U-M Creative Currents

U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance: Paul Feeny

• Arts Initiative • Season 4 • Episode 5

Share episode

In this episode of U-M Creative Currents, host Mark Clague interviews Paul Feeny, Director of Concerts & Events at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance. This episode is part of U-M Creative Currents' podcast series building excitement for the inaugural Michigan Arts Festival (September 25 - October 26, 2025).

Featured Programming & Highlights include:

Paul discusses his role in overseeing SMTD's 1,000+ event performance calendar, shares what makes North Campus venues unique destinations for audiences, and highlights how the Michigan Arts Festival creates opportunities for artists and audiences to discover collaborative work happening across campus disciplines—from commissioned orchestral premieres to student showcases that blend tradition with innovation.

*Production Note: This episode is part of U-M Creative Currents' special Michigan Arts Festival podcast series which kicks off on September 25, 2025 and is edited by Sly Pup Productions.


Season 4 ep 5: SMTD


Mark Clague: 00:00:05
Welcome to Creative Currents, a Michigan Arts podcast where we explore the power of collaborative creativity and the ways the arts inspire dialogue and connection. I'm your host, Mark Clague, Director of the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative. With this episode, we're launching a special series of Creative Currents spotlighting the Michigan Arts Festival, the first ever celebration of the arts throughout our campus. Not only in Ann Arbor, but in Dearborn, Flint, and Detroit. It runs from September 25th through October 26th, or basically the last week of September through the last week of October, and features literally hundreds of events all across our campus in the visual arts, performing arts, creative writing, film, theater, dance, and music. It opens with a stamp speakers talk on Thursday, October 25th, by Rihanna Giddens, who's our inaugural University of Michigan Artist in Residence. The final closing event will be a concert by the University Symphony Orchestra, the annual costume party that is our Halloween concert. You can find information about all of the events of the Michigan Arts Festival in the show notes or at our website, arts.edu slash fest. So we're gonna connect now with our special guest, Paul Feeney, who's the director of concert and events at the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theater, and Dance. Paul brings decades of experience to arts programming and production, helping to shape more than 1,000 events on the SNVD calendar every year. He oversees major concerts and facilitates student-led performances, recitals, showcases. He has a key role in connecting artists, audiences, and the broader campus community to the performing arts. So, Paul, it's great to have you on Creative Currents.

Paul Feeny: 00:01:54
Great to be here.

Mark Clague: 00:01:55
So tell us about what you do. What is the day in the life of Paul Feeney?

Paul Feeny: 00:02:00
Trying to find breathings. But we're uh we're here to basically handle the scheduling and oversight of a lot of those uh events and ensembles throughout the calendar year. Um we put it together anywhere from two to three years in advance of what you see in the academic calendar. Um, and then most of my other role is just kind of overseeing the event and production staffing, which includes anything that you'd see in one of the major venues, the backstage support, front of house, as well as the day-to-day operations that are more invisible there on North Campus, but they're anything from the rehearsals, coachings, and uh various master classes that occur there with the students, faculty, and our many guest artists.

Mark Clague: 00:02:35
Aaron Powell So for I mean, a thousand events on campus, that's pretty amazing. And especially because it's really a thousand from like September through uh April, right? I mean, it's we do.

Paul Feeny: 00:02:45
We condense it down to just about nine months, and then we are uh we're running some of our M Pulse summer camps uh for the rest of the for the rest of the time. But really, we're looking at about a thousand events over the course of nine months.

Mark Clague: 00:02:55
Aaron Powell So the audiences see people on stage, but like at a typical performance, like how many people are there behind the scenes that we don't see and what do they do?

Paul Feeny: 00:03:02
It varies anywhere from a small army uh for something like our collage concert in January. And then we have smaller crews where we'll have anywhere between if you're in Hill Auditorium, you can expect between eight and ten people or backstage, uh, anything from running the house tech position to our lighting ops, to our stage manager, production manager, and then we also employ uh uh quite a number of student staff so that they learn and uh have the opportunity to work those kind of positions as well. It's anything as simple as moving equipment, chairs, stands, risers, um, to make sure that they're in place for the start of the concert as well as different uh it's not quite as complex as uh a scene change for one of a staged events, but we try to keep things moving timely between breaks and make sure that every contrabass soon has their due place in the orchestra.

