After nearly two decades at The Alley Theatre, the organization announced that managing director Dean Gladden will retire at the end of the current fiscal year, in June 2025. Gladden’s 19-year tenure at the Tony Award-winning theater has left a lasting mark on the company and on Houston audiences.
During his time at the Alley, Gladden led a number of successful initiatives and campaigns that brought further prominence to the already-lauded regional theater company with a national reputation. He produced more than 200 plays, attracting an audience of more than three million people. He led the two largest capital campaigns in the theater's history and oversaw the extensive renovation of the iconic Meredith J. Long Theatre Center.
In addition, he brought the Alley from an organization with an $800,000 budget deficit when he started in 2006 to a powerhouse with a solid financial future. Nearly two decades after his start with the company, it doubled its operational budget, giving it the financial resources needed to bring its artistic visions to life, providing Houston with national and international-caliber productions.
“I feel so lucky to have worked in partnership with Dean Gladden these past six years,” Alley artistic director Rob Melrose said in a statement. “Dean retires as a true legend in the American theater, having expertly guided the Alley through some of the most challenging times imaginable including a hurricane and a global pandemic. As his partner, I have benefited greatly from his unwavering support of the art, his commitment to fiscal responsibility, his passion for pushing himself and his teammates to new heights, his tireless fundraising, as well as his strategic mind. He deeply cares about the Alley, and I know that even after his retirement, he will continue to be the Alley’s lifelong friend and greatest advocate.”
That advocacy has been apparent throughout his time with the company. Gladden turned the theater's Summer Chills murder mystery series into a major revenue generator, increasing its annual revenue by 370 percent from 2007 to 2024. He also led a 2015 capital campaign that raised $56.5 million for artistic initiatives and the renovation of the Meredith J. Long Theatre Center, as well as the ongoing $80 million campaign for endowment, artistic initiatives, Hurricane Harvey damage recovery, and capital/operating reserves.
When Hurricane Harvey tore through Houston in 2017, five million gallons of water flooded the Alley, destroying the Neuhaus Theatre, lobby, dressing rooms, and 81,000 props. The losses totaled $26 million. Gladden mounted an aggressive restoration plan, fully restoring the theater in two and half months, allowing A Christmas Carol to open on Thanksgiving weekend 2017.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Alley retained as many employees as possible, despite having no earned income. The theater employed more people during the pandemic than any other theater in the U.S., including its Resident Acting Company.
Gladden’s career spans 48 years in the arts, at organizations around the country. Prior to joining the Alley, he was associate managing director and then managing director of The Cleveland Playhouse, another of the country’s Tony Award-winning regional theaters. From 1982 to 1985, he was director of development and administration for the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, and simultaneously served as director of the Graduate Arts Management Program at the University of Akron. He also served as executive director of the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo and the Council for the Arts of Greater Lima, Ohio in the 1970s and ‘80s. He holds an MS in urban arts administration and a bachelor’s degree in music education from Miami University. He is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program in Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management.
Management Consultants for the Arts has been engaged to identify Gladden’s successor, with Craig Jarchow, president of the board of directors, leading the board search committee. The new managing director is expected to begin on July 1, 2025.
