Not many people get to oversee the construction of the very facility they'll be running once it's complete.
Anne Lefter is one of those lucky few who has had a direct hand in the ongoing construction of Western Illinois University's Goldfarb Center for Performing Arts (GCPA).
Lefter was named to the role – which is the firstever on WIU's campus – in May 2024. She arrived in Macomb two months later to start the gig and head the new Master of Fine Arts in Art Leadership degree program. The Community News Brief recently sat down with Lefter to learn more about her, the role and her goals for the new center, which is slated to open in Summer 2026.
What were you doing before you accepted this role?
My family and I moved here from Baltimore, where I'd spent the last 22 years as director of the arts for the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC).
While there, I produced anywhere from 100-150 events a year, on our three campuses, in our communities, and sometimes on tour. When I was hired at CCBC, the president at the time told me he intended to break ground on a new performing arts center within five years. When I left in 2024, we were no closer to a new building, and while I was tremendously proud of everything we had accomplished, I wanted to pursue that original dream of bringing a new center online and serving a community that was hungry for the live arts. After meeting Billy Clow and the team at WIU, I knew this was the opportunity I was hoping for.
How did your education prepare you for this role?
What experiences do you bring to this role that will make your role (and the center) successful?
I've walked kind of an unusual path to this place.
I hold a Ph.D. in Theatre Studies from Cornell University, which I earned because I planned to teach theatre as a college professor. My graduate work focused on the live arts as a means for building community, both historically and with current artists. I ended up teaching in the English department at the U.S. Naval Academy for a time, and left to return to the theatre. I worked with Everyman Theatre, an Equity theatre in Baltimore for a couple of seasons, before starting my work at CCBC. There, I was able to bring together disparate experiences as an artist, an administrator and an educator. I was artistic and managing director of the longest-running summer theatre in Maryland for five seasons, bringing that theatre out of debt and into the black. I earned our first grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and built support for the live arts. I was able to commission original work from composers, playwrights, and choreographers. And I managed facilities on different campuses, including capital projects for major improvements.
All of these experiences have informed the planning and preparation we've been doing for the Goldfarb Center, which will serve both an educational mission and a regional need.
What are your goals/ plans for the center? First big project/event once it's open?
I can't reveal the grand opening plans yet, except to say that we are planning for a major artist to help us kick off the inaugural season in September 2026. Our plans for the center really reflect its dual mission: attracting a range of professional artists to bring a variety of live arts to the region, providing quality cultural and artistic experiences and elevating and serving the already excellent performing arts programs at WIU, including productions in the Department of Theatre and Dance, as well as some of the larger concerts in the School of Music.
The Goldfarb Center will definitely serve more than the campus; it's always been the mission to build a cultural and artistic destination that serves the entire Western Illinois region.
What makes for a viable and sustainable/successful performing arts center and how can/will you and your staff achieve that?
There are vanishingly few places left in our communities that are designed to bring us together to celebrate the human experience, without competition or division, or winners and losers.
The great power of a center for the arts is in providing a mindful space where we all can be reminded of what we share, emotionally, intellectually, viscerally, and where we can share these experiences in community.
My students and staff and I are consciously planning to build a fundamentally welcoming space for audiences, and I already know that Macomb will be a tremendously welcoming space for the artists who visit and share their performances with us.
What would you like to see happen with the center within the next year? Five years?
I hope to see the Goldfarb Center bustling with activity, all year round. I look forward to expanding the current Youth Performing Arts Series (YPAS) to welcome even more young people to experience the live arts at no cost, and get to engage with lots of different types of music, dance, theatre and other performances. I look forward to seeing the Epperson Gallery buzzing with friends and neighbors excited not only to see artists they've wanted to see in person, but also to take a chance on something new and unexpected.
I expect that we will also draw folks from all around the region to come to Macomb, maybe because there's a band or a performer they really want to see, but then they'll get a chance to discover what else this city has to offer. And I'm really excited for high school students and WIU students to perform in these brand-new venues, getting to experience the stateof- the-art technology and engineered acoustics in a facility designed for professional performances.
What's the most exciting part of your job? Most challenging?
I have absolutely loved getting to know Macomb and the whole region, and I look forward to even more chances to meet folks and learn about what they'd like to see in the Goldfarb Center. Sitting in weekly construction meetings and watching the progress of the building has been amazing as well. It's no secret that WIU is experiencing the same challenges that are facing all of higher education right now, so it's been a big job figuring out how to fulfill this mission while recognizing the budgetary and staffing limitations that are part of our current reality.
I think the most exciting and satisfying part of the job; however, has been launching the new MFA in Arts Leadership. My graduate students are all pioneers, who have come to WIU right now to be part of the adventure of launching a brand-new arts center; and getting to be part of that experience for them is an incredibly satisfying and profoundly humbling honor.
A fun fact or two about you that people might be surprised to know?
I taught theatre history using Dr. (Al) Goldfarb's textbook for 16years. Getting to meet him and direct a facility that bears his name is a surprising honor! (And what a lovely human being he is!)
I'm also a playwright, and I've been happy to see several of my plays produced.
What do you like to do outside of work?
Taking our dog, Astro, to the dog park, where he has made friends with everyone he's ever met, dog or human. My family and I have also loved exploring the whole region, and discovering small businesses and local attractions.
Where were you raised?
Tell me about your family, etc.
I'm an Army brat who's lived in lots of places, including Okinawa, Japan. I attended three high schools but graduated in Rapid City, SD, and earned my bachelor's degree at the University of Minnesota-Morris (which is even smaller than Macomb).
I still serve on the board of Quarry Theatre in Baltimore still, and am on the board of the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project. My husband Jim and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary next year; he was both kind and brave to pull up stakes and follow me to Macomb. Our son Josh is a proud Leatherneck, pursuing his degree in law enforcement and justice administration. We share our home with a cat named Sherlock and a chaos gremlin masquerading as a dog who goes by the name of Astro.