Mark Clague: 00:03:47
Well, we appreciate you supporting the contrabassons. We really do try. So your voice may be familiar to some people in the listening audience in part because uh I think there's that announcement at the beginning where if I'm told to turn off my cell phone and not take any picture.

Paul Feeny: 00:04:00
Is that you? I've been phased out recently, but yes, yeah. They uh they prefer the live version just to make sure we have the name of the ensemble in there. But I was the I was the Hill uh Hill Auditorium voice briefly with the uh Good evening and welcome to the University of Michigan. So I'll try not to go full baritone today, but we're we're in the range.

Mark Clague: 00:04:18
Oh, that's great. So uh walk us through the sort of process of how we go from like an empty stage to a full season of events at the School of Music Theater Nance.

Paul Feeny: 00:04:28
It is. It's it's a little complex. Uh for the most part, the faculty uh hold almost all the creative and programming responsibilities from the repertoire choices to which guest artists they're going to engage with. Um, my role more so oversees the availability and preparations of those venues. So as we're trying to facilitate the maximum number of high-quality opportunities every year, it's just a matter of ensuring that we have the necessary people, equipment, time, uh access allocated to each of those projects well in advance. And kind of knitting that, uh knitting that together, as I said, anywhere from two to three years in advance. Some of it's a little bit of fortune telling, and some of it's just holding a few cards in reserve because we know that at some point something's gonna go wrong and we'll need to throw some time and people at it. So your job is partially to think about all the things that could go wrong and try to solve them before they I try to keep my pessimism beneath the vest, but it's it's always there running in the background, just trying to make sure that when you actually step on stage, no one knows that anything was no one's the wiser.

Mark Clague: 00:05:31
So um tell us about the venues on Central Campus.

Paul Feeny: 00:05:34
Aaron Powell Sure. So Central Campus, uh, we primarily have the university production venues. So those are, I think, what most of our uh our listening public would have attended at Hill Auditorium, the Power Center, Rackham Auditorium, and Mendelssohn Theater. So most of uh most of my team's working there in Hill Auditorium and Rackham Auditorium. So any of those larger band orchestra, choir performances, we feature our jazz ensembles and Rackham, and then uh Jeffrey Curis and the university production teams, they work uh very heavily in the Mendelssohn Theater and Power Center because those venues are more suited for things like the theater, musical theater, dance, and other stage performances.

Mark Clague: 00:06:13
And so what's the difference between like university productions and school of music, concert and events?

Paul Feeny: 00:06:18
We all we all come together to make great things happen. Uh the uh the biggest dividing line is the is kind of the musical component, where if you have everyone seated on stage, then that's probably what you would consider the concerts and events office. But if you have everyone, you know, marking their marking their spots on stage and walking around and you know having a sword fight, then you're working over there to university productions because in all honesty, there's a lot more complexity there where you have where you have the staging element, the lighting design, uh sets props.

Mark Clague: 00:06:48
Yeah, costumes. Yes, all of So theater, musical theater, opera, dance, that kind of stuff is UProd.

Paul Feeny: 00:06:54
That's exactly right.

Mark Clague: 00:06:54
And those are usually ticketed events and people they I mean, the tickets are pretty reasonable, but you have to buy a ticket for those. But most of your events are free, right?

Paul Feeny: 00:07:02
Aaron Powell Correct. Um I think the other big distinction is that uh a lot of the UProd events also have uh have multi-day runs. So you'll see the same performance four, four to eight times, whereas most of the music performances, it's uh it's a single night's performance, and then we move on to the next concert.

Mark Clague: 00:07:18
Aaron Ross Powell So one of the uh the secret things that you and I have been in part with is the the heartwright meeting. Aaron Powell That's right. Which probably nobody outside of the twelve of us who are involved directly are there. But um, for those who have never heard of the Heartwright meeting, uh Professor Hartwright, I guess, was a professor in the law school and put together this kind of ritual, if you will, where of it's sort of like the NFL or NBA draft in a way. Like you go through and you get get to pick, and School of Music gets to pick, and University of Musical Society gets to pick, UPROD gets to pick, you know, University Events gets to pick, major events office. Um but it's it's this meeting where um basically we we divvy up who gets what hall, when and how.

