to work with leaders in the field. I’m looking forward to serving on the Membership & Communications Committee – I’m a natural communicator and love to meet new people, so it feels like a natural fit for me.
What do you think makes WAA unique?
I think WAA is unique in its mission to serve the incredibly diverse community of the Western U.S. region and its wide range of socio-political views. WAA has been a leader in the DEI space, and as a community we have an opportunity to address some of the divisive views through service to the arts field – experiencing art can be a way to learn about the ‘other’ in a different and more approachable way. If we can play a part in opening up people’s minds and breaking down pre-conceived notions and remove barriers, then we have made a real impact on our world.
Finally, some fast Anna Cross facts!
Hometown: High Wycombe, England
First job: Admin Assistant at the Community School for Music and Arts in Mountain View, CA
Pets: Two horses — Harry (Friesian Sporthorse) and Noble (Dutch Warmblood), and two dogs — Dizzy (Cattle Dog/Border Collie/Weimaraner) and Black Jack (Jack Russell/Chihuahua)
Favorite food: Indian — dosas from South India to be precise!
Favorite city you’ve visited in the Western U.S.: Half Moon Bay, CA. It’s where I grew up after moving to the States.
Favorite book: Too hard to choose, there are so many — but a good one I read recently: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
Thank you, Anna!
Read Anna’s bio here