TeenTix, which has partnered with over 60 arts organizations to allow teens to buy tickets to events for $5 — from fringe theaters to Seattle Opera — introduces a new, 28-year-old director.
TeenTix, a small, quickly growing organization that helps teenagers find affordable tickets to arts events, will be getting a new leader.
Monique Courcy, 28, has been named executive director. Courcy first got involved with TeenTix as part of its Contemporary Performance Cool Kids Club, which invited teens to experimental theater at On the Boards for $5 tickets and held discussions afterward.
“The experience,” she said, “blew my mind.” Even though contemporary performance can be challenging for adults, the teenagers who came were “totally willing to go there, go the extra mile and that can be hard stuff.”
One memorable conversation happened after a performance by Jersusalem-born Itai Erdal called “How to Disappear Completely,” about Erdal’s ailing mother asking him to take her life. “It brought up a lot of conversation about family, a group of teenagers — all of them young women — talking about their relationships with their mothers.”
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TeenTix offers teens a free pass that allows them to buy $5 day-of-show tickets to dozens of local arts organizations from small theater companies to Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Executive Director Holly Arsenault is leaving to become the new director of external relations for the School of Drama at the University of Washington.
After Arsenault joined TeenTix in 2005, she worked to grow its budget from roughly $12,000 to $212,000 and cultivated a generation of arts advocates like 26-year-old Ashraf Hasham, who was a TeenTix member in high school, earned an arts administration degree at Wagner College in New York and returned to work at the Henry Art Gallery and On the Boards. He was appointed to the Seattle Arts Commission by Mayor Ed Murray last year.
In the coming years, Courcy said, TeenTix will work on a “teen-count initiative” so arts organizations can more effectively track how many teens are coming to their events — and maybe export the TeenTix model to other cities. “This,” she said, “is a very inspiring time to join TeenTix.”
TeenTix even has its own annual awards show — the “Teeny Awards” dinner, where teenagers announce their votes for favorite venues and shows, is scheduled for Oct. 9 at Benaroya Hall. Tickets are available at teentix.org.