Paul Feeny: 00:08:00
We do. And it's uh you know, we all uh we all go in and try to both be collaborative but then also accomplish what we need. It's uh it's a fun environment because we all go in there knowing that we each come with such unique needs, where obviously I'm there to reset uh represent, for the most part, the curricular standpoint, where we have uh, you know, U University Musical Society, for example, is obviously representing uh a number of, you know, high-level professional organizations and their calendar, their needs, their priorities are so very different. And it's uh it's actually it's a very intense but welcoming environment because we all know that we each hold crucial information about how we all operate, and we trust each other to represent that while also understanding that there's other knowledge lying with the other institutions.

Mark Clague: 00:08:50
Aaron Powell Yeah, I've I've been impressed by the sense of collaboration. Um, but it's it is one of those little secret rituals that um sometimes can be dramatic.

Paul Feeny: 00:08:58
It it does. We well, we have a flair for that.

Mark Clague: 00:09:00
Okay, uh North Campus venues.

Paul Feeny: 00:09:02
Aaron Powell North Campus venues, so we have uh we have a number up there where it's uh Stamps Auditorium, Macintosh Theater, Britain Recital Hall. I can't go without mentioning it's the Blanche Anderson Moore organ recital hall and then the Chip Davis studio. Um so those last two are probably not on many people's radar. The Blanche Anderson Moore is in the very basement of the Moore building, uh, but has a full-size organ in there.

Mark Clague: 00:09:27
It's like a Buck Silberman organ. That's not just any organ.

Paul Feeny: 00:09:30
That's yes.

Mark Clague: 00:09:31
It's like from the 17th, 18th century kind of organ.

Paul Feeny: 00:09:34
There you go. I know I I knew that you would have more appreciation than most for it. But it's it's an incredible space that not many people have seen. It has full, I think what you could only describe as church pews among green tile and sounds like a freight train, um, and an absolutely incredible space. And then uh right above that we have the Chip Davis studio, which is uh, I think the pride and joy of our uh performing arts technology department, um, which I think stands on you know two or three centuries of technology later than the Oregon Hall, um, but is an incredible space where they're really trying to explore what we can what we can create with the technology we have these days.

Mark Clague: 00:10:09
Aaron Ross Powell So what will people on campus um be experiencing from the School of Music and Theater Dance through the period of the Michigan Arts Festival?

Paul Feeny: 00:10:17
We've uh we're building out right now. Um I think that uh the uh I mean the the most notable ones that we have offhand is we've got uh you know we have the uh University Symphony Orchestra starts off our season with the uh pictures at an exhibition. Uh that stands at September 14th in Hill Auditorium. Um we have a few others that are just my favorites uh hidden underneath there, which is the percussion ensemble. So if you want to hear some interesting things played on uh flower pots, I think, is this time around. Uh that's October 5th in Macintosh. We have our contemporary directions ensemble with the Soldier's Tale performance, and we have uh Strings Showcase uh is uh uh faculty member Danielle Boleyn uh puts together a showcase uh once or twice a term, and it's a great way to see just how the students are developing month to month uh in their individual studies and practice.

Mark Clague: 00:11:04
Aaron Powell And the School of Music Theater Dance Faculty often bring in some really fantastic collaborators, um artists from really around the world to work with our students. And are there some interesting collaborations?

Paul Feeny: 00:11:15
We do. I I had a few fun names. The first one was not a household name to my knowledge, but when I looked up Bruce Broughton, uh so he'll be working as a co-commission for a new piece of music with our symphony band, Chamber Choir, and University Choir. So that'll be a premiere in uh uh Hill Auditorium on August 3rd. And for those who haven't Googled him yet, uh think uh Miracle on 34th Street, think Homeward Bound, think uh young Sherlock Holmes. Uh so among other composer, uh among other works and you know classical compositions, uh, he's done a lot of work in both movies and video games. So you might not know his name, but I think the vast majority. Yeah, you've heard him before. Um we've also got the Count Basie Orchestra coming with the uh Kansas City. Exactly right. They're uh they're excited to fly in. We'll we'll see them here at the end of October in Power Center. And uh thanks to a lot of work with uh our faculty member uh Dennis Wilson, uh, we're working on collaborating with them to perform a number of works uh kind of throughout the school. And it's it's fun to watch how many layers uh they can work with between our um our faculty, our existing students. Um we have the um the youth ensembles, so it's the uh Michigan Youth Jazz Orchestra. Uh we'll also have the chance to work and collaborate with the.

Mark Clague: 00:12:28
But I know like Dennis, he's really creative and he brings in like a lot of string players, like non-jazz instrumentalists to the jazz.

Paul Feeny: 00:12:35
That's exactly right. I think we're gonna have at least a few alumni who will come back for solos, so it's a great opportunity for them to work with them. Though I'd be remiss not to mention uh uh Andre Garner uh is also gonna be the director of Cabaret. And so that's with our musical theater. He's new to our faculty here, uh, but he's gonna be the director of cabaret beginning on October 2nd in the Mendelssohn Theater.

Mark Clague: 00:12:54
Aaron Powell What are you hoping that the sort of festival can do, you know, sort of for just creating sort of interest and engagement with uh the School of Music Theater and Dance Events?

Paul Feeny: 00:13:03
So I think the biggest thing is that even even within our buildings on North Campus, which aren't a stone's throw from each other between the dance building, the Moore Building, and the Walgreen Drama Center, um, I think they'd be the first to admit it. But our artists, um, they're deeply passionate, they're focused on their specific art form, and it's very easy and they can very quickly become siloed within that discipline. Um, I think that the festival uh for this for this opening of the term, it offers that that initial opportunity and awareness of what the others might be accomplishing across campus and you know, even across the building, or sorry, across the street in the in the next building over. Um it's uh it's a rare opportunity that they actually come out of their studies and and see the opportunity to work with their with their colleagues.

Mark Clague: 00:13:48
And you know, one of the things I know I'm hoping is that the festival really raises awareness about the offerings on campus, the sort of richness of the campus art scene generally, and that people get involved in the fall. And you know, of course, it's real beautiful out, and it'll be time to to walk and just be on campus. And you know, if you're here for a football game, you should check out the museum or a concert as well. But um there's also amazing stuff that happens all year round. And and I know a highlight for me, which you mentioned, is the collage concert. Can you tell people about the collage concert?

Paul Feeny: 00:14:17
Yeah, the collage concert is our annual event in January. Um in all honesty, we've started planning for it now. It's uh it's one of the most intensive performances from a production standpoint, but I think one of the most rewarding from an audience standpoint. Um, our our joke is that if you don't like what you see, wait three minutes. Um the the format is that we have uh performers from every facet of the School of Music Theater and Dance, and it's uh roughly a 90-minute concert, if we run it right. And the first half and second half each run without applause, and it's maybe two to three minute acts at a time that are tied together. So we might have an opening orchestra piece of two minutes that leads into a theater uh dialogue that leads into a um a band saw solo that leads into tap dance that and it just it goes on and on. And every year we put it together a little differently. Uh, we host auditions for the students to apply for this concert. So we have anything from solo acts to those large ensemble collaborations. And uh for my team, it means that we get to play hide and seek in the dark and we drop the lights. And while you see the next performance on stage in the spotlight, we are making a 30-second stage change to make sure that the next performers are ready when their spotlight comes up.

Mark Clague: 00:15:37
Well, it's always an incredible experience. And what I love is a sense of contrast, because you end up with like a, as you say, the single solo performer, maybe on an unusual instrument like a saw or an electronic instrument or you know, something contrabasson maybe. And uh and then it explodes into like the full symphony orchestra, and then it goes back to a string quartet, and and it's all like immediate change. Like there's there's no gap between the performance. The lights just go off on one part of the stage and they turn on the other part of the stage. Um do you ever shine the light on on the wrong part of the stage?

Paul Feeny: 00:16:06
I think I think so far, knock on wood, we're batting a hundred. But never haven't. Okay. Well, that's good. It's yet to happen live. And uh it's fun, as you say, those those surprise moments. It's it's fun to watch uh it's always two of our conducting faculty are the artistic directors and they cultivate that that overall approach uh every year. And it usually takes about a month between when we've learned what the repertoire will be, what our selected performers and ensembles are, and then it takes them anywhere from three to four weeks to knit that together into where do the pieces flow one to the next, where you contain those surprise elements and where is the contrast really meaningful.

Mark Clague: 00:16:43
Yeah. Another one of my favorite events, like basically anything from the musical theater program, and you mentioned cabaret, and I hope everybody will check that out. But I mean, we we have sort of future stars of Broadway right here on our campus, and you know, there should never be an empty seat in my mind for any of those musical theater programs. But they do a senior showcase at the very end of the year. It's almost like after classes end, even or typically it is, yeah. So that's another, I think, secret thing. Another one that stands out in my mind is the uh the annual concerto competition, which I think is open to the public.

Paul Feeny: 00:17:14
Very much so. That's that's also uh usually the first or second week in January, and we have both the undergraduate and graduate competition. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah.

Mark Clague: 00:17:20
And I've I used to moderate that competition. But yeah, it's amazing. You see the best musicians of the school doing their bet very best competing against one another. And you know, I would say the number of people who should, you know, usually the the the entire faculty is the evaluation, right? The the judges, but um, there's a representative from each department. But often there are there are more judges than there are audience members, because I think people don't really know about this.

Paul Feeny: 00:17:44
Aaron Powell We do. We've uh we've been trying to make sure that we have uh a lot more accessibility, both here on the central campus venues um and then also at home through live streams um and uh recorded media. We're working on the YouTube channels to to try to make all of these performances more accessible to uh both Ann Arbor and the community at large. Uh the uh truly with with each of those performances, you're looking at uh soloists for the concerto competition that within the next six to eight months you could see in front of one of the major symphonies as a soloist in their next opportunity. And then the uh the musical theater showcase, that is their kickoff event where they'll do the showcase here, and then their next performance is they take it to Broadway to perform the same material for the various talent agents so that they can be placed with those opportunities out in New York.

Mark Clague: 00:18:32
Yeah, so that's that's always a really special moment. Um well, I know one thing we're gonna do special for the festival is that we're gonna have a prize drawing, and the University of Carolina, Tiffany Ng, has agreed to give some private tours of the Caroline, and you might even get a chance to play the Caroline up in Burton Tower, Larry Tower. So I I hope people will sign up for our newsletter. If you go to arts.umish.edu, find the festival page, um, and then you can sign up for the information newsletter. Keep abreast of everything that's happening with the festival, School of Music Theater and Dance, the Art Museum on campus, the University of Musical Society, sort of Taubman School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Stamp School of Art and Design, the Stamp Speaker Series, Stamps Gallery. There's so much going on with the Michigan Arts Festival this year. So, Paul, we really thank you for joining us and sharing some of the really exciting things to look forward to in this season of the School of Music Theater and Dance.

Paul Feeny: 00:19:20
Thank you so much. Looking forward to the fall term.

Mark Clague: 00:19:25
Well, thanks for listening to today's episode of Creative Currents. We talked about so many events that you may want to follow up by going to the Arts Initiative website at arts.edu slash fest for information about the festival. You can sign up for our newsletter and you'll get updates about all of the events, not only for the festival, but really throughout the year, to be able to take advantage of the richness of the arts at the University of Michigan. Creative Currents is a project of the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative. Please subscribe to hear more great conversations with artists, scholars, and arts leaders from across the campus and across the globe. Send your comments and suggestions via email to creativecurrents at umish.edu. This episode of Creative Currents was produced by Jessica Dinks and edited by Slypup Productions. Our original theme music is composed and performed by Ansel Neely, an alumnus of the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance. To learn more about the University of Michigan's Arts Initiative, please visit our website at arts.umish.edu. Thanks for listening and for being part of the Michigan arts community that makes our campus so fabulous. So until next time, stay curious, stay inspired, and keep your creative currents flowing.